By Another Name: War and Rumours Of

Embargoes and Other Acts of War

by David Rovics - Dissident Voice

July 12, 2019

The war between the United States and Japan began with a US-enforced oil embargo against the Japanese Empire.

Right now, in the United States, huge detention camps are being constructed for the increasingly criminalized refugee and migrant population, a campaign of government-sponsored domestic terror run by a supposedly temporary, “acting” head of the department created by the ever-Orwellian 9/11-era Bush administration, Homeland Security.

Abroad, an oil embargo is being enforced by the US and British Navies against Iranian ships worldwide, strangling the Iranian economy, immiserating millions, with many unpredictable, destabilizing effects on the horizon. These policies are being spearheaded by another sort of “acting” head, the infamously empire-loving sadist, John Bolton.

You can be sure, however, that if there is any sort of retaliatory action taken against these policies, this is where the mainstream narrative will start.

Perpetual Peace: An Impossible Dream?

A League of Perpetual Peace: An Impossible Dream?

by Christopher Black - NEO

June 29, 2019

“Article 1

The High Contracting parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.”

“Article II

The High contracting parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.”

So says the Kellogg-Briand Pact signed by the United States, and other countries in 1928.

There we have it, the high point of diplomacy and civilisation in the 20th century; the renunciation of war by the great powers of the time, predating the UN Charter but coinciding with the existence of the League of Nations, which, despite its signing of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the USA never joined.

The parties to the Kellogg-Briand Pact in fact declared a new stage in world history; a future of perpetual peace. But, since the signing of the document, we have had nothing but perpetual war.

Losing Balance: UN Tipping Points on Venezuela Human Rights Report

De Zayas: UN Human Rights Council’s Report on Venezuela is ‘Unbalanced’ (1/2)

by TRNN

July 12, 2019

Last week, the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, released a report on the human rights situation in Venezuela. The report can safely be described as being quite scathing of the human rights situation. Here is an excerpt of Bachelet’s presentation of the report.

Former lawyer for the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Alfred de Zayas, says that High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet's report on human rights in Venezuela mostly ignores the severity and responsibility of US sanctions against Venezuela.

Erasing Assange: Twitters' Disappearing Act

Top Assange Defense Account Deleted by Twitter

by Caitlin Johnstone - Rogue Journalist

July 13, 2019

One of the biggest Twitter accounts dedicated to circulating information and advocacy for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, @Unity4J, has been completely removed from the site. The operators of the account report that they have been given no reason for its removal by Twitter staff, and have received no response to their appeals.

Any Assange supporter active on Twitter will be familiar with the Unity4J account, which originated to help boost the wildly successful Unity4J online vigils in which well-known Assange defenders would appear to speak out against his persecution. As of this writing, the account has been gone for a day and a half.

“About 8:45am CST on Thursday July 11, one of our Unity4J Twitter team members went to retweet on the account and noticed that the account was no longer accessible,” reports pro-Assange activist Christy Dopf, one of the operators of the account.

“When each of us also attempted to access the account we all received the same message ‘Account Suspended’. Twitter did not send us a reason or violation for the suspension. So an appeal was submitted. We did receive correspondence that Twitter got our request and the case is currently open. Unfortunately we do not have a timeline on how long this could take.”

Epstein and the Mossad

Did Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein Work for Mossad?

by Philip Giraldi - Information Clearing House 

via AHT

July 12, 2019

The extent of Israeli spying directed against the United States is a huge story that is only rarely addressed in the mainstream media. The Jewish state regularly tops the list for ostensibly friendly countries that aggressively conduct espionage against the U.S. and Jewish American Jonathan Pollard, who was imprisoned in 1987 for spying for Israel, is now regarded as the most damaging spy in the history of the United States.

Remnants and Remainers: Continuing the Fight Against War

Remnants of War

by Kathy Kelly - VCNV.org

July 12, 2019

Intense fighting and hideous attacks battered Afghans throughout their country last week as negotiators in Qatar weighed the benefits and costs of a peace agreement that might stop the bloodshed.

In Kabul at least 40 people, including one child, were killed in a complex Taliban attack. Dozens of children whose school was partially collapsed by a massive car bomb were injured. Of these, 21 were hospitalized with serious injuries.

New York Times correspondent Mujib Mashal posted (on Twitter) a photo of an elementary school child being carried into the Italian Emergency Surgical Center for Victims of War in Kabul.

“Blood on his face,” Mashal writes, describing the child. “Still in shock. Still clutching that pencil.”

The same attack damaged a television station, a government facility and an adjoining private war museum.

Meddlesome Agents of West Losing Influence Over Ukraine Elections

NATO AND CHRYSTIA FREELAND HAVE LOST UKRAINIAN HEARTS & MINDS, NEW DUTCH GOVERNMENT VOTER POLLS SHOW

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears

July 11, 2019

Five years of civil war have convinced most Ukrainian voters to vote for peace by negotiation and compromise with the regional governments of Donetsk and Lugansk, and with Moscow. Support for continuing the war until the eastern regions capitulate has now shrunk to the western region of Ukraine around Lviv, and among those in Kiev living off the flow of cash from the US, Canada, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Keeping (Five) Eyes on Australia's Journalists

Australian police monitoring journalists’ travel and Internet data

by Mike Head - WSWS

10 July 2019  

Revelations this week point to intensive Australian Federal Police (AFP) surveillance of journalists, aimed at prosecuting journalists, as well as their sources, to stop the publication of leaks about abuses committed by the military-intelligence apparatus.

First came a report that the AFP obtained an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) journalist’s flight records from Qantas. This was part of a government-ordered investigation of the leak of documents revealing illegal killings and other abuses by Australian Special Forces as part of the US-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

By all indications, this is just the tip of the iceberg, involving vague and sweeping police powers. The revelation came just weeks after AFP raids on the Sydney headquarters of the ABC and the Canberra home of a News Corp political editor, Annika Smethurst. At both locations, police spent hours poring through and seizing material.

This is part of escalating efforts to criminalise exposures about key military and intelligence operations. Significantly, the Special Forces are on the frontline of all Australian military interventions, while Smethhurt reported plans to legalise domestic surveillance by the Australian Signals Directorate, the country’s US-linked electronic spy agency.

Justin's Purple Provenance

Despite Talk of Promoting Democracy Trudeau in Bed with Repressive Monarchy

by Yves Engler

July 8, 2019

Given his personal history perhaps it is no surprise that Justin Trudeau is fond of monarchies.

The United Arab Emirates is a repressive monarchy that pursues violent, anti-democratic, policies in its region. Despite this — or maybe because of it —Trudeau’s Liberal government has strengthened ties to the federation of seven Emirates. And unlike Canada’s claims to be promoting democracy in Venezuela or the Ukraine, there has been little mention of this in the media or scrutiny in Parliament.

The UAE has propped up the Transitional Military Council in Sudan that has faced massive protests calling for civilian rule. Two months ago the oil rich country put up half of a $3 billion package (with Saudi Arabia) to support Sudan’s military rulers and the head of the military council visited powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan in Abu Dhabi in late May. Many pro-democracy activists believe the UAE and Saudi Arabia pushed Sudan’s military to destroy a major protest site that left dozens dead at the start of June.

Honduras' Western-Backed "Mafiocracy"

Honduras Now Ruled By A “Criminal Gang” – With Western Government Support

by TRNN

July 10, 2019

Honduran Congressman Ramón Soto Bonilla says it is now more dangerous in Honduras to be a land defender than a narco-trafficker.

She Gives and Takes Away: UN's Bachelet Delegitimizes Both Guaido and Maduro

Norway, Bachelet, and the Twilight of Guaido's Insurrection

by Ociel Ali López - Crisis & Critique (Venezuelanalysis)

July 10, 2019

Venezuelanalysis is proud to present our new column dedicated to big picture political analysis titled, “Crisis & Critique.” Our columnist is Ociel Alí López, a Venezuelan sociologist specializing in popular culture and communication. Each month, Ociel will provide us with a structural analysis of Venezuela’s ever fluid correlation of forces, examining the current political and social dynamics underpinning Chavismo, the right-wing opposition, and US imperialism. This week, Ociel takes a look at the state of Guaido’s coup effort in the wake of Bachelet’s visit and amid new negotiations with the Maduro government.

National Assembly President and self-declared “Interim President” of Venezuela
receives Bachelet in Venezuela’s National Legislative Assembly building. (Photo: EFE) 

Guaido’s uprising is going through its terminal phrase. He does not yet appear to have reached his end as leader, as he still produces and consolidates an important consensus among the opposition. What has decisively failed is his attempt to form a government without elections with the backing of the hawks in Washington.

In almost six months since his self-swearing in as “interim president,” it has become palpable that his governing is truly impossible. The coup de grace was delivered by Michelle Bachelet when she visited the National Assembly, of which he is president and a deputy. The UN high commissioner for human rights did not recognize him as president of the republic, but she did propose a roadmap for pressuring the Maduro government, which Guaido accepted even though it represents a deviation from Washington’s strategy.

Past Warnings Gone Unheeded: Escaping Foreverwar

The Riptide of American Militarism: Lessons from the Natural World on Washington’s Unnatural Wars

by William J. Astore - TomDispatch

July 9, 2019

Put up with me for just a moment while I wax literary. It turns out that, if French novelist Marcel Proust lived today, he might have had to retitle his Remembrance of Things Past as Remembrance of Things Present, or even more sadly, Things Future.

As an ex-military man who lived through part of the Cold War in uniform, let me make my point, in terms of the Pentagon and an ever-growing atmosphere of American militarism, this way: I love used bookstores. I’ve been browsing in them since my teens. I was, then, an early fan of Stephen King, the famed horror-story writer. Admittedly, today I’m more likely to browse the history section, which has horrors enough for us all, many of which eclipse even the most fevered imaginings of King, though Pennywise the Clown in It still gives me the creeps.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, June Ross, Joe Emersberger, Janine Bandcroft July 11, 2019

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

July 11, 2019

We all know water means life; so why then do we treat it like dirt? Whether by using our streams and rivers as open sewers, or permitting construction and other industrial activities in watersheds, we've allowed clean, pure water, lifeblood of both ecosystems and human civilization become just something running freely from a tap. But this easy attitude toward that most essential element imperils us all.

Listen. Hear.

June Ross is a community, political, and environmental activist. As well as a member of the Nanaimo River Watershed Roundtable, June serves as both Chair of the Vancouver Island Water Watch Coalition and editor of it's web page which, "seeks to unite, inform and educate communities on Vancouver Island on the status of water and wastewater affecting the environment and our way of life."

June Ross in the first half.

And; the embattled government of Venezuela was dealt an especially stinging blow last week; stinging because it didn't come from the United States, or one of its suspect coalitions of willing regime changers, but from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet. The former leftist President of Chile made a number of controversial statements about both President Nicolás Maduro and his government in her report to the United Nations, most damning perhaps being allegations of mass killings of political opponents. The Commissioner's report is a boon to the foreign press, who've latched on to both embellish the findings, and further demonize Maduro.

Joe Emersberger is a Canada-based writer whose work, primarily focused on media distortion and confabulation, appears at FAIR.org, VenezuelAnalysis, The Canary, and Counterpunch.org.

Joe Emersberger and a “fundamentally flawed and disappointing” UN report on Venezuela in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, June Ross and stemming threats to the Island's water resources.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Taking the Broom to Foreign Meddlers: The Fight for Ukraine's Soul

WILL THE UKRAINE PARLIAMENT ELECTION REVERSE THE MAIDAN PUTSCH, DRIVE THE GALICIANS FROM POWER?

by John Helmer - Dances with Bears

July 8, 2019

The US State Department, the Republican Party Institute and Igor Kolomoisky can’t all be wrong about what the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian voters is thinking – that there is a civil war in the Ukraine which cannot be won by US arms, money, and putsches in Kiev.

The question to be decided on polling day, July 21, for the new Verkhovna Rada (parliament) is: which side in the war, the eastern Ukraine including Odessa, or the Galicians around Lviv in the west, will win power?

The answer already appeared in a May poll by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and in the most recent June and July voter surveys by the local Ukrainian pollster Rating.

A coalition of parties whose support is strongest in eastern Ukraine will control parliament and will back the new President, Volodymyr Zelensky (lead image, left), to negotiate terms with the breakaway governments of Donetsk and Lugansk (collectively, the Donbass), and with Moscow. On these polls, the Galician parties of western Ukraine will have no national party representation in parliament, no ministers nor high-ranking officials, and just a handful of constituency seats in Lviv, Brody and Ternopil.

Last week, the Galicians held their election rally in Toronto, where their faction is headed by Chrystia Freeland (lead image, right), Canada’s foreign minister, with financing from the State Department through USAID, and from Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian steel oligarch, supported by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, a lobby group representing west Ukrainian refugees from the German Army’s defeat in 1945. Freeland, a Galician by origin, and Kurt Volker, a German by origin and the State Department’s Special Representative for Ukraine, gave the proceedings, entitled the Ukraine Reform Conference, an official government appearance. So did appearances and speeches by President Zelensky and a handful of Baltic state politicians.

But Toronto votes don’t count. If the domestic Ukrainian vote follows the current Ukrainian and US polls, then Freeland’s Galicians will be forced to retreat, just as her grandfather Michael Chomiak fled with the German Army as it was driven out of Ukraine and Poland by the Red Army. Chomiak ended up in Alberta, Canada. Freeland too. After July 21, the last retreat for the Galicians is Canada.

More On American "Detention Center" Conditions

More Details Emerge About Horrible Conditions at Immigration Detention Centers

by TRNN

July 7, 2019
 
A DHS Inspector General report and a visit by members of Congress to detention centers, the inhumane conditions become clearer and spark more outrage.