Chaos "Я" US: An Emperor's Ragings

The Emperor’s Rage: Let Chaos Envelop the World!

by James Petras - Dissident Voice

Chaos reigns and spreads as enraged leaders in the US, Europe and their clients and allies pursue genocidal wars.

Mercenary wars in Syria; Israel’s terror bombing on Gaza; proxy wars in the Ukraine, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Somalia.

Tens of millions of refugees flee scenes of total destruction. Nothing is sacred. There are no sanctuaries. Homes, schools, hospitals and entire families are targeted for destruction.

Chaos by Design

At the center of chaos, the wild-eyed President Obama strikes blindly, oblivious of the consequences, willing to risk a financial debacle or a nuclear war. He enforces sanctions against Iran; imposes sanctions on Russia; sets up missile bases five launch minutes from Moscow; sends killer drones against Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan; arms mercenaries in Syria; trains and equips Kurds in Iraq and pays for Israel’s savagery against Gaza.

Nothing works.

The Chaos President is blind to the fact that starving one’s adversaries does not secure submission: it unites them to resist. Regime change, imposing proxies by force and subterfuge, can destroy the social fabric of complex societies: Million of peasants and workers become uprooted refugees. Popular social movements are replaced by organized criminal gangs and bandit armies.

Central America, the product of decades of US direct and proxy military interventions, which prevented the most basic structural changes, has become a chaotic, unlivable inferno for millions. Tens of thousands of children flee from their ‘free market’- induced mass poverty and militarized state and gangster violence. Children refugees at the US border are arrested in mass, and imprisoned in makeshift detention camps, subject to psychological, physical and sexual abuse by officials and guards on the inside. On the outside, these pitiful children are exposed to the racist hatred of a frightened US public unaware of the dangers these children are escaping and the US government’s role in creating these hells.

The US-backed Kiev aviation authorities re-directed international passenger airlines to fly over war zones bristling with anti-aircraft missiles while Kiev’s jets bombed the rebellious cities and towns. One flight was shot down and nearly 300 civilians perished. Immediately an explosion of accusations from Kiev blaming Russian President Putin flooded Western media with no real facts to explain the tragedy/crime. War-crazy President Obama and the slavering prime ministers of the EU ejaculated ultimatums, threatening to convert Russia into a pariah state. ‘Sanctions, sanctions, everywhere, but first… France must complete its $1.5 billion sale to the Russian navy.’ And the City of London exempts the Russian oligarchs from the ‘sanctions’, embedded as they are in London’s money-laundering, parasitical FIRE (Fire, Insurance and Real Estate) economy. The Cold War has returned and has taken an ugly turn… with exceptions for business.

Confrontation among nuclear powers is imminent: And the maniacal Baltic States and Poland bray the loudest for war with Russia, oblivious to their positions on the front lines of incineration.

Each day Israel’s war machine chews up more bodies of Gaza’s children while spitting out more lies. Cheering Israeli Jews perch on their fortified hills to celebrate each missile strike on the apartments and schools in the densely populated Shejaiya neighborhood of besieged Gaza. A group of orthodox and secular entrepreneurs in Brooklyn have organized group tours to visit the Holy Sites by day and enjoy the Gaza pyrotechnics by night … night goggles to view the fleeing mothers and burning children are available at a small extra charge…

Again the US Senate votes unanimously in support of Israel’s latest campaign of mass murder – no crime is depraved enough to ruffle the scruples of America’s leaders. They hew close to a script from the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations. Together they embrace a Beast from the Apocalypse gnawing on the flesh and bones of Palestine.

But, Sacre Bleu! France’s Zionists have prevailed on the ‘President-Socialiste’ Hollande. Paris bans all anti-Israel demonstrations despite the clear reports of genocide. Demonstrators supporting the Gazan resistance are gassed and assaulted by special riot police – ‘Socialist’ Hollande serves the demands of powerful Zionist organizations while trashing his country’s republican traditions and its sacred ‘Rights of Man’.

The young protestors of Paris fought back with barricades and paving stones in the finest traditions of the Paris Commune waving the flags of a free Palestine. Not a single ‘red banner’ was in sight: The French ‘left’ were under their beds or off on vacation.

There are ominous signs away from the killing fields. The stock market is rising while the economy stagnates. Wild speculators have returned in their splendor widening the gap between the fictitious and real economy before the ‘deluge’, the chaos of another inevitable crash.

In industrial America’s once great Detroit, clean water is shut-off to tens of thousands of poor citizens unable to pay for basic services. In the midst of summer, urban families are left to defecate in hallways, alleyways and empty lots. Without water the toilets are clogged, children are not washed. Roscoe, the master plumber, says the job is way beyond him.

According to our famed economists, the economy of Detroit is ‘recovering … profits are up, it’s only the people who are suffering’. Productivity has doubled, speculators are satisfied; pensions are slashed and wages are down; but the Detroit Tigers are in first place.

Public hospitals everywhere are being closed. In the Bronx and Brooklyn, emergency rooms are overwhelmed. Chaos! Interns work 36 hour shifts, and the sick and injured take their chances with a sleep-deprived medic. Meanwhile, in Manhattan, private clinics and ‘boutique’ practices for the elite proliferate.

Scandinavians have embraced the putschist power grab in Kiev. The Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt bellows for a new Cold War with Russia. The Danish emissary and NATO leader, Anders Fogh-Rasmussen, salivates obscenely at the prospect of bombing and destroying Syria in a replay of NATO’s ‘victory’ over Libya.

The German leaders endorse the ongoing Israeli genocide against Gaza; they are comfortably protected from any moral conscience by their nostalgic blanket of ‘guilt’ over Nazi crimes 70 years ago.

Saudi-funded Jihadi terrorists in Iraq showed their “infinite mercy” by… merely driving thousands of Christians from ancient Mosul. Nearly 2,000 years of a continuous Christian presence was long enough! At least most escaped with their heads still attached.

Chaos Everywhere

Over one hundred thousand agents of the US National Security Agency are paid to spy on two million Muslim citizens and residents in the USA. But for all the tens of billions of dollars spent and tens of millions of conversations recorded, Islamic charities are prosecuted and philanthropic individuals are framed in ‘sting operations’.

Where the bombs fall no one knows, but people flee. Millions are fleeing the chaos.

But there is no place to go! The French invade half a dozen African countries but the refugees are denied refuge in France. Thousands die in the desert or drown crossing the Med. Those who do make it, are branded criminals or relegated to ghettos and camps.

Chaos reigns in Africa, the Middle East, Central America and Detroit. The entire US frontier with Mexico has become a militarized detention center, a multi-national prison camp. The border is unrecognizable to our generation.

Chaos reigns in the markets. Chaos masquerades as trade sanctions: Iran yesterday, Russia today and China tomorrow. Washington, Watch out! Your adversaries are finding common ground, trading, forging agreements, building defenses; their ties are growing stronger.

Chaos reigns in Israel. War-obsessed Israelis discover that the Chosen People of God can also bleed and die, lose limbs and eyes in the alleyways of Gaza where poorly armed boys and men stand their ground. When the cheers turn to jeers, will they re-elect Bibi, their current kosher butcher? The overseas brethren, the fundraisers, the lobbyists and the armchair verbal assassins will automatically embrace some new face, without questions, regrets or (god forbid!) self-criticism –if it’s ‘good for Israel and the Jews’ it’s got to be right!

Chaos reigns in New York. Judicial rulings favor the pirates and their vulture funds demanding one-thousand percent returns on old Argentine bonds. If Argentina rejects this financial blackmail and defaults, shock waves will ripple throughout global financial markets. Creditors will tremble in uncertainty: Fears will grow over a new financial crash. Will they squeeze out another trillion-dollar bailout?

But where’s the money? Printing presses are working day and night. There are only a few life boats . . . enough for the bankers and Wall Street, the other ninety-nine percent will have to swim or feed the sharks.

The corrupted financial press now advises warlords on which country to bomb and politicians on how to impose economic sanctions; they no longer provide sound economic information or advise investors on markets. Their editorial rants will incite an investor flight to buy king-sized mattresses for stuffing as the banks fail.

The US President is on the verge of a mental breakdown: He’s a liar of Munchausen proportions with a bad case of political paranoia, war hysteria and megalomania. He’s gone amok, braying, ‘I lead the world: its US leadership or chaos’. Increasingly the world has another message: ‘It’s the US and chaos.’

Wall Street is abandoning him. The Russians have double-crossed him. The Chinese merchants are now doing business everywhere we used to be and we ought to be. They’re playing with loaded dice. The stubborn Somalis refuse to submit to a Black President: they reject this ‘ML King with drones’ . . . The Germans suck on their thumbs in total stupor as Americans monitor and record their every conversation…for their own safety! “Our corporations are ingrates after all we have done for them”, the First Black President whines. “They flee from our taxes while we subsidize their operations!”

Final Solutions: The End of Chaos

The only solution is to move on: Chaos breeds chaos. The President strives to project his ‘Leadership’. He asks his close advisers very hard questions: “Why can’t we bomb Russia, just like Israel bombs Gaza? Why don’t we build an ‘Iron Dome’ over Europe and shoot down Russian nuclear missiles while we fire upon Moscow from our new bases in Ukraine? Which countries will our ‘Dome’ protect? I am sure that the people of East Europe and the Baltic States will gladly make the supreme sacrifice. After all, their leaders were at the very front frothing for a war with Russia. Their reward, a nuclear wasteland, will be a small price to ensure our success!”

The Zionist lobby will insist our ‘Iron Dome’ covers Israel. But the Saudis may try to bribe the Russians to spare the oil fields as Moscow targets the US missile bases near Mecca. Our radio-active allies in the Middle East will just have to relocate to a new Holy Land.

Do Obama and his advisers imagine reducing the Asian population by a billion or two? Do they plan several hundred Hiroshimas because the Chinese crossed the President’s ‘red lines’: China’s economy and trade grew too fast, expanded too far, it was too competitive, too competent, too successful at gaining market shares, and they ignored our warnings and our unparalleled military might.

Most of Asia will inhale nuclear dust, millions of Indians and Indonesians will perish as collateral damage. Their survivors will feast on ‘radiated fish’ in a glowing sea.

Beyond Chaos: The New American Way

Because our ‘Iron Dome’ will have failed us, we will have to re-emerge out of toxic ashes and crawl from our bunkers, dreaming of a New America free from wars and poverty. The Reign of Chaos will have ended. The ‘peace and order’ of the graveyard will reign supreme.

The emperors will be forgotten.

And we never will have found out who fired that missile at the doomed Malaysian airliner with its 300 passengers and crew. We will have lost count of the thousands of Palestinian parents and children slaughtered in Gaza by the Chosen People of Israel. We will not know how the sanctions against Russia panned out.

It won’t matter in the post-nuclear age, after the Chaos…

James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books). Petras’ most recent book is The Arab Revolt and the Imperialist Counterattack. He can be reached at: jpetras@binghamton.edu. Read other articles by James, or visit James's website.

Gun-to-the-Head Diplomacy: Obama's Nuclear Brinkmanship with Russia

Does Russia (And Humanity) Have A Future? Europe is complicit in its own demise

by Paul Craig Roberts

The Russian government has finally realized that it has no Western “partners,” and is complaining bitterly about the propagandistic lies and disinformation issued without any evidence whatsoever against the Russian government by Washington, its European vassals, and presstitute media.

Perhaps the Russian government thought that only Iraq, Libya, Syria, China, and Edward Snowden would be subjected to Washington’s lies and demonization.

It was obvious enough that Russia would be next.

The Russian government and Europe need to look beyond Washington’s propaganda, because the reality is much worse.

NATO commander General Breedlove and Senate bill 2277 clearly indicate that Washington is organizing itself and Europe for war against Russia (see my previously posted column).

Europe is reluctant to agree with Washington to put Ukraine in NATO. Europeans understand that if Washington or its stooges in Kiev cause a war with Russia Europe will be the first casualty. Washington finds its vassals’ noncompliance tiresome. Remember Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s “fuck the EU.”

And that is just what Washington is about to do.

The US Senate’s Russian Aggression Prevention Act, about which I reported in my previous column, does even more mischief than I reported. If the bill passes, which it likely will, Washington becomes empowered to bypass NATO and to grant the status of “allied nation” to Ukraine independently of NATO membership. By so doing, Washington can send troops to Ukraine and thereby commit NATO to a war with Russia.

Notice how quickly Washington escalated the orchestrated Ukrainian “crisis” without any evidence into “Russian aggression.” Overnight we have the NATO commander and US senators taking actions against “Russian aggression” of which no one has seen any evidence.

With Iraq, Libya, and Syria, Washington learned that Washington could act on the basis of baldfaced lies. No one, not Great Britain, not France, not Germany, not Italy, not the Netherlands, not Canada, not Australia, not Mexico, not New Zealand, not Israel, nor Japan, nor S. Korea, nor Taiwan, nor (substitute your selection) stepped forward to hold Washington accountable for its blatant lies and war crimes. The UN even accepted the package of blatant and obviously transparent lies that Colin Powell delivered to the UN. Everything Powell said had already been refuted by the UN’s own weapons inspectors. Yet the UN pussies gave the go-ahead for a devastating war.

The only conclusion is that all the whores were paid off. The whores can always count on Washington paying them off. For money the whores are selling out civilization to Washington’s war, which likely will be nuclear and terminate life on earth. The whores’ money will incinerate with them.

It is hardly surprising that Washington now targets Russia. The world has given Washington Carte Blanche to do as it pleases. We have now had three administrations of US war criminals welcomed and honored wherever the war criminals go. The other governments in the world continue to desire invitations to the White House as indications of their worth. To be received by war criminals has become the highest honor.

Even the president of China comes to Washington to receive acceptance by the Evil Empire.

The world did not notice Washington’s war crimes against Serbia and didn’t puke when Washington then put the Serbian president, who had tried to prevent his country from being torn apart by Washington, on trial as a war criminal.

The world has made no effort to hold Washington responsible for its destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Syria and Gaza. The world has not demanded that Washington stop murdering people in Pakistan and Yemen, countries with which Washington is not at war. The world looks the other way as Washington creates the US Africa Command. The world looks the other way as Washington sends deadly weapons to Israel with which to murder women and children in the Gaza Ghetto. Washington passes Senate and House Resolutions cheering on the Israeli murder of Palestinians.

Washington is accustomed to its free pass, granted by the world, to murder and to lie, and now is using it against Russia.

Russian President Putin’s bet that by responding to Washington’s aggression in Ukraine in an unprovocative and reasonable manner would demonstrate to Europe that Russia was not the source of the problem has not payed off. European countries are captive nations. They are incapable of thinking and acting for themselves. They bend to Washington’s will. Essentially, Europe is a nonentity that follows Washington’s orders.

If the Russian government hopes to prevent war with Washington, which is likely to be the final war for life on earth, the Russian government needs to act now and end the problem in Ukraine by accepting the separatist provinces’ request to be reunited with Russia. Once S.2277 passes, Russia cannot retrieve the situation without confronting militarily the US, because Ukraine will have been declared an American ally.

Putin’s bet was reasonable and responsible, but Europe has failed him. If Putin does not use Russian power to bring an end to the problem with which Washington has presented him in Ukraine while he still can, Washington’s next step will be to unleash its hundreds of NGOs inside Russia to denounce Putin as a traitor for abandoning the Russian populations in the former Russian provinces that Soviet leaders thoughtlessly attached to Ukraine.

The problem with being a leader is that you inherit festering problems left by previous leaders. Putin has the problems bequeathed by Yeltsin. Yeltsin was a disaster for Russia. Yeltsin was Washington’s puppet. It is not certain that Russia will survive Yeltsin’s mistakes.

If Washington has its way, Russia will survive only as an American puppet state.

In a previous column I described the article in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Washington foreign policy community, that makes a case that the US has such strategic advantage over Russia at this time that a “window of opportunity” exists for the US to remove Russia as a restraint on US hegemony with a preemptive nuclear attack.

It is almost certain that Obama is being told that President John F. Kennedy had this window of opportunity and did not use it, and that Obama must not let the opportunity pass a second time.

As Steven Starr explained in a guest column, there are no winners of nuclear war. Even if the US escapes retaliatory strikes, everyone will die regardless.

The view in Washington of the neoconservatives, who control the Obama regime, is that nuclear war is winnable. No expert opinion supports their assumption, but the neocons, not the experts, are in power.

The American people are out to lunch. They have no comprehension of their likely fate. Americans are an uninformed people distracted by their mounting personal and financial problems. If Europeans are aware, they have decided to live for the moment on Washington’s money.

What life is faced with is a drive for hegemony on the part of Washington and ignorant unconcern on the part of the rest of the world.

Americans, worked into a lather about Washington’s unfunded liabilities and the viability of their future Social Security pension, won’t be alive to collect it.

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

It Is Still a Month of Blessings: Humanizing Palestine

Humanize Palestine

by Mazine Qumsiyeh - Popular Resistance

The holiday at the end of Ramada brings mixed feelings and we could sense this here in Bethlehem on the faces of our Muslim neighbors, friends and colleagues.

Salma Al-Radiya, 2 years old, was killed by shrapnel from an Israeli tank shell in Beit Lihaya, north of Gaza Strip on July 23, 2014.

 They tell us of their sadness at the massacres of whole families but they also tell proudly of resistance, persistence, resilience, self help and help to other.

It is still a month of blessings.

I was at the bank of Palestine on Saturday and saw lines of people sending money to colleagues and friends in Gaza. We had cloth and food drives. Convoys bringing medical aid are finally being allowed to enter even as 150 bodies were pulled from under the rubble in one neighborhood alone.

Israeli soldiers speak to Haaretz of large scale destruction of civilian neighborhoods in Gaza and surprise and fear at the resistance fighters.

Most people understand that Gaza is a big crowded prison that is being subjected to a most ruthless occupation that destroyed its economy and means of livelihood. Yet, some Zionists want to convince people that somehow resistance should not come from within this population!

But there are no winners in the latest conflict started by Israel even though both resistance forces and Israel claim victory. Israel can claim victory by destroying so many neighborhoods, killing nearly a thousand civilians (very few resistance fighters). This they hope will teach a lesson not to resist. That is a foolish dream for all this does is stoke hatred and call for revenge from the killers and not decrease support among the population for resistance.

Israeli intelligence agents know this (see for example below interview with ex-head of the Shin Bet). Israeli leaders know that with every strike on "Arabs" as they like to call us, resistance actually grows in strength and supporters. Hamas and other resistance forces gain in stature and Netanyahu appeared tough and gained some voters from the racist right quarters in Israeli politics. Yet, Palestinians lives are lost that are irreplaceable and faith in human dignity tarnished as western leaders were forced to defend a an ongoing genocide so that they can please their Zionist lobbyists.The price paid by all humanity is far too high.

Let me start by actual pictures and names of those Israel murdered. They are not just numbers (1070 murdered so far including over 200 children).

PLEASE take time to get to know some of them http://humanizepalestine.com/ (there were also at least 45 Israeli soldiers killed by resistance fighters and in some cases directly by Israeli forces; see below)

Now what is the real reason for the Gaza carnage? Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Hamas for taking three young Israeli settlers (colonial squatters in occupied areas). It turns out even Israeli police knew that Hamas leaders were not involved (even though teh suspects were never apprehended let alone charged). Hamas itself said it was not involved. see http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/killed-turning-onslaught.html

But maybe this is the real reason: Armed robbery in Gaza: Israel, US, UK carve up the spoils of Palestine's stolen gas. http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2489992/armed_robbery_in_gaza_israel_us_uk_carve_up_the_spoils_of_palestines_stolen_gas.html

Governments lie, people die. Netanyahu is a consummate liar interested in one thing only: his political and economic career. Most Israelis know that he told them lies about this latest attack on Gaza, most know he lied to them about settlements and why he opposed Oslo accords. Most know their government lied to them about the success of the so called Iron Dome" (a scam to make millions with success rate below 30%). After all they could see for themselves falling home made rockets on their cities regularly. They also know much more. They know that Israeli forces sometimes do the unthinkable: e.g. Israel Murders IDF Soldier to Prevent His Capture http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2014/07/26/israel-murders-idf-soldier-to-prevent-his-kidnapping/

Yuval Diskin was the director of Israel's internal security service Shin Bet between 2005 and 2011 and he recently 24 July 2014 had an Interview with Der Spiegel/Reuters. He was asked " Is Israel not essentially driving Palestinians into the arms of Hamas? He answered "It looks that way, yes. The people in the Gaza Strip have nothing to lose right now, just like Hamas. And this is the problem. As long as Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood was in power in Egypt, things were going great for Hamas. But then the Egyptian army took over and within just a few days, the new regime destroyed the tunnel economy between Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, which was crucial for Hamas. Since then, Hamas has been under immense pressure; it can't even pay the salaries of its public officials."

Divkin also Stated that;

 "The army is now trying to destroy the tunnels between Israel and the Gaza Strip with a kind of mini-invasion, also so that the government can show that it is doing something. ...It is in equal parts action for the sake of action and aggressive posturing." But then he even reveals something that all Israeli leaders know but choose to ignore: "They [Palestinians] will never accept the status quo of the Israeli occupation. When people lose hope for an improvement of their situation, they radicalize. That is the nature of human beings. The Gaza Strip is the best example of that. All the conditions are there for an explosion. So many times in my life I was at these junctions that I can feel it almost in my fingertips."

He goes on to predict accurately increased shifts to extremism in Israeli society and admitted that Israel deals with Palestinian terror different than it does with Jewish terror. Full interview here: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-former-israeli-security-chief-yuval-diskin-a-982094.html

His observations while from a Zionist colonial perspectve concords in predicting a pressure cooker about to explode with other observors for example see this from someone who lived in Jenin for a while: The Paper Thin Underpinnings to Peace: Occupation and Intifada in 2014.

Those of us who cut through the lies act. There were demonstration in over 100 cities including Tokyo, Paris, London, Chicago, New York, Washington, Cairo, Tunis, Rabat etc). Some had tens of thousands and some over 100,000 participants. Here are just some inspiring photos: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/worldwide-protest-israeli.html

There was even a demonstration of a few thousand in Tel Aviv objecting to the slaughter in Gaza. Some Israeli soldiers and reserves refused orders to mobilize to Gaza. All these demonstrations had mixed groups of people (all ethnicities and all religions). The few demonstrations for Israel and in support of killing Palestinians were tiny and included only Jewish Zionists (the largest was as expected in New York with a few hundred particularly angry and racist ones).

We must concentrate on doing more positive actions and publicizing them. "Lighting a candle instead of cursing the darkness" as the old Chinese saying goes. I leave you with poignant note that a Church in Gaza is now home to dozens of displaced Muslim families. The pastor said that Islamic prayers in his church are welcome as Israel destroys mosques. That is the Palestine I love. That is the Palestine that will win.

Decent Jewish citizens in the US were arrested as they demonstrated inside the NY offices of "Friends of the IDF" (a group supporting child killers tax deductible). That is the humanity that I love.

Let me end again with the pictures of Gaza Palestinians. Meet them and remember them http://humanizepalestine.com/

One neighborhood: Before and After the most 

moral army shelled it with US taxpayer funding

Best
Mazin
#Gaza_under_attack

The Case of the Good Doctor, Rafil Dhafir: When You Live in a SHU

Rafil Dhafir Update: Back in the SHU

by Katherine Hughes - Dhafir Trial

Rafil writes that he is still in the SHU with no end in sight. This is especially sad because Ramadan is such a special community time and Rafil loved saving food from the commissar and making delicious deserts for others.

(I seem to remember that he told me he is a qualified chef, and he loved having people over to his house at Thanksgiving and other holidays.)

They have taken his address book from him and so he couldn’t write to me until he got a letter from me. He says,

“To this moment no one is willing to tell me why I am here. The chaplain, England, says he was told because of my prayer! If true it is incredible.”

Rafil suspects the orders are coming from Washington to frustrate his legal efforts and that, if his suspicion is true, he will be held until the November deadline passes. I hope Kathy Manley will be able to tell us more after her visit on the 1st of August. He said that he cannot think of doing anything to antagonize them (in Devens), and for the past 2 years has intentionally kept a low profile.

He continues: “Bob Elmendorf sent me a couple of the letters sent to the warden. So far nothing has worked. More need to be done and continuously until justice is served. What’s being done to me is not right and I doubt that it is legal. I am here cut off from the rest of the world except by snail mail. I have not responded to the many letters I received because I have no writing material enough nor stamps (they took my stamps and refuse to let me have them). I am keeping all mail to respond to later, insha Allah. No outside stamps are allowed.”

He has one hour of outside exercise from Monday to Friday, but is not always taken out even then.

He says, “We are in the last ten days of Ramadan which are dear to me to do more worship and staying up. I am unable because of the noise, distraction (I am not alone in this small room), an alarm clock is not allowed.

“I am *not” complaining, as it could be worse, as I always say, but only to put you in the picture.

“This chapter of my abduction should be an important part of the documentary because of its timing and significance.

“I am allowed only 15 min call a month. I talked to Priscilla (his wife) once. My next call will be Aug. 4th insha Allah.”

Rafil finishes by saying that after eleven and a half years, nothing surprises him any more. He lists several of the difficulties he’s had to face over the years, including being denied his medicine and being given dirty sheets and clothing, but finishes saying:

“…but they CANNOT take my dignity and mind away, my maker is too kind to me to allow that to happen. I have no doubt that they are trying . That’s why I am forever grateful to Him for all his favors, among them that I have (which He provided) people like you who will not be fooled.”

The letter is signed then, “July 202014; Ramadan 23, 1435” with a PS “I was abducted to the SHU Wed. June 18th 2014 at 8.38 a.m.”

Lana and I did some filming today to include this information from Rafil and we will finish filming tomorrow as Lana leaves the U.S. on Tuesday :O( We have gotten the documentary to a good place so that we can work on it despite the distance and hope that it might be ready to put on the internet in 6-8 weeks. This would allow a good amount of time for people to see it it and for it to get some coverage before Rafil’s 2255 deadline of November 1st.

Please keep up pressure on the prison to get him out of the SHU. Also please keep writing to Rafil and letting him know he is not alone.

My best to everyone,
Katherine

Never give in! :O)


Rafil Dhafir

#11921-052-Unit HB

Federal Medical Center Devens

PO Box 879

Ayer MA 01432

If you want to be removed from this list at any time, let me know.

This again, just in case:

Dear All,

Once again I am sending information on how to contact the prison and the address to write Rafil. Polite calls to the prison inquiring about the reason Rafil was put in the solitary housing unit, and asking that he be released into general population and letters to the warden plus letters to Rafil expressing support will be helpful.

The main number of the prison: 978-796-1000 You must give Rafil Dhafir's inmate locator number 11921-052 in your phone call or letter. Remember that Ken Freeland previously has told us that Rafil's case manager is Mr. (Brian) Cincotta (pronounced "sin-COT-tuh"), whom you can reach by calling the general number, pressing 0 because the matter concerns a prisoner, and asking to get connected to Mr. Cincotta.

Warden Jeffrey Grondowski
FMC Devens
P.O. Box 880
Ayer, MA 01432
fax (978) 796-1118
dev/execassistant@bop.gov

Rafil Dhafir 11921-052
FMC Devens
Federal Medical Center
P.O. Box 879
Ayer, MA 01432

Thank you for any help you can give.

Bob

Blame Russia: Reporting Opinion and Rumour As Fact at the NYT

Blaming Russia as ‘Flat Fact’

by Robert Parry - Consortium News

As nuclear-armed America hurtles into a completely avoidable crash with nuclear-armed Russia over Ukraine, you can now see the dangers of “information warfare” when facts give way to propaganda and the press fails to act as an impartial arbiter. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses a crowd on May 9, 2014, celebrating the 69th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Crimean port city of Sevastopol from the Nazis. (Russian government photo) 

In this sorry affair, one of the worst offenders of journalistic principles has been the New York Times, generally regarded as America’s premier newspaper.

During the Ukraine crisis, the Times has been little more than a propaganda conveyor belt delivering what the U.S. government wants out via shoddy and biased reporting from the likes of Michael R. Gordon and David Herszenhorn.

The Times reached what was arguably a new low on Sunday when it accepted as flat fact the still unproven point of how Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down. The Times dropped all attribution despite what appear to be growing – rather than diminishing – doubts about Official Washington’s narrative that Ukrainian rebels shot down the plane by using a powerful Russian-supplied Buk missile battery.

U.S. and Ukrainian government officials began pushing this narrative immediately after the plane went down on July 17 killing 298 people onboard. But the only evidence has been citations of “social media” and the snippet of an intercepted phone call containing possibly confused comments by Ukrainian rebels after the crash, suggesting that some rebels initially believed they had shot the plane down but later reversed that judgment.

A major problem with this evidence is that it assumes the rebels – or for that matter the Ukrainian armed forces – operate with precise command and control when the reality is that the soldiers on both sides are not very professional and function in even a deeper fog of war than might exist in other circumstances.

Missing Images

But an even bigger core problem for the U.S. narrative is that it is virtually inconceivable that American intelligence did not have satellite and other surveillance on eastern Ukraine at the time of the shoot-down. Yet the U.S. government has been unable (or unwilling) to supply a single piece of imagery showing the Russians supplying a Buk anti-aircraft missile battery to the rebels; the rebels transporting the missiles around eastern Ukraine; the rebels firing the fateful missile that allegedly brought down the Malaysian airliner; or the rebels then returning the missiles to Russia.

To accept Official Washington’s certainty about what it “knows” happened, you would have to believe that American spy satellites – considered the best in the world – could not detect 16-feet-tall missiles during their odyssey around Russia and eastern Ukraine. If that is indeed the case, the U.S. taxpayers should demand their billions upon billions of dollars back.

However, the failure of U.S. intelligence to release its satellite images of Buk missile batteries in eastern Ukraine is the “dog-not-barking” evidence that this crucial evidence to support the U.S. government’s allegations doesn’t exist. Can anyone believe that if U.S. satellite images showed the missiles crossing the border, being deployed by the rebels and then returning to Russia, that those images would not have been immediately declassified and shown to the world? In this case, the absence of evidence is evidence of absence – absence of U.S. evidence.

The U.S. government’s case also must overcome public remarks by senior U.S. military personnel at variance with the Obama administration’s claims of certainty. For instance, the Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock reported last Saturday that Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, U.S. commander of NATO forces in Europe, said last month that “We have not seen any of the [Russian] air-defense vehicles across the border yet.”

Whitlock also reported that “Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said defense officials could not point to specific evidence that an SA-11 [Buk] surface-to-air missile system had been transported from Russia into eastern Ukraine.”

There’s also the possibility that a Ukrainian government missile – either from its own Buk missile batteries fired from the ground or from a warplane in the sky – brought down the Malaysian plane. I was told by one source who had been briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts that some satellite images suggest that the missile battery was under the control of Ukrainian government troops but that the conclusion was not definitive.

Plus, there were reports from eyewitnesses in the area of the crash that at least one Ukrainian jet fighter closed on the civilian plane shortly before it went down. The Russian government also has cited radar data supposedly showing Ukrainian fighters in the vicinity.

Need for a Real Inquiry

What all this means is that a serious and impartial investigation is needed to determine who was at fault and to apportion accountability. But that inquiry is still underway with no formal conclusions.

So, in terms of journalistic professionalism, a news organization should treat the mystery of who shot down Flight 17 with doubt. Surely, no serious journalist would jump to the conclusion based on the dubious claims made by one side in a dispute while the other side is adamant in its denials, especially with the stakes so high in a tense confrontation between two nuclear powers.

But that is exactly what the Times did in describing new U.S. plans to escalate the confrontation by possibly supplying tactical intelligence to the Ukrainian army so it can more effectively wage war against eastern Ukrainian rebels.

On Sunday, the Times wrote: “At the core of the debate, said several [U.S.] officials — who, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the policy deliberations are still in progress — is whether the American goal should be simply to shore up a Ukrainian government reeling from the separatist attacks, or to send a stern message to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin by aggressively helping Ukraine target the missiles Russia has provided. Those missiles have taken down at least five aircraft in the past 10 days, including Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.” [Emphasis added.]

The link provided by the Times’ online version of the story connects to an earlier Times’ story that attributed the accusations blaming Russia to U.S. “officials.” But this new story drops that attribution and simply accepts the claims as flat fact.

The danger of American “information warfare” that treats every development in the Ukraine crisis as an opportunity to blame Putin and ratchet up tensions with Russia has been apparent since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis – as has been the clear anti-Russian bias of the Times and virtually every other outlet of the mainstream U.S. news media. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Will Ukraine Be NYT’s Waterloo?”]

Since the start of the crisis last year, U.S. officials and American-funded non-governmental organizations have not only pushed a one-sided story but have been pushing a dangerous agenda, seeking to create a collision between the United States and Russia and, more personally, between President Barack Obama and President Putin.

The vehicle for this head-on collision between Russia and the United States was the internal political disagreement in Ukraine over whether elected President Viktor Yanukovych should have accepted harsh International Monetary Fund austerity demands as the price for associating with the European Union or agree to a more generous offer from Russia.

Angered last September when Putin helped Obama avert a planned U.S. bombing campaign against Syria, American neocons were at the forefront of this strategy. Their principal need was to destroy the Putin-Obama collaboration, which also was instrumental in achieving a breakthrough on the Iran nuclear dispute (while the neocons were hoping that the U.S. military might bomb Iran, too).

So, on Sept. 26, 2013, Carl Gershman, a leading neocon and longtime president of the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy, took to the op-ed page of the neocon-flagship Washington Post to urge the U.S. government to push European “free trade” agreements on Ukraine and other former Soviet states and thus counter Moscow’s efforts to maintain close relations with those countries.

The ultimate goal, according to Gershman, was isolating and possibly toppling Putin in Russia with Ukraine the key piece on this global chessboard. “Ukraine is the biggest prize,” Gershman wrote. “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

To give the United States more leverage inside Ukraine, Gershman’s NED paid for scores of projects, including training “activists” and supporting “journalists.” Rather than let the Ukrainian political process sort out this disagreement, U.S. officials, such as neocon Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and neocon Sen. John McCain, also intervened to encourage increasingly disruptive demonstrations seeking to overthrow Yanukovych when he opted for the Russian deal over the EU-IMF offer.

Though much of the ensuing violence was instigated by neo-Nazi militias that had moved to the front of the anti-Yanukovych protests, the U.S. government and its complicit news media blamed every act of violence on Yanukovych and the police, including a still mysterious sniper attack that left both protesters and police dead.

On Feb. 21, Yanukovych denied ordering any shootings and tried to stem the violence by signing an agreement brokered by three European nations to reduce his powers and hold early elections so he could be voted out of office. He also complied with a demand from Vice President Joe Biden to pull back Ukrainian police. Then, the trap sprang shut.

Neo-Nazi militias overran government buildings and forced Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their lives. The State Department quickly endorsed the coup regime – hastily formed by the remnants of the parliament – as “legitimate.” Besides passing bills offensive to ethnic Russians in the east, one of the parliament’s top priorities was to enact the IMF austerity plan.

White Hats/Black Hats

Though the major U.S. news media was aware of these facts – and indeed you could sometimes detect the reality by reading between the lines of dispatches from the field – the overriding U.S. narrative was that the coup-makers were the “white hats” and Yanukovych along with Putin were the “black hats.” Across the U.S. media, Putin was mocked for riding on a horse shirtless and other indiscretions. For the U.S. media, it was all lots of fun, as was the idea of reprising the Cold War with Moscow.

When the people of Crimea – many of whom were ethnic Russians – voted overwhelmingly to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia, the U.S. media declared the move a Russian “invasion” although the Russian troops were already in Ukraine as part of an agreement with previous Ukrainian governments.

Every development that could be hyped was hyped. There was virtually no nuance in the news reporting, a lack of professionalism led by the New York Times. Yet, the solution to the crisis was always relatively obvious: a federalized system that would allow the ethnic Russians in the east a measure of self-governance and permit Ukraine to have cordial economic relations with both the EU and Russia.

But replacement President Petro Poroshenko – elected when a secession fight was already underway in the east – refused to negotiate with the ethnic Russian rebels who had rejected the ouster of Yanukovych. Sensing enough political support inside the U.S. government, Poroshenko opted for a military solution.

It was in that context of a massive Ukrainian government assault on the east that Russia stepped up its military assistance to the beleaguered rebels, including the apparent provision of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to fend off Kiev’s air superiority. The rebels did succeed in shooting down some Ukrainian warplanes flying at altitudes far below the 33,000 feet of the Malaysia Airlines plane.

For a plane at that height to be shot down required a more powerful system, like the Buk anti-aircraft batteries or an air-to-air missile fired by a fighter jet. Which brings us to the mystery of what happened on the afternoon of July 17 and why it is so important to let a serious investigation evaluate all the available evidence and not to have a rush to judgment.

But the idea of doing an investigation first and drawing conclusions second is a concept that, apparently, neither the U.S. government nor the New York Times accepts. They would prefer to start with the conclusion and then make a serious investigation irrelevant, one more casualty of information warfare.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

Knowing the New Reality: A Change in the World Order

It is Time to Know a Little More About Realities

by Fidel Castro - Granma

In our era, problems are increasingly more complex and news is produced at the speed of light, as many know. Nothing happens today in our world, which does not teach something to those of us who wish, and are still able, to understand new realities.

The human being is a strange mixture of blind instinct, on one hand, and conscience, on the other.

We are political animals, as, not without reason, affirmed Aristotle, who perhaps influenced humanity’s thinking more than any other ancient philosopher through his almost 200 treatises, according to reports, of which only 31 have been preserved. His teacher was Plato, who left for posterity his famous utopia about the ideal state, which in Syracuse, where he tried to apply it, almost cost him his life. His Political Theory has endured as a designation used to describe ideas as good or bad. Reactionaries often describe both Marx and Lenin as theorists, without taking into consideration that their utopias inspired Russia and China, the two countries called upon to lead a new world which will allow for human survival, if imperialism does not first unleash a criminal, exterminating war.

The Soviet Union, the socialist camp, the People’s Republic of China and North Korea helped us resist, with essential supplies and weapons, the implacable blockade of the United States, the most powerful empire ever to exist. Despite its immense power, it has not been able to squash the small country which has, a few miles off its coasts, for more than half a century, withstood its threats, pirate attacks, the hijacking of fishing boats and sinking of merchant ships, the in-flight destruction of a Cubana Airlines airplane over Barbados, the burning of schools and other similar misdeeds. When it attempted to invade our country with mercenary forces in the vanguard, transported by U.S. warships as the first wave, it was defeated in less than 72 hours. Later, counterrevolutionary bands organized and equipped by the U.S. committed acts of vandalism which led to loss of life and injury to thousands of compatriots.

The largest base of operations for activities against our country, which existed at that time, was located in the state of Florida. Over the course of time, the economic blockade was extended to other NATO countries and other Latin American allies, who during those first years were accomplices to the empire’s criminal policy which lacerated the dreams of Bolívar, Martí and hundreds of other great patriots of irrepressible revolutionary conduct in Latin America.

Our small country was not only denied our right to be an independent nation, like any other among the many in Latin America and the Caribbean, exploited and sacked by them. On the contrary our homeland’s right to independence would be stripped, and manifest destiny would fulfill its task of annexing our island as part of the United States of America’s territory.

During the recently concluded meeting in Fortaleza, an important declaration was approved by the countries which comprise the BRICS group.

The BRICS propose greater macroeconomic coordination among the principal economies, in particular the G-20, as a factor fundamental to the strengthening of prospects for effective and sustainable recovery around the world.

They announced the signing of an accord to constitute the New Development Bank with the goal of mobilizing resources for infrastructure projects and sustainable development in BRICS countries, and others which are emerging or developing.

The bank will have an initial authorized capital of 100 billion dollars. The initial capital agreed upon will be 50 billion dollars, in equal parts from the founding members. The first president of the Board of Governors will be Russia. The first president of the Administrative Council will be Brazil. The first president of the Bank will be India. The Bank headquarters will be in Shanghai.

They also announced the signing of a treaty to establish a common currency reserves fund for contingencies, with an initial size of 100 billion dollars.

Support was reaffirmed for a multilateral system of open, transparent, inclusive, non-discriminatory trade; as well as for the successful conclusion of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Doha Round.

They recognize the important role which state enterprises play in the economy, as well as small and medium sized companies, as creators of employment and wealth.

They reaffirm the need for comprehensive reform of the United Nations, including its Security Council, with the goal of making it more representative, effective and efficient, so that it can respond appropriately to global challenges.

They reiterated condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, wherever it might occur, and expressed their concern about the continuing threat of terrorism and extremism in Syria, while at the same time called upon all Syrian parties to commit to putting an end to terrorist acts perpetrated by

Al-Qaeda, their affiliates and other terrorist organizations.

They strongly condemned the use of chemical weapons under any circumstances, and welcomed the decision by the Arab Republic of Syria to adhere to the Convention on Chemical Weapons.

They reaffirmed their commitment to contribute to a just and lasting global solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, based on the universally recognized legal framework, which includes pertinent United Nations resolutions, the Madrid principles and the Arab Peace Initiative, and expressed support for the convocation, as soon as possible, of a conference to establish a zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.

They reaffirmed their desire that the exploration and utilization of outer space be for peaceful purposes.

They reiterated that there is no alternative to a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear question, and reaffirmed their support for its solution via political and diplomatic channels.

They expressed concern for the situation in Iraq, and supported the Iraqi government in its efforts to overcome the crisis, defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

They expressed concern for the situation in Ukraine and issued a call for broad dialogue, abatement of the conflict, and moderation on the part of all parties involved, with the goal of finding a peaceful political solution.

They reiterated their firm condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and pointed out that the United Nations has a central role to play in the coordination of international action against terrorism, which must be conducted in accordance with international law, including the United Nations Charter, and with respect for human rights and fundamental liberties.

They recognized that climate change is one of the greatest challenges confronting humanity, and issued a call to all countries to act on the decisions adopted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), looking to reach, by 2015, a successful conclusion of the negotiations to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed-upon document with legal force under the Convention, applicable to all parties, in accordance with the principles and dispositions of the UNFCCC, in particular the principle of common responsibility, although differentiated and in accordance with respective capacities.

They affirmed the strategic importance of education for sustainable development and inclusive economic growth, and emphasized the links between culture and sustainable development.

The next BRICS Summit will be held in Russia, in July, 2015.

It might seem that this is but one more agreement, among the many constantly appearing in cables released by the major Western news agencies. Nevertheless, the meaning is clear and emphatic: Latin America is the geographic area in the world where the United States has imposed the most unequal system on the planet, enjoying of its internal riches, a supply of cheap raw materials, a market for its merchandise, and has been the recipient of its gold and funds which escape their respective countries and are invested by U.S. companies in the country, or any other place in the world.

No one has ever found a response to satisfy the demands of the existent market we know today, although no one can doubt that humanity is moving toward a stage which will be more just than the human society we have known to date.

The abuses committed throughout history are repugnant. Today what is valued is what will happen on our globalized planet in the near future.

How can human beings escape the ignorance, the lack for basic resources for food, heath, education, housing, dignified employment, security and fair compensation. What is most important, must be this or not possible, in this miniscule corner of the universe. If meditating on this is of any use, it is to guarantee in reality the supremacy of human beings.

On my part, I do not have the slightest doubt that when President Xi Jinping completes the activities in his tour of this hemisphere, as did Vladímir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, both countries will be culminating one of the greatest feats of human history.

The BRICS statement approved July 15, 2014 in Fortaleza advocates for greater participation by other countries, especially those struggling for their development, with a view toward promoting cooperation and solidarity with the peoples, and specifically with those of South America, pointing out in a significant paragraph that the BRICS particularly recognize the importance of the South American Union (Unasur) in the promotion of peace and democracy regionally, in the achievement of sustainable development, and the eradication of poverty.

I have already been extensive enough, despite the fact that the range and importance of the issue demand analysis of important questions which require some response.

I thought that in subsequent days there would have been a little more serious analysis of the importance of the BRICS Summit. It would be enough to add up the inhabitants of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to understand that, at this time, they amount to half of the world’s population. In a few decades, China’s Gross Domestic Product will surpass that of the United States. Many states are already requesting yuan and not dollars, not only Brazil, but several of the most important in Latin America, whose products like soy and corn compete with those of the United States. The contribution which Russia and China can make to science, technology and the economic development of South America and the Caribbean is decisive.

The great events of history are not forged in a day. Enormous tests and challenges of increasing complexity are on the horizon. Between China and Venezuela, 38 agreements were signed. It is time to know a little more about realities.

Fidel Castro’s column appears in Granma.

Ukraine Info. War: Slander, Misinformation, and Stalling the Truth on MH 17

Slander abounds in depictions of autonomy fighters in eastern Ukraine, while MH 17 investigation stalls and Kyiv’s war rages

by Roger Annis - Rabble.ca

July 27, 2014

 

Imperialist governments and media as well as countless other commentators abound with portrayals of the pro-democracy, pro-autonomy forces in eastern Ukraine as “Russian-backed separatists” and worse. On the ‘worse’ range of the spectrum, terms such as ‘fanatics’, ‘thugs’ and even ‘fascists’ are tossed about.

It would take a work of encyclopedic scale to answer all the charges. Admittedly, such a study would include admissions that there are human rights violations taking place on both sides of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. But the vast majority of those violations are perpetrated by Ukraine armed forces and militias, while self-defense forces are aware of concerns over their treatment of opposing combatants and are taking measures to ensure the safety of prisoners they capture. Concerning the aforementioned portrayals, let us take one prominent example from recent days and see what it tells us.

Igor Strelkov would rank right up there as a prime example of a dastardly figure on the side of self-defense forces. He is the military commander of the self-defense forces of the Donetsk Peoples Republic.

The Donetsk republic is one of two autonomous republics created in May in southeast Ukraine. The other is the Luhansk Peoples Republic. They came into being following plebiscite votes that were hastily organized as a threat of civil way by Kyiv loomed. Both are coming under murderous attack by the armed forces of the central government of Ukraine and by extreme right militias that work in tandem with the military. (Read here the example of the ‘Azov Battalion’ militia of extreme rightists, which includes volunteers from western Europe and Canada.)

Kyiv’s war in eastern Ukraine during the past three months has killed several thousand people and forced more than 600,000 people into exile in Russia and central Ukraine. Among the most recent victims of the war are the 298 passengers on board Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. Here is a short video of today's bombardment of the town of Horlovka, near Donetsk. And a close-up of what it wrought: Warning! Disturbing images.

An article two days ago in a UK publication called the International Business Times (IBT) is an example of the bizarre, ‘rush to judgment’ reporting in much of mainstream press over the crash of Flight MH 17 and Kyiv’s war overall. The article and others like it are getting lots of attention, and not only from followers of the political right. Some on the left, too, give credibility to such material.

In the article, the reporter says that Igor Strelkov is “suspected of downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17” and was “allegedly involved in the 1992 Serbian ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the eastern Bosnian town of Visegrad”.

The article headline refers to the “massacre of 3,000 Bosnian Muslims in 1992” but makes no reference to this in the text. Presumably, the headline is referring to the tragedy in Visegrad.

The reporter reveals his own bias on the subject matter in an article on Ukraine one day earlier in which he writes, “US officials told the Wall Street Journal that the separatists who downed the commercial airliner over the Donetsk region used the Buk system…” His article dismisses a Russian government official’s use of the phrase “punitive operation” in describing Kyiv’s war in eastern Ukraine.

A scandalous, non-investigation of Flight MH 17

We don’t know if MH 17 was downed by a missile. If it was, we don’t know who was responsible. What is really bad is that those hoping for a vigorous investigation of the crash are seeing their hopes dashed by the actions of the Kyiv government. [1]

We are learning that ever since self-defense fighters turned the crash site over to the international investigators days ago, the site has more or less sat abandoned. Large numbers of investigators are residing in hotels in Donetsk city (some 40 km away). It’s not at clear why their work until today has been stalled.

As of today, we learn that the Kyiv government has decided to prioritize its war offensive over a crash investigation. As a result of its military operations against the city of Donetsk and neighbouring towns and villages, it is not safe for investigators to do their work. Mind you, yesterday, an Australian couple arrived on the site to lay a wreath to their 25-year old daughter who died in the crash.

A further complication is that foreign governments, with Australia and Holland in the lead, want to land armed police if not soldiers on the site. The Ukraine constitution prohibits foreign police or military on its soil. A special vote of the Rada (Parliament) could bypass that provision, but the country’s government coalition collapsed two days ago and the prime minister resigned. Parliament is conflicted over how to proceed with the war and with the austerity economic program that the government has embraced in partnership with the European Union. The extreme right in the Parliament is pushing for a quick election. [2]

Speaking of the economy, there are divisions in the Parliament over whether to privatize the country’s publicly-owned energy distribution company. This as Ukraine accumulates a horrific bill for natural gas purchases from Russia (it now stands at $6 billion) and the country’s economy and state budget is near collapse. [3]

The hunt for “separatists” and other scoundrels

Anyway, back to Igor Strelkov. The IBT article adds that Strelkov “has been described” as a covert agent of Russia's GRU military intelligence. Described by whom? We don’t know.

The writer repeats the Internet hoax by which Strelkov is alleged to have admitted on Facebook (!) that his forces brought down MH17. Serious news outlets backed away from this and other hoaxes and false claims in the days following the disaster, though not U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. She told the UN Security Council on July 18:

Separatists initially claimed responsibility for shooting down a military transport plane and posted videos that are now being connected to the Malaysian airlines crash. Separatist leaders also boasted on social media about shooting down a plane, but later deleted these messages.

The Facebook account in question had nothing to do with Strelkov. Meanwhile, comments that have been made by outlets close to him consist of reports of downed aircraft of the Ukraine air force. It’s a well-known fact that Ukraine’s air force has lost many helicopters and fighter aircraft to low-altitude missile strikes by self-defense forces.

Further reported in the IBT story is a 20-plus year old report that Strelkov is said to have served as a volunteer Russian fighter in the war in Yugoslavia. That report consists of an alleged photo of Strelkov along with a claim by a Bosnian army officer that Strelkov took part in “Serbian aggression” in Bosnia.

The claim regarding the photo may be false. An article in a Russian website publication says the person depicted as Strelkov in the photo is instead a former Russian combatant named Alexander Mukharev.

Then we read ominously in the IBT story that Strelkov was “present” in Crimea earlier this year when the population there voted to secede from Ukraine. Russia facilitated that vote and welcomed its result.

As to who is the “real” Igor Strelkov, here is what a colleague in Russia has told me:

I really love these "was allegedly involved" types of arguments.

Strelkov was in the Balkans together with a few thousand Russian volunteers (not mercenaries). So far, not a single person among them is convicted of war crimes or even figured in any serious reports about that. Naturally, Serb militias' behavior in Bosnia was terrible, but for some strange reason, the Western press reported only the war crimes committed by Serbs while similar crimes of Muslims and Croats rarely attracted attention.

As for Strelkov-Girkins' career, he was an historian and he studied together with a comrade, a well-known specialist and member of the Russian Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries (PLSR). Strelkov was unsuccessful in academia. His ideological sympathies are clearly with pre-revolutionary Russia and the White movement. He identifies with people like General Denikin who in 1941 declared solidarity with the USSR, seeing Stalin as a lesser evil compared with Hitler.

Recently, Strelkov made a very clear statement that he considers his role as a military commander is to stay out of politics. He stressed that the political views of opolcheniye (self-defense fighters) represent a very broad spectrum--from communist to monarchist. My personal encounters with opolchentsy show that most are not deeply engaged in politics.

Many will dismiss this portrayal of Strelkov as something written by a ‘Putin stooge’. Such epithets are in vogue these days to avoid serious discussion. The entire international left would benefit by some serious analysis of the Russian political landscape, including the precise characteristics and degree of support of Russian nationalism and similarly of both the political left and political right in Russia in all its complexity. We are still some distance from that, which is regrettable because of the dire and imminent threat of rising military conflict in eastern Europe. An escalating assault by NATO against Ukraine and Russia would have catastrophic consequences for the whole world.

The threat of escalation

There are very powerful interests that either do not want an inquiry into the MH17 disaster or who want it to finish by pinning the disaster on Igor Strelkov or some other fall guy. That would avoid the real reasons for the disaster, which go far beyond the immediate circumstances of the plane crash. Irrespective of who might have pushed a missile firing button if that was, indeed, how the plane came down, the full story of the crash is intricately woven into the web of Kyiv’s murderous war against the populations of eastern Ukraine. That war is backed by the NATO countries, with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott putting in a ‘me too’ performance as of July 17.

The urgency of all this is underlined by two circumstances. One, contrary to media claims in the past few days (such as the Globe and Mail’s Mark MacKinnon on July 26), it appears that self-defense fighters in Luhansk and Donetsk are far from facing imminent defeat. Reports from Luhansk are saying the Ukraine army is facing a disastrous situation there. Large numbers of Ukraine soldiers are reportedly deserting and conscripts are refusing to answer the conscription call-up. (This July 27 story on Russia Today reports on 40 Ukraine soldiers who have sought refuge in Russia, saying they refuse to go on attacking their fellow citizens.)

Antiwar and anti-conscription protests by the families or neighbours of the men being conscripted into military service are on the rise in western Ukraine. Protesters are commonly saying their loved ones are facing “certain death” in combat for lack of training, weapons and vital supplies. This tends to confirm the other reports of the army’s and militias’ difficulties in the east. Meanwhile, representatives of the Kyiv government in Canada are saying that it is spending “all of its money” on the war in the east and that the well is running dry.

All of this may well explain the frenetic ‘rush to judgment’ and call to military intervention by NATO and others following the crash of MH17.

A steady drumbeat towards greater military intervention in Ukraine is being sounded n NATO capitals and in Canberra. This is grimly illustrated in yesterday’s edition of the Globe and Mail (Canada’s largest circulation daily newspaper). Like Canada’s government and its national broadcaster, the CBC, the Globe is on a forced march to deeper confrontation with Russia:

• The Globe front page cover is a lurid, ghoulish image of Russian President Vladimir Putin with the words ‘Public enemy’ written beside it. The word ‘Putin’ or ‘Russia’ does not appear on the front page, suggesting an overwhelming message that doesn’t need explaining: ‘It’s Russia, stupid’. Inside the newspaper, we find:
• A wire service story reporting that large numbers of Australian and Dutch police and possibly soldiers will soon be landing in eastern Ukraine in and around the MH17 crash site.
• A column by the normally liberal Doug Saunders explaining that all of Europe is under “assault” from Russia. He laments, “the European response to this new threat, however, has been slow, uncertain and ambiguous”.
• An article by seasoned journalist Mark MacKinnon arguing that self-defense forces in Luhansk and Donetsk are in rapid retreat and readying for a lengthy, destructive battle in the center of the cities of Luhansk or Donetsk. The image is of a looming Guernica or Stalingrad of the Kyiv regime.
• A special column written by the hawkish Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada (!) titled, ‘It’s our duty to stand firm in the face of Russian aggression’.

The international left needs to rapidly mobilize in opposition to the war threat against Ukraine and Russia. We need to voice strong solidarity with the embattled people of southeast Ukraine. There is no time to lose.

Notes:

[1] Russian military leaders have on two occasions put ten probing questions each to Ukrainian authorities concerning the crash of Flight MH 17: on July 18 and on July 21.

[2] From Mediaua.com, translated by Google, edited for language and abridged:

The right sector demands to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada [‘Supreme Council’]

"Right Sector" believes that the current composition of the Parliament of Ukraine does not meet the demands of the people, reports the website ‘Dialogue’. The press service of the Right Sector said on July 26:

"Our party welcomes the dissolution of the current coalition as the only sure way to re-election of the Verkhovna Rada. Upon completion of the active phase of Ukrainian national liberation movement, a new president was elected, the old regime fell, and its main representatives shamefully fled to Russia, thus showing whose interests they served. But the system itself is built by the Yanukovych regime. The foundations of the Soviet government, despite many blows it took, remained afloat and successfully restored some people and structures. Unable to move forward, shackled by the old system, the old regime must be completely destroyed and a new system based on true democracy must be built."- said in a statement to the press service of the" right sector "on July 26.

The current Parliament, according to representatives of the "Right Sector" does not meet the modern demands of the people of Ukraine. “Significant numbers of deputies are state or even military traitors associated with the separatists. That is why, after the collapse of the coalition and Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s resignation from the post of Prime Minister, the current Parliament should be dissolved immediately.”

[3] From the Washington Post, July 26:

The IMF forecasts that Ukraine’s annual GDP will drop by 6.5% this year, while the government deficit is projected at 10.1% of GDP. This week, the government announced that it would need at least 800 million dollars to continue its counterinsurgency operation and asked the parliament to further increase taxes and cut public spending. The deputies’ refusal to appropriate needed funds yesterday triggered Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s resignation as he recognized that soldiers would receive no pay next month. The reconstruction of Donbas is even more uncertain as the government promised to turn to foreign donors for funds in the coming fall.

Prices to consumers of natural gas have risen 50 per cent this year and Ukraine’s currency has lost half its value in this same time. Kyiv is now totally dependent of loans from international financial institutions.

In the Globe and Mail on July 24, Ukraine’s envoy to Canada, Vadym Prystaiko, explained, “We are pouring all the money in our budget… into the anti-terrorism campaign.” (‘Anti-terrorism campaign’ is Kyiv’s code language for its war in the east of the country.)

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Andrew Gavin Marshall, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Janine Bandcroft July 29, 2014

This Week on GR

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

This week; befitting finale, an examination of the fast coming end to the current world order. 

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Montreal-based researcher, writer, and co-editor of the book, 'The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century' He is also project manager for The People's Book Project, serves as chair of the Geopolitics division of The Hampton Institute, and is Research Director for Occupy.com's Global Power Project and the World of Resistance Report.

WoR is a fascinating chronicle of the architecture underlying the system running the world, and the people pulling the levers of power. It is too a kind of prescience compass, marking the direction globalized civilization is headed. Marshall also hosts a weekly podcast show featured at renown whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds' BoilingFrogsPost.com. 

Listen. Hear.

Andrew Gavin Marshall in the first half.

And; Mazin Qumsiyeh is a Palestinian biologist and human rights activist. He appeared here at UVic last year to provide some context for the Palestinian struggle for dignity and independence.

Mazin Qumsiyeh in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of what's good going on on the streets of our city, and beyond there too, in the coming week.

But first, Andrew Gavin Marshall and a World of Resistance reporting.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm 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/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.

Israeli Police Admit: "No Grounds for Believing Hamas Ordered Abduction" Says BBC

Where’s BBC scoop on Netanyahu’s big lie?

by Jonathon Cook - The Blog from Nazareth

July 26, 2014

Here’s a hugely significant story that I suspect will get almost no play outside Palestinian solidarity sites. Mickey Rosenfeld, the Israeli police spokesman, has told BBC reporter Jon Donnison that there are no grounds for believing Hamas ordered the abduction of three Israeli teens on June 12. Rather, the police say, it was carried out by a rogue cell from Hebron with a loose political affiliation to Hamas.

It was those abductions, and Israel’s response in blaming Hamas and rounding up and jailing hundreds of its activists in the West Bank, that triggered Hamas rocket fire that in turn was used by Israel to justify its attack on Gaza, which is currently killing hundreds of civilians.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, stated at the time that he had cast-iron evidence that Hamas was behind the abductions and the movement would pay a “heavy price”. He never produced that evidence. But now Israel’s police force itself concedes that Hamas was not involved.

Many of us, of course, suspected that Netanyahu was using the abductions as a pretext to destroy the unity government Hamas and Fatah had recently set up after years of conflict. Now we have official confirmation.

I wonder why, given the great scoop he has, Donnison appears only to have tweeted about this. It’s now more than 24 hours since he went public with the information. Is he waiting for another news outlets to beat him to the story? Or is he tweeting it because he knows the BBC isn’t interested in running a story so embarrassing to Israel?

Anyway, kudos to him for getting the scoop, even if no one seems interested in it. Another one down the memory hole.

Receiving the Exodus: Sacred Hearts and the Children of Central America

Sacred Hearts, Sacred Lives: Children Crossing the Border

by Buddy Bell - Voices for Creative Non-Violence

From July 13 to July 20, I drove a small truck from Minneapolis, Minnesota down to McAllen, Texas. The truck went to Mexico and is now one of four vehicles on a ship destined for Cuba, a donation made possible through the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization/Pastors for Peace. The day after I arrived in McAllen, some local residents took a group of IFCO activists to Sacred Heart church in downtown McAllen.

As the closest substantial U.S. city connected by land to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and Mexico’s internal eastern coast, McAllen is the most convenient of any crossing point for immigrants from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. It is the place where Border Patrol detains the highest number of unaccompanied minors who are fleeing violence caused by U.S. foreign policy in Central America. Less noted in the media are the mothers and fathers traveling with their young children, but they are coming to McAllen as well, and they are usually the ones who can sometimes find temporary relief at Sacred Heart church.

When we arrived at this church, it was a Sunday afternoon. I saw several large tents set up in the parking lot, along with a large camper that said “medical clinic” and also a large McAllen Police camper-like vehicle with floodlights. We were led inside the church building to a large reception hall filled with shelves of clothing and toys. It was packed with volunteers in green vests that said Catholic Relief Services. We spoke with Sister Leticia Benavides about the experience of an immigrant who comes to their church.

First of all, I learned that unaccompanied minors are not released from Border Patrol custody in McAllen. I did not learn further information on where they take these kids. The immigrants who can get released in McAllen are adults and children that are accompanied by an adult parent.

The conditions for release are that the immigrant has to demonstrate that they have a familial contact in the U.S. and must provide this person’s address. Second, the U.S. contact must purchase a will-call Greyhound bus ticket from McAllen to the closest Greyhound stop to where they live. Once these conditions are met, the immigrant is dropped off at the Greyhound station to pick up the ticket. Media claims of the government paying for bus tickets are false.

Sacred Heart has a volunteer at the Greyhound station waiting for anyone being dropped off. The volunteer tells the people being dropped off that if they want to, they may come to Sacred Heart church for a free shower, change of clothes, food and drink, medical attention, and a safe place to rest until their departure time. There is a shuttle between the Greyhound station and the church.

Sister Leticia told us that, by far, the majority of people that come in are fleeing from Honduras. When anyone new comes in, all the volunteers applaud for them in order to make it clear they are in a welcoming place. Then one or two volunteers guide the individual or family through whatever service they’d like to access first. When they are locked up, the immigrants are given milk and apples, supposedly the latest U.S. agriculture surplus. Those who are not used to consuming so much dairy then become sick. Many immigrants also come into Sacred Heart dehydrated since they are not accustomed to drinking tap water and do not trust the smell of McAllen water. Therefore, they drink as little as possible. At the church, they are given appropriate food and purified water.

Crossing borders, riding freight trains, being extorted by coyotes and criminals and then locked in a cage by Border Patrol can all be very traumatic for a grown woman or man, let alone a child. Save the Children has a play therapy station set up in another section of the church to allow kids to play for the first time in a long while. Because of privacy issues we did not observe this station. I did ask for and got permission to take a picture of the overall operation – inside the church’s main reception hall and the outside of the medical clinic and the air-conditioned tents that make up the resting area.

It’s absolutely crucial to realize that we saw a somewhat more decent side of what is happening at the US-Mexico border. What most often happens is that people fleeing their home situations are caught and abducted by Border Patrol, then sent back to an abusive husband or parent, sent back to Honduras to be disappeared by paramilitary forces supported by the U.S. or to El Salvador to be enlisted in a gang started in Los Angeles, California. If they elude Border Patrol they must walk days and days to reach Houston or San Antonio, and many of those who attempt this journey die along the way.

What can we do about this? Take nonviolent actions to force a change in government policy.

• Stop U.S. military and police aid to Honduras, Guatemala, and other places. The military and police in these countries are involved in death squad activity. 

• Stop the U.S. State Department’s meddling in the elections of other countries. 

• Stop the U.S. manipulation of other countries’ economies to favor rich, subsidized U.S. corporations at the expense of humble individual workers struggling to feed themselves and their families. 

• Compel President Obama to follow through on his proposal to fund more immigration judges so that a judge can devote much more than 20 seconds of attention to each person’s case. 

Also, insist that he issue a moratorium on deportations until all asylum claims are fairly considered. Compel Congress to enact reasonable immigration policies that acknowledge current global realities and U.S. responsibility for them.

Buddy Bell is a Co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence