The Plane Crash Investigation That Would Not Land: MH-17 Probe Becomes Curiouser and Curiouser

The Ever-Curiouser MH-17 Case

by Robert Parry  - Consortium News

March 16, 2016

The curious mystery surrounding the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, gets more curious and more curious as the U.S. government and Dutch investigators balk at giving straightforward answers to the simplest of questions even when asked by the families of the victims.


A Malaysia Airways’ Boeing 777 like the one that 
crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. 
(Photo credit: Aero Icarus) 

Exclusive: The shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine has served as a potent propaganda club against Russia but the U.S. government is hiding key evidence that could solve the mystery, writes Robert Parry. 

Adding to the mystery Dutch investigators have indicated that the Dutch Safety Board did not request radar information from the United States, even though Secretary of State John Kerry indicated just three days after the crash that the U.S. government possessed data that pinpointed the location of the suspected missile launch that allegedly downed the airliner, killing all 298 people onboard. 

Although Kerry claimed that the U.S. government knew the location almost immediately, Dutch investigators now say they hope to identify the spot sometime “in the second half of the year,” meaning that something as basic as the missile-launch site might remain unknown to the public more than two years after the tragedy.

The families of the Dutch victims, including the father of a Dutch-American citizen, have been pressing for an explanation about the slow pace of the investigation and the apparent failure to obtain relevant data from the U.S. and other governments.

I spent time with the family members in early February at the Dutch parliament in The Hague as opposition parliamentarians, led by Christian Democrat Pieter Omtzigt, unsuccessfully sought answers from the government about the absence of radar data and other basic facts.

When answers have been provided to the families and the public, they are often hard to understand, as if to obfuscate what information the investigation possesses or doesn’t possess. For instance, when I asked the U.S. State Department whether the U.S. government had supplied the Dutch with radar data and satellite images, I received the following response, attributable to “a State Department spokesperson”: “While I won’t go into the details of our law enforcement cooperation in the investigation, I would note that Dutch officials said March 8 that all information asked of the United States has been shared.”

I wrote back thanking the spokesperson for the response, but adding: “I must say it seems unnecessarily fuzzy. Why can’t you just say that the U.S. government has provided the radar data cited by Secretary Kerry immediately after the tragedy? Or the U.S. government has provided satellite imagery before and after the shootdown? Why the indirect and imprecise phrasing? …

“I’ve spent time with the Dutch families of the victims, including the father of a U.S.-Dutch citizen, and I can tell you that they are quite disturbed by what they regard as double-talk and stalling. I would like to tell them that my government has provided all relevant data in a cooperative and timely fashion. But all I get is this indirect and imprecise word-smithing.”

The State Department spokesperson wrote back, “I understand your questions, and also the importance of the view of these families so devastated by this tragedy. However, I am going to have to leave our comments as below.”

Propaganda Value

This lack of transparency, of course, has a propaganda value since it leaves in place the widespread public impression that ethnic Russian rebels and Russian President Vladimir Putin were responsible for the 298 deaths, a rush to judgment that Secretary Kerry and other senior U.S. officials (and the Western news media) encouraged in July 2014.


Once that impression took hold there has been little interest in Official Washington to clarify the mystery especially as evidence has emerged implicating elements of the Ukrainian military. For instance, Dutch intelligence has reported (and U.S. intelligence has implicitly confirmed) that the only operational Buk anti-aircraft missile systems in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, were under the control of the Ukrainian military.

In a Dutch report released last October, the Netherlands’ Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) reported that the only anti-aircraft weapons in eastern Ukraine capable of bringing down MH-17 at 33,000 feet belonged to the Ukrainian government.

MIVD made that assessment in the context of explaining why commercial aircraft continued to fly over the eastern Ukrainian battle zone in summer 2014. MIVD said that based on “state secret” information, it was known that Ukraine possessed some older but “powerful anti-aircraft systems” and “a number of these systems were located in the eastern part of the country.”

The intelligence agency added that the rebels lacked that capability: “Prior to the crash, the MIVD knew that, in addition to light aircraft artillery, the Separatists also possessed short-range portable air defence systems (man-portable air-defence systems; MANPADS) and that they possibly possessed short-range vehicle-borne air-defence systems. Both types of systems are considered surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). Due to their limited range they do not constitute a danger to civil aviation at cruising altitude.”

One could infer a similar finding by reading a U.S. “Government Assessment” released by the Director of National Intelligence on July 22, 2014, five days after the crash, seeking to cast suspicion on the ethnic Russian rebels and Putin by noting military equipment that Moscow had provided the rebels. But most tellingly the list did not include Buk anti-aircraft missiles. In other words, in the context of trying to blame the rebels and Putin, U.S. intelligence could not put an operational Buk system in the rebels’ hands.

So, perhaps the most logical suspicion would be that the Ukrainian military, then engaged in an offensive in the east and fearing a possible Russian invasion, moved its Buk missile systems up to the front and an undisciplined crew fired a missile at a suspected Russian aircraft, bringing down MH-17 by accident.

That was essentially what I was told by a source who had been briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts in July and August 2014. [See, for instance, Consortiumnews.com’s “Flight 17 Shoot-Down Scenario Shifts” and “The Danger of an MH-17 Cold Case.”]

But Ukraine is a principal participant in the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which has been probing the MH-17 case, and thus the investigation suffers from a possible conflict of interest since Ukraine would prefer that the world’s public perception of the MH-17 case continue to blame Putin. Under the JIT’s terms, any of the five key participants (The Netherlands, Ukraine, Australia, Belgium and Malaysia) can block release of information.

The interest in keeping Putin on the propaganda defensive is shared by the Obama administration which used the furor over the MH-17 deaths to spur the European Union into imposing economic sanctions on Russia.

In contrast, clearing the Russians and blaming the Ukrainians would destroy a carefully constructed propaganda narrative which has stuck black hats on Putin and the ethnic Russian rebels and white hats on the U.S.-backed government of Ukraine, which seized power after a putsch that overthrew elected pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22, 2014.

Accusations against Russia have also been fanned by propaganda outlets, such as the British-based Bellingcat site, which has collaborated with Western mainstream media to continue pointing the finger of blame at Moscow and Putin – as the Dutch investigators drag their heels and refuse to divulge any information that would clarify the case.

Letter to the Families

Perhaps the most detailed – although still hazy – status report on the investigation came in a recent letter from JIT chief prosecutor Fred Westerbeke to the Dutch family members. The letter acknowledged that the investigators lacked “primary raw radar images” which could have revealed a missile or a military aircraft in the vicinity of MH-17.

Russian-made Buk anti-aircraft missile battery.

Ukrainian authorities said all their primary radar facilities were shut down for maintenance and only secondary radar, which would show commercial aircraft, was available. Russian officials have said their radar data suggest that a Ukrainian warplane might have fired on MH-17 with an air-to-air missile, a possibility that is difficult to rule out without examining primary radar which has so far not been available. Primary radar data also might have picked up a ground-fired missile, Westerbeke wrote.

“Raw primary radar data could provide information on the rocket trajectory,” Westerbeke’s letter said.

“The JIT does not have that information yet. JIT has questioned a member of the Ukrainian air traffic control and a Ukrainian radar specialist. They explained why no primary radar images were saved in Ukraine.” 

Westerbeke said investigators are also asking Russia about its data.

Westerbeke added that the JIT had “no video or film of the launch or the trajectory of the rocket.” Nor, he said, do the investigators have satellite photos of the rocket launch.

“The clouds on the part of the day of the downing of MH17 prevented usable pictures of the launch site from being available,” he wrote.

“There are pictures from just before and just after July 17th and they are an asset in the investigation.” 

According to intelligence sources, the satellite photos show several Ukrainian military Buk missile systems in the area.

Secretary of State John Kerry denounces Russia’s 

RT network as a “propaganda bullhorn” during remarks 

on April 24, 2014.

Why the investigation’s data is so uncertain has become a secondary mystery in the MH-17 whodunit. During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on July 20, 2014, three days after the crash, Secretary Kerry declared, “we picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar.”

But this U.S. data has never been made public. In the letter, Westerbeke wrote, “The American authorities have data, that come from their own secret services, which could provide information on the trajectory of the rocket. This information was shared in secret with the [Dutch] MIVD.” Westerbeke added that the information may be made available as proof in a criminal case as an “amtsbericht” or “official statement.”

Yet, despite the U.S. data, Westerbeke said the location of the launch site remains uncertain. Last October, the Dutch Safety Board placed the likely firing location within a 320-square-kilometer area that covered territory both under government and rebel control. (The safety board did not seek to identify which side fired the fateful missile.)

By contrast, Almaz-Antey, the Russian arms manufacturer of the Buk systems, conducted its own experiments to determine the likely firing location and placed it in a much smaller area near the village of Zaroshchenskoye, about 20 kilometers west of the Dutch Safety Board’s zone and in an area under Ukrainian government control.

Westerbeke wrote,

“Raw primary radar data and the American secret information are only two sources of information for the determination of the launch site. There is more. JIT collects evidence on the basis of telephone taps, locations of telephones, pictures, witness statements and technical calculations of the trajectory of the rocket. The calculations are made by the national air and space laboratory on the basis of the location of MH17, the damage pattern on the wreckage and the special characteristics of the rockets. JIT does extra research on top of the [Dutch Safety Board] research. On the basis of these sources, JIT gets ever more clarity on the exact launch site. In the second half of the year we expect exact results.” 

 

Quinn Schansman, a dual U.S.-Dutch citizen killed aboard Malaysia 

Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, 2014. (Photo from Facebook)

Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to stonewall a request from Thomas J. Schansman, the father of Quinn Schansman, the only American citizen to die aboard MH-17, to Secretary Kerry to release the U.S. data that Kerry has publicly cited.

Quinn Schansman, who had dual U.S.-Dutch citizenship, boarded MH-17 along with 297 other people for a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014. The 19-year-old was planning to join his family for a vacation in Indonesia.

In a letter to Kerry dated Jan. 5, 2016, Thomas J. Schansman noted Kerry’s remarks at a press conference on Aug. 12, 2014, when the Secretary of State said about the Buk anti-aircraft missile suspected of downing the plane:

“We saw the take-off. We saw the trajectory. We saw the hit. We saw this aeroplane disappear from the radar screens. So there is really no mystery about where it came from and where these weapons have come from.”

Although U.S. consular officials in the Netherlands indicated that Kerry would respond personally to the request, Schansman told me this week that he had not yet received a reply from Kerry.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com

Nothin's Gonna Change My World - D'oh

Watch As 1000 Years of European Borders Change in 3 Minutes

by KnowledgeToday

 

What You Look At and What You See

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see

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After Supporting Coup, Will Canada Denounce Murders of Honduran Popular and Indigenous Activists?

Another Indigenous Leader Killed in Honduras, Canadian Organizations say Enough is Enough

by MiningWatch Canada

March 18, 2016

Montreal/Toronto/Ottawa - Today, fifty Canadian organizations and networks sent a letter calling on the Canadian Government to pressure Honduran authorities and review Canadian foreign policy after another member of Berta Cáceres’ organization was murdered this week.

On Tuesday, Nelson Noé García Laínez from the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) was murdered in the community of Río Chiquito. The Indigenous leader was on his way home from helping a group of families that government security forces had just violently evicted when he was shot dead in the face by two unknown gunmen.

In the wake of Berta’s murder on March 3rd, which has generated international shock and dismay, organizations from across Canada find it deeply distressing that the people behind these murders unabashedly continue to pursue and kill members of COPINH.

Amnesty International issued an urgent action on Wednesday describing how COPINH leadership, community radio members, people protesting for justice for Berta Cáceres, one of Berta’s daughters and others have been questioned, stalked, photographed and followed during the past week.

European funders of the Agua Zarca dam project, including Dutch Development Bank (FMO) and FinnFund, responded to the violence by suspending all funding activities to Honduras and deciding to send fact-finding missions to the country.

The Mexican Network of Mining Affected Peoples also expressed alarm at Honduran authorities’ inability to protect COPINH and Berta’s family, adding that Gustavo Castro - the key witness to Berta’s murder and also a victim of the attack - faces increasing risk. Gustavo has been prevented from leaving Honduras despite a treaty for mutual cooperation in criminal investigations that would permit him to continue participating in the investigation from Mexico.

In response, Canadian organizations have issued a communiqué calling on the Canadian government to urge Honduran authorities to protect COPINH, Berta’s family and Gustavo Castro; to press Honduras to collaborate with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to involve independent, international experts into the ongoing investigation; to call for Gustavo Castro’s safe and immediate return to Mexico; and that the Lenca people’s right to free, prior and informed consent over mega-projects on their lands be respected.

They also call on the Canadian government to reverse its egregious policy toward Honduras to date.

Following the military-backed coup in 2009, Canada helped undermine efforts for the return of the democratically elected government of President Mel Zelaya and was quick to support and do business with repressive post-coup administrations. Since this time, over 100 environmental activists have been murdered with Berta’s assassination becoming the most widely known. Meanwhile, Canadian authorities pushed for a new mining law and signed a free trade agreement with Honduras to benefit Canadian investors.

These organizations insist that parliament should investigate the Canadian government’s role in Honduras during and since the coup, cut off support to the Honduran government and security forces, and ensure that no public support is provided to any infrastructure or mega-project that does not have the free, prior and informed consent of affected Indigenous communities.

A full copy of the letter sent today is available in English and French. Additional organizational or network sign-ons are welcome. Individuals are encouraged to respond to an online urgent action to Canadian and Honduran authorities in English/Spanish and French/Spanish. Also urge the safe and immediate return of Gustavo Castro to Mexico using this online action in Spanish.

For more information:

Amelia Orellana, (CDHAL), solidared(at)cdhal.org

 Jen Moore, MiningWatch Canada, jen(at)miningwatch.ca

Raul Burbano, Common Frontiers, Program Director, burbano(at)rogers.com

Propaganda Stream Feeds War in Syria and Everywhere Else

How Propaganda Feeds War on Syria

by Rick Sterling - Consortium News

March 17, 2016

Western propaganda against countries targeted for “regime change” can be especially insidious because mainstream journalists abandon skepticism and go with the flow, such as the case of Syrian “torture” photos.

There has been a pattern of sensational but untrue reports that lead to public acceptance of U.S. and Western military intervention in countries around the world. For instance, in Gulf War 1 (1990-91), there were reports of Iraqi troops stealing incubators from Kuwait, leaving babies to die on the cold floor. Relying on the testimony of a Red Crescent doctor, Amnesty International ‘verified’ the false claims.

A scene of destruction after an aerial bombing
in Azaz, Syria, Aug. 16, 2012. (U.S. government photo)

Ten years later, there were reports of yellow cake uranium going to Iraq for development of weapons of mass destruction.

One decade later, there were reports of Libyan soldiers drugged on viagra and raping women as they advanced.

In 2012, NBC broadcaster Richard Engel was supposedly kidnapped by a pro-Assad Syrian militia but luckily freed by Syrian opposition fighters, the “Free Syrian Army.”

All these reports were later confirmed to be fabrications and lies. They all had the goal of manipulating public opinion and they all succeeded in one way or another. Despite the consequences, which were often disastrous, none of the perpetrators were punished or paid any price.

It has been famously said, “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” This report is a critical review of the so-called “Caesar Torture Photos” story. As will be shown, there is strong evidence the accusations are entirely or substantially false.

Overview of ‘Caesar Torture Photos’

On Jan. 20, 2014, two days before negotiations about the Syrian conflict were scheduled to begin in Switzerland, a sensational report burst onto television and front pages around the world. The story was that a former Syrian army photographer had 55,000 photographs documenting the torture and killing of 11,000 detainees by the Syrian security establishment.

The Syrian photographer was given the code-name “Caesar.” The story became known as the “Caesar Torture Photos.” A team of lawyers plus digital and forensic experts were hired by the Carter-Ruck law firm, on contract to Qatar, to go to the Middle East and check the veracity of “Caesar” and his story. They concluded that “Caesar” was truthful and the photographs indicated “industrial scale killing.”

CNN, London’s Guardian and LeMonde broke the story which was subsequently broadcast in news reports around the world. The Caesar photo accusations were announced as negotiations began in Switzerland. With the opposition demanding the resignation of the Syrian government, negotiations quickly broke down.

For the past two years the story has been preserved with occasional bursts of publicity and supposedly corroborating reports. Most recently, in December 2015 Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report titled “If the Dead Could Speak” with significant focus on the Caesar accusations.

Following are 12 significant problems with the “Caesar torture photos” story:

Almost half the photos show the opposite of the allegations.

The Carter Ruck Inquiry Team claimed there were about 55,000 photos total with about half of them taken by “Caesar” and the other half by other photographers. The Carter Ruck team claimed the photos were all “similar.” Together they are all known as “Caesar’s Torture Photos.”

The photographs are in the custody of an opposition organization called the Syrian Association for Missing and Conscience Detainees (SAFMCD). In 2015, they allowed Human Rights Watch (HRW) to study all the photographs which have otherwise been secret. In December 2015, HRW released their report titled “If the Dead Could Speak.”

The biggest revelation is that over 46 percent of the photographs (24,568) do not show people “tortured to death” by the Syrian government. On the contrary, they show dead Syrian soldiers and victims of car bombs and other violence (HRW pp 2-3). Thus, nearly half the photos show the opposite of what was alleged. These photos, never revealed to the public, confirm that the opposition is violent and has killed large numbers of Syrian security forces and civilians.

The claim that other photos only show “tortured detainees” is exaggerated or false.

The Carter Ruck report says “Caesar” only photographed bodies brought from Syrian government detention centers. In its December 2015 report, HRW said, “ The largest category of photographs, 28,707 images, are photographs Human Rights Watch understands to have died in government custody, either in one of several detention facilities or after being transferred to a military hospital.” They estimate 6,786 dead individuals in the set.

The photos and the deceased are real, but how they died and the circumstances are unclear. There is strong evidence some died in conflict. Others died in the hospital. Others died and their bodies were decomposing before they were picked up. These photographs seem to document a war-time situation where many combatants and civilians are killed.

It seems the military hospital was doing what it had always done: maintaining a photographic and documentary record of the deceased. Bodies were picked up by different military or intelligence branches. While some may have died in detention; the big majority probably died in the conflict zones. The accusations by “Caesar.” the Carter Ruck report and HRW that these are all victims of “death in detention” or “death by torture” or death in “government custody” are almost certainly false.

The true identity of “Caesar” is probably not as claimed.

The Carter Ruck Report says “This witness who defected from Syria and who had been working for the Syrian government was given the code-name ‘Caesar’ by the inquiry team to protect the witness and members of his family.” (CRR p12)

However if his story is true, it would be easy for the Syrian government to determine who he really is. After all, how many military photographers took photos at Tishreen and Military 601 Hospitals during those years and then disappeared? According to the Carter Ruck report, Caesar’s family left Syria around the same time. Considering this, why is “Caesar” keeping his identity secret from the Western audience? Why does “Caesar” refuse to meet even with highly sympathetic journalists or researchers?

The fact that 46 percent of the total photographic set is substantially the opposite of what was claimed indicates two possibilities: Caesar and his promoters knew the contents but lied about them expecting nobody to look. Or, Caesar and his promoters did not know the contents and falsely assumed they were like the others. The latter seems more likely which supports the theory that Caesar is not who he claims to be.

The Carter Ruck Inquiry was faulty, rushed and politically biased.

The credibility of the “Caesar” story has been substantially based on the Carter-Ruck Inquiry Team which “verified” the defecting photographer and his photographs. The following facts suggest the team was biased with a political motive:

–The investigation was financed by the government of Qatar which is a major supporter of the armed opposition.

–The contracted law firm, Carter Ruck and Co, has previously represented Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, also known for his avid support of the armed opposition.

–The American on the legal inquiry team, Professor David M. Crane, has a long history working for the U.S. Defense Department and Defense Intelligence Agency. The U.S. government has been deeply involved in the attempt at “regime change” with demands that President Bashar “Assad must go” beginning in summer 2011 and continuing until recently.

–Crane is personally partisan in the conflict. He has campaigned for a Syrian War Crimes Tribunal and testified before Congress in October 2013, three months before the Caesar revelations.

–By their own admission, the inquiry team was under “time constraints” (CRR, p11).

–By their own admission, the inquiry team did not even survey most of the photographs

–The inquiry team was either ignorant of the content or intentionally lied about the 46 percent showing dead Syrian soldiers and attack victims.

–The inquiry team did its last interview with “Caesar” on Jan. 18, 2014, quickly finalized a report and rushed it into the media on Jan. 20, two days prior to the start of United Nations-sponsored negotiations.

The self-proclaimed “rigor” of the Carter Ruck investigation is without foundation. The claims to a “scientific” investigation are similarly without substance and verging on the ludicrous.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is involved.

In an interview on France24, David Crane of the inquiry team describes how “Caesar” was brought to meet them by “his handler, his case officer.” The expression “case officer” usually refers to the CIA. This would be a common expression for Professor Crane who previously worked in the Defense Intelligence Agency. The involvement of the CIA additionally makes sense since there was a CIA budget of $1 billion for Syria operations in 2013. Crane’s “Syria Accountability Project” is based at Syracuse University where the CIA actively recruits new officers despite student resistance.

Why does it matter if the CIA is connected to the “Caesar” story? Because the CIA has a long history of disinformation campaigns. In 2011, false reports of viagra fueled rape by Libyan soldiers were widely broadcast in Western media as the U.S. pushed for a military mandate. Decades earlier, the world was shocked to hear about Cuban troops fighting in Angola raping Angolan women. The CIA chief of station for Angola, John Stockwell, later described how they invented the false report and spread it around the world. The CIA was very proud of that disinformation achievement. Stockwell’s book, In Search of Enemies, is still relevant.

The accusers portray simple administrative procedures as mysterious and sinister.

The Carter Ruck inquiry team falsely claimed there were about 11,000 tortured and killed detainees. They then posed the question: Why would the Syrian government photograph and document the people they just killed? The Carter Ruck Report speculates that the military hospital photographed the dead to prove that the “orders to kill” had been followed. The “orders to kill” are assumed.

A more logical explanation is that dead bodies were photographed as part of normal hospital / morgue procedure to maintain a file of the deceased who were received or treated at the hospital. The same applies to the body labeling / numbering system. The Carter Ruck report suggests there is something mysterious and possibly sinister in the coded tagging system. But all morgues need to have a tagging and identification system.

The photos have been manipulated.

Many of the photos at the SAFMCD website have been manipulated. The information card and tape identity are covered over and sections of documents are obscured. It must have been very time-consuming to do this for thousands of photos. The explanation that they are doing this to “protect identity” is not credible since the faces of victims are visible. What are they hiding?

The Photo Catalog has duplicates and other errors.

There are numerous errors and anomalies in the photo catalog as presented at the SAFMCD website. For example, some deceased persons are shown twice with different case numbers and dates. There are other errors where different individuals are given the same identity number.

Researcher Adam Larson at A Closer Look at Syria website has done detailed investigation which reveals more errors and curious error patterns in the SAFMCD photo catalog.

9. With few exceptions, Western media uncritically accepted and promoted the story.

The Carter Ruck report was labeled “Confidential” but distributed to CNN, the Guardian and LeMonde. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour gushed over the story as she interviewed three of the inquiry team under the headline “EXCLUSIVE: Gruesome Syria photos may prove torture by Assad regime.” Critical journalism was replaced by leading questions and affirmation. David Crane said “This is a smoking gun.” Desmond de Silva “likened the images to those of holocaust survivors.”

The Guardian report was titled “Syrian regime document trove shows evidence of ‘industrial scale’ killing of detainees” with the subtitle, “Senior war crimes prosecutors say photographs and documents provide ‘clear evidence’ of systematic killing of 11,000 detainees”

One of the very few skeptical reports was by Dan Murphy in the Christian Science Monitor. Murphy echoed standard accusations about Syria but went on to say incisively, “the report itself is nowhere near as credible as it makes out and should be viewed for what it is: A well-timed propaganda exercise funded by Qatar, a regime opponent who has funded rebels fighting Assad who have committed war crimes of their own.”

Unfortunately that was one of very few critical reports in the mainstream media. In 2012, foreign affairs journalist Jonathan Steele wrote an article describing the overall media bias on Syria. His article was titled “Most Syrians back Assad but you’d never know from western media.” The media campaign and propaganda has continued without stop. It was in this context that the Carter Ruck Report was delivered and widely accepted without question.

Politicians have used the Caesar story to push for more US/NATO aggression.

Politicians seeking direct U.S. intervention for “regime change” in Syria were quick to accept and broadcast the “Caesar” story. They used it to demonize the Assad government and argue that the U.S. must act so as to prevent “another holocaust,” “another Rwanda,” “another Cambodia.”

When Caesar’s photos were displayed at the House Foreign Affairs Committee in Congress, Chairman Ed Royce said “It is far past time that the world act…. It is far past time for the United States to say there is going to be a safe zone across this area in northern Syria.”

The top-ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee is Eliot Engel. In November 2015 he said, “We’re reminded of the photographer, known as Caesar, who sat in this room a year ago, showing us in searing, graphic detail what Assad has done to his own people.” Engel went on to advocate for a new authorization for the use of military force.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger is another advocate for aggression against Syria. At an event at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in July 2015, he said, “If we want to destroy ISIS we have to destroy the incubator of ISIS, Bashar al-Assad.”

The irony and hypocrisy is doubly profound since Rep. Kinzinger has met and coordinated with opposition leader Okaidi who is a confirmed ally of ISIS. In contrast with Kinzinger’s false claims, it is widely known that ISIS ideology and initial funding came from Saudi Arabia and much of its recent wealth from oil sales via Turkey. The Syrian Army has fought huge battles against ISIS, winning some but losing others with horrific scenes of mass beheading carried out by ISIS.

The Human Rights Watch assessment is biased.

HRW has been very active around Syria. After the chemical attacks in greater Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013, HRW rushed a report which concluded that, based on a vector analysis of incoming projectiles, the source of the sarin carrying rockets must have been Syrian government territory. This analysis was later debunked as a “junk heap of bad evidence” by highly respected investigative journalist Robert Parry.

HRW’s assumption about the chemical weapon rocket flight distance was faulty. Additionally it was unrealistic to think you could determine rocket trajectory with 1 percent accuracy from a canister on the ground, especially from a canister on the ground that had deflected off a building wall.

In spite of this, HRW stuck by its analysis which blamed the Assad government. HRW Director Ken Roth publicly indicated dissatisfaction when an agreement to remove Syrian chemical weapons was reached. Roth wanted more than a “symbolic” attack on Syrian government forces.

Regarding the claims of “Caesar,” HRW seems to be the only non-governmental organization to receive the full set of photo files from the custodian. To its credit, HRW acknowledged that nearly half the photos do not show what has been claimed for two years: they show dead Syrian soldiers and militia along with scenes from crime scenes, car bombings, etc.

But HRW’s bias is clearly shown in how it handles this huge contradiction. Amazingly, HRW suggests the incorrectly identified photographs support the overall claim. They say, “This report focuses on deaths in detention. However other types of photographs are also important. From an evidentiary perspective, they reinforce the credibility of the claims of Caesar about his role as a forensic photographer of the Syrian security forces or at least with someone who has access to their photographs.” (HRW, p31) This seems like saying if someone lies to you half the time that proves they are truthful.

The files disprove the assertion that the files all show people who were tortured and killed. The photographs show a wide range of deceased persons, from Syrian soldiers to Syrian militia members to opposition fighters to civilians trapped in conflict zones to regular deaths in the military hospital. There may be some photos of detainees who died in custody after being tortured, or who were simply executed. We know that this happened in Iraqi detention centers under U.S. occupation. Ugly and brutal things happen in war times. But the facts strongly suggest that the “Caesar” account is basically untrue or a gross exaggeration.

It is striking that the HRW report has no acknowledgment of the war conditions and circumstances in Syria. There is no acknowledgment that the government and Syrian Arab Army have been under attack by tens of thousands of weaponized fighters openly funded and supported by many of the wealthiest countries in the world.

There is no hint at the huge loss of life suffered by the Syrian army and supporters defending their country. The current estimates indicate from 80,000 to 120,000 Syrian soldiers, militia and allies having died in the conflict. During the three years 2011-2013, including the period covered by the “Caesar” photos, it is estimated that over 52,000 Syrian soldiers and civilian militia died versus 29,000 anti-government forces.

HRW had access to the full set of photographs including the Syrian army and civilian militia members killed in the conflict. Why did they not list the number of Syrian soldiers and security forces they identified? Why did they not show a single image of those victims?

HRW goes beyond endorsing the falsehoods in the “Caesar story”; HRW suggests the cataloguing is only a partial listing. On page 5, the report says, “Therefore, the number of bodies from detention facilities that appear in the Caesar photographs represent only a part of those who died in detention in Damascus.”

On the contrary, the Caesar photographs seem to mostly show victims who died in a variety of ways in the armed conflict. The HRW assertions seem to be biased and inaccurate.

The legal accusations are biased and ignore the supreme crime of aggression.

The Christian Science Monitor journalist Dan Murphy gave an apt warning in his article on the Carter Ruck report about “Caesar.” While many journalists treated the prosecutors with uncritical deference, he said, “Association with war crime prosecutions is no guarantor of credibility – far from it. Just consider Luis Moreno Ocampo’s absurd claims about Viagra and mass rape in Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya in 2011. War crimes prosecutors have, unsurprisingly, a bias towards wanting to bolster cases against people they consider war criminals (like Assad or Qaddafi) and so should be treated with caution. They also frequently favor, as a class, humanitarian interventions.”

The Carter Ruck legal team demonstrated how accurate Murphy’s cautions could be. The legal team was eager to accuse the Syrian government of “crimes against humanity” but the evidence of “industrial killing,” “mass killing,” “torturing to kill” is dubious and much of the hard evidence shows something else.

In contrast, there is clear and solid evidence that a “Crime against Peace” is being committed against Syria. It is public knowledge that the “armed opposition” in Syria has been funded, supplied and supported in myriad ways by various outside governments. Most of the fighters, both Syrian and foreign, receive salaries from one or another outside power. Their supplies, weapons and necessary equipment are all supplied to them. Like the “Contras” in Nicaragua in the 1980’s, the use of such proxy armies is a violation of customary international law.

It is also a violation of the UN Charter which says “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other matter inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations”.

The government of Qatar has been a major supporter of the mercenaries and fanatics attacking the sovereign state of Syria. Given that fact, isn’t it hugely ironic to hear the legal contractors for Qatar accusing the Syrian government of “crimes against humanity”?

Isn’t it time for the United Nations to make reforms so that it can start living up to its purposes? That will require demanding and enforcing compliance with the UN Charter and International Law.

Rick Sterling is an independent research/writer and member of Syria Solidarity Movement. He can be contacted at rsterling1@gmail.com .

With "Significant" Amount of Diesel Fuel Aboard, 'American Eagle' Tug Runs Aground in Johnstone Strait

American Tug, "Ocean Eagle" and Its Barge Run aground in Johnstone Strait

by Ingmar Lee - 10,000 Ton Tanker

March 17, 2016

Friends; two days ago, the American tug, Ocean Eagle and its tug both ran aground near Chatam Point in Johnstone Strait.

If you get your news from CBC, you will have learned NOTHING about this serious event.

After the  rounding, the " Ocean Eagle" backtracked to Menzies Bay, Campbell River, where it currently languishes at anchor.

Currently, the Western Canada Marine Rescue Corporation ( WCMRC -owned by 5 giant tar- sands producers ) has arrived on scene, - albeit 2 days late.

It would appear that there's a problem... From yesterday's Campbell River Mirror:

Mike Davies - Campbell River Mirror

Mar 15, 2016 at 2:00 PM

At approximately 2 a.m. Tuesday morning, the Campbell River Coast Guard responded to an American barge that had run aground north of Campbell River.

The Ocean Eagle was carrying general cargo and was en route to Alaska when both it and the 100-foot tug towing it touched bottom, spurring the call to the Coast Guard.

According to officials at the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre (JRCC) in Victoria, the Campbell River Coast Guard responded to the incident, which happened near Chatham Point, and escorted the barge and tug to Menzies Bay for examination to determine the extent of the damage.

Five people were on board, but no one was hurt in the event.

The JRCC says there was no evidence of environmental pollution at the site of the grounding, but the extent of the damage will be determined during the examination of the vessels. The tug was carrying what is being called a “significant” amount of diesel. The tug's capacities are  87,930 gallons of fuel oil, 1,350 gallons of lube oil, 25 gallons of hydraulic oil, and 5,550 gallons of water.

Cheers, Ingmar

Not Going Down Without a Fight, SITE C Hunger Strikers Vows to Starve for the Peace River Valley

SITE C PROTESTORS DAY 5 HUNGER STRIKE!

by Kristin Henry

March 17, 2016

VANCOUVER, B.C. - Kristin Henry is now on day 5 of her hunger strike. She is beginning to feel the mental and physical effects of having not eaten for the better part of the week. She remains strong in her demands for the halt of the Site C Dam Project in the Peace River Valley.

We at the camp request that the public of B.C. hold Prime Minister Trudeau accountable to his commitment to repair relationships with First Nations, and to move towards truly green and sustainable energy for Canada by not issuing more permits for the project and requiring the project go for further review with the BCUC before any more of its destruction continues.

The camp and supporters around Kristin have been slowly growing. With three more tents and tarps up for protection from the wind and rain. Tonight there will be 5 women staying in the camp, with more expected this coming weekend.

Yesterday, the women of the camp welcomed a man into the camp as he has taken on a hunger strike in solidarity with Kristin. Sage Birley is a farmer from the Peace River Valley who has been active in voicing his opposition to the project. Sage's reason for joining the strike is:

"I grew up under the impression that people in the south didn’t care about the struggles faced by people in the North East of the province. But my perspective was shifted visiting Vancouver when I found out Kristin Henry was willing to go on a hunger strike to stop the Site C Dam.
"As a farmer in the Peace River Region I know first hand the value of the land in the Peace River valley and the potential it has to feed one million people while creating long-term sustainable jobs. The unique conditions of the Peace River Valley such as it’s alluvial soil and superior micro climate make it the Northeast’s only chance at food security. If we throw away this incredible valley for a few short term jobs and power that BC Hydro has failed to prove we need; we are missing the opportunity to invest in food, a commodity that will only continue to increase in value.
"I have been so inspired by the work that the incredible women who have set up this camp have done. So in an expression of my own support and gratitude, and with their permission, I will be spending 3 days participating in the Hunger Strike.

"If someone I had previously never met is willing to go without food to protect the food security of the Peace Region then it is time for me to do my part. It’s time to stand in solidarity to halt the Site C Dam so we can feed our communities and so we can all have food on our plates."

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - HUNGER STRIKE DAY 5

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Amy Widmer
Sage Birley

Bernie Lights It Up: Clinton’s Wall Street and Oil Industry Bribes

Sanders still has a path to victory: Decrying Clinton’s Wall Street and Oil Industry Bribes, Bernie Soldiers On

by Dave Lindorff - This Can't Be Happening

March 16, 2016

Bernie Sanders’ brash campaign to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for president took a “Yu-u-u-u-ge” hit on Tuesday, not only losing big as expected in Florida and North Carolina, but also in Ohio, and narrowly losing too in Illinois and Missouri.

But the good news is that at a big rally in Phoenix, Arizona, held (but blacked out by the corporate media) on the night of the ballot counting in those elections in a state that will be holding its Democratic primary next Tuesday, Sanders announced [1] that his now longer-shot campaign for the nomination will continue.

Sanders, early in his campaign, had said that at the end of the day, if Hillary Clinton were to win the nomination, he would support her.

But the reality is that by not conceding at this point in the campaign, with two and a half months of primaries still to go, including in such big states as California, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Sanders will continue (as he did in Phoenix) to shame and embarrass his opponent Clinton, calling out her reliance on millions of dollars in corrupt and corrupting campaign contributions from Wall Street banks and hedge funds, military contractors, pharmaceutical companies and oil companies.

Then too, while the corporate media are treating Sanders as if his effort is now quixotic, the other reality is that he can still win. Clinton has run through all the states that she had any real advantage in and Sanders has come painfully close to winning others, like Illinois and Missouri. Now the the focus of the primaries moves west, where Sanders should be at his strongest. He needs to win the rest of the races by 58%. That's a high bar, but consider that he's already done that in Kansas, Vermont, Minnesota and New Hampshire, and came close to that landslide figure in Nebraska, it's doable. The Sanders goal is to win big going forward, and if Clinton starts losing badly in those contests, to then work at prying loose both Super and pledged delegates worried that Clinton will lose against Trump or whoever the Republicans end up nominating.

[1]Late Tuesday night, Sanders continued his campaign with a rally in 

Phoenix, where he denounced Clinton for taking corporate bribes 

(click here to go to the actual speech)

He will continue to denounce the job-killing trade agreements, from NAFTA to the latest one, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (sic) currently being pushed by President Obama, and promoted by Clinton while she was Secretary of State.

He will continue to call for a country that uses diplomacy, not war, as its default foreign policy approach.

And he will continue to denounce the corrupt and racist justice system and the militarized policing in the US that have together made this country the incarceration capital of the world, and a nation that is more of a domestic war zone than a civilized society.

In continuing his campaign in this manner, Sanders will be undermining Clinton, particularly among the key portions of the electorate that are normally the most supportive of Democratic candidates -- progressives, young people, African Americans and Latinos, and working-class people of all colors.

I don’t know what Sanders will ultimately decide to do when the Democratic Convention is over should Hillary Clinton become the party’s presidential nominee. Maybe he’ll refuse to endorse her. I hope he decides to do that. But even if he were to endorse her, given all that he has said, and given the corrupt and dirty way she has campaigned against him with her lies and misrepresentations, I suspect any endorsement, if offered, wouldn’t be made with any enthusiasm.

It’s a good sign that speaking on the night of his sweeping losses March 15, when some candidates might have emulated Republican candidate Marco Rubio and dropped out of the race, Sanders once again condemned Clinton for the money she has taken from big business interests. As he said, to roars from the assembled crowd:

“...She has a super PAC which among other special interests has received $15 million from Wall Street. She has received money from the drug companies and the fossil fuel industry. She has given speeches on Wall Street for $225,000 a pop. Now to my mind if you’re going to give a speech for $225,000 it must be a really great speech, and if it’s such a great speech, all of America should be able to read it!”

It would be hard to switch from that kind of harsh and truthful attack to an endorsement.

It remains to be seen how Sanders will decide to end his campaign, assuming he doesn’t through some miracle nab the nomination at July’s convention in Philadelphia. Clearly he has struck a chord with a huge segment of the electorate, either handily winning primaries in states from New Hampshire to Colorado, or coming painfully close as in Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri and Nevada. He would have won many more states and delegates, and would probably be on the way to an easy nomination, had the corporate media not deceived much of the voting public, first by ignoring his campaign altogether for months, and then, when that became impossible, by spreading the lie that Clinton was the inevitable candidate and the one who would more likely defeat whoever was the Republican candidate. Many of those decieved voters have told exit polls that they liked what Sanders was saying but wanted to vote for someone who would defeat Donald Trump or whoever else won the Republican primary.

Those who have listened to and supported Sanders‘ call for a political system free of corporate sponsorship, a state-run health system that is available to all, free public colleges, real action on climate change, a foreign policy not based on war, and a criminal justice system that is not racist, and that focuses on rehabilitation, not on punishment number in the millions, and they are ready to be organized into a political force to be reckoned with. Sanders is in the position to help do that.

He alluded to this reality in his talk in Arizona when he said, again to loud cheers:

“Everybody here understands one important historical fact, and that is change -- real change -- never takes place from the top on down. It always, it always takes place from the grassroots on up. Workers, a hundred plus years ago said they would not be treated like animals, and they struggled and went to jail and were beaten up in order to form unions and get collective bargaining. That’s how we fight for workers’ rights. For hundreds of years African Americans and their white allies struggled together to end racism and bigotry and segregation in America. Those changes did not take place from the top on down. It was blacks and whites standing together and saying we will not accept racism in the United States of America. People forget, but a hundred years ago, women in America did not have the right to vote, could not get the education they wanted, could not do the jobs they wanted. But what happened is that people looked around and said, hey, in America we will not accept women being treated as second-class citizens. It’s gonna change! If we were in this room seven years ago, and somebody had said you know what, I think gay marriage will be legal in every state in this country by 2015, nobody would have believed it. But it happened, and it happened because the gay community and their straight allies said that in America people have the right to love whoever they want. If we were in this room five years ago, and somebody jumped up and said you know Bernie, I think this $7.25 minimum wage is a starvation wage. We gotta raise it to $15 an hour!, the person next to him would have said you’re nuts! You’re wanting to double the minimum wage. That’s crazy! Can’t happen. Well you know what happened? Fast-food workers at McDonalds and Burger King went out on strike. They stood up and fought back? And then you know what happened? Seattle, $15 an hour. San Francisco, Los Angeles $15 an hour. Oregon, $15 an hour. And that $15-an-hour movement is sweeping the country. But here is my point, the most important point: Do not settle for the status quo when the status quo is broken!”

Sanders clearly knows that it is this kind of political action in the streets that makes real “revolutionary” change, and it’s getting harder and harder for me to imagine him, after building up that level of energy and support, just walking away from it after the convention in July and shilling for the likely winner (especially if hundreds of thousands of Sanders backers converge on Philadelphia to demand that he be nominated). Hillary Clinton, after all, stands for all the things he has been denouncing for this whole primary season.

As he also said in his Arizona speech, which ran for an hour, “What I do not want to see are billionaires spending unlimited sums of money buying elections and undermining the democracy which has made our country so great.” That of course is exactly what Hillary Clinton and her corporate backers have been doing for the past year or more, and it is what she will be doing, should she be the party’s nominee, in the general election following the convention.

Here’s hoping Sanders wins the nomination. And here's hoping that should he fail to win it, that instead of backing corporate hack Hillary Clinton, he chooses to criticize both candidates in the general election, and instead use the millions of dollars he has raised and the credibility he has established over the last 10 months to help convert the mass support base he has assembled (a third of whom according to polls say they will not vote for Clinton) into a mass movement for change operating outside of the electoral system and the terminally corrupted Democratic Party.


Links: [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wwHxmEdyeU

BDS Can't Lose: To Combat Racism in Israel

Why BDS Cannot Lose: A Moral Threshold to Combat Racism in Israel 

by Ramzy Baroud - CounterPunch

March 17, 2016

A foray of condemnations of the boycott of Israel seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Calls from Western governments, originating from the UK, the US, Canada and others, to criminalize the boycott of Israel have hardly slowed down the momentum of the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS).

On the contrary, it has accelerated.

It is as if history is repeating itself. Western governments took on the pro-South African Anti-Apartheid Movement, fighting it at every corner and branding its leaders. Nelson Mandela and many of his comrades were called terrorists.

Once he passed away in 2013, top US politicians vied for the opportunity to list the late African leader’s great qualities in their many press conferences, speaking of his commitment to justice and human rights. However, Mandela’s name was not removed from the US terrorism watch list till 2008.

The Reagan administration called the African National Congress – the main platform for the anti-apartheid struggle – a terrorist group, as well. The ANC’s strategy against the Apartheid government was “calculated terror”, the administration said in 1986.

Many South Africans would tell you that the fight for equality is far from over, and that the struggle against institutional apartheid has been replaced by equally pressing matters. Corruption, neoliberal economics, and disproportionate allocation of wealth are only a few such challenges.

But aside from those who are still holding on to the repellent dream of racial superiority, the vast majority of humanity looks back at South Africa’s Apartheid era with revulsion.

The South Africa experience, which is still fresh in the memory of most people, is now serving as a frame of reference in the struggle against Israeli Apartheid in Palestine, where Jews have been designated as a privileged race, and Palestinian Muslims and Christians are poorly treated, oppressed and occupied.

While racism is, unfortunately, a part of life and is practiced, observed and reported on in many parts of the world, institutionalized racism through calculated governmental measures is only practiced – at least, openly – in a few countries around the world: Burma is one of them. However, no country is as adamant and open about its racially-motivated laws and apartheid rules as the Israeli government. Almost every measure taken by the Israeli Knesset that pertains to Arabs is influenced by this mindset: Palestinians must remain inferior, and Jews must ensure their superiority at any cost.

The outcome of Israel’s racist pipe dream has been a tremendous amount of violence, palpable inequality, massive walls, trenches, Jews-only roads, military occupation, and even laws that outlaw the very questioning of these practices.

Yet, the greater its failure to suppress Palestinian Resistance and to slow down the flow of solidarity from around the world with the oppressed people, the more Israel labors to ensure its dominance and invest in racial segregation.

“The whole world is against us,” is quite a common justification in Israel itself, of the international reaction to Israel’s Apartheid practices. With time, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and feeds on past notions that are no longer applicable. No matter how many companies divest from Israel – the latest being the world’s largest security corporation G4S – and, no matter how many universities and churches vote to boycott Israel, Israeli society remains entrenched behind the slogan and its disconcerting sense of victimization.

Many Israelis believe that their country is a ‘villa in a jungle’ – a notion that is constantly enforced by top Israeli leaders. Right-wing Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is purposely advancing the crippling fear in his own society. Unable to see the unmistakable crimes he has carried out against Palestinians for years, he continues to perpetuate the idea of the purity of Israel and the wickedness of everyone else.

In February, he spoke of the need to create yet more fences to keep his ‘villa in the jungle’ safe, and, to quote, “to defend ourselves against the wild beasts” in neighboring countries. The statement was made only a few weeks before the launch of the annual Israel Apartheid Week in numerous cities around the world. It is as if the Israeli leader wished to contribute to the global campaign which is successfully making a case against Israel as being an Apartheid state that ought to be boycotted.

Israel is, of course, no ‘villa in the jungle’. Since its inception over the ruins of destroyed and occupied Palestine, it has meted out tremendous violence, provoked wars and harshly responded to any resistance carried out by its victims. Similar to the US and the UK designation of Mandela as a ‘terrorist’, Palestinian Resistance and its leaders are also branded, shunned, and imprisoned. Israel’s so-called ‘targeted killings’ – the assassination of hundreds of Palestinians in recent years have often been applauded by the US and other Israeli allies as victories in their ‘war on terror.’

Comforted by the notion that the US and other western governments are on their side, most Israelis are not worried about exhibiting their racism and calling for more violence against Palestinians. According to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center and revealed on March 08, nearly half of Israel’s Jewish population want to expel Palestinians to outside of their historic homeland.

The study was conducted between October 2014 and May 2015 – months before the current Intifada began in October 2015 – and is described as a first-of-its-kind survey as it reached out to over 5,600 Israeli adults and touched on myriads of issues, including religion and politics. 48% of all Israeli Jews want to exile Arabs. However, the number is significantly higher – 71% – among those who define themselves as ‘religious’.

What options are then left for Palestinians, who have been victimized and ethnically cleansed from their own historic homeland for 68 years, when they are described and treated as ‘beasts’, killed at will, and suffer under a massive system of apartheid and racial discrimination that has never ceased after all of these years?

BDS has, thus far, been the most successful strategy and tactic to support Palestinian Resistance and steadfastness while, at the same time, holding Israel accountable for its progressively worsening policies of apartheid. The main objective behind BDS, an entirely non-violent movement that is championed by civil society across the globe, is not to punish ordinary Israelis, but to raise awareness of the suffering of Palestinians and to create a moral threshold that must be achieved if a just peace is ever to be realized.

That moral threshold has already been delineated in the relationship between Palestinians and South Africans when Mandela himself said,

“We know all too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

He was not trying to be cordial or diplomatic. He meant every word. And, finally, many around the world are making the same connection, and are wholeheartedly in agreement.
 

Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London). His website is: ramzybaroud.net

More articles by:Ramzy Baroud

The Disintegration of Li'l Marco

Coke Zero: The Disintegration of Marco Rubio

by Patrick Henningsen - 21st Century Wire

March 16, 2016

Any business expert will tell you that marketing is not an exact science. The same is true in politics, and even more so in this historic election season.

As the polls closed yesterday, Republican candidate and US Senator Marco Rubio took to the podium to announce he was finally bowing out the GOP presidential primary race. Front runner Donald Trump nearly swept the board starting with Rubio’s home state of Florida, followed by Illinois, North Carolina, Missouri and in US territory Mariana Islands, while Ohio governor John Kasich took the remaining contest winning his first primary in his home state.

With 99 delegates at stake in a winner take all contest, Florida was meant to be Rubio’s gallant last stand. Even though the polls showed Rubio trailing in double digits before Tuesday, Rubio still insisted he was going to win, and even go on to win the nomination too.

                                                Critics blasted Rubio’s ‘plastic’ smile.

“Quite frankly, I think a lot of people are going to be embarrassed tonight and are going to want refunds from the money they spent on those polls because we’re going to win Florida,” said Rubio.

“We feel very optimistic about that.”

When it was all said and done, Trump beat Rubio 46% to 27% in Florida. A blow-out.

By the end of his long drive, Rubio had only managed to win one state caucus in Minnesota, leaving him with no real primary victory. To his investors, the truth of matter might be almost too painful to comprehend – that beyond all the hype, their man was really a bottom tier candidate.

Super Tuesday’s humiliating loss was indicative of a Rubio rise… that never rose. Before Tuesday’s defeat, no matter how poorly Florida Senator Marco Rubio showed in previous primary elections, and no matter how badly he was polling in his home state of Florida – the media, led by CNN and FOX News, still covered his campaign like he was winning the election. Clearly, there was a concerted and well-coordinated effort by the Republican establishment and major broadcast media outlets to promote Rubio’s candidacy well above the actual candidate’s weight division.

Three weeks ago, in a last-ditch effort to elevate his poll numbers, Rubio tried to out-Trump Trump, by unleashing his own round of back-ally personal verbal insults at the front runner in the hope of pulling The Donald back down to earth. Rubio began publicly calling Trump a “con man” and asserted that Trump had not achieved anything in his business career and along with fellow competitor Ted Cruz, inferred that the billionaire property and entertainment mogul Trump had inherited $200 million dollars from his late father and therefore was not deserving of any accolades. When Trump would joke about Rubio’s lack of height (Rubio is 5’8″ and Trump is 6’2″), Rubio hit back joking, “look how small Donald’s hands are, and you what they say about men with small hands..” to his crowds roaring with laughter before the Texas primary three weeks earlier.

Trump finally hit back with a moniker that Rubio could never shake, renaming him “Little Marco.”

LITTLE MARCO: Trump’s crude deconstruction of Rubio delivered the final blow.

Although their cage match pulled more TV airtime and attention away from a Trump-obsessed media, in the end it backfired horribly for Marco, as America got an uncomfortable snapshot of a nasty and desperate Rubio – hardly the look of stability, moderation and “unity” that Rubio marketeers were trying to project, and hardly presidential either.

What was most telling about Rubio’s response to a situation, partly of his own making, was that Rubio shirked any responsibility for ratcheting-up the rhetoric, and instead tried to blame Trump for the degrading ‘tone’ of the election:

“This is a frightening, grotesque and disturbing development in American politics,” Rubio said of the violence.

“We are being ripped apart at the seams now,” he continued. “I’m sad for this country. This is supposed to be the example to the world of how a republic functions and instead people are watching third-world images last night coming out of Chicago.”

It was too late. The damage was already done. Some pundits were calling it “political suicide” by Rubio – a gross error of political miscalculation on his part. But this would be missing the point because in reality, beyond all the incredible marketing hype, Rubio’s campaign never achieved any serious market penetration to begin with.

It’s important to remember that the establishment firmly believed, and still to this day, that Marco Rubio could be the Republican Party’s answer to the marketing sensation that was Barack Obama in 2008. By capitalizing on his youth and his Latino profile, the GOP elite saw this as a ‘turn-key’ marketing solution. Just like a soda pop brand, party and media operatives believed that by positioning Rubio’s brand in a highbrow market tier, voters would make the necessary connections and move to act by casting their vote for him.

 

DETATCHED: Darryl Issa throws himself under the bus,, desperate to inflate Rubio before Super Tuesday.

On Super Tuesday, the transmission truly fell out of the Rubio marketing machine. After months of boasting about how he would win his home state, Rubio plugger and California Congressman Darryl Issa (R), insisted that, “Marco is leading in early (voting) returns in Florida.”

Seriously, Congressman Issa?

Issa appeared to be carrying water for the GOP establishment by doing the last minute media rounds for kingmaker Mitt Romney, who weeks earlier dropped the gauntlet down on the Trump train during a speech at the University of Utah. Romney, the former Republican presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor implored his GOP herd to join forces and stop Trump by splitting the votes by voting for Kasich in Ohio, and for Rubio in Florida. Romney’s hoped that his divide and conquer strategy would rob Trump of the delegate majority needed to secure the GOP nomination before the Republican National Convention in Cleveland Ohio this July.

JET-SET: Rubio taking instructions from elite off-shoring 

corporate raider Mitt Romney.

Clearly, Romney had staked his claim behind Marco Rubio then, which means that Rubio’s collapse in Florida has half deflated Romney’s Revolt.

Romney continued to dig a hole for himself in Florida before Super Tuesday by recording an automated “Robo-call” used to phone prospective Marco Rubio voters in Florida, nearly begging voters to cast ballots for, “a candidate who can defeat Hillary Clinton and who can make us proud.”

The recorded message went on: “If we Republicans were to choose Donald Trump as our nominee, I believe that the prospects for a safe and prosperous future would be greatly diminished — and I’m convinced Donald Trump would lose to Hillary Clinton.”

Making Robo-calls for a candidate who people were already calling “a Robot”, wasn’t exactly a smart move by Romney.

Far from swinging the election towards Rubio, what Mitt Romney really proved was that money and power can’t buy common sense.

Ghost Run

For anyone who actually bothered to look close enough, hints of Rubio’s collapse were everywhere, but you wouldn’t know if from media coverage over the last two months. If not for favorable network face-time on the GOP TV debates, along with Rubio’s elite financier backers like billionaire Paul Singer and Cayman hedge fund raider Romney, it’s safe to say that Rubio’s numbers might had been well below those of his fellow non-starter, Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Rubio-linked multi-million dollar Super PAC funds pulled out all the stops against Trump too, launching a social media tidal wave of anti-Trump messages before the Florida primary:

If every Rubio supporter makes 1 phone call #MarcoRubio will win! Convince 1 voter to vote for Marco! #CallForMarco pic.twitter.com/d8wOKZWFA4

— Stop Trump PAC (@StopTrumpPAC) March 15, 2016

Last Wednesday, Rubio hired out a football stadium to stage a homecoming rally in his own state. Unfortunately, no one showed up. TV cameras had to be moved forward into a tiny area around the field’s goal posts in order to make the rally look as if more than a few hundred people bothered to show up. Far from jovial and inspirational, the atmosphere was that of deflation and despondency. It was tragic.

Rubio stadium event in Hialeah. Stands empty; crowd in one end zone. pic.twitter.com/9zj0xslwSA

— Byron York (@ByronYork) March 9, 2016

And when the cameras zoomed-in, it looked like this:

The crowd in Hialeah is fired up for @marcorubio tonight! #FLforMarco #FLPrimary pic.twitter.com/e34GsoWWwH

— Team Marco (@TeamMarco) March 9, 2016

CNN had dispatched one of its intrepid city-dwelling reporters, Jason Carroll, out to Hialeah, Florida to cover the event. Carrol tried be nice about it, describing the event as “much, much smaller” than a ‘normal’ Rubio event. So much for Marco’s homecoming, and so much for Mitt Romney’s plan to have Marco win his home state to force a brokered convention in July.

If Romney’s revolt was ever going to happen, it wasn’t going to be in Florida. You’d think Mitt’s people would’ve figured that one out, but there you go (millions are beginning to understand now why Romney performed so poorly in the 2012 election).

Jason Carol’s cameraman delivered a dim shot of the rally. If there was a church BBQ down the road, it would have drawn a bigger crowd than this.

 

After this debacle last week, Rubio still found the gumption to go on national TV and more or less instruct his supporters to cast their vote for John Kasich in the Ohio primary. Never before in modern American history have we seen presidential candidates instructing their supporters to vote against them in order to derail the party frontrunner in the hopes of triggering a brokered Republican National Convention in July.

In reality, a brokered convention means that even if Donald Trump wins the popular votes and the collects the most delegates in the GOP primaries – the Republican Party will call for a vote on the convention floor asking for all delegates to vote again, which in this case would mean that if the combined delegates of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich exceeds that held by Donald Trump, then Trump would be dumped by his own party’s establishment insiders at the convention – in favor of another yet to be determined party elite selection. Most likely this would be Mitt Romney’s former running mate, House Speaker Paul Ryan, or one of the other three aforementioned candidates.

Great on Paper

Before he was cast-off by the Tea Party purists in favor of Cruz, Rubio had positioned his brand as one of insurgency, but the crowd didn’t buy it. So the brand was repositioned as a “safe” choice for voters.

When the Rubio vs Trump may lay first started, I had said that this was the inevitable result of the Republican establishment who were, “going for the mathematical and demographically pragmatic option – which would be Marco Rubio, with Wisconsin’s Scott Walker throwing early innings in the bull pen. Orthodox RNC thinking last spring believed that Rubio, with less than one term in Senate and no leadership experience, would somehow repeat the ‘Obama effect’ of 2008, and finally usher their party into the 21st century. Things looked very different for Hillary last spring too, where she seemed invincible on the Democrat side as well as in national polling. On paper at least, it seems that Rubio would “tick all the right boxes” for the GOP elite presiding over a party in decline and disarray – young (44 years old, although you’d put him at a decade his junior), and even more importantly, Latino, giving the GOP a shot at pulling in a crucial trilateral voter compliment: Hispanic-American, independents and moderate Democrats. On paper this all makes perfect sense, but running for President in the United States of America isn’t simply a case of what looks logical on paper. Case and point: Bernie Sanders, Ben Carson and, of course, Donald Trump.

 

It was a truly devastating moment for the Rubio campaign who had raised no less than $70 million so far as part of a desperate establishment bid to market the ‘Rubio brand’. According to a chief strategist for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Rubio has been “more hyped than Crystal Pepsi,” in reference to Pepsi’s 1992 marketing flop.

“Sen. Rubio has been more hyped than Crystal Pepsi, but he has flopped even worse,” said Weaver last week.

“Even a well-conceived, high-financed marketing campaign won’t work if people don’t want to buy the product. That’s the Rubio campaign’s problem…. Behind the nice packaging, voters are discovering there is little substance.”

Not surprisingly, I don’t really like Crystal Pepsi. No one does. But everyone remembers when Coca Cola tried to inflate Coke Zero before it completely flopped. Millions were wasted in vain, and it seems that the only people who really benefited from this exercise in hype were the advertising agencies and the production companies who produced them – and also the media networks who sold the ad space to Coca Cola.

The same could be said with Rubio, and of course with Jeb Bush and a few others, although Rubio may still live to run another day. Even Coke Zero can become a Hero (well, according to Coca Cola, anyway) after years and years of marketing capital is invested into that product which no one was really interested in to begin with.

Billionaire Boys Club

Billionaires need love to gamble, especially in politics – and they gambled heavily – and lost, on Marco Rubio. One might question the establishment’s efficacy in leaving an invisible Rubio in a primary race where he’s taking votes away from a more promising challenger in Texas Senator Rafael Edward (Ted) Cruz. Ditto with Kasich.

Maybe it’s the egos, or maybe Trump is actually pulling the master strings. Either way, the establishment’s anti-Trump obsession is tearing the Republican Party apart.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more like a true life black comedy, all three desperate GOP challengers found themselves courting the endorsement of election dropout and former Florida governor, Jeb Bush, on the Thursday before the CNN debate began.

As sexy goes, this endorsement hardly registers outside of a few select country clubs. If it were an endorsement from 90 year old Barbara Bush then it might mean something.

So poor was Jeb’s showing in the primary contest – even after burning through over $100 million in campaign donations (he raised over $150 million) and received around 7% of the vote – it’s difficult to see why anyone among Rubio, Cruz and Kasich would be offering a stump for Mr. Excitement, a “low energy” dynastic nonstarter.

On balance, this endorsement would probably garner less votes than an endorsement from David Duke. Such is the bizarre and sideshow-like nature of this 2016 presidential election.

A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY: Rubio uses Neocon’s 

PNAC and ‘Israel-first’ old marketing slogan.

Why the Elite Loved Rubio

Like his globalist colleague Kasich, and despite his evasive comments on the campaign trail, Rubio seems very committed to Wall Street and Bilderberg principles regarding corporate-brokered trade pacts like TPP, TTIP, GAT, and the WTO.

On foreign policy, Rubio is a pro-war Republican, calling for regime change in Syria, and even made the incredible comment during one of the GOP’s February debates that, “We didn’t overthrow Gaddafi, the Libyan people did…”, having not realized that months of US air bombardment and arming and working with Islamist militant on the ground is what toppled the Libyan state in 2011.

The other obvious, if not bizarre indicator that the globalists’ billionaire, military industrial class are firmly backing Rubio was hidden in plain sight. His campaign slogan was “A New American Century”, and of course, the significance of this was completely lost on the mainstream media. It seemed that Rubio had stolen his campaign slogan from the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and John Bolton (and Jeb Bush, who also signed the PNAC pledge in 1998) whose neoconservative pro-war think tank, Project for A New American Century (PNAC) was arguably the architect of America’s post-9/11 foreign policy. PNAC was also an extension of Israel’s foreign policy too, which makes sense considering how aggressively Rubio advocates for Israeli interests.

When you actually look at Rubio’s record during his time in the Florida legislature, it does not paint a pretty picture at all.

Without too much effort, any member of the media, including CNN’s Don Lemon, Jake Tapper or Anderson Cooper, could find a substantial trail of dirt behind the young Senator – if only for the fact that Rubio’s record seems to be off limits by the media and newspapers like the New York Times – all of whom are devoted to only running critical exposes on Donald Trump. Rubio’s dubious track record of scandals and other pieces of corruption are well-known in his home state, but almost invisible nationally. Top of that list might be one David Rivera, a long-time political ally and close friend of Marco Rubio – who also happens to be under investigation by the FBI.

That’s only the beginning. One of the most telling scandals involved Rubio selling his home to a lobbyist, and getting way over the asking price. On The Issues reports:

“Rubio’s personal finances were questioned because he made a $200,000 profit selling a house he owned to the mother of a chiropractor who was lobbying for a change in state insurance rules. Rubio had been a holdout, but removed a block on the measure shortly after the home sale and voted for it. Rubio was criticized for failing to disclose a home equity loan he received from US Century Bank, whose chairman, Sergio Pino, was a political supporter. The house had been appraised for $185,000, more than the purchase price just 37 days after he bought it. Rubio’s staff said the value jumped because he’d locked in a lower preconstruction price and made improvements. US Century Bank–a large recipient of federal bank bailout money–denied making a sweetheart deal.”

There are a number of other sketchy scandals linking Rubio to Florida’s organized crime syndicates, ponzi schemes, including shady deals involving cash payouts and dodgy lobbyists, some of which can be read here.

Then there’s the business of Rubio’s “sugar daddy”, Jewish billionaire and Israeli luminary Norman Braman. Not only is Braman bank-rolling the Rubio political machine (in return for…?), but Brahman’s ‘charity’ foundation also employs Marco’s wife Jeanette Rubio too.

ON BOARD: Rubio with Israeli luminary Shimon Peres.

Brahman is also Rubio’s entrée into the Israeli Lobby. It was Brahman who flew Marco and his family to Israel in 2010 to be inducted into the Israeli mind-set. This is also evident through Rubio’s pro-Israeli rhetoric, where during one debate he proudly announced, “There can be NO negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians right now…”

In another recent speech, Rubio took things a step further by insinuating that anyone who criticizes Israel is racist, insisting that, “All of this anti-Israel action going on globally, it’s anti-Semitism.”

He could easily be speaking as an Israeli envoy, speaking straight off of the lobby’s talking script.

That’s just a snapshot of what sort of political animal Marco Rubio is – not unlike the rest of the pack, and perhaps a lot more shrewd, pushy and cunning that many others. You wouldn’t expect anything less by anyone who believes that they deserve to be elected President of the United States having served less than one term in the US Senate at the age of 44.

It’s not certain yet whether or not Rubio will be able to retain his Florida US Senate seat after announcing he would be campaigning for president last year. Maybe a run for governor in Florida is in the cards.

One thing is certain though, at his young age and with powerful backers like the Israeli Lobby – we have not seen the last of Marco Rubio. His talent and ability as a speaker and his potential for a broad-based appeal is undeniable and you can be certain he will remain a key tool for the establishment for many years to come.

Just like Coke Zero, with enough marketing muscle and money injected into it, every brand can have a second life.

READ MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files

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Gabriola Residents Oppose Offshore Anchorage "Parking Lot"

Anchoring freighters off Gabriola Island coast will damage environment, yet no proper assessment is being done

by GAFA

March 15, 2016

Gabriola Island, BC – A proposal to establish five anchorages along the Northeast coast of Gabriola Island – to create an ‘overflow parking’ for cape-size freighters heading to BC ports – will cause irreparable harm to the environment, yet the only environmental study being done is of questionable value, says the group organized to oppose the anchorages.

The five anchorages are being sought by Pacific Pilotage Authority on behalf of the BC Chamber of Shipping, Port Metro Vancouver and the Nanaimo Port Authority. They are proposed for overflow parking for 300-metre vessels while they wait to load coal and other commodities at BC ports.

“Anchoring giant freighters off the coast of Gabriola Island has extreme potential for environmental disaster, but the only study being undertaken by the proponent is not a true environmental assessment,” says Franz Gigl, a spokesperson of Gabriolans Against Freighter Anchorages (GAFA), a grassroots groups that has grown in the past year to fight these anchorages.

Locations for a further five anchorages are also being sought elsewhere in the Southern Georgia Strait. 

In contrast to environmental assessments conducted under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the proponent-lead study of the environmental impacts of anchoring ships in this area will not be subjected to independent scrutiny. That means this study will not have an independent expert consider whether these anchorages are really needed or whether there are less harmful and less intrusive alternatives.

As the consultant preparing the study is engaged and paid by the proponents of these anchorages, they are deciding themselves what environmental impacts are important and what mitigation measures will be adequate.

“This report is not a ‘true environmental assessment’, it is just a study where the proponents of the anchorages have determined the study’s parameters and limits, and have excluded factors that are hugely important in judging the actual environmental impact” says Gigl.

“The results are entirely foreseeable and we expect the study to ignore important factors and support the anchorages without looking at all the facts.”

These new anchorages are proposed for the full northeast coast of Gabriola Island directly in front of wetlands, spawning beaches, community parks and beaches, a provincial park, numerous walking trails and one of the most densely populated areas within the Gulf Island region.

The Northeast coast of Gabriola Island frequently experiences onshore winds of 38-60 kilometers an hour. If a single ship were to drag anchor and ground, or spill fuel while bunkering, the resulting oil spill would rapidly drift onto the coastline and destroy shore and marine ecosystems.

The anchors and anchor chains of these massive ships will scour the seabed as they swing and shift in the winds and currents, creating a virtual wasteland. The waters of the proposed anchorage corridor are on the migration route of Chinook salmon, Orca and Humpback whales. The proposed anchorages location is a prime sport fishing and recreational boating area where a major herring run takes place each year and is close to geoduck harvesting grounds and a rare glass sponge reef.

The Regional District of Nanaimo, Gabriola Island Trustees and residents, business owners, local fishers and environmentalists have all expressed opposition to these new anchorages.

For more information, visit www.gabriolaanchorrage.org.

- 30 -  

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media contact: Regine Eder
gabriolaanchorrage@gmail.com

About GAFA

Gabriola Against Freighter Anchorages (GAFA) Society is a grassroots organization of residents and business owners formed to fight the introduction of heavy industrial activity into the pristine, recreational and residential Gulf Island areas including Gabriola Island.