No Shit, Sherlock! Figuring Out The Curious Case of the Skripals

What Would Sherlock Holmes Have Made of the Government’s Explanation of the Case of Sergei and Yulia Skripal?

by Rob Slane - The Blogmire

In an article on 3rd May, the Guardian journalist, Luke Harding, made the following rather amusing observation:

“Since the Skripals were found stricken on a park bench, Downing Street has stuck to one version of events. Theresa May says it is ‘highly likely’ Moscow carried out the attack using a Soviet-made nerve agent. Only the Kremlin had the motive to kill its former officer, she argues.”

The funny part, in case you didn’t spot it, was his claim that Downing Street has stuck to one version of events. He is of course correct, but what he doesn’t tell his readers is that this one version of events has had a plethora of sub-narratives attached to it, none of which have been able to remotely support the main thesis. Sticking to one version of events is reasonable only inasmuch as that version can be supported by facts. On the other hand, if the version of events being stuck to is not supported by the facts, or if the “facts” constantly change, or if the “facts” are contradictory, then sticking to it is a measure not of reasonableness, as Mr Harding implies, but rather of absurdity, folly and irrationality.

G. K. Chesterton once cautioned us against the propensity towards indefinite scepticism:

“Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”

This is very true. But there is another, equally insidious, ditch which must be avoided. Let’s put it like this:

“Closing your mind too quickly can be worse than nothing. The object of closing the mind, as of closing the mouth, is to make sure that when you do, you have something solid inside.”

So is the narrative that Downing Street closed on so quickly after the incident solid? Does it stand up to scrutiny? Let’s see.

The Claim

The basic claim of the UK Government is as follows:

On 4th March 2018, Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent, which had been put on the handle of Mr Skripal’s front door in Christie Miller Road, Salisbury. The substance used was A-234 (a Novichok agent), which is said to be around 5-8 times more lethal than VX (just 10 milligrams of VX on the skin can be lethal). It had been placed there by a person or persons either working on behalf of the Government of the Russian Federation, or who had somehow managed to come into possession of the substance from stocks controlled by the Russian Government.

As Mr Harding implies, it’s all very straightforward. So let’s test it.

What would you have expected to happen?

The basic question one must ask is as follows: Given the scenario outlined in the Government claim, what would you have expected to happen? Here are four basic things one would reasonably have expected:

1. Sergei and Yulia Skripal found dead in or near Mr Skripal’s house, followed by a coroner’s verdict stating that they had died from heart failure or suffocation, as a result of fluid secretions filling their lungs.

2. Or – in the slim chance that they survived – a period of months in hospital with irreparable damage to their central nervous systems, and symptoms including cirrhosis, toxic hepatitis, nerve damage and epilepsy.

3. A massive manhunt, both in Salisbury and in the rest of the country, especially in respect of the couple who appeared on a CCTV camera in Market Walk, of whom it was originally claimed were the Skripals, but who were clearly not the Skripals.

4. Mr Skripal’s house entirely closed off, with surrounding streets immediately evacuated, and the parts of Salisbury City Centre where the pair were known to have visited also evacuated.

What actually happened?

So much for what we would have expected to see. Now, more than two months after the incident, we can ask the question: What actually happened?

1. After they allegedly came into contact with the very lethal A-234 nerve agent, far from dying on the spot, Sergei and Yulia Skripal spent the next four hours driving into the City Centre, having a drink, and then going for a meal. They then sat on a bench, and at some point thereafter exhibited what appeared to be hallucinations, suggestive of poisoning by an opioid or non-lethal chemical weapon, rather than a nerve agent.

2. Rather than being hospitalised for months and suffering irreparable damage to their central nervous systems, just over four weeks later, Yulia Skripal telephoned her cousin, Viktoria, and assured her several times that “Everything is okay”. Crucially, she stated that “Everyone’s health is fine, there are no irreparable things.”

3. There has been no manhunt, and the couple who appeared on the CCTV camera in Market Walk have not been identified publicly, nor have there been any appeals for information about them.

4. Far from the streets around the house being evacuated, many photographs show police officers without any protective clothing standing just a few feet away from the door handle, which allegedly still had A-234 of “high purity” on it. Neither was the City Centre evacuated, but people who thought they might have come into contact with the substance were advised by Public Health England (PHE) to wash their clothing in a washing machine, and wipe personal items such as phones, handbags and other electronic items with cleansing or baby wipes.

What Would Holmes Have Made of it?

If you laid all that out in front of Sherlock Holmes – the claims, the expectations, and the reality – and asked him what he made of it, he would no doubt reply along the following lines:

“On the assumption that the substance known as A-234 is several times more toxic than VX, which all credible references to it claim that it is, then given that the Skripals did not die on the spot, and having survived do not appear to have any of the lasting and irreparable side-effects of being poisoned by this substance, it can be stated with reasonable certainty that they were not poisoned by it.

Furthermore, given the symptoms that they displayed on the bench, according to eye-witness testimony, in all probability, Mr Skripal and Yulia were poisoned by a substance which can cause hallucinations, such as the opioid, Fentanyl, or an incapacitating, but non-lethal, chemical such as 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate (BZ). This theory is given credence by the fact that Salisbury District Hospital originally believed the incident to be a case of Fentanyl poisoning.” 

What Would Holmes do Next?

Having used the known facts to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the Skripals were not poisoned by A-234, what would Holmes do next?

The obvious thing would be to interview both Sergei and Yulia Skripal, since both are apparently alive and well. He would want to gather details about their movements on the morning of 4th March 2018, and whether they saw anyone acting suspiciously either near the house, or at the bench. He would want to know why Mr Skripal apparently became highly agitated in Zizzis. And he would of course want to find out from Mr Skripal about who he had dealings with in the weeks prior to the incident.

So what, you might ask, would he make of it if he found out that nobody, including him, was allowed to see Mr Skripal or Yulia? What, you might ask, would he make of the fact that nothing has been heard of Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey since his release from hospital more than six weeks ago? What, you might ask, would he make of the fact that there has been not one single police or press report looking into any of these things?

Holmes being Holmes, he would of course want to retain an open mind for as long as possible. But in the absence of any credible explanation for these oddities, or for the huge disparity between the UK Government claims and what actually happened, no doubt his great mind would soon start closing in on the suspicion that not only were the Skripals not poisoned by A-234, but it would appear that a cover up of what really happened has taken place.

My previous pieces on the Skripal Case: 

 ♦ 30 Questions That Journalists Should be Asking About the Skripal Case

♦ 20 More Questions That Journalists Should be Asking About the Skripal Case

♦ The Skripal Case: 20 New Questions That Journalists Might Like to Start Asking

♦ The Lady and the Curiously Absent Suspect — Yet Another 20 Questions on the Skripal Case

♦ The Slowly Building Anger in the UK at the Government’s Handling of the Skripal Case

♦ The Three Most Important Aspects of the Skripal Case so Far … and Where They Might be Pointing

♦ Boris Johnson’s Statements Analysed by Experts and Found to Contain Traces of the Ministry-Grade Swerve Agent, “Govichock”

♦ A Bucketful of Novichok

Feds Throw Ball Back to Province, Takes "No position" on Site C Injunction

Government of Canada Takes “No Position” in Response to Site C Injunction

by West Moberly First Nations

May 13, 2018

Fort St. John, B.C., Treaty 8 Territory -  In court documents filed on Thursday, the Attorney General of Canada has taken “no position” and filed no evidence to defend against the injunction application brought by West Moberly First Nations to suspend construction of Site C.

If successful, the injunction will halt work on the $10.7 billion-dollar dam, the largest public works project in B.C. history. The suspension would remain in place until there has been a full trial and a binding determination of whether Site C infringes Treaty 8, a process which could take from 18 months to several years to conclude.

In its Response to Civil Claim, also filed Thursday, Canada admits that it did not make a legal determination on whether Site C infringes Treaty 8(1, and states that the issue must either be “tested” by the Court at trial(2 or resolved “in other contexts beyond litigation”(3.

The Treaty 8 First Nations opposed to the dam are now calling on the B.C. Government to follow suit.

“Canada has laid down its weapons. Now it’s time for BC to disarm. Let’s try diplomacy,” said Chief Willson. 

 “If the Premier truly wishes to respect the constitution and the Treaty 8 rights it protects, he shouldn’t be encouraging BC Hydro to destroy those rights before the courts have the chance to weigh in. The Premier can meet with us and our federal counterparts to work out how best to wind down work on Site C until the question of Treaty infringement is finally decided,” stated Chief Willson.

 
This is not the first time Canada has parted ways with the B.C. Government over controversial court injunctions. Last summer Canada backed the Tsilhqot’in First Nation’s injunction against provincial permits for the New Prosperity mine, going so far as to bring a federal injunction to stop the permitted work.(4

But Canada’s decision last week appears to be unprecedented. Whereas last summer’s injunction against New Prosperity didn’t involve federal approvals, the federal government has now elected not to defend the authorizations federal decision makers issued for Site C from being struck down by the courts.

1. Attorney General of Canada, Response to Civil Claim, para. 38
2. Attorney General of Canada, Response to Civil Claim, para. 1.
3. Attorney General of Canada, Response to Civil Claim, para. 3.
4. See: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-first-nation-to-battle-taseko-mines-plan-in-court/article35840762/; and http://www.timescolonist.com/news/b-c/taseko-mines-halts-exploration-work-at-new-prosperity-1.21912967

Canada’s decision follows a major work stoppage on Site C secured by the First Nations in February. Rather than oppose an interim, interim injunction threatened by the First Nations’ lawyers, BC Hydro abruptly sent contractors home that were in the process of logging a 30-kilometer tract of old growth forests for the project’s proposed transmission line. That work will remain suspended until after the injunction is decided later this summer.

“We have always maintained that Site C is an infringement of the Treaty, and that it shouldn’t go ahead while the issue of infringement is unresolved,” said Chief Lynette Tsakoza of Prophet River First Nations. 

“We will defend the Treaty in the courts if we must. But we remain ready and willing to discuss alternatives to Site C with the B.C. Government,” Chief Tsakoza said.

“It is hypocritical for the Premier to seek direction from the courts before taking steps that might affect Kinder Morgan, while refusing to do the same on Site C. Don't our constitutional rights deserve respect? Does the rule of law not apply to northeast B.C.?” said Chief Willson.

-30-

PRESS RELEASE

First Nations Contact
Chief Roland Wilson, West Moberly First Nations

Legal Team Contact
Tim Thielmann, Sage Legal

Email: tim@sagelegal.ca

Background

1. The Site C Hydroelectric dam is the largest and most expensive public works project in B.C. history. Its current budget is $10.7 billion. Experts such as former BC Hydro CEO, Mark Eliesen have estimated costs will exceed $12 billion if the dam is completed.
2. Site C underwent an environmental assessment overseen by a Joint Review Panel and was approved by the provincial and federal governments in 2014. These approvals were made despite the panel’s findings that Site C would cause significant, unmitigable adverse effects on the environment and on Aboriginal peoples, and the recommendation for an independent assessment of BC Hydro’s load forecasts.
3. Following the EA approvals, West Moberly and Prophet River brought judicial reviews on the basis that the Crown’s consultation process had been inadequate. The courts held that the Crown was not obligated to consider (and had not considered) whether these approvals infringed established rights under Treaty 8. To have the issue of infringement determined, they would need to bring a civil action.
4. Appeals of the judicial review decisions were exhausted in June 2017, by which point the NDP was about to come to power following the May 9, 2017 provincial election. In opposition, the NDP had recognized that Site C would violate Treaty 8, had committed to implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and had promised to send the project to the BC Utilities Commission for an independent review.
5. The project was referred to the BCUC in August 2017. On November 1, 2017 the BCUC concluded that BC Hydro’s load forecast could be satisfied through an alternative portfolio of assets (wind, geothermal, conservation) at approximately the same cost as completing Site C, even though $2 billion had already been spent on Site C.
6. Despite this conclusion, on December 11, 2017, Premier Horgan announced his government’s intention to continue with Site C.
7. On January 15, 2018, West Moberly and Prophet River filed Notices of Civil Claim. They plead that the cumulative effects of the WAC Bennett, Peace Canyon, and Site C dams on the Peace River constitute an infringement of their Treaty 8 rights.
8. The relief sought in the Notices of Civil Claims is a permanent injunction to stop construction and operation of Site C and flooding the Peace River valley. There is no request for damages.
9. On January 31, 2018, West Moberly filed an application for an interim injunction, which seeks:
a. to suspend all work on the project until an expedited trial can occur; or alternatively,
b. to suspend work within identified “critical areas” and prevent flooding of the reservoir prior to trial, provided BC Hydro agrees not to use the time passed or money spent as an argument against a permanent injunction at trial.
10. According to the evidence filed in support of the interim injunction:
a. the Peace River Valley is, and has always been, central to the Dunne-za mode of life protected by Treaty 8 (Affidavit #1 of Chief Roland Willson, and other affidavits);
b. Prophet River and West Moberly stand united in opposition to the Site C project and the infringement of Treaty 8 (Affidavit #1 of Chief Lynette Tsakoza)
c. construction of Site C is causing irreparable harm, including within 13 “Critical Areas” identified by West Moberly (Affidavit #1 of Chief Roland Willson, Affidavit #1 of Rachel Olson)
d. successive BC governments placed constraints on the Joint Review Panel and BC Utilities Commission which tilted the scales in favour of approval for Site C (Affidavit #1 of Harry Swain);
e. BC Hydro’s project management blunders will drive costs above $12 billion (Affidavit #1 of Marc Eliesen);
f. Site C’s footprint (13,500 ha) is 40 times larger than that of the BCUC Alternatives (300 ha) (Affidavit #1 of Dr. Petr Komers); and
g. Mercury contamination from the dams threatens human health and First Nations’ fishing rights (Affidavit #1 of Dr. David Schindler).
11. After reviewing the injunction materials, BC Hydro initially planned to continue construction as planned. However, after the First Nation’s lawyers warned of an “interim, interim injunction” on February 16th BC Hydro suspended all clearing and road building that was occurring within identified “critical areas” and confirmed there were generally no plans for construction within critical areas until the Interim Injunction is heard.
12. The hearing is currently set for 10 days, from July 23 to August 4, 2018.
13. For more information on the Site C litigation, visit www.sagelegal.ca (the “Site C” tab).
14. For information on how to support the West Moberly First Nations and Prophet River First Nation, visit https://witnessforthepeace.ca/5
5 This is an external website that is not managed by West Moberly First Nations, Prophet River First Nation, or Nun wa dee Stewardship Society.

Germany's New Right

Germany’s new right wing

by William T. Hathaway

May 13, 2018

Since parliamentary democracy was restored in Germany after World War Two, several right-wing parties have sought to get the required 5% of the popular vote to be represented in parliament. They all failed until 2017.

In that election a new right-wing party, Alternatives for Deutschland (AfD), won 13% of the vote, making them the third most powerful party, ahead of the Greens, the Lefts, and the Liberals.

They also won many seats in the individual state parliaments and one seat in the European Parliament.

Exit polls showed, though, that most people who voted for them weren’t convinced by their overall program but only by one aspect of it: their strong opposition to the government’s permissive refugee policy.

Germany has taken in over two million refugees from the Mideast wars, far more than any other country. The equivalent for the US population would be eight million refugees, double the number of people in Los Angeles.

This has created an enormous financial and cultural strain in a country that historically has had little immigration. It comes at a time when poverty is increasing and social services are being reduced. The once-generous welfare state is being dismantled. This financial squeeze is worsening now because of expenses for the refugees. The two million newcomers receive enough money to live on plus free healthcare, education, and access to special programs. Some cheat on this, registering in several places under different names and getting multiple benefits. Many Germans resent paying for all this with high taxes while their own standard of living is declining.

The clash of cultures has created other problems. Two-thirds of the refugees are young men, some of them convinced God has ordained males to dominate females. In their view, women who aren’t submissive need to be punished. Since being male is the only power many of them have, they feel threatened by women in positions of power, and they sometimes react with hostility. Over a thousand women have been physically attacked -- some murdered and raped and many aggressively grabbed on the breasts as a way of showing dominance. Tens of thousands of women have been abused -- insulted, harassed, spat on. Some examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year%27s_Eve_sexual_assaults_in_Germany

German foreign policy is also part of the problem. Many refugees are aware that Germany, as a member of NATO, supports these wars that have forced them to flee their homes. They’re not fooled by the rhetoric of “humanitarian intervention.” They know NATO’s motives are imperialistic: to install governments agreeable to Western control of their resources and markets. Although they are now safe, their relatives and friends are still being killed with weapons made in Germany and oppressed by soldiers and police trained and financed by Germany. Rather than a grateful attitude, some have come with a resentful one. A few ISIS and al-Qaeda members, determined to drive all forms of Western imperialism from their lands, have come to murder and maim. For instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Berlin_attack

Crime has increased, especially violent crimes such as knife attacks. Police and others have been killed and wounded by refugees.

Many Germans are incensed by this behavior.

Because AfD is the only party that demands a sharp reduction in refugees, they’ve benefited from an enormous protest vote. One factor in their success is that they don’t come across as extremists. Although their policies are reactionary, bigoted, and anti-Muslim, they present them with a populist rhetoric that seems moderate, emphasizing the defense of Western cultural values. Rather than eliminate immigration, they want to limit it. They are pro Christian and support the nuclear family structure and traditional gender divisions but aren’t as rabid about it as, for instance, conservative Christians in the USA. Their proposals for social services -- healthcare, welfare, unemployment insurance, education -- are more liberal than the Democrats’ in the USA. They call for more direct democracy such as voter initiatives and referendums. The AfD are not fascists. They are more like a stodgy, crabby old uncle.

That doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous, though. They now have a national platform for propagating their right-wing program. They have the power to block progressive legislation and influence governmental appointments. But they’re not a resurgence of Nazism. That specter is a media myth.

Of the two million refugees, those who cause problems are only a small minority. Most of the newcomers have a positive attitude. They are getting a fresh start in life, recovering from trauma, getting an education, learning new skills. They’ve been introduced to other cultural possibilities.

Women in particular are responding favorably to this new environment. Seeing how women here live, some of the refugees are beginning to free themselves from patriarchal bondage. With help from German feminists they are developing the energy and determination to challenge male rule and change the conditions of their lives. That’s the real Alternative for Deutschland … and for the Mideast.

William T. Hathaway is a refugee from the USA now living in Germany. His environmental novel, Wellsprings: A Fable of Consciousness, tells of an old woman and a young man working together to defeat the corporations that control our shrinking water supplies: www.cosmicegg-books.com/books/wellsprings.

Hezbollah Take on Rules of Engagement Changes in Syria

Syria Imposes New Rules of Engagement on Israel

by Hassan Nasrallah - SOTT NET

May 10, 2018

On Thursday 10th May 2018, an unprecedented exchange of strikes happened between Israel and Syria. The mainstream media, as well as some "alternative" media like Russia Today, were quick to relay the Israeli army version, according to which the Zionist entity "retaliated" against an "Iranian attack by Revolutionary Guards' Al-Quds Force" consisting of "twenty rockets" fired at Israeli positions in the occupied Golan, four of which were "intercepted by the Iron Dome" and the others "crashed into Syrian territory", no damage being recorded in Israel.

Israel has reportedly responded to this unprecedented "act of aggression" with a "large-scale operation" that destroyed "the entire Iranian infrastructure in Syria", in order to deter the Islamic Republic from any stray impulse of conducting future strikes.

This narrative takes for granted the postulates, data and myths of the Zionist entity's propaganda - which imposes permanent military censorship on the Israeli media, exposing any offender to a prison sentence. And, reading the international media, one might get the impression that, like American economic sanctions, this censorship is extraterritorial. In any event, the narrative cannot withstand scrutiny.

The aggressor is undoubtedly Israel, which has carried out more than a hundred strikes against Syria since the beginning of the conflict. After Duma's staged chemical attacks, this aggression intensified with attacks on the Syrian T-4 base on April 9, which killed 7 Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Following the US announcement of withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, new Israeli strikes targeted Syrian positions on Tuesday (May 8th) in the southern suburbs of Damascus, and Wednesday (May 9th) in Quneitra, in the south of the country. Undeniably, Syria has only responded to yet another aggression, with a firmness that has shaken Israel and forced it out of the muteness to which it usually confines itself.

Comment: We highlight this not because we necessarily agree with this assessment but because Israel's outspokenness last week was indeed notable relative to its usual behavior.

The Syrian - and not Iranian - response consisted of more than fifty - and not twenty - rockets against four sensitive Israeli military bases in the occupied Golan, which caused material damage and even casualties according to Al-Manar, Hezbollah's media. These were not reported by the Israeli press because of the draconian military censorship forbidding mention of Israel's initial aggression - more than twenty rockets were fired on Israel; the identification of their targets and any hint as to the damage they inflicted were muted in order to reassure the Israeli population and allow the Western vassal capitals to shout their sickening refrain of the sacrosanct 'right-of-Israel-to-defend-itself'.

The Lebanese channel Al-Mayadeen specifically identified the military posts struck:

1. a military technical and electronic reconnaissance center;
2. the border security and intelligence station '9900';
3. a military center for electronic jamming;
4. a military spy center for wireless and wired networks;
5. a transmission station;
6. the observation post of a precision-weapons unit;
7. a combat heliport;
8. the headquarters of the Regional Military Command of Brigade '810';
9. the command center of the military battalion at Hermon;
10. the winter headquarters of a special alpine unit. 

And as this channel has reported, even Israeli journalists and analysts have expressed doubts about this unconvincing version according to which these massive strikes, unprecedented since 1974 and therefore unexpected, would have been harmless. They also expressed their fears about escalation against Iran, Syria and/or Hezbollah. Moreover, as Norman Finkelstein pointed out, nothing has changed for Israel's wars in Gaza from 2008 to 2014; despite the deployment of the "Iron Dome", only 5% of the - largely primitive - Hamas rockets were intercepted during "Protective Edge". One of the best missile defense specialists, Theodore Postol of MIT, has already revealed the chronic deficiencies of this system. It is unlikely then that it was better able to cope with the much more sophisticated Russian, Chinese and Iranian rocket-launchers that Syria has.

The success of the Israeli strikes, which, according to Israeli War Minister Avigdor Lieberman, almost destroyed "all of Iran's infrastructure in Syria", is largely exaggerated: Russian military officials, whose radars have followed this fight in real time, announced that more than half of the 60 missiles fired by 28 Israeli F-15s and F-16s - as well as 10 ground-to-ground missiles - were intercepted. The Syrian army records 3 dead and 2 wounded, a radar station and ammunition depot destroyed and material damage to Syrian anti-aircraft defense units. The latter have already demonstrated their effectiveness against strikes from Tel Aviv, Washington, London and Paris, unlike the mythical "Iron Dome" whose main role is to reassure the Israeli population.

The very presence of Iranian military bases and/or large Iranian contingents in Syria is a fable: Iran has only a modest presence (essentially composed of military advisers, indeed from the body of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards), unlike Hezbollah or Russia. Robert Fisk points out that "an Israeli statement that the Iranians had missiles in Syria was surely made in concert with the Trump administration", that the Iranian forces in Syria are "far fewer than the West imagines" and that all Israeli statements should be reported with the utmost circumspection. Any objective reporting on these events should resemble that of Robert Fisk: "The latest overnight Israeli air strikes, supposedly at Iranian forces in Syria after a supposed Iranian rocket attack on Israeli forces in Golan - and it's important to use the "supposed" and not take all this at face value - must have been known to the Americans in advance." Indeed, these so-called unexpected attacks had been announced for days by the Israeli army, which had already conducted a so-called "preemptive strike" - rather a provocation - on May 8th.

Syrian air defense system The "red line" that this alleged Iranian presence would pose to Israel is belied by the fact that Tel Aviv has, since the beginning of the conflict, been steadily slowing the progress of the Syrian Arab Army and, using various pretexts (delivery of arms to Hezbollah, response to actual or suspected gunfire from the Golan Heights, etc.), assisting armed terrorist groups in any way possible: weapons, intelligence, airstrikes coordinated with ground offensives, medical care, etc.

Israel, the only country in the world that officially does not fear anything (and indeed has nothing to fear) from ISIS, Al-Qaeda and the like, has seen the situation in Syria turn from a dream - witnessing a myriad of terrorist groups tear down the only anti-Israeli Arab regime, the back of the Resistance Axis, and Hezbollah bleeding - into a nightmare: facing Hezbollah, Syrian and Iranian forces more battle-hardened and powerful than ever before, and allied with the Palestinian Resistance, Iraq and Yemen, as well as Russia. Israel is merely continuing its destabilizing work under new pretexts, and more directly: as I previously explained, following the defeat of proxy forces in Syria, their sponsors could either give up or intervene more and more openly.

Iran, whose opposition to the racist and colonialist project of Israel has been a principle, and even a dogma, since the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, is not easily provoked into an ill-thought reaction, and has always preferred to act with patience for long-term objectives. Let us remember its restraint after the massacre of Iranian diplomats in Afghanistan in 1998. The goal of Iran is not to carry out a simple reprisal operation to deliberately avenge its officers and soldiers (nor accidentally, as was the case in Quneitra in January 2015) killed by Israel, but to work for the complete liberation of Palestine by putting an end to the illegitimate "Zionist regime", just like the Apartheid regime in South Africa, which, by the way, collapsed after its military defeat in Angola and Namibia against Cuban mulattoes, then viewed with as much racism as Israeli Jewish supremacism considers 'Arabushim' [Sott.net ed: derogatory term for Arabs].

As I previously pointed out, Israel's direct aggression against Iranian forces in Syria is a major turning point in the history of the Israeli-Arab - or rather, Israeli-Arab-Persian - conflict, and Israel must now get ready to confront the Iranian forces directly - whether in Syria, occupied Palestine or even elsewhere. Moreover, when Iranian missiles enter the scene, they are launched from the territory of the Islamic Republic, and with undeniable success, as shown by the strikes against ISIS at Deir-Ez-Zor on June 18, 2017, in retaliation for terrorist attacks in Tehran.

As we can see, the reality could not be more different from the fable that has been propagated by the majority of the media. 'Journalists' who tamely accept Israeli talking points turn into IDF propaganda outlets and mere agents of Netanyahu's "diplomacy of lies". Israel is indeed constantly lying to the world - and, increasingly, to its own people. And when its reckless actions have disastrous repercussions, it publishes hasty and contradictory communiqués in which it presents itself both as a victim and as a hawkish punisher, while also claiming, through Lieberman and via Russia, to have no intention of stepping into an escalation and hoping things will stop there - proclaiming the success of its retaliatory strikes is also a way to say it does not want/need to go any further.

The international media contented itself with repeating these statements immediately after the first attacks, without any critical distance. Rational actors like Iran, Syria and Hezbollah - or Russia - are not in such a hurry to speak out and confirm or deny others' claims, leaving their opponents to get entangled in their lies, and trusting in the primacy of the battlefield that becomes more favorable for them day by day. Moreover, the fact that a bitter setback for Israel, which literally reverses the strategic situation, is transformed into a military success by Zionist and Atlanticist propaganda, and combined with Israeli protests of non-belligerency, can only confirm the Resistance Axis in its choices.

Yoav Kish, a member of the Knesset quoted by Al-Manar, stressed that regardless of the author of the strikes and their results - which censorship forbade from mentioning - it was a major shift in the history of the wars of Israel, which is being attacked from Syria. Indeed, the Golan military installations are now directly targeted as a result of Israeli aggressions, and not just the Israeli air force, which has already seen its finest F-16 shot down on February 10, 2018. The journalists and Israeli analysts also pointed out the psychological and economic repercussions of this incident, with more than 20,000 Golan settlers having had to hastily find their way back to the shelters in the middle of the night (how many will they be at the next escalation?), and the beginning of the summer period having been ushered in by a wave of hotel reservation cancellations due to fears of a war between Israel and Iran. The Zionist entity, which unabashedly inflicts the greatest loss and damage to the Palestinians and its neighbors, is severely shaken by the slightest losses, unbearable for Israeli society.

The accusation against Iran is explained by essential factors (the inherent racism of Israeli society and its Prime Minister, who more willingly believes in the 'danger' of Persian Iran than in that of Arab Syria) and circumstantial - a refusal to assume the consequences of the suicidal policy of the Netanyahu government, which led him to a direct confrontation with the entire Resistance Axis, not to mention with Russia. And most importantly, Israel wants to capitalize on Trump's withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal to advance its main obsession, much older than the Syrian crisis, namely Tehran's ballistic program, which it wants the West to end, exploiting the perennial nuclear pretext.

Let us remind ourselves that the manufacture, possession and use of nuclear weapons are unlawful in Islam according to Imam Khomeini and Ali Khamenei, supreme authorities in Iran. Netanyahu has made it clear that a war with Iran is inevitable, and that it would be better to happen now than later. Since 2005, he vainly strives for the United States to launch it for him, but no negotiation, sanction or aggression will ever deter Iran from its course. And just as the Israeli strikes on April 9, which were supposed to encourage Washington, London and Paris to conduct severe strikes on Syria, ended in bitter failure, Israel only worsened its own situation yet again and finds itself alone in the face of the disastrous consequences of its actions, and the blind arrogance that triggered them.

What about Russia? Netanyahu's presence in Moscow for the commemoration of the 73rd anniversary of the USSR's victory against Nazism, and reports that Russia would not deliver the S-300s to Syria, must not mislead us. Russia has invested far too much in Syria to allow anyone - be it Washington, Tel Aviv, Riyadh or Ankara - to reduce its efforts to nothing. Moscow said it would no longer tolerate Western strikes against Syria in case of a new chemical weapons masquerade, and that it is ready to provide Damascus not necessarily with the S-300 anti-aircraft system, but, according to Sergei Lavrov, with "whatever is required to help the Syrian army to deter aggression."

The current Syrian defense systems have already proven their worth - including the Pantsir, which is much more suited to the needs of the Syrian army - and allow us to envision the day when Israel loses its only advantage, namely its air supremacy, which was already to no avail in 2006 against Hezbollah or 2014 against Gaza, and without which its supposedly "invincible" ragtag army would literally crumble. Israel's use of ground-to-ground missiles for the first time, and the concentration of attacks on Syrian anti-aircraft defenses (the IDF released video of the destruction of a Pantsir S-1 system, probably inactive) proves that it is well aware of its limitations.

It is obvious that Israeli aggression against Syria will become increasingly costly, both for the Israeli air force and for its internal military bases and population, because of the determination of Syria and its allies (Hezbollah and Iran) to respond to any aggression, of their experience and new capabilities, and of their successes on the ground. The Resistance Axis - of which Russia is not a part - is now able to face Israel directly on its own, with a united front and without fear of escalation.

As for Israel, already overwhelmed by the peaceful demonstrations in Gaza that must culminate on May 15, it is not ready for war against a single member of the Resistance Axis, let alone against several of them simultaneously. The new equation imposed by the Syrian army on May 10th is more fearsome for Israel than the prospect of the loss of another lone F-16, as Damascus has shown its determination - and ability - to wage war on enemy territory, and to strike the Zionist entity in its depth, even its most strategic military bases.

The Resistance Axis will soon have its eyes fixed on the occupied Golan, which Syria has never given up liberating by armed struggle - a right conferred by international law itself, this territory being recognized as Syrian by all the international community: any Syrian operation there is a legal and legitimate act of resistance against Israel's 1967 aggression and subsequent occupation, even without further provocation. As early as May 2013, I announced Hezbollah's participation in the opening of a new front in Golan. In March 2017, the Golan Liberation Brigade was formed by Iraqi Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, a movement backed by Iran and involved in the liberation of Iraq and Syria from ISIS.

On the eve of the 70th birthday of the usurping entity's foundation, Syrian strikes in the occupied Golan unquestionably open up a new chapter in the history of the Israeli-Arab wars, in which Israel will increasingly be forced into a defensive position. Are we going to see the IDF building a wall on the border of the occupied Golan to hinder any future invasion, as is already the case on the Lebanese-Israeli border to prevent Hezbollah's promised incursion into the Galilee? Either way, the next war against Israel will drastically change the map of the Middle East.

al-Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah is the Secretary General of the Lebanese Hezbollah political party.

Trump World: Can Europe's Defiance Save the Rest of Us?

The Fate of the World Hangs on the EU?!?

by James Corbett - The Corbett Report

May 12, 2018

So it's come to this. The fate of the world hangs in the balance...and it's the EU that's going to be the deciding factor.

The EU? Really? Sigh.

You may have heard that the US scrapped the Iranian nuclear deal this week, setting off a series of events that could very likely end up in a regional conflagration. But if that's what you heard, then you heard wrong. In actuality, Trump signed an Executive Memorandum on Tuesday that reaffirmed his October 13, 2017 decision to deny re-certification of the JCPOA and lifted sanction waivers promised under that agreement.

Confused? Don't worry, so is mostly everyone else. But here's the bottom line: the "Iran nuclear deal" was not some treaty between the US and Iran. It was a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed by China, France, Russia the United Kingdom, the United States, the EU and Iran. In other words, only one player in this seven-member deal is walking away from the table.

This is not a trivial distinction. What it means is that it is still perfectly possible that the other signatories to the agreement could continue on with the agreement or hammer out some replacement for it. At the very least, Europe could stand up to Washington's sanctions regime...if they followed Mish Shedlock's advice and "Grow a Backbone on Something Important," that is. As Mish points out, billions of dollars of European business are on the line. That money will be lost if the Europeans just roll over and accept US demands to wind down all business in Iran in the next three to six months.

Deals that will be scuttled if Europe complies with the US sanctions include:

A $20 billion order of 100 Airbus jets from Iran Air.
A $1 billion natural gas extraction deal project led by France's Total SA.
An $800 million automotive joint venture between Iran and Renault.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of investments, development projects, licensing agreements and sales by Royal Dutch Shell and BP. Not that you should be crying in your beer over any of these corporate behemoths and their lost billions, of course, but the idea that European politicians would simply allow the US to walk away from a deal that the Iranians were in full compliance with and demand all the other parties do likewise is sheer insanity. Needless to say, this isn't about doing what is economically rational. It is about the US using its clout as the unquestioned unitary world superpower to force its "allies" to do its bidding.

And lest there be any confusion on the matter, let's be clear: These are not idle threats. When French banking group BNP Paribas SA dared to circumvent US sanctions on Iran, Cuba and Sudan between 2004 and 2012, a US judge forced them to forfeit a staggering $8.83 billion in profit and fined them a further $140 million to boot.

This was a US judge, mind you, in US court upholding US sanctions, and ruling against a French bank. But when you are the self-appointed policeman of the world you get to throw anyone you want in jail. After all, who's going to stop you?

Bear in mind, this isn't some conspiratorial 3D chessboard political game going on. It's right there on the table. The US is telling Europe to jump and it's daring the Europeans to say anything other than "Sir, yes, sir!"

This arrogance is so over the top, in fact, that France's ambassador to the UN has coined a whole new word to describe it: "unisolationism." It's a portmanteau of unilateralism and isolationism, and no one (least of all the Trump administration) would deny that it describes Washington's geopolitical philosophy.

And so it boils down to this: The EU and its leading nations have some soul searching to do. Are they going to roll over and do what they're told, like Uncle Sam's dependable lapdog, or are they going to defy their erstwhile master and refuse to comply with a new round of Iranian sanctions?

If this soul-searching at the heart of Europe sounds vaguely familiar to you, that's because it's nothing new. And this isn't just about Iran; it's about the shape of global geopolitics.

I wrote about this struggle last year in an editorial titled "US Battles Russia for Heart of the EU." Don't forget, it was less than a year ago that a similar sanctions scenario (this time involving Russia) likewise placed a fork-in-the-road in front of Europe: Go along with American sanctions at the expense of Europe's own business interests, or defy Uncle Sam and begin constructing a Eurasian alternative to the Pax Americana that has dominated the globe since the Second World War.

It may be said that no such radical realignment of Europe took place last year, but these types of world-historical changes generally do not take place all at once. They happen little by little over a period of years until the change can no longer be denied. So, is there any indication that Europe is inching out from under the American umbrella? Why, yes. Actually there are.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced that,

"It’s no longer the case that the United States will simply just protect us. Rather, Europe needs to take its fate into its own hands, that's the task of the future."

EU President Jean-Claude Juncker has come out hard against the US withdrawal from the JCPOA, stating that Washington "no longer wants to cooperate with other parts in the world" and, as a result, "has lost vigor [as an international actor], and because of it, in the long term, influence."

And in a more concrete sense, the EUrocrats are reportedly rushing "to pull together legislation aimed at defending European companies from Washington's new crackdown on Iran."

Now the punditsphere is openly musing on the questions of whether or not Europe has rebelled and what kind of relationship will be possible between Brussels and Washington going forward.

It's a good question, and an important one. As I've pointed out many times before, we are being prepared for a transition away from the unipolar American-dominated world into a multi-polar BRICS-led "alternative" global system. As I've also pointed out many times before, this "alternative" is a false one, and those interested in human freedom should not be swept up in choosing sides in this false dialectic.

But make no mistake: a change is occurring, and with every passing year it is becoming more and more obvious that Europe's long-term economic interests revolve around forging new, deeper ties with its Eurasian neighbors. Whether or not the EU ultimately goes along with America's Iranian sanctions will be a bellwether of how quickly that change is taking place.

Man of War: John Bolton on Duty

Countdown To War On Iran 

by Moon of Alabama

May 12, 2018

What is still needed is an event that pushes the U.S. public into war fever. The U.S. typically uses false-flag incidents - the Tonkin incident, the sinking of the Maine, the Anthrax murders - to create a psychological pseudo-rationale for war. An Israel lobbyist begs for one to launch war on Iran.

John Bolton is a ruthless man:

“In early 2002, a year before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration was putting intense pressure on [José] Bustani to quit as director-general of the [Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons].
...
“Bolton — then serving as under secretary of state for Arms Control and International Security Affairs — arrived in person at the OPCW headquarters in the Hague to issue a warning to the organization’s chief. And, according to Bustani, Bolton didn’t mince words. “Cheney wants you out,” Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president of the United States. “We can’t accept your management style.”

“Bolton continued, according to Bustani’s recollections: “You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don’t comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you.” “There was a pause.

“We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York.”

José Bustani successfully negotiated to get OPCW inspectors back into Iraq. They would have found nothing. That would have contradicted the U.S. propaganda campaign to wage war on Iraq.

When Bustani did not leave voluntarily, the U.S. threatened to cut the OPCW's budget and "convinced" other countries in the executive council to kick him out.

John Bolton was also behind a campaign against the IAEA and its chief Mohamed ElBaradei. ElBaradei's phone was tapped and rumors were launched against him to oust him from his office.

bigger

The U.S. administration, the neoconservatives and the media are running a remake (recommended) of the propaganda campaign they had launched to wage war on Iraq. This time the target is Iran:

“As with Iraq, it’s easier for Bolton and Netanyahu to achieve that goal if they discredit the current system of international inspections. Bolton has called the inspection efforts established by the Iran nuclear deal “fatally inadequate” and declared that “the International Atomic Energy Agency” is “likely missing significant Iranian [nuclear] facilities.” In his 2015 speech to Congress attacking the Iran deal, Netanyahu insisted that “Iran not only defies inspectors, it also plays a pretty good game of hide-and-cheat with them.”

Anyone who counters their propaganda must go. Bolton, who demands to bomb Iran, is back in charge. One of his natural targets is the IAEA which certifies that Iran sticks to the nuclear deal. It seems that Bolton succeeds with his machinations:

“The chief of inspections at the U.N. nuclear watchdog has resigned suddenly, the agency said on Friday without giving a reason.

“The departure of Tero Varjoranta comes at a sensitive time, three days after the United States announced it was quitting world powers’ nuclear accord with Iran, raising questions as to whether Tehran will continue to comply with it. “Varjoranta, a Finn, had been a deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and head of its Department of Safeguards, which verifies countries’ compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, since October 2013.”

Another casualty is the State Department bureaucrat who certified Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal:

“One of the State Department’s top experts on nuclear proliferation resigned this week after President Donald Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, in what officials and analysts say is part of a worrying brain drain from public service generally over the past 18 months.

“Richard Johnson, a career civil servant who served as acting assistant coordinator in State’s Office of Iran Nuclear Implementation, had been involved in talks with countries that sought to salvage the deal in recent weeks, including Britain, France, and Germany — an effort that ultimately failed.
...
“The office Johnson led has gone from seven full-time staffers to none since Trump’s inauguration.”

The man who launched the war on Iraq now gets awards. Netanyahoo is agitating for war on Iran just like he agitated for war on Iraq. Shady groups of nutty "experts" peddle policy papers for 'regime change'. U.S. "allies" are put under pressure. With their willingness to "compromise" they actually further the prospect of war. When they insist on sticking to international rules malign actors prepare measures to break their resistance. All that is still just a "shaping operation", a preparation of the battlefield of public opinion. This buildup towards the war will likely take a year or two.

What is still needed is an event that pushes the U.S. public into war fever. The U.S. typically uses false-flag incidents - the Tonkin incident, the sinking of the Maine, the Anthrax murders - to create a psychological pseudo-rationale for war. An Israel lobbyist begs for one to launch war on Iran.

One wonders when and how a new 9/11 like incident, or another Anthrax scare, will take place. It will be the surest sign that the countdown to war on Iran has started.

A REAL Nuclear Threat in the Middle East

The REAL Middle East Nuclear Threat - Episode 337 

by James Corbett - The Corbett Report

May 11, 2018

There is in fact a Middle Eastern nation that is in fact in control of a vast, undeclared stockpile of nuclear weapons. This nation does have the capability of deploying those weapons anywhere in the region. It is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and its arsenal has never been inspected by any international agency. But this nation is not Iran. It’s Israel.

For those with limited bandwidth, CLICK HERE to download a smaller, lower file size version of this episode.

For those interested in audio quality, CLICK HERE for the highest-quality version of this episode (WARNING: very large download).

A March That Will Continue: "Bullets Cannot Stop History Israel"

Death Toll for Gaza’s March of Return Keeps Rising, Call for International Protection

by TRNN

May 11, 2018

Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and over 200 were injured on Friday, as thousands of Gaza residents swarmed the Israeli border, for the seventh week of the great return march protests.

SOT#1 Saqer – protestor: "We call upon the international community and the security council to take a humane reasonable action to protect the Palestinian protestors. As you can see behind me they are armless, However the Israeli side is full of snipers who directly shoot men, women, elderlys and children."

The demonstrators raised pictures of hundreds of Palestinians who were killed by Israeli forces, and political prisoners currently held in Israeli jails.

Around 49 Palestinians including two journalists have been killed, and over 7000 wounded, since the inception of ongoing protests on the Gaza-Israel border on March 30th.

Noor Harazeen reports from Gaza about the seventh week of the “March of Return” protests, which left two more dead and 200 injured from shots fired by the Israeli military at the protests.

False Choices, Real Dilemmas: US Partisan Game Playing on Iran/Syria Regime Change

Iran and Syria: Why Regime Change in One Means Regime change in Both

by Caitlan Johnstone - Rogue Journalist

May 12, 2018

Probably the weirdest, dumbest, most annoying thing about writing on US foreign policy right now is the fact that regime change in Iran and regime change in Syria have been falsely spun into the illusion of two separate issues along partisan lines.

People who are more aligned with America’s Democratic Party are a lot more opposed to the overthrow of the Iranian government and a lot more sympathetic to the idea of getting rid of Assad, and with those who are more aligned with the Republican party it’s the exact opposite.

Partisan politics turn people into such drooling idiots.

Democratic Party-aligned Americans oppose Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran deal because it was Obama’s baby, while Republican-aligned Americans support it for the exact same reason.

This is a deliberate provocation designed to enable crushing economic sanctions, which the US-centralized war machine always uses as a prelude to war, to weaken and destabilize the nation. Plan A will be for imperial intelligence agencies to stage a coup or fund a violent uprising in order to either throw Iran into impotent chaos or replace its government with a puppet regime (either one satisfies Plan A). Plan B will be something more direct.

We’re seeing the reverse in Syria: Democratic Party-aligned Americans are virulently opposed to Assad because Russia is actively fighting on his side, and the Russiagate psyop has Democrats hating anyone who they suspect might have anything to do with Vladimir Putin. They also need to justify the fact that the Obama administration helped stage a premeditated violent uprising and flooded Syria with terrorists with the goal of destabilization or regime change. Trump supporters, meanwhile, oppose regime change in that nation largely because it’s a secular government besieged by violent deep state-funded jihadists.

I am of course painting with a broad brush here; there are Democrats who oppose any kind of interventionism in Syria and there are Trump supporters who oppose it in Iran, but as someone who’s been writing about US-led interventionism in both countries I can say from experience that there is a clear partisan split in public sympathy for each of them. I’m getting liberals agreeing with me about Iran who’ve aggressively denounced my writings on Syria, and a bunch of conservatives who supported my Syria writings now loudly objecting to my writings on Iran. Which is absolutely insane, because it’s the same goddamn war.

Iran and Syria are plainly allies. They are both longtime targets for regime change by neocon think tanks and western defense/intelligence agencies, and they are both being aggressively targeted by Israel and Saudi Arabia. It is very clear that the tightly allied nations on the side of the United States (which I call “the western empire” or the blob) view both nations in the same light. If you ignore the babbling narratives and just look at the behavior of the blob, it is clear that it is working against both nations as though they are a single entity.

If the government of either Iran or Syria falls, it will either be replaced with a puppet government or allowed to collapse into a failed state, in either case unable to assist the other in defending itself from imperial regime change interventionism. Cheerleading for regime change in one nation is necessarily cheerleading for regime change in the other, and all the death, suffering and devastation that necessarily goes with it. You can’t install a puppet regime in one without facilitating the destruction of the other.

Conservatives who support the longstanding neoconservative agenda of regime change in Iran: you are supporting regime change in Syria. You are supporting the installation of a government that will no longer assist Syria in fighting against the western-armed jihadist factions, and you are helping to ensure that Damascus falls to violent Islamist factions. Consenting to American regime change interventionism of any kind in Iran is an endorsement of the enemies that Assad is fighting in Syria.

Liberals who support the longstanding neoconservative agenda of regime change in Syria: you are supporting regime change in Iran. You are supporting the collapse of a key Iranian ally which will no longer be there to help stave off the agenda to plunge Iran into chaos and terror. You are supporting the anti-Iranian agendas of warmongering neocons like Trump, Pompeo and Bolton.

Caitlin Johnstone

@caitoz

One of the most unforgivably moronic things in US politics is the fact that there's a partisan split on regime change interventionism in Iran vs regime change interventionism in Syria. Can't these idiots see that it's the same imperialist power grab?

Max Abrahms ✔

@MaxAbrahms

But watch American support for regime change in Iran will grow. Already, polls show more Americans are regarding Iran as a national security threat. https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/995060042880565248?s=21 …

Partisan minds may see Iran and Syria as two completely different situations, but the leaders of the western empire see them as one and the same. With the constantly fluctuating political leadership of Official Washington and the continued agendas of America’s permanent government, the unelected power establishment knows that if it takes out one nation it’s only a matter of time before it will be politically convenient to take out the other.

Fox News babbles nonsense about freedom and democracy and Islamic fundamentalism in Iran, CNN babbles nonsense about Assad targeting civilians with barrel bombs and chemical weapons, but this has nothing to do with any of those things. This is about a transnational alliance of plutocrats and intelligence/defense agencies targeting all governments which don’t bow to its interests, with the ultimate goal of world domination. They target the weaker and smaller nations first in order to weaken their bigger allies, Russia and China, which are the ultimate target.

A powerful group of plutocrats have built their kingdoms on a specific status quo, and they are therefore naturally opposed to rising governmental powers like China which threaten that status quo. These plutocrats have built up their power and influence to the point where they are able to use the governments in the western empire as weapons to attack, bully and subvert any potential geopolitical challengers of the status quo.

That’s all this is. All the propaganda, all the nonsense about Mullahs and chemical weapons and Russian hackers, all the war and terror and suffering, is all because a few sociopathic individuals have been able to claw their way up the capitalist ladder to such a height that they can use governments to advance their insatiable power-grabbing agendas. Different political factions are being propagandized in different ways along their respective paths of least resistance into supporting these agendas, but as always the fake partisan divide always benefits the same group of depraved ruling elites.

Oppose these elites by opposing interventionism across the board. It isn’t okay for a few wealthy oligarchs to use governments to destroy and subvert entire nations. It isn’t okay that governments which should be helping their people are instead stretched all across the globe bending over backwards to make sure a few plutocrats don’t get dethroned. It isn’t okay that oligarchic domination has taken precedence over the basic human impulse to survive and thrive. We must all cease consenting to this together, regardless of political ideology.

Internet censorship is getting pretty bad, so best way to keep seeing my daily articles is to get on the mailing list for my website, so you’ll get an email notification for everything I publish. My articles and podcasts are entirely reader and listener-funded, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying my new book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

Israel's "Genie" and Syria

Israel Grants Oil Rights in Syria to Murdoch and Rothschild

by Craig Murray

May 12, 2018

Every day several kind souls contact me to tell me I can't understand Syria without knowing about Genie Energy. Actually I was the first radical to spot and publicise it, in February 2013, when I analysed its illegality in international law.

21 Feb, 2013

Israel has granted oil exploration rights inside Syria, in the occupied Golan Heights, to Genie Energy. Major shareholders of Genie Energy – which also has interests in shale gas in the United States and shale oil in Israel – include Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild.

This from a 2010 Genie Energy press release

“Claude Pupkin, CEO of Genie Oil and Gas, commented,

“Genie’s success will ultimately depend, in part, on access to the expertise of the oil and gas industry and to the financial markets. Jacob Rothschild and Rupert Murdoch are extremely well regarded by and connected to leaders in these sectors. Their guidance and participation will prove invaluable.”

“I am grateful to Howard Jonas and IDT for the opportunity to invest in this important initiative,” Lord Rothschild said. “Rupert Murdoch’s extraordinary achievements speak for themselves and we are very pleased he has agreed to be our partner. Genie Energy is making good technological progress to tap the world’s substantial oil shale deposits which could transform the future prospects of Israel, the Middle East and our allies around the world.”

For Israel to seek to exploit mineral reserves in the occupied Golan Heights is plainly illegal in international law. Japan was successfully sued by Singapore before the International Court of Justice for exploitation of Singapore’s oil resources during the second world war. The argument has been made in international law that an occupying power is entitled to operate oil wells which were previously functioning and operated by the sovereign power, in whose position the occupying power now stands. But there is absolutely no disagreement in the authorities and case law that the drilling of new wells – let alone fracking – by an occupying power is illegal.

Israel tried to make the same move twenty years ago but was forced to back down after a strong reaction from the Syrian government, which gained diplomatic support from the United States. Israel is now seeking to take advantage of the weakened Syrian state; this move perhaps casts a new light on recent Israeli bombings in Syria.

In a rational world, the involvement of Rothschild and Murdoch in this international criminal activity would show them not to be fit and proper persons to hold major commercial interests elsewhere, and action would be taken. Naturally, nothing of the kind will happen.

Echoes of Eichmann: The Banality of Gina Haspel

Two Interrogations, Gina Haspel and Adolf Eichmann

by Brian Terrell - Voices for Creative Non-Violence

May 12, 2018

“the evasions and obfuscations of these two willing technicians of state terror are chillingly similar”

On May 9, Gina Haspel, Donald Trump’s choice for head of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified at her Senate confirmation hearing in Washington, DC. Some senators questioned her about her tenure, in 2002, as CIA station chief in Thailand.

There, the agency ran one of the “black sites” where suspected al-Qaida extremists were interrogated using procedures that included waterboarding. She was also asked about her role in the destruction of videotapes in 2005 that documented the torture of illegally detained suspects. Her evasive answers to these questions, disconcerting and unsatisfying, are also hauntingly familiar.


Defendant Adolf Eichmann takes notes during
his trial in Jerusalem. The glass booth in which
Eichmann sat was erected to protect him from
assassination. (Photo credit: Israeli Government)

In 1960, Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped by Israeli spies in Argentina and brought to trial in Jerusalem for his part in the extermination of millions of European Jews during Germany’s Third Reich. In his interrogation with Israeli police, published as Eichmann Interrogated, DeCopo Books, NY, 1999, Eichmann stated that in the intervening years since the acts in question his own view of them had evolved and before the Senate on May 9, Haspel expressed herself similarly.

Haspel testified that while she can’t say what exactly might constitute an immoral order in the past, her “moral compass” would not allow her to obey one today, given the “stricter moral standard” she says “we have chosen to hold ourselves to.” She does not judge the actions that she and her colleagues took in the years after 9-11, “in that tumultuous time” of decidedly looser moral standards:

“I’m not going to sit here, with the benefit of hindsight, and judge the very good people who made hard decisions.” 

She testified that she supports laws that prohibit torture, but insists that such laws were not in place at the time and that such “harsh interrogations” were allowable under the legal guidance the CIA had at the time and “that the highest legal authority in the United States had approved it, and that the president of the United States had approved it.”

Likewise Eichmann was probed about his obedience when “ordered to do something blatantly illegal.” In a response that augured Haspel’s Senate testimony a half century later, Eichmann told his interrogators:

“You say illegal. Today I have a very different view of things...But then? I wouldn’t have considered any of those actions illegal... If anyone had asked me about it up until May 8, 1945, the end of the war, I’d have said: This government was elected by a majority of the German people...every civilized country on earth had its diplomatic mission. Who is a little man like me to trouble his head about it? I get orders from my superior and I look neither right nor left. That’s not my job. My job is to obey and comply.”

Not to compare the evil of the holocaust with the CIA rendition and torture (as if evil could be measured by quantity) but the evasions and obfuscations of these two willing technicians of state terror are chillingly similar. Eichmann’s cowardly protestations that he could not have known that facilitating torture and murder was illegal ring hollow.

It was only after Eichmann’s atrocities, though, that such crimes as torture were formally codified into law.

By 2002, however, along the precedents of the war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg, the United States was legally bound along with most nations in the world to the Geneva Conventions, to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention against Torture. Even the U.S. Army Field Manual, cited by Haspel in her hearing, labels waterboarding as torture and a war crime.

“We all believed in our work. We were all committed,” Haspel proudly boasted to the Senate, describing the morale and esprit de corps of her CIA comrades overseeing illegal detention, torture and murder in the years after 9-11.

Eichmann similarly praised the work ethic of his team. Inspired by Eichmann’s trial, Thomas Merton, in his poem, “Chant to be Used in Processions Around a Site with Furnaces,” put these words in the mouth of a condemned concentration camp commander:

“In my day we worked hard we saw what we did our self-sacrifice was conscientious and complete our work was faultless and detailed.”

An Israeli court did not buy Adolf Eichmann’s defense that he was following orders and obeying the law as he understood it and he was hung on June 1, 1962. We will soon know if the U.S. Senate will accept Gina Haspel’s appropriation of Eichmann’s alibi and confirm her as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.