Flight MH370, Terrorism Derailed

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Some stories never seem to go away and some stories should never go away. When dealing with the mysterious disappearance nearly a month ago of Malaysian Airlines flight 370, the story has expanded due to continuing media lies and quality independent investigative journalism.

One lie, reported here for the first time, is that this plane is actually a 777/200ER. The “ER” stands for “Extended Range.” According to Lt. Col. Stephen Avery USAF (ret), an airline security specialist and former commercial pilot:

“This specific model has two wing tanks and a belly tank in the cargo hold. It carries 333,400 pounds of fuel, capable of reaching Frankfurt, not just the Indian Ocean. This is the confirmed fuel configuration for flight 370;

• 69000 pounds in each wing (128,000 pounds total)
• 182,300 pounds in the main tank
• 12,600 aux tank (this model only)
• 333,400 pounds of fuel total

It can fly from Atlanta to Mumbai and when the plane lands it still has an hour and a half of fuel left. This plane has the most efficient engines in the world, much more efficient than the GE or Pratt and Whitney engines.”

 Christopher Bollyn, an investigative journalist known for his outstanding work on 9/11, discovered an “analog” of flight 370, the “sister plane.” This aircraft was sold by Malaysian Airlines to a firm in Fort Lauderdale, hangared for a while in Southern France and then transferred to Tel Aviv. Photographic evidence supports every part of this process, tracking the plane from France to Tel Aviv where it sits with its “Malaysian Airlines” markings when photographed in December 2013.

In Israel, the plane has remained hidden while Israeli authorities have claimed that Iran hijacked flight 370.

Can one assume that the plane held in “cold storage” in Tel Aviv may well have been turned into convenient “wreckage” supporting Israel’s official “conspiracy theory” that Iran had hijacked the plane and was planning to convert it into a “dirty bomb” and crash it into Israel.

That would be exactly what the world community might well accept as justification for an Israeli attack on Iran. Such an attack has been discussed, not only within Israel but has been openly advocated by Israel’s friends in the US congress, people like Representative Duncan Hunter and Senator’s McCain and Graham.

Similarly, Malaysian Airlines, who sold the plane to the Israeli “front companies,” has continually lied about what they have known regarding the planes location. We will examine this issue more closely.

There are unconfirmed reports of a third plane as well and a published reports from a Hong Kong source, also unverified, that ECM (Electronic Counter-Measure) systems were being installed on the missing plane and/or one or more “analogs.”

US REACTION

Whether or not this alleged airline hijacking or crash or “gross avionics malfunction” is attributed to Iranian terrorists as Israel claims or groups with other intentions, the US has deployed a robust air defense screen covering key areas of its East Coast from New York through South Carolina.

This screen includes JLENS aerostat based systems designed to detect and intercept cruise missiles and low flying aircraft. AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control Systems) aircraft have been deployed along with AEGIS ships with advanced air defense systems.

INDICATORS OF DESTABILIZATION

Nothing happens within a vacuum. The following indicators increase the threat level and probability that flight 370 is part of a larger conspiracy:

1. Simultaneous to Israel blaming the flight “disappearance” on Iran using evidence now attributable to falsification by an intelligence agency, Israel has closed its embassies around the world.
2. A story, now revealed as a hoax, was placed in the Huffington Post on March 28, 2014 citing President Obama with authorizing Saudi Arabia’s arming of Al Qaeda with advanced air defense weapons capable of downing any commercial aircraft in the world.
3. Long discredited defense firms tied to death squad activities and rendition kidnappings around the world, firms tied to “Blackwater” related anti-government extremist groups in the US, are being hired to murder key pro-Russian leaders in the Eastern Ukraine.

Moreover, the “hijackers” with “false passports” have now been revealed to be the product of “Photoshop fiction,” airport video carelessly altered not unlike the video released by Israel after the commando attack on the Turkish flagged Mavi Marmara.

Israel has recently agreed to indemnify Turkey for killing 9 passengers of that ship after video evidence, when examined, showed “armed terrorists” walking through steel bulkheads like ghosts.

MEDIA COMPLICITY

This is a big story, an inexorable revelation of state sponsored terrorism on a global scale encompassing full mainstream media complicity. The reporting in the media has outraged China, outraged the families of the victims but even that outrage is censored.

Earlier stories revealed early knowledge of the planes route, known to numerous nations, satellite and radar tracking, aircraft systems that remained active, reporting engine condition, location and more.

Investigation of avionics on flight 370, analysis of the wrecking sightings, now confirmed to have been falsified, even photo analysis of “terrorists” with “stolen passports” on the plane, all have been debunked.

Here is what we have learned about the avionics. Flight 370, as reported in an earlier NEO article, had or has numerous redundant systems, not just communications but, as we have now discovered, a classified “uninterruptable” autopilot override. This system, patented by Boeing after 9/11, managed by satellite downloadable software patches by Raytheon is controlled, according to a Boeing press release from December 2006, by the CIA.

There have already been denials that the system was installed on this aircraft or that the Malaysian government blocked this modification. First of all, the system is classified. Secondly, the denials are from both anonymous or non-credible sources, in fact, tied to the same sources, as we will see, responsible for other systematic “misreporting” and disinformation.

Simply put, at any time this or similarly equipped planes are suspected to be under control of either hijackers or “unsound” crew members, avionics and the onboard “auto-landing” system directs the plane to a predetermined airport using the Raytheon ARES (Advanced Route Evaluation System), a measure used to thwart terrorist attacks.

A startling discovery was a procedure that allowed cabin decompression in order to kill passengers. This system involves altering certain flight characteristics and the activation of a few systems on the plane that have no warnings or safety overrides. You can’t accidentally stall a Boeing 777 without the engines automatically overriding pilot controls but you can quite easily murder everyone onboard.

Curious.

MALAYSIA’S GOVERNMENT AND THE MEDIA, MORE THAN A HOAX

The Malaysian government has admitted that it has lied for weeks about what it knew about flight 370. Search and rescue efforts were sent far and wide, misusing valuable resources in areas that the Malaysian government now claims it knew 370 had never flown.

In fact, every media release thus far, and there have been dozens, have all been more than mistakes but part of an elaborate cover up that lends credence to not only Bollyn’s story but a broader conspiracy as well.

Though this story is less than a month old, so many bizarre and contradictory tales have spread across the mainstream media, most channeled through the hapless Malaysian government, that only the most recent stick with the public.

Let’s examine a couple of those.

Several reports indicate that wreckage has been spotted, some relatively close to Antarctica, though media have carefully altered maps to hide that fact.

There is a reason for this. The strongest ocean currents on the planet center exactly on the initial spot wreckage was claimed to have been spotted only a few days ago. These currents, the Antarctic Circumpolar Currents, based on Malaysia’s initial reports, would have pushed the floating wreckage to somewhere between New Zealand and Peru.

When this was made apparent, the claimed flight was then claimed to have been shortened “due to increased speed.” This would have then placed the wreckage further north, in counter-clockwise currents.

What is not told is that wreckage would then have been in the South Atlantic, not Indian Ocean.

Then again, information on the increased speed would have come from Rolls Royce’s technical oversight crews that, as reported in an earlier NEO story, monitored engine speed and temperature along with the exact position of the plane.

It is necessary to remind readers that the earlier NEO story outlined a scenario where Rolls Royce, using a SatCom link, shut down an engine on a Boeing 777/200 because of low oil pressure.

The pilot reporting that capability, the pilot acting as captain on that flight is also a United States Air Force colonel. The plane was operated by American Airlines.

The engine was shut down after landing. You see, Rolls Royce knows where a plane is, if it has landed, and where it has landed. If a plane is moving slowly, located exactly where an airport runway is and at the exact altitude representing a landing.

For instance, Daocheng Yading Airport in China is 14,472 feet above sea level. Without knowing where a plane lands and its exact altitude at the time, the confirmed Rolls Royce capability, that of shutting down engines through SatCom, would be suicidal.

We do, however, wonder who Rolls Royce has been informing of the location of the plane and why those authorities, presumed to be either British defense or intelligence ministries or both, failed to pass on this vital data to search and rescue personnel.

We are collecting a number of players here, Malaysia, certainly a pawn; Bollyn makes a case for Israeli involvement as they do for themselves with clumsily altered airport video and accusations against Iran.

If one or more “analog” planes used French facilities, that would include them as well. We have also made a case for British complicity in something.

Britain technically controls Diego Garcia, the only place the plane could have landed and refueled.

There is absolutely no evidence, thus far, that the plane crashed. Were such evidence to appear, thousands of miles away from where it should be, which, in reality, would be the bottom of the ocean, such evidence could only reasonably be assumed to have been “seeded.”

A PARTING SHOT

If anyone still remembers, stolen passports were a key issue supporting claims of an Iranian hijacking. Israeli defense officials claim that Iranian hijackers stole the plane, flew it to Iran where it is being turned into a massive bomb to be plummeted into Tel Aviv (where an identical aircraft is now being stored).

From an article in the South China Morning Post dated March 29, 2014:

“Interpol has rebuked Malaysia after a senior politician criticised the technology behind international police agency as “slow” and an obstacle that hindered immigration checks.

The Lyon-based crime force said in a statement Malaysia “cannot be defended by falsely blaming technology or Interpol. If there is any responsibility or blame for this failure, it rests solely with Malaysia’s Immigration Department.”

“Interpol’s information … may slow down the process of immigration’s check at counters.” AHMAD ZAHID HAMIDI

Zahid made his comments last Wednesday in parliament while explaining how two Iranians managed to evade border control checks to board the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 on March 8 using stolen passports.”

If what Interpol says is true, it is impossible to get on a plane in Malaysia with a stolen passport. They claim the check for stolen passports takes seconds.

Is Interpol lying or is Malaysia? Then we have the altered video of the imaginary “Iranian terrorists.” Then again, we have that plane in Tel Aviv.

Then again, Malaysia has lied so many times. Why? Avoiding responsibility for disasters is always expected. But could there be other reasons?

Information Minister: Erdogan’s government facilitated terrorists’ entry to Lattakia

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Alexandra Valiente

Mar 31, 2014

Minister of Information Omran al-Zoubi said that the government of Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan has regularly facilitated the entry of the armed terrorist groups into Kassab area in Lattakia countryside.

In an interview on the Syrian TV late Sunday, Minister al-Zoubi considered Erdogan’s acts as a violation of international resolutions calling for convicting all forms of terrorist acts.

He said that Erdogan’s acts prove that the Syrian leadership was right when it said that Erdogan and his government are involved in international terrorism, adding that “the persons who entered Lattakia northern countryside are neither opposition members nor Syrian citizens, they are groups of armed and trained foreigners with certain purposes and agendas.”

Minister al-Zoubi said that the Syrian Army and Armed Forces have foiled the attack of the terrorists, who are all of non-Syrian nationalities.

He stressed that no one can say that Syria has foiled the Geneva2 conference, highlighting that Syria has been calling, since the beginning of the crisis, for a political course that leads to solutions.

Al-Zoubi said that the stance of the Syrian state was rejected by the so-called “coalition” and its backers because they were not seeking a political solution but fragmenting the state and moving it to a direction that serves the US and Israeli interests in the region.

Source: Syrian Arab News Agency “SANA”

Syrian Arab Army

The USA would like nothing better than a war between Europe and Russia

The US is prepared to plunge Europe into a war with Russia in order for Washington to preserve its hegemony over the transatlantic axis.

The key issues are the prevention of Russia and Europe developing closer trade and political ties – stemming primarily from a vast trade in energy fuels; and, secondly, the survival of the American dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

So vital are these issues for continued American hegemony that Washington is prepared to sacrifice millions of lives in a war between Russia and its so-called transatlantic European “ally”.

The European commander, now retired, subsequently confided the information with Lehmann, who says that the tensions over Ukraine between Russia and Western powers are consistent with this latent American threat.The original threat was disclosed during the 1980s, but there is no reason to believe that the American policy of inciting a war in Europe has since changed. This is because the strategic rationale for the US bellicose logic remains the same. And recent events over Ukraine strongly suggest that Washington’s destructive designs are still in place.

Says Lehmann: “In the early 1980s, a European top NATO admiral said that American colleagues at the Pentagon had told him, unequivocally, that the US and UK would not hesitate in creating a new European war if the situation ever arose that Europe and Russia, then the USSR, were to develop close relations.”

 Central to the American rationale was, and continues to be, the issue of energy fuel. Washington does not want to see European and Russian economies integrating on the vital issue of trade in oil and gas, the foundation for economic and social development.

Dr. Christof Lehmann

Over the past two decades since the end of the Cold War between the US-led West and the former Soviet Union, Europe and Russia have seen substantial alignment of their economies, primarily due to the enormous oil and gas volumes supplied by Moscow. European-Russian bilateral trade is well over $1 trillion annually, and is some tenfold that of US-Russian trade.

Russia accounts for nearly one-third of Europe’s total hydrocarbon fuel consumption. In Germany, the largest European economy, that figure rises to 40 per cent. With the new pipelines of the North Stream and the currently constructed South Stream, the role of Russia as the main energy supplier to Europe is set to grow even more over the coming decades.

Lehmann adds: “The American dominance of the Atlantic axis with Western Europe is threatened by this development of closer economic ties between Europe and Russia. Germany and the Czech Republic have since the end of the Cold War developed close economic and other relations with Russia. Both are, together with Austria and Italy, pushing a trend towards even tighter relations with Moscow.”

This trend was always seen as a strategic danger by Washington. It can be argued that the Cold War from 1945 to 1990 was deliberately instigated by the US as a bulwark to counter the naturally inclined trade integration between Europe and Russia, owing to the latter’s prodigious energy reserves and its continental proximity.

The strategic danger for the US is twofold. Firstly, a close relationship between Moscow and Europe would remove the rationale for America’s military role in NATO and thereby its political influence in Europe. The second is that the European-Russian energy trade undermines the role of the American dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Exchange in such a key world market will inevitably move to the use of the Euro/Ruble, which would spell the end of global American financial hegemony, and with that, the end of the monstrously indebted US economy.

The American economy is already teetering on bankruptcy, with a total debt of $17 trillion, and spiraling. American bankruptcy and social implosion is an eventuality that is so far only postponed by the dollar’s continuance as the standard currency for international trade in fuel, and the de facto license for the US Federal Reserve to keep printing money way beyond any sound economic basis for doing so.

Says Lehmann: “The development of Russian-European partnership would leave the US politically, culturally and economically isolated within no more than 25 years. It would also mean that the US would become increasingly isolated in terms of its militarism and strategic encirclement of Russia and China. The dollar would collapse.”

An important side note is the insidious role of Britain. As the top European NATO commander revealed, the American war plans for Europe were supported by Britain. This is partly because of the historical co-dependence of Anglo-American capitalism, and also, as Lehmann points out, “a weakened Atlantic axis would mean a significant loss of British influence over Germany and France.”

This is the background to why Washington has sought to create a crisis over recent events in Ukraine. Washington has played the key role in fomenting regime change in that country, which has seen the rise of an unelected fascist junta in Kiev that poses a serious threat to Russia.

The Kiev demagogues have openly talked of inciting terrorism and mass murder against Russia and are willing to install American missiles on their Western border with Russia.

The debacle has led to the worse diplomatic crisis between European capitals and Moscow since the end of the Cold War. The possibility of a war between nuclear-armed powers may have receded for now, but the danger of such a catastrophe remains.

This weekend Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his American counterpart John Kerry for urgent talks in Paris. Reportedly, Kerry was holding the meeting to “de-escalate tensions” between Russia and the West. The reality is that Washington has done everything to escalate this conflict, in particular between Russia and Europe, for its own selfish strategic interests. That includes, if deemed necessary by the pyromaniacs in Washington, the ignition of all-out war in Europe.

Zionist terror state Army Attacks Land Day Protests Across West Bank, Jerusalem

http://imemc.org/article/67406

[Sunday, March 30, 2014] Israeli soldiers violently attacked several nonviolent protests held by Palestinians across the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem marking the 38th anniversary of Palestine’s Land Day, leading to dozens of injuries and several arrests.

Image By Afif Amira – WAFA News

The Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA) has reported that the army attacked and wounded dozens of Palestinians with gas bombs, live rounds and rubber-coated metal bullets, and physically assaulted several residents.

It said that at least one Palestinian was kidnapped in occupied Jerusalem, and several others were wounded, including a woman who suffered burns in her face, after the soldiers assaulted the protesters in Bab al-‘Amoud area, in the center of occupied Jerusalem.

The army also kidnapped another Palestinian in the Sultan Suleiman Street, in occupied Jerusalem, and injured a woman after attacking her and spraying her face with chemically modified pepper spray.

Abeer Zayyad of the Jerusalem First Campaign said the protesters were holding rallies to express their determination and steadfastness in their own land, and to protest the ongoing Israeli occupation and crimes against the Palestinian people.

She added that the army first kidnapped Khaled Husseini, coordinator of the campaign, on Sunday morning. Then, hundreds of soldiers and police officers were deployed in Bab al-‘Amoud, where they assaulted the nonviolent protesters.

In addition, the Follow-up Committee in al-Eesawiyya town, of occupied Jerusalem, said that the soldiers shot and wounded one young man, and kidnapped three others, during dawn clashes which took place on Sunday, after dozens of soldiers invaded the area.

Raed Abu Ryala, coordinator of the committee, told WAFA that the soldiers invaded several homes in Obeid neighborhood, violently searching them and causing excessive property damage, and assaulting Palestinians with pepper spray and batons, leading to several injuries.

Resident Ahmad Ali Obeid was also shot by a rubber-coated metal bullet in the leg, before the army kidnapped Mofid Shafiq Obeid, Wahib Mahmoud Obeid, and Mohammad Aziz Obeid.

In the Hebron district, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, soldiers also attacked several protests marking Land Day.

Coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements in nearby Beit Ummar town, Mohammad Awad, said the army fired rubber-coated metal bullets, gas bombs and concussion grenades at the nonviolent protesters as they marched towards the Jerusalem-Hebron Road near the town.

Awad added that the soldiers also sprayed the protesters with sewage water in an attempt to force them to disperse.

The Hebron Defense Committee also organized a nonviolent protest, in cooperation with national political factions east of Hebron city, close to the illegal Keryat Arba’ settlement, and marched marking Land Day and demanding Israel to return the Rajaby home to its Palestinian owners. Israeli settlers now illegally occupy the home.

The protesters marched carrying Palestinian flags and posters demanding the Israeli High Court to void its illegitimate decision which granted the settlers ownership over the Palestinian home, WAFA said.

Member of the Hebron Defense Committee, Mohammad al-Jabreeny, said the Palestinians chose to mark Land Day by protesting near the rugby home to affirm their rejection of the decision of the Israeli court, and to affirm that the property is located within the occupied State of Palestine, a state recognized by the United Nations, therefore, the Israeli occupation has no legitimacy.

Member of the Central Committee of the leftist Palestinian People Party (PPP), Fahmi Shahin, said that Palestinians are facing a serious Israeli military escalation, land theft and ongoing illegitimate Israeli settlement activities.

Shahin added that the Palestinian people are also facing American pressures and attempts aiming at obliging them to abandon their legitimate, internationally guaranteed, rights in their homeland, and added that the Palestinians will remain steadfast, and will continue their national resistance against the occupation and its settlements.

Member of the Union of Palestinian Women Committees, Sara Mteir, said Palestinians will continue their resistance, and will remain steadfast until the liberation of their land despite the destruction of homes and property carried out by the occupation forces.

The National Committee against the Wall and Settlements in the al-Tiwani area, south of Hebron, in cooperation with student groups at the al-Quds Open University, planted trees in Palestinian lands which Israel intends to illegally confiscate so that it can expand the Ma’on illegal settlement, built on Palestinian lands.

In Tulkarem, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, several Palestinians were injured, mainly due to effects of tear gas inhalation, after Israeli soldiers attacked their nonviolent Land Day protest, west of the city.

The protest started in front of the Polytechnic College and, as the protesters headed towards the Israeli roadblock in the area, soldiers fired several gas bombs at them, leading to clashes with local youth.

The residents also planted olive saplings in lands belonging to the college, near the Annexation Wall in the area.

Tulkarem Governor, Lieutenant Abdullah Kamil, and various officials, representatives of private and governmental organizations, security officials and national factions, participated in the protest.

Kamil said that land is the core of the struggle, the symbol of life to the Palestinian people who lost thousands of residents to Israeli violence, while hundreds of thousands have been injured and imprisoned.

“This day is the day of every Palestinian, its hold all symbols of resistance and steadfastness of every Palestinian in every part of occupied Palestine, including historic Palestine,” he said. “This day reflects the strong bond between the Palestinians and their historic land of Palestine.”

As Palestinians marked Land Day, the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu allocated NIS 177 Million for illegal settlement activities in the occupied West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem.

Earlier on Sunday, Israeli soldiers invaded numerous Palestinian communities across the West Bank, and kidnapped several Palestinians.

The army broke into and searched dozens of homes and interrogated several Palestinians in their own homes, and on roadblocks spread across the occupied West Bank.

On Saturday, several fanatic Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian homes near the Rajaby house, hurling stones at them and at several Palestinian cars.

Palestinians started marking land day back on March 30, 1976, when Israel illegally annexed thousands of dunams of Palestinian lands and private property, and considered those lands as part of the state.

The Palestinians marched to protest the decision and, back then, the army shot and killed six Palestinians, and injured dozens of others.

Related Link(s): http://silwanic.net/?p=48429

Bibi’s Final Solution; Nothing But Lies from Netanyahu

While world watches Ukraine, Netanyahu ramps up genocide in Palestine.

By Ronald L. Ray 

— The apartheid, racist, terrorist, rogue nuclear state of Israel bears “prime responsibility” for a “dangerous and pressing humanitarian and economic situation” in Gaza, says a report commissioned by European Union consuls general.

And in the week leading up to the Jewish feast of Purim in mid-March, which celebrates and re-enacts the Jewish victory over their enemies through Queen Esther, Israelis escalated violence against the oppressed Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. While both sides seemed to avoid a general conflict, there are signs that Israel may be establishing a situation that would enable them to complete their long-desired, genocidal “final solution” to the Palestinian “problem.” The Israeli blockade of Gaza, ongoing since 2006, intensified last year, when Egypt’s military established a pro-Zionist puppet regime in the Nile nation. Since that time, Egyptians frequently have closed the Rafah crossing into Gaza and destroyed hundreds of Palestinian tunnels, depriving the Gazans of over 80% of needed “construction materials, medical supplies, food, [fuel] and other goods,” said the EU officials. Aside from the other horrific effects, 1.7 million Palestinians must suffer up to 16 hours per day without electrical power. They are caught in a devastating and destabilizing “squeeze play” between two hostile governments, and Egypt now contributes to the genocide. A Palestinian-Israeli ceasefire was arranged in 2012, but Israel frequently has violated that agreement by destroying Palestinian and Catholic Church properties, firing on civilians in border areas, and poisoning water supplies in the occupied territories. Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are arrested or killed on a nearly daily basis by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), merely for peaceful protests or throwing a few rocks at the occupying soldiers.

Over 40 Palestinians were injured in such clashes over the Purim weekend. In retaliation, Palestinian militia members sometimes fire mortars and rockets at territory claimed by Israel, typically into open areas, where no one is endangered. The latest surge in armed conflict between the two sides—the most intense since 2008—occurred on March 11, when three Islamic Jihad (IJ) members fired or attempted to fire a mortar at IDF troops apparently attempting to enter southern Gaza, according to an Agence France-Press report. An Israeli air strike killed the three, leading to IJ firing at least 60 rockets the following day into mostly unoccupied Israeli regions. The Israeli air force then launched some 29 air strikes against purported Palestinian militia strongholds and Rafah. By Friday, hostilities seemed to have been reduced. In the midst of all this, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that the United States still has presented no promised framework for peace in Palestine, occupied by the Israelis since 1948, although an April 29 deadline for an agreement looms. While Palestinians recently expressed a willingness to accept the pre-1967 borders, Israel has refused the compromise.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu demands a racist, completely Jewish state, opposing United Nations insistence on a right of return for Palestinians expelled since 1948. He appears unwilling to remove illegal Israeli settlements from the Palestinian territories, with the infamous “wall of separation” being built 85% within those territories, unjustly depriving the native inhabitants of their land and their rights.

Israel’s illegal claim to East Jerusalem is also a grave stumbling block. Apart from the bellicose Netanyahu’s nearly psychotic demands, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman responded to the recent border violence with psychopathic calls for the IDF to re-occupy Gaza entirely, while Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon belligerently claimed Abbas is “not a partner for a permanent [peace] agreement.” Based on these and other recent events, it appears that the Israelis are employing a “divide and conquer” strategy against the rightful inhabitants of the Mideast land they have stolen. Israel presents irrational political demands while creating intolerable situations, which pit various Palestinian factions against each other and deliberately sabotage efforts for a just peace. Moreover, decades of U.S.-financed crimes against humanity, exercised against mostly defenseless Palestinians, have created a criminal, horrific tragedy: the largest death camp in the world, where millions of Palestinians face hopelessness and long, slow, painful deaths from torture, murder, disease and starvation at the hands of Jewish butchers. Netanyahu deliberately perpetuates ongoing genocide against the Palestinians. And if he can provoke the natives into responding with force, in order to then bomb them into oblivion, so much the better do the warmongers like it.

The time for words is over. Boycott Israel. Cut off diplomatic relations and all foreign aid to the Zionists. Isolate Israel from the civilized world. Free Palestine –

Abu Zakariya: A must see

د يحيى ابو زكريا / حوار الاخبارية 29 03 2014

Shaaban on Land Day: Al-Quds and Golan eyes of Arab Nation

 Mar 30, 2014

Damascus, (SANA) Presidential Political and Media Advisor Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban said that al-Quds and Golan are the eyes of the Arab Nation and it is the duty of all to defend them, adding “clinging to the land and sacrificing for it is the only choice for us.”

Shaaban pointed out Sunday during the inauguration of “From Golan to al-Quds” forum marking 38th anniversary of the Land Day, which was held by Al-Quds International Foundation in Damascus-based al-Sham Hotel with the participation of a number of researchers and thinkers, that those who defend al-Quds and Golan from any Arab country are actually defending themselves, their Arabism, religion and future, considering that “no-one has a favor in that as we are all targeted…and did not we believe in that, they would occupy our lands piece after piece.”

She pointed out that everybody sees how and why Syria is being targeted, “So we move back to the same equation which is clinging to the land, the principle and the value of sacrifice.”

“All those who launch assault on Syria will be repelled…hundreds of invaders had come to this land throughout thousands of years, but they were repelled and we have remained here because we believe in our land,” Shaaban added.

Presidential Political and Media Advisor clarified that the war waged on Syria is not of a sectarian nature but rather it is a war launched for controlling our land , pointing out that Israel set schemes for a hundred years in advance, and the sole response to that is represented through adhering to the land, the principles and the value of sacrifice.

“We should comprehend the principle of the land deeply and comprehensively because it is a basic condition for our existence, and if we take a panoramic view of the human history we could see that the entire conflicts revolve on the lands,” she elaborated.

“The Palestinians were not mistaken when they considered that their presence in the land is the only right and genuine existence,” Shaaban said.

She lauded the adherence of the Arabs and Syrians to the occupied Golan, reminding of what the late President Hafez al-Assad said “We will not give up a grain of soil of Golan.”

Shaaban stressed that the Arab-Zionist conflict is the compass of all what is going on in the Arab land, clarifying “We will not master analysis without realizing that the Palestinian issue is the Arabs’ central issue, and targeting the Palestinians is the first step for attacking all the Arabs.”

Assistant Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command Talal Naji said the reason behind the conspiring against the Syrian people is their adherence to the Palestinian Cause and belief in the liberation of the occupied Palestinian territories.

“The West wants the Arab leaders and countries to be in cahoots with them to liquidate the national rights of the Palestinian people,” he added.

He addressed the Syrian people by saying “We will always be with you until we liberate the occupied territories in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and each and every Arab land.”

“Land Day is the day of belonging to the genuine Arab national identity,” said Director General of al-Quds International Foundation Safir al-Jarad.

He highlighted the significance and symbolism of Golan and Palestine and the unity of their course of struggle in confronting the Israeli ambitions.

English Bulletin

NATO’s Secret Drone War in Syria – Turkish Drone Allegedly Downed by Syrian Army

admin / 2 hours ago

Mar 27, 2014, NSNBC

While Turkish and Western – backed Jihadists in the region around Kassab are on the run from the Syrian armed forces, an MP for Turkey’s largest opposition party CHP alleged that the Syrian Army has drowned a Turkish drone over Kassab.

The Turkish Aydinlik Dayly (AD) cites Mehmed Ali Ediboglu, an MP for Turkey’s largest opposition party CHP, as saying that the Syrian armed forces have shot down a Turkish drone over the Syrian city of Kassab.

The downing of a Turkish drone has international implications, considering that Turkey is a core NATO member state.

Last week, a Syrian fighter jet was shot down over Kassab while pursuing Turkish backed insurgents. Eyewitnesses reported to nsnbc international that the Turkish military is targeting Syrian army positions with artillery and tank shells and that Turkish special forces had been observed in the area.

Yesterday it transpired that members of Turkey’s governing AKP and Turkey’s P.M. R.T. Erdogan may have been giving the order to shoot down a Syrian jet, three days before the incident happened.

The Syrian Arab Army and Turkish/Western – backed insurgents have been involved in heavy clashes in and around the city of Kassab in Syria’s Lattakia region. The Jihadist have been suffering heavy casualties. The fighting erupted on 21 March and continues.

Aydinlik Daily quotes local sources as saying that the Syrian Army also succeeded in neutralizing the commander of the so-called Kastal Maaf front, Mohammad al-Abdallah, and the leader of the Mostapha brigades in northern Lattakia.

Syrian armed forces have, reportedly, pursued terrorists who had infiltrated into the region via Turkey. The insurgents fled after suffering a defeat in in the Samra Mountains and in Kassab.

CHP Member of Parliament, Mehmed Ali Ediboglu, visited the Turkish – Syrian border area in Yayladagi after heavy clashes erupted in the region. Ediboglu stated that the Turkish military allows and controls insurgents moves while they are crossing the border to and from Syria.

Aydinlik Daily cites the Turkish MP as saying that social media report, that a Turkish drone had been shot down with a surface to air missile by the Syrian Army on March 22. Ediboglu added that Turkish jets also had crossed the border at several occasions, in order to gather data for the armed insurgents.

The Turkish MP said that the drone was shot down about 1.5 kilometers from the Syrian town of Kassab, over Syrian territory, and that the fact has been covered-up in Turkey because it could cause problems in terms of international law. Ediboglu called for an urgent investigation into the downing of a Syrian jet by Turkish F-16s last weekend as well as into the Turkish drone that was downed by the Syrian army. NATO could, arguably, be held accountable for the use of Turkish drones over Syrian territory because Turkey is a core member of the alliance.

Syrian-Armenian town’s fate murky after rebel grab

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BADROUSIEH, Syria (AP), Mar 28, 2014

When hundreds of residents of the postcard-pretty coastal Syrian village of Kassab fled this week, it bore historic weight: it was the third time since 1900 that ethnic Armenians there felt compelled to run for their lives.They left once at the hands of vengeful Turkish neighbors, and later because of Ottoman forces. This time it was Syrian rebels storming into town. It was a heavy blow for the minority community that sees the town as key to preserving the Armenians’ identity in Syria.

Kassab “is a symbol of Armenian history, language and continuity. It’s very symbolic,” said Ohannes Geukjian, a political science professor who writes on contemporary Armenian history and politics. “And so the fall of Kassab, I consider it the defeat of Armenian identity in that area.”

Rebels seized control of Kassab on Sunday after launching an attack two days earlier in the coastal Syrian province of Latakia. The fighters were from an array of conservative and Islamic groups, including the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front.

The province has an ancient Armenian presence, but is better known as a bastion of support for President Bashar Assad. It is his ancestral home and that of followers of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, that he belongs to.

The clashes led most of Kassab’s estimated 2,000 residents to flee some 35 miles (57 kilometers) to Latakia city, emptying out a village that boasted a Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant church.

“We had to flee only with our clothes. We couldn’t take anything, not even the most precious thing — a handful of soil from Kassab. We couldn’t take our memories,” said a woman to Syrian state television. She identified herself as Kassab resident, but didn’t give her name.

Kassab is surrounded by the villas of middle-class Syrians who built their homes amid green wooded hills overlooking the sea. The area got a boost from a popular 2008 Syrian telenovela, “Daya, Daya,” which was filmed in nearby village of Samra. Tourists flock to the area in the summer.

Kassab residents, speaking to Syrian television, said mortar shells and gunfire came from the Turkish border toward their village. A Syrian field commander on a government-organized trip told journalists in the nearby town of Badrousieh that gunmen began their attack “with clear support from the Turks.”

Turkish officials refuted the claims.

“The allegations by some circles that Turkey is providing support to the opposition forces by letting them use its territory or through some other ways during the conflict … are totally unfounded,” the Turkish government said in a media statement on Wednesday.

The Turkish government was prepared to admit Syrian Armenian refugees and “protection could be provided to them,” the statement said.

Armenia’s President Serge Sarkisian said Kassab was attacked by Turkish militants in 1909, forcing local Armenians to flee for their lives. In 1915, as the 600-year-old Ottoman empire violently unraveled, the Armenian population was deported by the Turks, and thousands died as they marched across the desert.

A website created by Kassab descendants, “Kessabtsiner,” confirmed those events.

“This is the third expulsion of Armenians from Kassab and it represents a major challenge to modern mechanisms for the protection of ethnic minorities,” Sarkisian said in a statement this week.

In Washington, State Department Deputy Spokeswoman Marie Harf said the United States is “deeply troubled” by the fighting that is “endangering the Armenian community in Kassab.” The U.S. has repeatedly expressed concerns over the growing influence of Islamic radicals in the rebel ranks, and Harf on Friday called on all groups involved in the fighting to protect civilians, religious minorities and their places of worship.

“We have long had concerns about the threat posed by violent extremists, and this latest threat to the Armenian community in Syria only underscores this further,” Harf said.

Syria’s main opposition bloc said in a statement the rebel units belonging to the moderate Free Syrian Army have been fighting against government forces in and around, but adamantly denied that any of the FSA fighters are behind the violence against the Armenians. The Western-backed Syrian National Coalition blamed Assad’s military for the bloodshed, saying they have “deliberately bombed these areas and accused the rebels of it.”

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey, however, denies that the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

The forced flight from Kassab has deep meaning for many Armenians, because it is one of the last areas tracing back to the eleventh-century from the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, said professor Geukjian.

Other areas in modern-day Syria once had ancient Armenian villages, but residents left to join larger communities in cities like Aleppo, or assimilated into the wider Christian minority, or emigrated, said Geuikjian. Only Kassab “kept its identity and language,” he said.

“When you say Kassab, you understand you are referring to the Armenians,” said Arpi Mangassarian of Badguer, a Beirut-based Armenian cultural organization. “It symbolizes Armenian culture.”

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said ethnic Armenians accounted for about 70 percent of Kassab’s population.

Before the Syrian uprising, there were some 70,000 ethnic Armenians in Syria, particularly concentrated in the northern city of Aleppo and the area around Kassab. They were already a tiny minority among 23 million citizens, but part of Syria’s rich mosaic of tiny, ancient Christian and Muslim sects.

As the war grinds on, Armenians have been leaving to Lebanon, Armenia, Canada and the U.S.

The war has grown increasingly sectarian, as hardline Sunni rebel groups play a prominent role in the uprising, and Syrian minorities huddle behind Assad, fearing for their fate should extremists come to power.

There are no statistics of how many Armenians remain, but Geukjian estimated some 15,000 Armenians remained of a pre-war population of 40,000 in Aleppo. Others had drifted toward Latakia and yet others had remained in Kassab, he said.

“What will happen to us? We don’t know,” said the woman from Kassab, speaking to Syrian television.

The ancient area’s loss to ultra-conservative Muslim rebels suggests an uncertain future.

“We are afraid, if you want the truth. Of what is happening now, the future. The future is not clear,” Geukjian said.

Palmyrenes: Risking Their Lives to Preserve our Global Cultural Heritage

Palmyra – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – located 215 km northeast of Damascus, Syria on Nov 9, 2011. Palmyra was a renowned city in the ancient Silk Road and once played a crucial role as the trade center between the East and the West. With a period of prosperity lasting more than three centuries, Palmyra is often regarded as the “Bride of the Desert”.[Photo/Xinhua]

Video about Palmyra

 

Franklin Lamb
Palmyra, Homs Governorate, Syria

Al-Manar

Even if one takes a public passenger van (the fare is just $ 7.50) and the driver is pro-Resistance, which he usually is, the trip takes only a bit more than half the time than with a more “normal” Lebanese van driver.This observer, seemingly ever miscalculates life’s realities.   For example, he deluded himself recently into believing that Hezbollah guys were about the wildest, luckiest and fastest drivers from the archeological sites in Baalbek in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, or for a fast trip from the charming village of Britel, to Beirut’s southern suburbs.

But these “H guys” as Americans living in Dahiyeh, often refer to them; remind one of some of the more snail-paced rural southern Iowan Sunday drivers compared to how some Syrian taxis drive these days, particularly at night, on the main highways of Syria, as I was just reminded.

During another 20-hour day (3/28/14) at certain critical moments dominated by my border-line insane, but disarmingly charming, taxi driver who I hired.  The day began OK as we set out from Damascus at dawn for Palmyra, designated in 1980, as one of six UNESCO World Heritage sites in Syria and located deep in the Syrian Desert.

We were advised to take the M-5 Damascus to Homs highway and then head west toward Iraq even though it is more than 100 kilometers longer than the normal Damascus route to the archeological site. For many centuries, Palmyra (oasis with Palms) was a vital caravan stop for travelers crossing the Syrian Desert and it earned the title, Bride of the Desert for its beauty.

Inscription of Queen Zenobia at Palmyra

In pre-crisis days when there were actually real tourists around here, hundreds a day would visit Palmyra’s archeological sites and tour buses used to take my preferred route. But nowadays Daish and Jabhat al Nusra types have cut the road and no way would this observer’s driver (or the Syrian army) agree to this shorter more direct route so I kept quiet.

Honored to be allowed to visit Syria’s damaged archeological sites during the current crisis, as part of a fascinating research project and often accompanied by Syrian army security,  spending time touring Palmyra, founded during the 2nd millennium  BC,  with its Bronze Age to Ottoman Period antiquities,  and its Greek, Roman and Arabic cultural artifacts is deeply inspiring.But no less inspiring, on a human level, in this cradle of civilization, is the dedication, painstaking and sometimes dangerous work, of the Syrian people to preserve, protect, and reconstruct, where possible, Patrimoine Syrient.  The latter is also our Global Heritage of which the Syrian people are the custodians.

As is being increasingly well documented to the great credit of Syria’s Directorate General of Antiquities & Museums (DGAM) of the Ministry of Culture, hundreds of Syrian World Heritage sites, including those listed by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as warranting international protections, are being  threatened, damaged and in some cases substantially destroyed.

In Homs Governorate, one of 14 Administrative Districts  in Syria, there is extensive damage ranging from the Old City of Homs to  the recently liberated Roman fortress,  Crac des Chevaliers, 100 km west to Homs, and on to Palmyra, 200 km to east of Homs toward the Iraqi border.

For  ten months occupied by Islamist rebels but now it’s pretty much under Syrian army control. Even further east is Raqaa in the eastern Syria, near Iraq and reported to be under harsh, often drug fueled, Daish rule. Many other damaged antiquity sites still cannot be visited by representatives of the Ministry of Cultures Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM) due to rebel control.

A main reason for this catastrophe is the short-term (and sometimes longer) loss of Government control over key areas, a predicament that leaves heritage sites vulnerable to vandals, thieves, and heavy equipment excavators, while also opening them up for militias to use as camps or firing ranges.Complicating preservation efforts further is despoilment by forgers and looters, smugglers of antiquities and black market operators, as well as extremist ideologues bent on the extirpation of priceless monuments.

Temple of Bel

Some of the most destructive and anguishing damages this observer was briefed on at Palmyra are to the Temple consecrated in CE 32 to the Semetic god, Bel. He was worshipped at Palmyra with the lunar god Agilibol and the sun god Yarhibol and this triad formed the center of religious life in Palmyra and the widespread Palmyrrene culture.

This observer took notes as he was shown the hole in the southern wall of the Temple (1x2m approx.) as well as another in the eastern wall of the wood warehouse adjacent to the guesthouse, to its southern side (1.5×1.5m approx.).

In addition, several columns of the southern portico of the Temple were hit, and two of them collapsed. The southern wall of the Temple was hit by hundreds of bullets and many shells in several places; the western wall was hit on the inside and outside; the northern wall was struck by two limited hits and the eastern wall of the Temple endured two large holes.

The column in the northeastern corner of the portico of the fence of the Temple was hit and one can see traces of burning the lintel of the eastern portico of the Temple. More burning was done to the northern wall and eastern wall as well as to the southern window of the Temple.

Tower tomb at Palmyra

Also shown by a guide from the Palmyra Museum and allowed to photograph, were the damaged and illegal excavations in the SE and SW tombs area, damage and illegal excavations of the Camp of Diocletian, damage to the walls of the Palmyra Museum, and antiquities thefts in the Oasis, Theater and Guest house.

The latter was occupied by Daish and/or Jablat al Nusra for ten months and they stole and stripped basically everything including the electrical wiring.

Several forty foot high columns adjacent the Guest House were also targeted in the summer of 2013 and parts of them were knocked off their foundations. Many shell cuts and bullet scares cover large areas of the ancient ruins.

The Director of Palmyra’s very impressive Museum, Dr. Khalil al Hariri, showed this observer more than one hundred priceless artifacts that had been stolen by rebels and recovered over the past two years from hiding places. This was mainly accomplished with the help of the local Syrian Nationalist population who refer to themselves as Palmyrenes.

Sometimes risking sniper fire or revenge attacks, local citizens continue to collect and report to authorities the stolen treasures. These and many other antiquities are now secured due to their efforts.  As a result partly of citizens vigilance and the far-sightedness of the Syrian government, and the lessons learned from Iraq and the Baghdad Museum, all of Syria’s 32 Museums, as well as 80% of all antiquities housed inside the local Palmyra Museum were buried secretly early in the conflict and as of today, none of the storage vaults have been discovered or damaged, with locals keeping secret what they know.

Heavy metal doors have also been installed at the entrances of Syria’s Museums with security augmented by government forces and volunteer local ‘neighborhood watch’ committees comprised of ordinary citizens.

This observer left Palmyra at dusk. En route back to Damascus, the more than two-dozen army checkpoints we were stopped at, as my driver raced like a bat out of hell the more than 200 miles, were remarkably understanding given that it was pitch black in the desert and they had earlier warned us more than once not to stay on the road after dark due to ‘terrorists’ sometimes appearing along the desert highway.

Early morning panorama of Palmyra

Rather than preparing for a crash, I was actually wistful during our dark return trip to Damascus and was thinking about all what I experienced at Palmyra and the sadness that came across the face of Palmyrene, Dr. Kahlil Hariri, and Director of the Palmyra Museum during parts of our time together.

I will never forget the look on the gentleman’s face as he discussed how archeologists painstakingly shift the soil of archaeological sites teaspoon by teaspoon wearing nylon gloves to protect their finds, maybe a team working weeks or more on one square meter of earth.And as he explained how today, international mafia operations backed by investors in Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and even by certain Western Museums and famous antiquity auction houses, are using massive heavy equipment to scoop thousands of square meters  from deep into our past in just minutes, as they violently and brutally gouge out our culture heritage to cash in by selling our treasures . And all the while these and many of governments are turning a blind eye or fail to enforce current municipal and international laws.

Syria’s Cultural Heritage, the cultural heritage of every one of us is also protected by a legal penumbra that emanates from and extends the 1949 Geneva Convention (IV) on the Protection of Civilians. Attacks on cultural heritage are also outlawed by post WW II bilateral and multilateral international treaties as well as international customary law.

The international community is obligated to act without further delay on its moral and legal responsibility to preserve and protect, and also, where necessary and where possible to reconstruct the damaged archeological sites, sites that for millennia have been in the custody of the Syrian people. It is to them who today all people of good will honor for their sacrifices and humanity.

Franklin Lamb is a visiting Professor of International Law at the Faculty of Law, Damascus University and volunteers with the Sabra-Shatila Scholarship Program (sssp-lb.com). He is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com

Obama can’t be that stupid so it means he’s just a bare faced liar

Obama delivers his, perhaps, stupidest speech in Brussels

http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/27-03-2014/127182-obama_brussels_speech-0/

AP photo

In Brussels, Barack Obama summed up the results of the US-EU summit. Obama spoke more about Ukraine, rather than about the USA’s relations with Europe.

The key event of Obama’s European tour was his speech in the Brussels Palace of Fine Arts in front of 2,000 people. His lengthy discourse on the history and common values ​​with Europeans was very quickly replaced with anti-Russian rhetoric.

The speech turned out to be a dispute with Russian authorities, entirely devoted to the situation in Ukraine. Obama stated that the United States fully supported the new government in Kiev and promised to help them financially. He then said that it was absurd to assume that the U.S. colluded with nationalists in Kiev, Vesti.ru reports.

Noteworthy, the U.S. has been increasing its military presence on the border with Russia. By agreement with the NATO Secretary General, the States will send six F-15 fighters to Lithuania and 12 F-16 jets to Poland in the coming week (plus about 250 people of staff).

Barack Obama also urged the alliance to expand military budgets. The use of military force has become common practice for Washington. In 1983, the U.S. invaded Grenada, in 1989 – Panama, in 1999, NATO bombed Yugoslavia, in 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan, in 2011- Libya, in 2003 – Iraq.

The American “democracy” split Iraq into three feuding parts. The Kurds declared autonomy in the oil north – Kurdistan. Iraqi Sunnis fight Shiites; terrorists acts kill hundreds of people every month. The year 2013 was the bloodiest one since the US-led invasion of Iraq.

As for the Crimean referendum and people’s wish to join Russia, Obama considers all that illegal. At the same time, he justifies the separation of Kosovo and the NATO bombing of Serbian towns. It was then called the establishment of the political status of the province under international law and the fight against Milosevic’s repression. Fourteen thousand bombs were dropped, more than two thousand people were killed, including 88 children. For Mr. Obama – this is justifiable and legal.

The U.S. and Europe, the American president assured, are interested in the strong and stable Russia. He acknowledged that the situation with the Crimea could not be changed. Traditionally, ignoring obvious unwillingness of European leaders to complicate economic relations with Moscow, Mr. Change threatened Russia with new sanctions and political isolation.

It was probably Obama’s stupidest speech of all.

Boycott on Israel is working but it’s important to intensify efforts

Israel loses eight billion dollars and Arab parties join the boycott

(MEMO) – Mustafa Barghouti, the secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative movement, has estimated that Israel has incurred losses of around eight billion dollars due to the boycott campaign against illegal settlements, equivalent to 20 per cent of their GDP.

Regarding the latest Palestinian efforts to escalate the settlement boycott, Barghouti revealed that an agreement has been made with 13 democratic Arab parties to form boycott committees in the Arab world.

In a statement to Quds Net News Agency on Thursday he said: “the European Union did not issue a decision to boycott Israel, but what is taking place is the boycott of any relationship or agreements with settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”

Furthermore: “This experience is being circulated worldwide and not only in European countries; many areas worldwide are also ready to boycott the settlements.”

The agreement with the Arab parties to participate in the boycott campaign came after the participation of a delegation from the Palestinian National Initiative movement headed by Barghouti, along with a delegation from Fatah, headed by Nabil Shaath in the Arab Social Democratic Forum. It was held in Amman, Jordan, over two days and ended Wednesday.

The draft resolution put forward by the Palestinian National Initiative regarding Jerusalem was agreed upon unanimously, along with a mass movement of boycott and sanctions against Israel and the decision to support the Palestinian popular resistance and the struggle for justice for Palestinians against the occupation and the settlements.

The delegates called upon the people of the Arab world and its friends to adopt a strategy for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it ends its discriminatory, unjust occupation.

It is expected that the Human Rights Council of the UN in Geneva will vote on Thursday and Friday on five resolutions condemning Israel. These include a resolution calling to encourage boycotting Israeli settlements and cutting all investments with them. Meanwhile, Israeli diplomacy has not taken any direct action to curb these decisions and is busy dealing with strikes in their international embassies and consulates.

A senior Israeli official said that the proposal for the resolution calling for a boycott of the settlements is creating tension and anxiety in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. Having realised that Israeli diplomacy is completely paralysed due to the strikes, they quickly decided to assign a special envoy to Geneva. Meanwhile the Israeli vice-president of the National Security Council, Aaron Larmon, was expected to arrive on Wednesday but a last minute decision was taken to cancel the visit after officials in the Prime Minister’s office realised that they would not be able to influence the formulation of decisions looming in Geneva.

The draft resolution in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva was based on the proposition made by a group of Arab states in the Human Rights Council, including the Palestinian Authority, and is entitled Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The proposed draft resolution, which will be voted upon, is the first of its kind to condemn Israel in UN Human Rights Council resolutions.

Israel considers the wording very dangerous as it is based on what is stated in the BDS campaign against settlements, and although the decision of the Human Rights Council does not bind any obligation upon any state, the vote in favour of such a decision will bring about more Israeli settlement boycotts and the boycott of Israeli companies that cooperate with settlements, operate there, or even open branches there.

 

Source: Middle East Monitor

Boycott the USA and kick them out of Europe

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/03/29/356450/boycott-the-usa/

Boycotting the US could happen as people realize that the USA is the key part of an Axis bringing unlimited evil.

Boycott the USA!  You read it here first.

“Impossible!” you say. “The USA leads the “international community;” boycotting the USA is silly fantasy.”

Yet such a boycott could happen as people realize that the USA is the key part of an Axis bringing unlimited evil. Indeed, USA policy is so malign with such contradiction, that the men in white coats will soon be on their way to visit American leaders.

At present the USA is leading the movement to boycott and sanction Russia.

“You just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests,” says American Secretary of State John Kerry.

Oh really? So which country — on phony pretext (weapons of mass destruction) — invaded Iraq in 2003? 

And who, eight months ago, was screaming for an attack on Syria on another phony pretext (that the Syrian government had made a gas attack on civilians)? 

And which government was, and still is, part of the biggest deception in modern history, a deception which leads to endless war, on phony pretexts, against Islamic states? (Those who do not know that 9/11 was/is the biggest deception in modern history should visit any YouTube video of WTC Tower Number Seven in freefall collapse even though it had not been touched by an airplane). 

And which country, just after 9/11, proposed invading seven Islamic countries on phony pretexts (look up General Wesley Clark on the subject)?

It’s the USA, of course!

Moreover, it’s the USA which is one third of the Axis of Evil (the other two thirds are Saudi Arabia and self-righteous, racist, genocide-implementing Israel) which is bringing a head-chopping, throat-slitting, gas-choking, let’s-garotte-a-young-girl sectarian Wahhabism not just to the Middle East but, if they can, to the whole world.

And which country spies on every other person, yes, every other person, in every conceivable way? 

And which government has purchased two billion dum-dum, explosive bullets, (that’s two billion, six for every American man, woman and child), whose police are out of control and which will soon make the former East German communist stasi state look like Toytown?

It’s the USA, of course! Just as it’s the USA which, ultimately to justify its support for allowing Israel to expand into the lands of others and ensure the entry of global financiers into the lands of others, has used phony pretexts, in every conceivable way, against Iran (by alleging that Iran — which has attacked nobody in hundreds of years — is an aggressor).

All this, of course, comes from the USA which is now completely controlled by the global financiers, the military-industrial complex and as corrupt a political system as exists anywhere in the world).

The USA is also petulantly stupid — it even stops Iranian diplomats, in a civilian plane, flying over its air space! 

Moreover, which country has been at war every year since 1945 and yet it preaches the need for peace to others?

And which country, all the time, says that “all options are on the table” by which is meant that nuclear weapons can, and will, be used even against those who have no nuclear weapons?.

And which country is now striving to surround Russia with missile bases yet had an apoplectic fit when the Soviet Union tried to put missiles in a spot near the USA (1963 Cuban crisis)? 

And which country lectures others about human rights yet tortures people and has the highest incarceration rate in the world?

And which country is hand in hand with that gruesome totalitarian barbarism called Saudi Arabia which likes whipping women and hacking off their heads? In fact, they’re so hand in hand that the Saudis are trying to claim that they are promoting democracy in Syria! Moreover, at this very moment Obama is in Saudi Arabia assuring its vicious, decrepit leaders of the USA’s everlasting support.

Most extraordinary of all, consider the exact words of Secretary of State Kerry — “You just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests.”  The clear implication is that a country like America IS entitled to invade another country to assert its interests if it can find a ‘genuine’ pretext!

A pretext is an effort or strategy intended to conceal something.  It’s a technique of continual falsity.  It’s what the USA does all the time.

Afghan President, Hamid Karzai has put the matter clearly and precisely.  He has said that the USA launched its attack on Afghanistan “for its own interests” (and, remember, that is being said by a President who was put into power by the Americans).

Now, at last, the world is waking up to the danger of America’s support for Israel with more and more demands for boycotting the Zionist entity.  In the UK the architects have done it.  Now 29 brave, far-seeing members of the European Parliament are doing it. The dam against sanctions on Israel is breaking.

But it’s the USA which lets Israel endlessly create settlements and endlessly expand into the lands of others.  It’s the USA which never addresses Israel’s possession of hundreds of nuclear weapons.  It’s the USA which – for heaven’s sake! – is now mulling giving surface-to-air missiles to the Takfiri, throat-slitters and gas-chokers in Syria (yes, the SAM missiles will inevitably end up in the hands of the Takfiri).

The boycott-Israel movement will soon be snowballing and, because of the USA’s support for Israel and Saudi Arabia, the boycott-USA movement is not too far away.

You read it here first.

Turkey needs to get rid of dishonest Erdogan, his lies in regard to Syria are shocking

Some more thoughts on the leaked tape from a meeting in the Turkish foreign ministry which is only very selectively reported in “western” media. A video with recorded voices and English text is available as is the seemingly complete text in two parts.

The setting of the recording is this:

The voices of the illegal recording believed to belong to Davutoğlu, National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Hakan Fidan, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu, and Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Gürel. According to the information obtained from sources, the recording consists of a chat between four officials in Davutoğlu’s office before the commencement of the official meeting with the participation of more civil and military bureaucrats in another room at the Foreign Ministry
It is not clear when exactly the meeting happened. It would fit the situation late last year or early 2014.

The major points from my view:
◾Turkey has delivered 2,000 trucks of weapons and ammunition to the insurgents in Syria.
◾There are plans for false flag attacks on Turkey or Turkish property to justify an attack from Turkey on Syria.
◾The Turkish military has great concerns going into and fighting Syria.
◾The general atmosphere between these deciders is one of indecisiveness. Everyone seems to be unclear what Erdogan wants and is waiting for clear orders from above.
◾U.S. military has shortly before the meeting presented fresh plans for a no-fly one over Syria.

Then there is the fact in itself that this tape and others leaked. Internal government communication in Turkey and personal communication of Turkish official has been thoroughly compromised. This will hinder future decision making and will erode any trust Turkish government allies may have in it.

It is somewhat astonishing how “western” media avoid the content of the leaked tape. An AP report on it makes a lot of the youtube blocking the Turkish government ordered in reaction to the tape. Of the recording itself the AP only mentions this:

The four are allegedly heard discussing a military intervention in neighboring Syria, a sensitive political issue in Turkey, although the context of the conversation is not clear.

The Washington Post filed that AP report under Technology. This is an incredible disservice to its readers.

The Guardian report based on Reuters is not any better:

The move by the TIB came hours after an anonymous YouTube account posted a leaked audio recording allegedly of a confidential conversation between Turkish intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, undersecretary of the foreign ministry Feridun Sinirlioglu and deputy chief of the general staff, Yasar Gürel, discussing possible military action in Syria.

There is no mentioning at all of the false flag attack. The Wall Street Journal comes somewhat nearer to the truth:

… a leaked recording published anonymously on the platform puported to reveal a conversation in which Turkey’s foreign minister, spy chief and a top general appear to discuss how to create a pretext for a possible Turkish attack within Syria.

For once kudos to the NYT which at least touches one point but leaves out the other important ones:

… the officials were heard discussing a plot to establish a justification for military strikes in Syria. One option that is said to have been discussed was orchestrating an attack on the Tomb of Suleyman Shah …

German media did not do any better.

A NATO ally is planning a false flag attack on its own territory which would implicate NATO Article 5 and other NATO countries’ forces and the media do not even touch the issue? This is ludicrous.

Related to the Syria issue is another thinly sourced trial balloon, the tenth or so, by the unofficial CIA spokesperson David Ignatius in the Washington Post:

The Obama administration, stung by reversals in Ukraine and Syria, appears to have decided to expand its covert program of training and assistance for the Syrian opposition, deepening U.S. involvement in that brutal and stalemated civil war.
…
Details of the plan were still being debated Thursday, but its likely outlines were described by knowledgeable officials: …

It follows the list of issues that have been discussed on and on over the last three years, more CIA training for insurgents in Jordan, more weapons, maybe some MANPADs. Ignatius source is here seems to be the CIA friends in the Syrian opposition:

The expanded program would “send a clear message to the Assad regime that there is no military solution to the struggle,” according to a March memo to the White House from the opposition. Assad “has no incentive to talk” now, the memo argued, because he thinks he is winning.The rationale, bluntly stated, is that to reach an eventual diplomatic settlement in Syria, it is necessary now to escalate the conflict militarily. This has been a hard pill for Obama to swallow, but prodded by the Saudis, he seems to have reached that point.

There are so many caveats in here – “appears to have decided”, 2still being debated”, “seems to have reached that point” – that I do not believe a word of it. The loudly announced, by Ignatius and others, attack on south Syria has yet to appear and the halfhearted attack by the Turkish supported Jihadists in the north seems to be stuck.

I do not anticipate any bigger action by Turkey or the U.S. especially as the such action right now would likely lead to harsher reaction by Russia.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/turkey-wages-war-on-syria-leaked-recording-confirms-turkish-false-flag-attack/5375807

The moderate rebels: A needle in a haystack

Rebel fighters members of the al-Sham Brigade (Liwa al-Sham) take part in a training session in the northeastern city of Deir Ezzor, on March 25, 2014. (Photo: AFP-Ahmed Aboud)

By: Suhaib Anjarini

Published Saturday, March 29, 2014

The United States and its allies sound like a broken record when they claim to only “support moderate rebels” in Syria. This support, however, requires finding these moderate rebels first, a difficult if not impossible mission.

Syria: If the nature of the Free Syrian Army’s name was ambiguous since its inception in 2011, it is clear today that it is nothing but a label for media consumption. In fact, it never constituted an umbrella group and it did not succeed in creating real leadership that would direct the activities of armed groups present on the ground. Hundreds of groups claimed to be part of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Announcing their FSA affiliation was a mere pathway to receiving foreign support. Funders – most notably Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait’s Salafis – were keen on the Islamist identity of the groups receiving support without requiring them to announce it publicly.

If the nature of the Free Syrian Army’s name was ambiguous since its inception in 2011, it is clear today that it is nothing but a label for media consumption.

In 2013, the picture became clearer. The Islamist discourse became public and most groups organized under the rubric of new fronts that are predominantly jihadist in nature. Groups that used to claim affiliation with the FSA united with hardline groups that never once raised the FSA flag. An example would be the Tawhid Brigade joining ranks with Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham Movement in creating the Islamic Front which became the third part in a tripartite alliance of opposition forces along with al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). If al-Nusra Front and ISIS’s extremist credentials are well-known, the Islamic Front is no less extreme, especially the Ahrar al-Sham Movement which can be described as the Syrian al-Qaeda.

The FSA’s general staff divides the Syrian battlefield into five battle fronts. The southern front in Damascus, its countryside, Daraa and Suwaida. The eastern front in Raqqa, Deir al-Zor and Hasaka. The western front in Latakia and Tartous. The central front in Homs and Hama and the northern front in Aleppo and Idlib. We will now place these fronts under a more critical lens to look for the moderate groups.

The southern front

In addition to al-Nusra Front and Jaysh al-Islam, who are affiliated with the Islamic Front, the southern front of the FSA’s offensive is teaming up with small jihadist groups such as the Green Battalion which is believed to be al-Qaeda-affiliated even though it is not well-known in the media. Saudi jihadists have a very strong presence within the group. It has pledged allegiance to the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and its leaders boast that they were the first to use “immersion” operations, i.e. immersing oneself into the enemy – in Syria.

There is also the al-Baraa Brigade which claimed the kidnapping of Iranian pilgrims “because they are Shia” and the Glories of Islam Gathering which consists of five Islamist groups that allied together last October. The statement announcing their formation said that the gathering was established “for the sake of closing ranks and developing jihadist activities.” In the same month, four groups created what they called Jaysh al-Sunna wa al-Jamaa which vowed to “keep on fighting to uphold the word of God and overthrow the Iranian sponsored regime.”

All the organizations adopt the same discourse, including ones that have remained independent in the Damascus countryside such as Suquour al-Sham Battalion, Ansar al-Islam Gathering, Sham al-Rasoul Brigade and Sheikh al-Islam ibn Taymiyyah Battalion.

In 2013, the picture became clearer and their Islamist discourse became public.

Announcing their FSA affiliation was a mere pathway to receiving foreign support.

In Daraa too, the Islamist groups are dominant. Such as the Muthanna bin Haritha Battalion, which defines itself as defeater of the Safavid Persians, al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar Brigade which includes foreign jihadists, the Yarmouk Band which was formed last month gathering under its Islamic banner 14 groups that pledged to “liberate Daraa from the clutches of the Alawi occupation,” under the slogan “And God is predominant over His affairs but most of the people do not know.” There are also brigades and battalions in the region that have pledged allegiance to al-Nusra Front such as al-Musayfira Martyrs’ Brigade.

In Quneitra, there is Ahfad al-Rasul (the Prophet’s Grandchildren) Brigade which is fighting under the banner of the Syrian Revolutionaries Front. The group, which the FSA’s general staff touted its moderate Islamist credentials, is the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade formed in August 2012 under the leadership of Bashar al-Zoubi upon merging seven smaller groups. In March 2013, this brigade held members of an international peacekeeping force captive as they were passing in the demilitarized zone “because they are crusaders.”

The eastern front

The most prominent groups on this front are the Islamic Front and ISIS, who exercise exclusive control over Raqqa, while al-Nusra Front challenges their control in Deir al-Zour and the oil fields and is trying to control al-Khabur Basin in Hasaka. There is also the Kurdish Islamist Front which includes a 1,000 fighters and is primarily interested in fighting “infidel” Kurdish groups.

The western front

The front with the least amount of armed groups. These groups are confined to the northern Latakia countryside and they are all jihadist groups such as al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, Ansar al-Sham and Junoud al-Sham. The latter is a group whose fighters are predominantly Chechen and is not related to the organization Jund al-Sham. There is also Sham al-Islam Movement, a jihadist movement whose fighters are mostly Moroccan.

The northern front

This front, chronologically speaking, came in second in terms of the influx of immigrant jihadists and is still number one in terms of numbers. There, the opposition power is divided between ISIS, al-Nusra Front, Jaysh al-Mujahideen and the Islamic Front. The main components of the Islamic Front in this area are al-Tawhid Brigade and Ahrar al-Sham Movement. There was a recent announcement about new groups joining the Islamic Front in Aleppo such as Aasifat al-Shamal Brigade and Ahrar Surya Brigade. Both groups are accused of stealing, making the Islamic Front in that area a bizarre mix of hardliners and thieves.

Jaysh al-Mujahideen also takes the same hardline approach. It is the one that declared in communique number two that “the jihadists of al-Nusra Front are our brothers.” It also called on “the immigrants in ISIS to defect and join the ranks of their brothers, the honest mujahideen garrisoned at the Syrian border against the Alawi Assad regime.” One of this group’s most recent accomplishments is detaining Christian opposition activist Marcell Shehwaro and forcing her to sign a pledge promising to wear a veil. When it was formed, Jaysh al-Mujahideen included the biggest group in the region that hid behind a mask of secularism, namely, the Nineteenth Band in the Free Syrian Army.

Groups that used to claim affiliation with the FSA united with hardline groups that never once raised the FSA flag.

In Idlib, Jaysh al-Sham al-Islami enjoys a strong presence. It was formed from the union of several groups last February and it upholds the slogan “Towards a Rashidun (righteously guided) Islamic Caliphate.”

The central front

It was one of the first areas in Syria to welcome jihadists through Lebanese territories. Al-Haq Brigade, affiliated with the Syrian Islamic Front, and al-Nusra Front are the two most prominent groups in the area. There is also Mujahideen al-Sham Brigade that is affiliated with the Islamic Front. While Jund al-Sham, which was the strongest group in al-Husn region collapsed, al-Faruq Brigades are still present. The group was initially known as al-Faruq Battalions and it achieved great fame through the support of the Muslim Brotherhood and its “Saudi brothers.” Al-Faruq Brigades fought with such sectarian spirit arguing that the shedding of Alawi blood is permissible. The group is now divided into Faruq al-Shamal, Faruq al-Islami, the Independent Omar al-Faruq Brigade and Hama Faruq Battalion. None of them however have abandoned the motto of shedding Alawi blood.

A somewhat weak group in the area is the Revolution Shields which was formed in August 2012 with the support of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its fighters do not exceed a thousand and until recently, the Brotherhood had promoted the group as a moderate Islamist alliance, and had pinned hopes on it. But placing the Muslim Brotherhood on the Saudi terrorist list ousted the Revolution Shields from the game.

The same did not happen to the National Unity Battalions, a group that has not actually fought since its inception in August 2012 and the number of its fighters range between 1,500 and 2,000 deployed on a number of fronts within battalions that have non-Islamic names such as Yusuf al-Azmi and Abdul Rahman al-Shahbandar. The National Unity Battalions is not an effective group and it does not have strong foreign ties or a prominent face to lead it, unlike the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, which is under the leadership of Jamal Maarouf, and is expected to absorb the National Unity Battalions into its own ranks soon.

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.

NATO and their affiliated terrorist groups wages Desperate Last Battle in Northern Syria

By Tony Cartalucci

Global Research, March 29, 2014

New Eastern Outlook

The small northwestern Syrian town of Kassab, located directly on the Syrian-Turkish border, has turned into a pivotal battleground between Syrian security forces and armed militants backed by the Turkish military. The clashes grabbed headlines last Sunday when Turkey shot down a Syrian warplane conducting airstrikes along the border as the militants crossed over into Syrian territory.

While the Turkish government maintains the Syrian plane entered Turkish airspace, it came down in Syrian territory with its pilot having safely ejected from the downed aircraft and also recovered on Syrian soil. Reuters reported in its article, “Turkey shoots down Syrian plane it says violated air space,” that:

A Turkish F-16 fired a rocket at the Syrian jet and it crashed around 1,200 meters (1,300 yards) inside Syrian territory.

Clearly the Turkish government knew Syrian forces were engaging militants Ankara itself was harboring in its territory and any cross-border pursuits carried out by Syria posed no threat to the security of Turkey any more than the cross-boarder pursuits the Turkish government regularly conducts in northern Iraq against Kurdish militants. Instead, it appears that Turkish warplanes were in fact providing air cover for the militants crossing over into Syria.

 More alarming is the fact that the militants have been identified across the Western media as hailing from the US State Department designated terrorist organization Jabhat Al Nusra – Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise. The Wall Street Journal’s Middle East RealTime reported in a post titled, “Latakia Offensive Stirs Dark Memories for Armenian-Syrians,”that:

When hardline Islamist rebels took over swaths of Latakia province this week, it provided them with their first outpost on the Mediterranean Sea. 

The military offensive was symbolic for several reasons: rebels from al Nusra Front taking over northern parts of Bashar al Assad’s hometown province while the Turkish air force shot down a regime war plane trying to bombard the rebel advancement, as it flew near their shared border. Nusra is al Qaeda’s sanctioned offshoot in Syria.

A NATO member providing air support for Al Qaeda incursions into a neighboring country could not be a more egregious violation of national sovereignty or international law.  Yet Turkey has apparently not stopped there in seeking to escalate tensions with Syria. A recently leaked conversation between the head of Turkish intelligence, Hakan Fidan, and Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, reveals Turkey’s plans to stage a false flag attack on Turkey itself to provoke war with Syria.

The International Business Times reported in its article, “Turkey YouTube Ban: Full Transcript of Leaked Syria ‘War’ Conversation Between Erdogan Officials,” that:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ban of YouTube occurred after a leaked conversation between Head of Turkish Intelligence Hakan Fidan and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu that he wanted removed from the video-sharing website.

The leaked call details Erdogan’s thoughts that an attack on Syria “must be seen as an opportunity for us [Turkey]“.

In the conversation, intelligence chief Fidan says that he will send four men from Syria to attack Turkey to “make up a cause of war”.

Deputy Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Yaşar Güler replies that Fidan’s projected actions are “a direct cause of war…what you’re going to do is a direct cause of war”.

Turkey’s foreign ministry said the leaked recording of top officials discussing the Syria operation was “partially manipulated” and is a “wretched attack” on national security.

In the leaked video, Fidan is discussing with Davutoğlu, Güler and other officials a possible operation within Syria to secure the tomb of Suleyman Shah, grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman empire.

The astounding revelation has been all but buried by the Western media who has instead intentionally focused solely on Turkey’s banning of Facebook and Twitter to cover up what it only refers to as “corruption.” Turkey’s use of a self-inflicted attack to justify direct military involvement in Syria risks triggering a greater regional conflict involving Turkey and by extension, NATO’s primarily Western membership – a scenario the West has been seeking almost as soon as the conflict in Syria first started in 2011.

Western intervention, even if limited in the north of Syria via Turkey, would allow for the creation of Western occupied “buffer zones” within Syrian territory, long desired by the West since at least as early as 2012 by US policy makers, particularly those among the corporate-funded Brookings Institution from which many of America’s military adventures have been designed.

The idea of establishing a “buffer zone” is meant to look like a knee-jerk reaction to violence along the Syrian-Turkish border and was described in detail by the Brookings Institution in their March 2012 “Middle East Memo #21″ “Assessing Options for Regime Change” where it stated specifically (emphasis added):

“An alternative is for diplomatic efforts to focus first on how to end the violence and how to gain humanitarian access, as is being done under Annan’s leadership. This may lead to the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power. This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts.”

The Brookings Institution, Middle East Memo #21, makes no secret that the humanitarian “responsibility to protect” is but a pretext for long-planned regime change.  click to enlarge

 

Aiding and abetting Al Qaeda, providing armed terrorists with air support, and planning to intentionally provoke a war with Syria through a premeditated, self-inflicted  and now fully revealed attack designed to frame Damascus – all carried out in plain view as the world looks on illustrates the dangerous desperation the West now finds itself in as its designs for global hegemony take a turn for the worse.

While Turkey stands to take the fall for the recent and blatant serial acts of war against neighboring Syria, its membership in NATO and NATO’s subsequent failure to condemn Turkey for its actions implicates the entire military alliance as complicit. Ironic indeed is the fact that while NATO coddles, arms, and provides air cover for Al Qaeda along the Syrian-Turkish border, it uses the presence of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to justify its continued occupation there as well as cross-border raids into neighboring Pakistan.

At each pivotal juncture during the ongoing Syrian conflict, the West has expended heavily its credibility and reputation while straining the “international norms” it has worked for decades to establish. As the West fails at each of these junctures, the momentum it had relied upon so heavily starting in 2011 is further diminished. The battle in Kassab, and the lesser mentioned “Southern Front” along the southern Syrian-Jordanian border that appears to have already collapsed under Syrian counterattacks, appears to be the last battle by NATO and its proxies for Syria.

Syria’s military appears fully capable of stopping the militants flowing over its borders and has exhibited infinite patience against NATO’s provocations. With Turkey revealed to be planning attacks on its own territory to provoke war with Syria, any attempt to actually carry out a false flag attack now would only further weaken both Turkey and NATO’s hand. Even if the West was able to establish “buffer zones” in northern Syria, the price they pay in credibility, reputation, and legitimacy would make any such “victory” Pyrrhic.

As with all empires throughout human history, there is a defining moment when decline becomes irreversible and the demise of an empire imminent. For “Pax Americana” and the elite sitting on Wall Street and in the City of London, that moment might be the Battle for Kassab and the ignominious end of the West’s attempted regime change in Syria.

Disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 370: The Trillion Dollar Question to the U.S. and Its Intelligence Services

By Matthias Chang

Global Research, March 29, 2014

Future Fast Forward

Malaysian media should pose critical questions to the US and its Intelligence Services and not to the Malaysian Government

Let me state from the outset that I totally agree with the press statements by Malaysia’s Defence Minister and Acting Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein that “we have conducted ourselves fairly, responsibly and history will judge us for that.”

And to a mischievous and presumptuous question from a correspondent of the Financial Times, Datuk Seri with confidence and integrity rightly said without any fear of contradiction that, “I don’t think we could have done anything different from what we have already done.”  Well done!

The Financial Times, CNN and other foreign media ought to pose similar questions to the US and its intelligence services and stop insinuating that Malaysia has not been transparent and/or engaged in a cover-up. Foreign media should stop engaging in dirty politics!

 It is my hope that following the publication of this article, Malaysian mass media will focus on questioning the integrity of the US’s assistance to Malaysia in the first three weeks of the SAR mission, notwithstanding its recent offer of more assistance.

I take comfort that my reservations about the US and its intelligence services as well as other intelligence services closely linked to the US, especially British secret service, have been more than vindicated by Reuters in its news report on 28^th March, 2014 entitled Geopolitical games handicap hunt for flight MH370

The search for flight MH370, the Malaysian Airlines jetliner that vanished over the South China Sea on March 8, has involved more than two dozen countries and 60 aircraft and ships but has been bedevilled by regional rivalries.

… With the United States playing a relatively muted role in the sort of exercise that until recently it would have dominated, experts and officials say there was no real central coordination until the search for the plane was confined to the southern Indian Ocean, when Australia largely took charge.

Part of the problem is that Asia has no NATO-style regional defence structure, though several countries have formal alliances with the United States. Commonwealth members Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia also have an arrangement with Britain to discuss defence matters in times of crisis.

As mystery deepened over the fate of the Boeing 777 and its 239 passengers and crew, most of them Chinese, it became clear that highly classified military technology might hold the key.

But the investigation became deadlocked over the reluctance of others to share sensitive data, a reticence that appeared to harden as the search area widened.

“This is turning into a spy novel,” said an envoy from a Southeast Asian country, noting it was turning attention to areas and techniques few countries liked to publicly discuss.

Ultimately, the only country with the technical resources to recover the plane – or at least its black box recorder, which could lie in water several miles deep – may be the United States. Its deep-sea vehicles ultimately hauled up the wreckage of Air France 447 after its 2009 crash into a remote region of the South Atlantic.

While Putrajaya has been forced to reveal some of the limits and ranges of its air defences, the reluctance of Malaysia’s neighbours to release sensitive radar data may have obstructed the investigation for days.

At an ambassadorial meeting in the ad hoc crisis centre at an airport hotel on March 16, Malaysia formally appealed to countries on the jet’s possible path for help, but in part met with polite stonewalling, two people close to the talks said.

Some countries asked Malaysia to put its request in writing, triggering a flurry of diplomatic notes and high-level contacts.

‘It became a game of poker in which Malaysia handed out the cards at the table but couldn’t force others to show their hand,“ a person from another country involved in the talks said.

As in the northern Indian Ocean, where Chinese forces operate alongside other nations to combat Somali piracy, current and former officials say all sides are almost certainly quietly spying on and monitoring each other at the same time. (emphasis added)

WantChinaTimes, Taiwan reported,

The United States has taken advantage of the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight to test the capabilities of China’s satellites and judge the threat of Chinese missiles against its aircraft carriers, reports our sister paper Want Daily.

Erich Shih, chief reporter at Chinese-language military news monthly Defense International, said the US has more and better satellites but has not taken part in the search for flight MH370, which disappeared about an hour into its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in the early hours of March 8 with 239 people on board. Shih claimed that the US held back because it wanted to see what information China’s satellites would provide.

The above is the reality which we have to confront. Therefore, desist any attempt to label the above mainstream media articles as a “conspiracy theory”. Reuters has let the Genie out of the bottle!

Malaysia’s Minister of Transport Datuk Seri Hishammuddin gave hints of Malaysia’s difficulties (as his hands were tied by intelligence protocols and or refusal by the relevant foreign intelligence services and diplomatic reluctance) but our local media failed to appreciate the nuances of his statements by not directing their questions at those parties that have failed Malaysia as their neighbour and in their duties under various defence treaties and arrangements.

Malaysian media, please read at the minimum three times, the sentences in bold AND WAKE UP TO THE REALITY that our country has been badly treated even though our country put all its national security cards on the table so that countries whose nationals are passengers on flight MH 370 could come forward with sincerity to assist in resolving this unfortunate tragedy which is not Malaysia’s making.

Malaysia is but a victim of this tragedy whose plane, MH 370 was used for a hidden agenda for which only time will reveal.

In my previous article posted to the website on the 27^th March, 2014, I exposed how Israel is exploiting the tragedy to create public opinion for a war against Iran, a Muslim country that has close ties with Malaysia.

At the outset of the SAR Mission, all concerned stated categorically that every scenario, no matter how unlikely would be examined critically with no stones left unturned – terrorist hijacking, suicide mission, technical failures, inadequate security, criminal actions of the pilot and or co-pilot etc.

Given the above premise, families of the passengers and the crew of MH 370 have every right to ask the following questions of the US and other countries that have sophisticated technologies to track and monitor airplanes and ships in all circumstances.

Such questions should not be shot down by those who have a hidden agenda that such queries amount to “conspiracy theories”. Far from being conspiracy theories, we assert that the questions tabled below and the rationale for asking them are well founded and must be addressed by the relevant parties, failing which an inference ought to be drawn that they are complicit in the disappearance of MH 370.

Lets us begin.

1)        Was the plane ordered to turn back, if so who gave the order?

2)        Was the plane turned back manually or by remote control?

3)        If the latter, which country or countries have the technologies to execute such an operation?

4)        Was MH 370 weaponised before its flight to Beijing?

5)        If so, what are the likely methods for such a mission – Biological weapons, dirty bombs?

6)        Was Beijing / China the target and if so why?

7)        Qui Bono?

8)        The time sequence of countries identifying the alleged MH 370 debris in the Indian ocean was first made by Australia followed by France, Thailand, Japan, and Britain via Immarsat. Why did US not offer any satellite intelligence till today?

9)        Prior to the switch of focus to the Indian ocean, was the SAR mission in the South China seas, used as a cover for the deployment of undersea equipment to track and monitor naval capabilities of all the nations’ navies competing for ownership of disputed territorial waters? Reuters as quoted above seems to have suggested such an outcome.

10)     Why was there been no focus, especially by foreign mass media, on the intelligence and surveillance capabilities of Diego Garcia, the strategic naval and air base of the US?

11)     Why no questions were asked whether the flight path of MH 370 (if as alleged it crashed in the Indian Ocean), was within the geographical parameters of the Intelligence capabilities of Diego Garcia? Why were no planes deployed from Diego Garcia to intercept the “Unidentified” plane which obviously would pose a threat to the Diego Gracia military base?

12)     The outdated capabilities of the Hexagon satellite system deployed by the US in the 1970s has a ground resolution of 0.6 meters;  what’s more, the present and latest technologies boast the ability to identify objects much smaller in size. Why have such satellites not provided any images of the alleged debris in the Indian Ocean? Were they deliberately withheld?

13)     On April 6th, 2012, the US launched a mission dubbed “NROL-25” (consisting of a spy satellite) from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The NROL-25 satellite was likely rigged with “synthetic aperture radar” a system capable of observing targets around the globe in daylight and darkness, able to penetrate clouds and identify underground structures such as military bunkers. Though the true capabilities of the satellites are not publicly known due to their top-secret classification, some analysts have claimed that the technology allows the authorities to zoom in on items as small as a human fist from hundreds of miles away. How is it that no imagery of MH370 debris was forwarded to Malaysia, as this capability is not classified though other technologies might well remain classified? (Source: Slate.com)

14)     Could it be that the above capabilities were not as touted?

15)     However, in December, 2013, the USAtlas V rocket was launched carrying the spy satellite NROL-39 for the National Reconnaissance Office, an intelligence agency which is often overshadowed by the notorious National Security Agency (NSA), only it scoops data via spy satellites in outer space. The “NROL-39 emblem” is represented by the Octopus a versatile, adaptive, and highly intelligent creature. Emblematically, enemies of the United States can be reached no matter where they choose to hide. The emblem boldly states “Nothing is beyond our reach”. This virtually means that the tentacles of America’s World Octopus are spreading across the globe to coil around everything within their grasp, which is, well, everything (Source: Voice of Moscow). Yet, the US with such capabilities remained silent. Why?

It cannot be said that it is not within the realm of probabilities that the US may not want the plane MH 370 to be recovered if rogue intelligence operators were responsible for the disappearance of MH 370.

If the above questions have been posed to the US and other intelligence agencies and answers are not forthcoming, I take the view that the Malaysian government ought to declare publicly that our national sovereignty and security have been jeopardized by the disappearance of MH 370 and that the relevant intelligence agencies have been tacitly complicit in the disappearance of MH370.

By coming out openly to explain the predicament faced by our country, Malaysia may prevent a hostile act against a third country.

 I therefore call upon Malaysian mass media to be courageous and initiate such queries as only the US and other intelligence agencies can give definitive answers to the above 15 questions.

It is futile to demand answers from Malaysia as we are not in any position to supply the information as we do not have the capabilities of the global and regional military powers.

Malaysians must unite behind the government so that our leaders need not feel that they are alone shouldering this enormous burden.

Matthias Chang is a prominent Malaysian lawyer and author, who served as political secretary and adviser to former Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.

Israel’s Supreme Court to hear war crimes case against top officials for crimes in Lebanon and Gaza, but don’t expect too much

http://rt.com/news/israel-war-crimes-court-149/

In a unique hearing next week, the Israeli Supreme Court will be presented with a petition that reportedly contains evidence implicating a number of high ranking officials in war crimes during military operations in Lebanon and Gaza, Al Jazeera reports.

For the first time in history the Israeli judiciary on April 2 will hear evidence against top officials blamed for committing war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza, according to the report.

The Supreme Court will be presented with a 52-page petition outlining Israel’s alleged crimes in three operations in Lebanon in summer 2006, Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in late 2008, and an attack on a humanitarian aid flotilla in May 2010.

The hearing will focus on “strong factual and legal findings” from public sources, including reports of Israeli official inquiries, that may implicate a number of high-ranking military and political heavyweights including Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and current Justice Minister Tzipi Livni among others.

The charges are being brought by a Palestinian lawyer and former senior prosecutor at The Hague, Marwan Dalal. His evidence reportedly includes statements from senior Israeli officials where they allegedly implicate themselves in such crimes as unjustified killings, collective punishment and attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Dalal and his human rights group Grotius, believe that such actions breach the Fourth Geneva Convention as well as Israeli law. Furthermore Dalal will try to convince the court on that Israeli police are required to investigate the evidence for possible indictments for war crimes.

“The evidence is in the public realm and obliges Israeli prosecutors to order investigations,” he said. “The failure to do so is unreasonable conduct and the court must rectify the matter.”

Besides Olmert and Livni, the petition also implicates two former military chiefs of staff, a former domestic intelligence chief and a former minister of defence.

There is factual evidence of war crimes contained in official Israeli reports produced by the Winograd inquiry into the 2006 Lebanon war and the two Turkel inquiries into the 2010 attack on the aid flotilla, according to Dalal’s petition. For more evidence, the lawyer also closely studied the results of UN-appointed investigations, including the Goldstone commission into the attack on Gaza in late 2008, and two commissions, led respectively by Karl Hudson-Philips and Geoffrey Palmer, into the flotilla attack.

“There has been no discussion in Israel of the responsibility of high-ranking officials for issuing apparently illegal orders such as using white phosphorus in built-up areas, the adoption of flexible open-fire regulations, and a policy of targeting certain population groups, such as males over a certain age,” Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, told Al Jazeera.

Israel’s stated that the objective of the 2008 Gaza War, also known as Operation Cast Lead was to stop rocket fire into Israel and weapons smuggling into the Gaza strip. But Palestinians claim children were being used as human shields while hospitals were also targeted during the 23-day conflict. Overall more than 1,400 Palestinians died in the Israeli operation, including more than 300 children. The IDF was accused of a disproportionate response to Hamas rocket attacks, but there were no criminal convictions following that military operation.

Jewish Kerry wants the zionist terror state re-defined as ‘national homeland for Jews’

Kerry suggests defining Israel as ‘national homeland for Jews’

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4504438,00.html

London-based Al-Hayat says US offers alternative wording to resolve issue of Jewish state recognition, modifies area of possible Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to overcome the controversy surrounding the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state by changing the definition to “the national homeland of the Jews”, the London-based Arabic Al-Hayat newspaper reported Saturday morning

The report, that quoted western diplomatic sources, noted that in exchange for Kerry’s initiative, the Palestinians would have to agree that the Palestinian capital would be established only in parts of East Jerusalem; it was further reported that the Palestinians have rejected the proposal.

A Palestinian source told the newspaper that the American side has expressed willingness to change the principle related to the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and make it a requisite in a permanent agreement, however the Palestinians declined.

Sayyed Nasrallah: Hezbollah Stronger, Gold will Always Remain Gold

Local Editor

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah announced Saturday that the resistance these days is stronger and more capable at all levels, adding that the resistance issue had always been a matter of controversy.

In a televised speech at the launch of the Jabal Amel Culture and Literature forum in Ainatha, Sayyed Nasrallah said that there had always been “a big challenge named the Zionist scheme, and the challenge still exists, some are trying to ignore it or consider it non-existent, this is a great sin,” adding that the only choice that remains is the resistance.

“The resistance issue is holier and deeper than a tiny problem with any party or organization. Every offense against the resistance is an offense to everyone who represents the resistance not to a specific group, this will have consequences and will be unveiled in a few days,” the Secretary General said. “I want to announce today from this liberated area that the resistance today, as it was in July, is stronger and more capable at all levels.”
Sayyed Nasrallah said that some people do not know that the resistance in Lebanon exists since 1948 “because they do not know what the resistance means. The Lebanese resistance existed since the first moment of the occupation and it gained its legitimacy since that moment.” “These people know nothing about what border villages witness, nor do they know about the Zionist violation to our land, sea and air.”

“The debate on the resistance choice had always been a matter of controversy. There had never been a concensus over the resistance, who’s saying that is mistaken,” His eminence said.

Gold is gold

In response to President Michel Sleiman, Sayyed Nasrallah said: “Gold will always remain gold. If gold was in front of us and someone said that it’s tin or wood it doesn’t mean that it has become so. Others descriptions of things do not change the reality of these things.”

“Lebanon’s gold does not exist in the whole world, and with wood, the Lebanese had built coffins of Israeli soldiers, and will continue to exist for each occupier to this holy Land,” he indicated.

The Problem with Hezbollah Political  

On the Syrian issue, Sayyed Nasrallah said the “problem with us in the Syrian issue is our political position and not our military intervention which came after the intervention of everyone. Since the first day we said we’re not with this conflict nor with the overthrow of the regime or government.”

“Since the beginning we talked about a political solution while the Arab regimes wanted to overthrow the regime,” Sayyed Nasrallah said. “After three years the decisions of the Arab summit all talked about the same solution. It took them three years to say what should have been said since the first day,” he added.

The S.G. said the battle in Syria has reached this stage as a result of the size of the regional and international intervention to what is related to the resistance, its existence and identity.

“We went to Syria to defend the Holy shrine of Sayyeda Zainab (AS) which is respected and loved by all Muslims,” Sayyed Nasrallah said. “Today, the Turkish government discusses that there is a shrine to grandfather the greatest of the sons of Ottoman, who does not know his name lots of Muslims, and considers that it’s a Turkish right to intervene militarily in Syria to protect this shrine.”

On the Takfiri threat, his eminence said some Lebanese have not realized yet that what is happening in Syria is a threat to the country. “If Takfiris were defeated in Syria, the Lebanese will be protected. If Takfiri terrorism won in Syria, we will all come to an end. Don’t you see what’s happening in Aleppo, Idlib, Raqqa, Deir Ez-Zour, in Falluja and Anbar?”

Presidential Elections On Time

Concerning the Lebanese presidential elections, Sayyed Nasrallah said: “We are more than anyone keen to have the presidential election held on time and as soon as possible in order to lay a basis for a future stage to hold a dialogue on defense strategy other things.”
“I call for the implementation of the presidential election away from accusations, we are against excluding anybody, and today we have an opportunity to take a deep breath and not to wait for the situation in the region.”
Jabal Amel 

Hezbollah’s S.G. also talked about the ceremony and the symbolism of Jabal Amel which gave birth to many educated and respected scholars. “Some people wants us to isolate ourselves from the region’s issues, however, Jabal Amel scholars and despite the poor situation had always been in support for the region’s causes, not only in Syria, Palestine or Iraq but also in Libya.” “We inherit from these scholars this culture, mentality and conception,” he said.

Source: Al-Manar Website	29-03-2014 – 19:09 Last updated 29-03-2014 – 19:09 |