Russian warplanes in cooperation with Syrian air forces bomb ISIS sites in central region

Russian Strikes in Syria Begin, Putin Urges Countries to Join Intel. Force

Local Editor

The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday afternoon the start of Russian airstrikes against ISIL terrorists’ sites in Syria, its first military engagement outside the former Soviet Union since the occupation of Afghanistan in 1979.

Russian warplanes carried out strikes in three Syrian provinces along with Syrian aircraft. RT quoted the Defense Ministry as saying that several special strikes have been directed at sites for ISIL terrorist organization in several areas in Syria.

In the same context, a military source told SANA that in implementation of the agreement between Syria and Russia to combat international terrorism and eliminate ISIL, Russian aircrafts, in cooperation with the Syrian army’s Air Force, launched on Wednesday a number of airstrikes against ISIL dens in al-Rastan, Talbeisa, al-Zaafran, al-Tolol al-Humr, Aydon, Deir Fol and the area surrounding Salmia in the central region in Syria, achieving direct hits and inflicting heavy losses upon the terrorist organization.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who earlier Wednesday won parliamentary permission to use force abroad, warned Russia would be hunting down ISIL militants before they target Russia.

Addressing Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, Putin said: “We are counting on his active and flexible position, his readiness for compromise for the sake of his country and his people.”

He pledged that Russia would not get sucked into a protracted military operation in Syria and called on countries to join an intelligence task force Moscow is setting up with Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Russia will also present a UN draft resolution to the Security Council on countering terrorism to build up the fight against IS, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Addressing the General Assembly for the first time in a decade, Putin on Monday proposed creating a UN-backed coalition to fight the militants.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Presidency of the Syrian Arab Republic said that Russian strikes in Syria was carried out upon a request of the Syrian state conveyed via a letter sent by Assad to Putin, and that this comes within the framework of President Putin’s initiative for combating terrorism.

Source: Websites	30-09-2015 – 22:15 Last updated 30-09-2015 – 22:15

Russian warplanes in cooperation with Syrian air forces bomb ISIS sites in central region

Wednesday, 30 September

PROVINCES,(ST)_Russian warplanes conducted today at noon the first strikes on ISIS sites in the central region upon the agreement reached between Syria and Russia to confront the international terrorism, a military source declared Wednesday.

The source added that the air strikes, which were conducted in cooperation with the Syrian air forces, targeted ISIS hideouts in al-Rastan, Talbeseh, al-Zaafaran, al-Tlol al-Homer, Eidon and Dirfol towns and on the outskirts of Salameyeh area in the central region.

The air strikes inflicted heavy losses on terrorists, the source confirmed.

Presidency of The Syrian Arab Republic has asserted that the Russian air forces sent to Syria upon request written by President Bashar al-Assad to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to confront terrorism.

RT said the upper chamber of the Russian parliament has unanimously given a formal consent to President Putin to use the nation’s military in Syria to fight terrorism at a request from the Syrian President Bashar Assad.

It quoted Head of the Russian presidential administration Sergey Ivanov as saying: “The military goal of the operation is strictly to provide air support for the [Syrian] government forces in their fight against Islamic State.”

“The bombing campaign is time-limited,” Ivanov added, not revealing a clear deadline for it. He said he was not authorized to disclose details of the operation such as the number of warplanes involved.

“All our partners and allies will be informed about our decision today through corresponding military channels. Specific military information will be provided as well, I believe,” he concluded.

Large numbers of terrorists killed

Back to results military operations carried out by Syrian army against terrorist organizations nationwide, the official news agency (SANA) said that army units killed large numbers of terrorists and destroyed and armored car belonging to them on the outskirts of al-Latamneh town, about 35km northwest of Homs city.

The agency added that army units destroyed 2 vehicles equipped with machine guns on a road linking Kafer Zetta and al-Zakat in the northern countryside of Hama and eliminated many Israeli-linked terrorists in Tranjeh town in Quneitra countryside.

Further terrorists were killed in and outside Aleppo and in Daraa al-Balad area in southern Daraa province.

Basma Qaddour

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How Sayyed Nasrallah got Prepared to Al-Manar Interview

Imad Marmal – As-Safir

Interviewing Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is not like other interviews. Perhaps its best is that it starts before its time, and doesn’t stop when it ends.

Whether it refers to media or politics, meeting the “Sayyed” has its own known privacy, because preparing for it is unusual, regarding the security measurements that must be taken into consideration.

Based on that, I went last Friday evening to “al-Manar” Channel’s building in Haret Hreik, where the “tour” was supposed to start to the anticipated televised show with the “Sayyed.”

It was few minutes past six when the Head of News and Political Programs at al-Manar TV, Dr. Ibrahim Mousawi and I rode one of Hezbollah dark glass cars, which took random paths that included multiple stops.

On our way, we tried to use our “intuition” to deduce the directions in which the driver was moving, as we were separated from him by a black curtain. Soon after, you change your mind as the ways directly appear very “random.”

Sayyed Ibrahim Mousawi and I, trying to fill the “stressful” period of time, started some different side discussions; exchanging expectations about what would the “Sayyed” say in his televised appearance. Suddenly, the car stops in some “unknown” place. Someone opens the door, and then we find one of Hezbollah officials welcoming us with a wide smile. He said: We hope we didn’t disturb you… We are sorry, but these measurements are necessary… (We used to hear this expression along all the stops we passed on our way to meet the “Sayyed”.)

We directly entered a big reception hall, in which the Lebanese flag stood beside “Hezbollah’s” flag; four seats were set in there, surrounded by a flowers bouquet and small tables with a dish of sweets and a bottle of water on each.

Few minutes later, we were told by one of the “Sayyed’s” assistants that “Hezbollah’s” Secretary General will meet us for some time before the show starts. We were very glad, and I, personally, felt that I will win a “show” within the “show.”

Indeed, the “Sayyed” soon appeared with his leading figure yet down-to-earth personality. As we shook hands, actually it was a hug and kisses, he took a seat, and we were directly in front of him. In the very first moments, you feel confused about the words you should start with. Your senses compete to embrace the presence of such a central personality, whose size became greater than Lebanon, and is very hard in both the Arab and Islamic worlds.

First of all, I had to thank him for the chance to host him on a televised show “after nine years on the last interview I personally made with him on al-Manar TV.” The “Sayyed” corrected the time coordinates, explaining that the last interview was made before the July war: “The July 2006 war became a turning point for me, there is a period before and a period after it…” Sayyed Nasrallah said.

After we were served tea, the “Sayyed” started to generally display the situations in Lebanon, Syria and the region. He stopped at the tragedy of the victim pilgrims in “Mena” and wished to skip the question that he was supposed to be asked about how he spent the Adha Feast in person, “because the reality we are living is not convenient to such a kind of questions, especially after the pilgrims’ tragedy.”

It was almost 08:00 o’clock, thirty minutes before the interview was supposed to start, when the “Sayyed” left us as he was getting prepared to the official live appearance.

Meanwhile, I went to the next room where the discussion table was set. I organized my thoughts for the televised moment of truth…

About 15 minutes before the interview, the “Sayyed” took his seat in front of the table as he was carrying some papers including numbers and dates he would later on use during the show. It was noticeable that he was; personally, keen to follow up with the technicians some details regarding the image and the appearance, not to mention the “AC” which he asked to cool down more.

Few minutes were left before the live broadcast. It was a must to invest them as much as possible.

A person entered carrying a tray of teacups and Lemonade, which became popular recently. I was asking the “Sayyed” about the secret of deciding to appear on TV on the second day of the Adha Feast. He explained that there are two main reasons for this timing. The first is related to the field and rapid political developments in the Syrian issue, and the second is that the timing of the “Hadith Sa’aa” show happens to be on Fridays.

When I asked him if he watches political programs, he said he does sometimes, or he watches some selected parts of them. “Sometimes I follow the news bar in the bottom of the screen, especially when I am waiting guests…”

On 08:30 exactly, the “Sayyed” came from the shadow to the light. Then, the three hours and ten minutes show happened to be. It was full of messages and stances on the levels of Lebanon, Syria and the region.

After the interview that exceeded its originally set duration, and with the “Sayyed’s” consent, the attendees took some pictures with Sayyed Nasrallah, who, as he left, didn’t forget to send greetings to all those who asked us to deliver their salutes to him. They were many. The paper the “Sayyed’s” assistant received was not enough to carry the names of all of them.

Source: Newspapers	29-09-2015 – 23:07 Last updated 29-09-2015 – 23:07

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Russia Conducts First Airstrike in Syria after Russian Parliament Gives Putin Green Light

US Official: Russia Conducts First Airstrike in Syria

Russia has conducted its first airstrike in Syria, near the city of Homs, a senior US official told CNN on Wednesday.

The Russians told the United States that it should not fly US warplanes in Syria, but gave no geographical information about where Russia planned to strike. The senior official said U.S. missions are continuing as normal.

Earlier Wednesday, the upper house of the Russian parliament gave President Vladimir Putin approval to use the air force in Syria, according to state media.

“The Federation Council unanimously supported the President’s request — 162 votes in favor of granting permission,” Kremlin Chief of Staff Sergey Ivanov said, according to ITAR-Tass.

After several days of familiarization flights, and the collection of potential targeting information by drones, the Russian air force was known to be ready.

Four Russian Su-34 Fullback fighter jets are now at the Latakia air base in Syria, and more than 600 Russian troops are in place, CNN said.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters Tuesday that Secretary of Defense Ash Carter directed his staff to “open lines of communication with Russia on de-confliction.”

The timing of these discussions is to be worked out in the coming days. The purpose of the discussions is “to ensure the safety of coalition air crews,” he said.

Cook added that the two nations have common ground when it comes to fighting ISIL with Carter making clear that “the goal should be to take the fight to ISIL and not to defend the Assad regime.”

Source: Websites	30-09-2015 – 16:25 Last updated 30-09-2015 – 16:25

Russian Parliament Gives Putin Green Light to Use Force abroad

Local Editor

The upper house of Russian parliament agreed on Wednesday to give President Vladimir Putin the green light to deploy troops abroad and use air force outside the country.

Putin submitted to the Federation Council a proposal to deploy “a contingent of troops” abroad, the Kremlin said in a statement, without specifying the region.

Federation Council speaker Valentina Matvienko said earlier Wednesday that senators had begun debating the issue behind closed doors. She did not provide further details.

Putin had requested similar permission from the Federation Council to deploy military forces abroad ahead of the annexation of Crimea in March 2014.

On Monday Putin called for a broad UN-backed coalition to fight terrorists of the so-called ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ (ISIL) takfiri group as he addressed the UN General Assembly for the first time in a decade.

The Russian president also said he had not ruled out air strikes on ISIL.

Russia’s Syria buildup is Moscow’s first military engagement in a distant theatre of war since the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979.

Source: Websites	30-09-2015 – 11:32 Last updated 30-09-2015 – 11:32

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Saudi-US Aggression on Yemen, Popular Committees Control Saudi Post, Town in Jizan

 

Yemeni Army, Popular Committees Control Saudi Post, Town in Jizan

Local Editor

The Yemeni army and the Popular Committees announced on Tuesday their control over the Saudi military post of Ka’b al-Jaberi and the town of Mohannad in the border area of Jizan, leaving several Saudi soldiers killed and wounded.

In a similar development, a spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry announced that a member of the Ministry was killed by a mortar shell fired from northern Yemen on the border between the two countries.

The spokesman said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency that

“Military shells fired from the Yemeni territory killed Ali Bin Fahad Abu Mahasen, a member of the mujahideen administration branch in Jizan region.”

Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen for 188 days now to restore power to fugitive president Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 6,230 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.

Despite Riyadh’s claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi warplanes are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

Source: Al-Manar Website	29-09-2015 – 15:30 Last updated 29-09-2015 – 15:30

Saudi-US Aggression Targets Wedding Ceremony in Taiz, Kills more than 130 People

Local Editor

The Saudi-US aggression committed on Monday a terrible massacre in Al-Howayjla neighborhood in the city of al-Mokha in Taiz province when warplanes bombed a group of armless women who were gathering for a wedding ceremony in the place, killing 131 people, mostly women and children, and wounding scores others.

Local sources in Taiz said that the Saudi-led coalition fighter jets launched 12 consecutive air strikes on Al-Howayjla residential neighborhood.

In another development, Yemeni military sources announced that dozens of Saudi soldiers and allied militias were killed and wounded in a major operation by the Yemeni army and the Popular Committees that targeted their assembly point in “That Al-Raa” area in Marib province.

Ten coalition armored vehicles that have been shelling the Yemeni people for more than six months were destroyed.

The national military and the Committees also fought off an attack by the armed mercenaries and the attacking forces who were trying to sneak into “Hommat al-Masariya” area in Ma’rib province under heavy fire cover by the Saudi-US aggression forces who used internationall-forbidden cluster bombs.

Three coalition military vehicles were destroyed and dozens of its troops were killed.

Also in “Al-Jofayna” area, the Yemeni forces targeted a military convoy of armed groups, as media outlets stated that a senior officer was wounded and other gunmen were killed.

Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen for 188 days now to restore power to fugitive president Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 6,230 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.

Despite Riyadh’s claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi warplanes are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

Source: Al-Manar Website	29-09-2015 – 10:25 Last updated 29-09-2015 – 11:50

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Zionist Forces Nab 7 Palestinians over al-Aqsa Clashes

Israeli occupation forces have nabbed seven Palestinians on charges of involvement in recent tensions at al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds.

The abductions were made on Tuesday with Israeli officials claiming that the captives were involved in Monday’s clashes when Palestinians, they alleged, gathered inside a mosque at the site and “threw firebombs and rocks at Israeli forces outside.”

The development comes amid a flare-up of tensions in and around the compound in recent weeks where Israeli forces have been violating Al-Aqsa by storming into it and causing damages and injuries to Palestinian worshipers stationed there.

On Monday, skirmishes broke out in the holy site after the deployment of Israeli soldiers to the area for the Jewish Sukkot holiday.

Also on Sunday, clashes erupted across the compound after Israeli police stormed the holy site and fired rubber-coated steel bullets and stun grenades at Palestinian protesters.

Meanwhile, more clashes were reported on Tuesday between Zionist forces and Palestinian demonstrators protesting cross the occupied West Bank in support of the al-Aqsa Mosque.

According to Palestinian media reports, twelve protesters sustained injuries as Israeli forces attacked a rally near Ramallah.

Israeli forces used tear gas and water cannon, as well as live fire, and rubber-coated steel bullets to disperse the protesters who were angry at Israel’s restrictions on prayers in the holy site.

Dozens of youths also suffered tear gas inhalation in the city of Bethlehem as Israeli forces attacked a protest rally near Aida refugee camp.

Furthermore, in the nearby village of Tuqu, a number of schoolchildren inhaled tear gas after Israelis opened fire at a pro-Aqsa demonstration.

Similar skirmishes were also reported in the city of Tulkarem where Israeli forces attacked demonstrators marching to voice solidarity with the al-Aqsa Mosque.

Source: Websites	30-09-2015 – 00:54 Last updated 30-09-2015 – 00:54

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World Bank Warns of ’High Risk’ of Zionist-Palestinian Conflict

Local Editor

The World Bank warned of the “high risk” of renewed Zionist-Palestinian conflict if the political and economic status quo between the two sides persists, in a report released Tuesday.

“The persistence of this situation could potentially lead to political and social unrest,” it said.

“In short, the status quo is not sustainable and downside risks of further conflict and social unrest are high,” said the World Bank.

The percentage of the population living under the poverty line has reached 39 percent in Gaza and 16 percent in the West Bank.

It said the “Palestinians are getting poorer on average for the third year in a row. Donor support has significantly declined in recent years,” especially for the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.

Unemployment “remains high, particularly amongst Gaza’s youth where it exceeds 60 percent, and 25 percent of Palestinians currently live in poverty,” the World Bank said.

On the positive side, it said that “even without a final peace deal, there is substantial upside potential in the Palestinian economy,” provided the Zionist “restrictions” are lifted, especially on freedom of movement of people and goods.

“The blockade on Gaza imposed by countries neighboring the Strip needs to be lifted in a way that protects legitimate security concerns of those countries,” it said, referring to the Jewish state and Egypt.

The World Bank welcomed the Zionist measures to let more goods leave Gaza are welcome, but more needs to be done: only six percent of what left Gaza prior to the blockade is currently being allowed out.”

The report also hailed the “very good progress” made by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority in reducing its fiscal deficit.

It said unemployment in the West Bank in the first half of 2015 had eased to 16 percent, down from 18 percent in the same period of last year, thanks to the growing number of Palestinians working in the occupied territories, which has reached 112,200.

“Even without a final peace deal, there is substantial upside potential in the Palestinian economy if existing agreements are implemented and restrictions lifted,” the World Bank said.

It forecast 2.9 percent growth in the Palestinian territories this year.

Source: AFP	29-09-2015 – 12:26 Last updated 29-09-2015 – 12:26

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Praying at Al-Aqsa is hazardous. Israel made it a near-free-fire zone, the ruthless policy of a racist state

Israel’s War on Al-Aqsa

by Stephen Lendman

Muslim’s call Islam’s third holiest site the Noble Sanctuary/Al-Haram al-Sharif. Over 35 acres enclose fountains, gardens, buildings and domes.

At one end is the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In the center is the Dome of the Rock. The entire area is considered a mosque – sacred ground for Muslims, freely desecrated by Zionist zealots, storming the compound unaccountably, protected by heavily armed, rampaging Israeli security forces.

Attacking Muslim worshipers, firing noxious tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and stun grenades, again on Sunday, following previous days of violence and chaos, willfully causing damage, injuring numerous Palestinians threatening no one.

 

Praying at Al-Aqsa is hazardous. Israel made it a near-free-fire zone. Not a word from Washington or other Western capitals denouncing its war on holy ground – the ruthless policy of a racist state.

On Sunday, Maan News reported Israeli forces “stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound” again, this time on “the last day of the Muslim Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) holiday” – attacking peaceful Palestinian worshipers viciously, terrorizing them like many times before, forcing them to defend themselves with their bare hands against heavily armed soldiers and police.

A police statement lied, claiming security forces were attacked with “stones and fireworks.” They responded using “riot dispersal means.” Victimized Palestinians respond after being assaulted, not before.

Heavily guarded extremist settlers entered the compound provocatively, performing prayers – where they don’t belong on the pretext of celebrating the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), a seven-day period beginning Sunday, not a significant holy period.

Many Jews ignore it entirely. Some know little or nothing about it. Racist Israeli policy used it provocatively – at the same time terrorizing Muslim worshipers over the important Eid al-Adha period, preventing them from praying in peace.

Murabitoun Al-Aqsa worshiper movement head Yousef Mukhaimar said “Netanyahu’s strategy is fulfilling his promises to his right-wing and extremist supporters to eventually demolish Al-Aqsa and build their alleged temple in its place.”

Arab Knesset leader Ayman Odeh said to “counter Israeli plots to divide Al-Aqsa Mosque between Muslims and Jews,” Israeli Arab citizens intend coming to the compound en masse.

“Now there are crowds in the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and these crowds will grow larger tomorrow and the day after tomorrow in particular.”

(The goal is) to uproot the idea of dividing Al-Aqsa and its courtyards” – a longtime objective of Zionist zealots, wanting a new Jewish temple replacing Al-Aqsa, a prescription for holy war.

The racist Temple Institute has detailed plans drawn up for a new Jewish temple. It wants control over sacred Muslim ground.

Longstanding policy permits Jewish prayer only at the adjacent Western Wall. Israeli forces regularly storm Al-Aqsa, attacking Muslim worshipers, restricting or prohibiting entry for others, letting extremist Jews pray where they don’t belong – desecrating Islam’s third holiest site in the process.

Don’t laugh, ‘israel concerned with build-up of Iranian forces in Syria near Golan border’

‘Israel concerned with build-up of Iranian forces in Syria near Golan border’

Outside of claims coming from Israeli propaganda sources, there is no confirmation that Iranians are anywhere near the border with Israel. But Israel, following the usual “By way of deception, thou shalt do war,” is clearly intending to launch a ground invasion of Syria and wants to blame Iran for it!

Get ready for a false-flag in the Golan to make it look like Iran is attacking Israel. Then kiss your sons and daughters goodbye as they will be sent in, as usual, to fight Israel’s wars for them!

Read more: whatreallyhappened.com http://whatreallyhappened.com/#ixzz3nD5Kt38n

Israel is concerned with the build-up of Iranian forces in Syria, near the border with Israel,  National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud) said in an interview with Army Radio on Tuesday.

Steinitz’s comments came amid the recent addition of Russian troops to Syria to bolster President Bashar Assad in his fight against Islamic State and other rebel groups challenging his rule in Syria. However, the Likud minister was more concerned with the infusion of troops from Assad’s other central backer, Iran.

“Nobody wants to see Russian forces in the area of the Golan Heights, but we definitely don’t want to see Iranian forces near Israel,” Steinitz told Army Radio.

Steinitz, speaking as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was en route to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, said that Israel would clarify Israel’s concerns regarding Iranian forces in Syria in discussions with the relevant parties.

 

US-NATO Military Alliance Destroyed Libya and this is what they want for Syria

US-NATO Military Alliance Destroyed Libya. Where Next?

Stratfor is a rightist Washington think tank, which is reported as having «high level sources within the United States and other governments». On 19 September its analysis titled «Libya’s Instability Threatens Regional Borderlands» concluded that there is «no quick or easy solution to managing the Libyan threats to regional security…» and that «containing Libyan instability will remain unlikely for the foreseeable future».

While it is undeniable that chaos in Libya will continue, there is no mention of the reason for the country’s collapse into anarchy and transformation into a base for thuggish fanatics of revolutionary groups including Islamic State.

To be fair, Stratfor’s observations about Libya in September 2012 included the withering comment that «NATO simply didn’t understand or care about the whirlwind it was unleashing» when it went to war on Libya in March the previous year, but it is unfortunate that US-NATO propaganda has convinced so many people that its disastrous war on Libya was a successful intervention in the cause of peace and stability.

US-NATO’s three billion dollar jamboree of aerial destruction that reduced Libya to bedlam was described by the West as a military triumph, and hailed in 2012 by two prominent US-NATO military figures as demonstrating that «by any measure, NATO succeeded in Libya».

These oafs (for there is no kinder word that can be used) are Ivo H. Daalder, who was the US Representative to NATO, and Admiral James G. Stravridis, who was Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Commander of the US European Command. They declared in Foreign Affairs that «NATO’s operation in Libya has rightly been hailed as a model intervention» and proclaimed that «NATO’s involvement in Libya demonstrated that the alliance remains an essential source of stability».

Their pathetic foolishness would be hilariously comical were it not that they were so calamitously wrong and that their personal misjudgement and involvement resulted in destruction of a country to the point of international catastrophe.

Before the US-NATO war on Libya the place was hardly a paradise. It was led by a weird autocrat who verged on the psychotic but did a great deal for his country and the vast majority of its citizens and was supported by the US and Britain. Exactly two years before the US-NATO war began, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed President Gaddafi’s son to America, declaring: «I am very pleased to welcome Minister Qadhafi here to the State Department. We deeply value the relationship between the United States and Libya. We have many opportunities to deepen and broaden our cooperation. And I’m very much looking forward to building on this relationship. So, Mr Minister, welcome so much here».

And why not? After all, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recorded in 2011 that «the country is providing comprehensive health care including promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative services to all citizens free of charge through primary health care units, health centres and district hospitals» and the CIA Factbook noted that Gaddafi’s Libya had a literacy rate of 94.2% which was higher than in Malaysia, Mexico and Saudi Arabia. Life expectancy was 72.3 years, among the highest in the developing world. Not bad for a developing country, one might think.

But Gaddafi fell out of favour with the US-NATO military grouping which (with the honourable exception of Germany) supported rebel groups intent on killing him and interpreted a UN resolution about ‘No-Fly’ zones as authorizing air attacks everywhere in the country. (The total turnaround in the West’s attitude had of course nothing to do with the fact that Gaddafi had hinted at nationalising his country’s oil resources, thus removing profits from Western oil conglomerates.)

Hillary Clinton dropped her policy about «deeply valuing the relationship between the United States and Libya» and after being told that Qaddafi had been murdered in October 2011 «shared a laugh with a television news reporter» joking that «We came, we saw, he died».

During their war on Libya US president Obama and British prime minister Cameron jointly declared: «we are convinced that better times lie ahead for the people of Libya» which was a spectacularly dim-witted and ill-informed prediction.

Obama and Cameron announced that «Colonel Qadhafi must go and go for good. At that point, the United Nations and its members should help the Libyan people as they rebuild where Qadhafi has destroyed – to repair homes and hospitals, to restore basic utilities, and assist Libyans as they develop the institutions to underpin a prosperous and open society».

But it wasn’t Gaddafi whose cruise missiles, bombs and rockets destroyed «homes and hospitals» – and power stations and basic utilities including water reticulation (about which, on 31 August 2011Stratfor’s Kevin Stetch emailed «Re: discussion – thirsty Libya: How often do Libyans bathe? You’d have drinking water for a month if you skipped a shower». How truly objective and compassionate.)

According to the WHO the results of the US-NATO bombing blitz included «shortages of food, fuel, water, medical supplies and electricity, as well as reduced access to health care and public services… The situation of women and children has become particularly vulnerable, since the hospitals are overwhelmed with trauma patients».

And what next for NATO? Where will it choose to mount another «model intervention» after its destruction of Libya and its humiliating defeat in Afghanistan?

NATO is desperate for a cause to justify its survival and is excitedly deploying forces further east in Europe and trailing its coat for trouble throughout the region. But the US-NATO military grouping should bear in mind the wise words of Brazil, China, India, Russia and NATO-member Germany (which, as noted above, refused to join the Libya bombing spree), who warned in the UN against «unintended consequences of armed intervention» concerning which Mr Putin (then prime minister) was critical, observing, as the New York Times reported, that it was regrettable when the «so-called civilized community, with all its might, pounces on a small country, and ruins infrastructure that has been built over generations». The Russian representative at the UN «stressed that there was a need to avoid further destabilization in the region».

The country’s infrastructure was indeed ruined and there was much further and wider destabilisation, but no credit could ever be given for forecasting correctly that the US-NATO military consortium would fail utterly in its amateur antics. Although this might be regarded as amusing it is in fact most worrying. Because what will US-NATO do next in its energetic search to prove that it can achieve something?

Russia Approves Use of Armed Forces in Syria

Russia Approves Use of Armed Forces in Syria

Russia’s Federation Council unanimously approved the use of the country’s armed forces abroad.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russia’s upper house of parliament on Wednesday approved the country’s armed forces to be used abroad.

The decision includes only the use of the Air Force and does not foresee any ground troops operations, Kremlin Administration Aide Sergei Ivanov said Wednesday.

“We’re talking exclusively about operations of Russia’s Air Force, as our president has already said, the use of armed forces on the ground theater of military operations is excluded. The military goal of the operations is exclusively air support of the Syrian government forces in their fight against the Islamic State,” Ivanov said.

Syria’s President Bashar Assad has requested military aid from Russia in the Middle East, according to Ivanov.

“We will inform [our foreign partners of the decision made by the parliament of using Russian armed forces abroad] during the day through foreign ministry channels, and the military will do the same [through their channels],” Bogdanov told RIA Novosti.

Bogdanov confirmed the Air Force operations were in line with the Syrian crisis.

“Yes, in Syria,” Bogdanov said in response to where exactly the Russian armed forces would be used.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has earlier on Wednesday requested permission from the Federation Council to use Russian Armed Forces abroad.

 

Russia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria have recently created an information center in Baghdad in order to coordinate the fight against the Islamic State. The information center’s main goals are to provide reconnaissance on the number of IS militants, their weapons, and their movements.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that the new center would begin operations in October or November and be headed by Russian, Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian officers on a three-month rotational basis.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/russia/20150930/1027761651/russian-armed-forces-abroad.html#ixzz3nCy9pJjr

Saudi dictatorship busy with genocide in Yemen now threatens Syria

Saudi Arabia threatens to attack Syria

Saudi Arabia says Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must leave office or face being removed via military intervention.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir made the remarks at the UN general assembly in New York on Tuesday following a meeting with his country’s allies.

“There is no future for Assad in Syria,” Jubeir said. “There are two options for a settlement in Syria. One option is a political process where there would be a transitional council. The other option is a military option, which also would end with the removal of Bashar al-Assad from power.”

He noted that a military option would be a lengthier and more destructive process, but the “choice is entirely that of Bashar al-Assad.”

The Saudi foreign minister also admitted that the kingdom and other countries are already backing “moderate rebels” fighting the Damascus government but refrained from commenting on the specifics of a military option.

“Whatever we may or may not do we’re not talking about,” he said.

Saudi Arabia is currently engaged in a military aggression in Yemen, which it launched on March 26 – without a United Nations mandate. According to a report released on September 19 by the Yemen’s Civil Coalition, over 6,000 Yemenis have so far lost their lives in the airstrikes, and a total of nearly 14,000 people have been injured.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011. According to the UN, some 250,000 people have been killed in the conflict and millions of others have been displaced.

israel uses excuse of rocket fire from their terrorist friends to strike Gaza (again)

IOF strike Gaza in response to IS-affiliated rocket fire

Israeli occupation forces on Wednesday dawn stroke four sites in Gaza, after an Iron Dome intercepted a rocket over the Israeli-occupied city of Ashdod.

IOF claimed that at least two of the sites that were hit in Gaza belonged to Hamas Islamic Resistance movement.

Hours earlier, air raid sirens rang out in Ashdod and the surrounding area and a rocket was intercepted over the city, about 40 kilometers from the Strip.  There have been no reports of damage from the rocket or the interception.

No injuries were reported on both sides.

IOF claimed that Hamas is accountable for the rocket, yet, an IS-affiliated Salafist group claimed responsibility for the earlier rocket on social media, charging that it was a response to the fatal shooting of a Palestinian college girl at a checkpoint in the West Bank last week. Hadeel al-Hashlamon, 18, was shot last Tuesday at a checkpoint in the city of Hebron. The military shot her under fake claims that she was attempting to stab a soldier.

Earlier, IOF said they believed the fire was part of an internal crackdown by Hamas on rival Salafist groups, the Walla news site reported, the Times of Israel said.

israel helping terrorist groups launch a major offensive in the Golan

Islamist Rebels Launch a Major Offensive in the Golan With the Help of Israel

The Islamist rebels of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Syrian Al-Qaeda group “Jabhat Al-Nusra” have launched a new offensive to capture the remaining villages inside the Syrian Golan Heights after a back-and-forth battle along the southern perimeter of the strategic hilltop at Tal Taranjah in the Al-Quneitra Governorate.

On Monday morning, the Islamist rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army and Jabhat Al-Nusra stormed the National Defense Forces’ (NDF) frontline positions at Tal Taranjah, Mazra’a Al-Amil, Tal Hamriyah, and Tal Al-Ahmar, resulting in a series of intense firefights that consumed most of the morning and afternoon before they dissipated due to the coming nightfall.

Protecting these imperative aforementioned hilltops and farms in the Golan Heights are the predominately Druze militias of Fouj Al-Joulan (Golan Regiment) and Liwaa Suqour Al-Quneitra (Al-Quneitra Hawks Brigade); these NDF units are working side-by-side with the Syrian Arab Army’s 90th Brigade of the 9th Armored Division to prevent the enemy combatants from taking control of this area.

The Islamist rebels received a boost from their Israeli allies on Sunday after the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) alleged that three rockets struck an open field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights – the Syrian Arab Army confirmed to Al-Masdar News that they did not fire any rockets into Israel.

According to a military source in Damascus, the Islamist rebels have become notorious for firing indiscriminate rockets into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in order to prompt an aggressive response from the Israeli Defense Forces; however, these reprisals are always targeted towards the Syrian Armed Forces.

Russia accuses France of violating International Law by airstrikes in Syria, using flimsy excuse of “self defence”

War Crimes Alert ~ Moscow Accuses France of Violating International Law by Launching Airstrikes in Syria [without agreement by Syrian Armed Forces]

(ST) ~ Russia has accused France of violating international law by launching a bombing campaign in the Syrian territory, purportedly against positions of the so-called “Islamic State” (DAESH-ISIS-ISIL) terrorist organization in Syria.

On Saturday, France launched a campaign of airstrikes against ISIL positions in Syria. Commenting on the behavior, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova pondered what kind of conception of ‘self-defense’ would drive one country to carry out an operation to bomb another without that country’s explicit permission, Sputnik reported.

 Earlier, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls was cited by French media alleging that Paris’s bombing campaign constitutes self-defense. “We are acting in self-defense,” Valls claimed, according to Reuters.

In a post on her Facebook page, Zakharova pondered that “it would be nice to know more about this concept of self-defense, in the form of air strikes [on the territory of Syria,] a state which did not attack anyone, and without its consent, and about this concept’s compliance with international law.”

Zakharova noted that she found it entertaining that “the referendum in Crimea is called an annexation, but air strikes conducted without the approval of the Security Council or of the receiving side is self-defense.”

The spokeswoman emphasized that while “it’s clear that the [Islamic State] is a threat to the entire world,” first two questions must be answered: “First, who was it that created ISIL? And second, on what basis are you acting on the territory of a sovereign state, bypassing a legitimate government which not only does not support, but is selflessly fighting against ISIL?”

Zakharova concluded that “this is not international law; this is its abolition in front of a shocked international community.”

Russia and Putin, the Nonexistent Threat. Who is the Aggressor; the US or Russia?

Russia and Putin, the Nonexistent Threat. Who is the Aggressor; the US or Russia?

Russia is fast becoming our latest bogyman with neocons, war hawks, and a complicit corporate media, all beating the preliminary war drums, rapidly convincing a duped public that the Russian threat is real.  The record shows the Russian threat is nonsense, but the record also shows there is a threat, not from Russia, but from the US.

A couple of years ago the US was foaming at the mouth anticipating being able to bomb Syria into oblivion, claiming as pretext Assad was using chemical weapons.  Once again the US was using the tired argument that it was necessary to save the people by bombing them.  Ask the “people” of Libya, and Iraq, and Yemen, if they felt saved by being bombed?  We laid waste to Libya with 77 days of bombing and devastated that country, along with the complete destruction of Iraq, and now, with our invaluable assistance and weapons, we are doing likewise to “save” the people of Yemen.

Our thirst to bomb Syria a few years ago was foiled by those evil Russians, who stepped in diplomatically and got Assad to get rid of all Syria’s chemical weapons.  Those nasty Russians would not let us have our bombing and prevented it by using diplomacy. Is that why they now are our enemy?

Naturally we would not be stopped, and found the pretext to bomb Syria anyway.  Using ISIS as an excuse, we are currently bombing Syria trying to usher in the same kind of anarchy we brought to Iraq and Libya. Corporate media, shill mouthpiece of the US government, would have you believe that the US is part of a world coalition that is bombing Syria, when the fact is 99% of the bombing is done by the US alone. In any case the end game is to reduce Syria to chaos, death, destruction, and violence, which is well under way.  Those nasty Russians are again interfering by sending weapons to support the Assad regime.  It appears that our thirst to bomb, has forced the nasty Russians to draw a line in the sand.  They will support Assad and not tolerate his overthrow by the US.

We now know, thanks to the Guardian and other UK news outlets, but relatively unreported in the US, that apparently the Russians had negotiated a deal in 2012, in which Assad would either share power or would step down, but the deal was ignored and brushed aside by the US.  Why?  Because we wanted to rain down anarchy on Syria by bombing it to oblivion. We did not want a diplomatic solution, we wanted to bomb and cause pure anarchy, which is what we are currently doing. Those nasty Russians were diplomatically trying to prevent this from happening for the second time. They could not stop our desire to bomb.

The US orchestrated a coup of a democratically elected leader of the Ukraine and installed a US puppet, but blamed the next door neighbor Russia for the troubles in the Ukraine. We also inflamed the US public by accusing Russia of expanding by taking the Crimea by force, even though 99% of Crimeans wanted to belong to Russia, and this was achieved not by invasion, and not one single death in the Crimea.  Corporate media convinced the US public that Russia had invaded militarily, and taken over the Crimea.  Not so; there was no invasion and not one person died in a popular turn to Russia by the people of Crimea.

There are now various news reports that have the US planning to place nuclear weapons to Germany. That’s right, nuclear weapons on Russia’s front doorstep! First, how would you like it as a German citizen, and then how you like it as a Russian living next door?  This is a provocative, foolish, dangerous, militarily aggressive act by the US, but the media shills will depict the Russians as the bad guys.

So who is the aggressor nation? How many nations has Russia bombed in the past 25 years?  How many nations has the US bombed in the past 25 years? Russia has 2 military bases outside its borders, while the US has over 700. So which nation is the most aggressive? The US has killed approximately 4-5 million people since 1963. How many innocents has Russia killed during that time? The annual US military budget is 10 times higher than Russia’s, so who is the aggressor nation? There are US Special Forces operating in 81 foreign nations. Special Forces budget has increased fivefold since 2001 and their numbers have doubled.  So who is the aggressor nation? The US is planning to deploy nuclear weapons to Germany, and since 1776 the US has been at war for 93% of its history. The US with its bombings of 14 nations in the Middle East, has unleashed one of the biggest refugee crises in human history as people flee from US bombs and destruction.  So who is the aggressor; the US or Russia? Pay no attention to corporate media, get your own facts.

Joe Clifford lives in Rhode Island and writes for two online sites and regularly submits articles to Rhode Island newspapers. He writes mostly about US foreign policy but occasionally will venture into other venues.

Shocking Truth Of British Involvement in the Deaths of 6-8 Million in Iraq and Afghanistan

Shocking Truth Of British Involvement in the Deaths of 6-8 Million in Iraq and Afghanistan

There is possibly a time when Tony Blair is going to have to deal with the consequences of his actions over Iraq with the coming Chilcot inquiry report – however long that may take. And even then, the Chilcot report is likely to be nothing more than a whitewashing of the truth.

“I think it was an illegal war,” Jeremy Corbyn said in an interview with BBC2’s Newsnight adding that former UN secretary general had confirmed that. “Therefore he (Blair) has to explain that.”

Calls for Tony Blair to face war crimes are accelerating and it is hardly surprising now we know what we know to be true. And what we now know is truly shocking, even though the British media has universally refused to report it. Type the keywords of this report into Google (such as ‘war on terror, killed four million Muslims) and the British press are 100% absent, so it is worth reading.

Landmark research proves that the US-led ‘war on terror’ has killed much higher numbers than previously reported and this is only a fraction of Western responsibility for deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last two decades.

Back in March this year, the Washington DC-based Physicians for Social Responsibility (PRS) released a landmark study concluding that the death toll from 10 years of the “War on Terror” since the 9/11 attacks is at least 1.3 million, and could be as high as 2 million. But still, the reality is much worse as the report concludes.

The 97-page report by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning doctors’ group is the first to tally up the total number of civilian casualties from US-UK led interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Yet this report has been almost completely blacked out by the English-language media, despite being the first effort by a world-leading public health organisation to produce a scientifically robust calculation of the number of people killed by the US-UK-led “war on terror”.

The PSR report is described by Dr Hans von Sponeck, former UN assistant secretary-general, as “a significant contribution to narrowing the gap between reliable estimates of victims of war, especially civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and tendentious, manipulated or even fraudulent accounts”.

The report conducts a critical review of previous death toll estimates of “war on terror” casualties. It is heavily critical of the figure most widely cited by mainstream media as authoritative, namely, the Iraq Body Count (IBC) estimate of 115,000 dead. Latest figure HERE.

According to the PSR study, the much-disputed Lancet study that estimated 655,000 Iraq deaths up to 2006 (and over a million until today by extrapolation) was likely to be far more accurate than IBC’s figures. In fact, the report confirms a virtual consensus among epidemiologists on the reliability of the Lancet study.

In the meantime, Global Research compiled a chronological and descriptive list of how exactly Tony Blair is implicated in the illegal attacks and the awful consequences as this report highlights. One can only conclude from this that Blair should be in the dock.

• In March 2003, Mr. Blair, while Prime Minister, likely participated with several high-ranking United States leaders in committing the crime of aggression against Iraq.
• The crime of aggression is the “supreme international crime,” as declared by the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1946.
• In addition to being prohibited by international law, the crime of aggression is a crime also defined by the International Criminal Court in the Hague, over which it may have the opportunity to exercise jurisdiction in the coming years. “Resort to a war of aggression is not merely illegal, but is criminal.” United States v. Hermann Goering, et al., 41 AM. J. INT’L L. 172, 186, 218-220 (1946); see also Charter Int’l Military Tribunal, art. 6(a), Aug. 8, 1945, 59 Stat. 1546, 82 U.N.T.S. 279.
• In 2004, Secretary General Kofi Annan declared the Iraq War illegal and in contravention of the United Nations Charter.
• In 2006, a former prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, Benjamin Ferencz, stated that the Iraq War was a “clear breach of law.” “There’s no such thing as a war without atrocities, but war-making is the biggest atrocity of law.”
• In 2010, a Dutch inquiry concluded that the Iraq War had no basis in international law.
• In 2010, Hans Blix, the former chief weapons inspector for the United Nations, stated that it was his “firm view” that the Iraq War was illegal.
• In 2012, judges empanelled before the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, an independent commission headed by former judges and involving input from several international law scholars, concluded that a prima facie case existed that Mr. Blair committed the crime of aggression against Iraq. The tribunal reported its findings to the International Criminal Court in the Hague and entered the name of Mr. Blair in its “Register of War Criminals.”
• In 2012, Archbishop Desmond Tutu summarized that the “immoral” invasion, “premised on a lie,” has “destabilized and polarised the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history,” and questioned why Mr. Blair was not “made to answer” for his actions in the Hague.
• In May 2014, former Prime Minister John Major urged Mr. Blair to seek publication of all his pre-war communications concerning the Iraq War. To this day, the Iraq War Inquiry headed by Sir John Chilcot has been forced to negotiate as to what communications it can and cannot release in its report.

An earlier PSR study by Beth Daponte, then a US government Census Bureau demographer, found that Iraq deaths caused by the direct and indirect impact of the first Gulf War amounted to around 200,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians. Meanwhile, her internal government study was censored.

After US-led forces pulled out, the war on Iraq continued in economic form through the US-UK imposed UN sanctions regime, on the pretext of denying Saddam Hussein the materials necessary to make weapons of mass destruction. Items banned from Iraq under this rationale included a vast number of items needed for everyday life.

Undisputed UN figures show that 1.7 million Iraqi civilians died due to the West’s brutal sanctions regime, half of whom were children.

The mass death was seemingly intended. Among items banned by the UN sanctions were chemicals and equipment essential for Iraq’s national water treatment system. A secret US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) document discovered by Professor Thomas Nagy of the School of Business at George Washington University amounted, he said, to “an early blueprint for genocide against the people of Iraq”.

In his paper for the Association of Genocide Scholars at the University of Manitoba, Professor Nagi explained that the DIA document revealed “minute details of a fully workable method to ‘fully degrade the water treatment system’ of an entire nation” over a period of a decade.

This means that in Iraq alone, the US-UK led war from 1991 to 2003 killed 1.9 million Iraqis; then from 2003 onwards around 1 million: totalling just under 3 million Iraqis dead over two decades.

Politicians in the UK knew what they were doing and the immense toll it was taking on innocent civilians, yet stood back from this act of genocide and effectively censored the intelligence from the British people.

The report is just as damning for Afghanistan. A retired biochemist at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Polya concludes that total avoidable Afghan deaths since 2001 under ongoing war and occupation-imposed deprivation amount to around 3 million people, about 900,000 of whom are infants under five.

In a 2001 National Academy of Sciences report, Forced Migration and Mortality, leading epidemiologist Steven Hansch, a director of Relief International, noted that total excess mortality in Afghanistan due to the indirect impacts of war through the 1990s could be anywhere between 200,000 and 2 million. The Soviet Union, of course, also bore responsibility for its role in devastating civilian infrastructure, thus paving the way for these deaths.

Altogether, this suggests that the total Afghan death toll due to the direct and indirect impacts of US-led intervention since the early nineties until now could be as high 3-5 million.

According to the figures explored here, total deaths from Western interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan since the 1990s – from direct killings and the longer-term impact of war-imposed deprivation – likely constitute around 4 million (2 million in Iraq from 1991-2003, plus 2 million from the “war on terror”).

The report concluded – “The total figure could be as high as 6-8 million people when accounting for higher avoidable death estimates in Afghanistan”.

Such figures could well be too high, but will never know for sure. US and UK armed forces, as a matter of policy, refuse to keep track of the civilian death toll of military operations – they are an irrelevant inconvenience.

Due to the severe lack of data in Iraq, almost complete non-existence of records in Afghanistan, and the indifference of Western governments to civilian deaths, it is literally impossible to determine the true extent of loss of life. One thing is for sure, the numbers are enormous, much greater than we have been led to believe by so-called ‘official sources’.

It is of no surprise that many have joined armed groups in these regions. Many have lost not just loved ones but entire families, homes, communities, businesses and their homeland as well and have nothing left to lose.

Copyright © Graham Vanbergen, TruePublica, 2015

The USA Is Neck-Deep in Yemeni Blood

The US Is Neck-Deep in Yemeni Blood

The death toll from the Saudi strike on a wedding in Yemen has now risen to 130.  The wedding took place near Mocha, a port city on the Red Sea.  The groom was tied to the Houthi rebels somehow, which apparently assuaged whatever moral qualms remained within the Saudis, who then decided to massacre the attendees.  It’s almost fitting that Saudi Arabia would commemorate the six-month mark since the beginning of their assault on Yemen’s civilian population with such a brutal act of official mass murder.  So what has been the result of the six-month long pummeling of Yemeni civilians by Saudi warplanes?  5,000 killed, over 2,300 civilians dead, ports blockaded, creating a colossal humanitarian crisis.  Infrastructure leveled, port cities destroyed, this war of attrition that Yemenis are being subjected to feels more like a punishment than anything, and once it’s all over it will take decades to put their country back together. 

So why should any of this matter to US citizens?  Because, lack of media attention notwithstanding, the US government is providing arms and strategic advice to the Saudis, midair refueling, as well as helping to choose enemy targets.  The New York Times reported earlier this month of a $1 billion US weapons giveaway to Saudi Arabia, ostensibly to calm the Saudis over the Iran nuclear deal but more than likely to aid the Saudis in the slaughter of Yemenis, and reinforce the Saudis regional dominance.  Indeed, assistance to Saudi Arabia in their war on Yemen is the price the US is paying for Saudi support of the Iran deal.

Where is the media outrage, where is the great debate over the wisdom of enabling such a civilian massacre?  Where are all those “humanitarian” interventionists who cajoled the US into unleashing air strikes on Libya?  They’re nowhere to be found, there has been little to no debate in the media, and US officials don’t even mention what is going on in Yemen.  In Obama’s recent speech to the UN General Assembly included no specific mention of the Yemeni civilian death toll, because that would mean acknowledging his role in facilitating it.  The UN itself has become something of a farce amid the rising civilian death toll, with the country responsible for said death toll, Saudi Arabia, heading a UN Human Rights Council.

What of unintended consequences emerging from the rubble?  One fact, messy for the US, is the resurgence of Al Qaeda in Yemen, due to the distraction/vacuum created by bombarding the Houthis.  The past six months have seen Al Qaeda flourish, with the terrorist group establishing themselves and even allying with the Saudis in their effort against the Houthi rebels.  High-minded rhetoric aside, a clean intervention seems to be forever beyond the grasp of the United States, or anyone, really.  There’s always a price to be paid, when will this price be too high?  If even Al Qaeda can be seen as a short-term ally, we have truly lost our way.

US support for the Saudi bombardment of Yemen has a stench of auto-interventionism to it.  We do it because they’re our allies, because it advances some ridiculous and chimerical “grand strategy” against Iran and because the short-range is the only goal US officials ever seem to see.  There was no public debate over the merits of supplying the Saudis with arms and strategists, it just happened.  But as the civilian death toll spikes ever higher, more eyebrows begin to raise.  2,300 dead civilians can’t be ignored, especially by the country whose government is supplying the weapons.  Is our alliance with Saudi Arabia worth so much that our government would sacrifice so many civilians?  Is the fear of some imaginary future massacre by a nuclear Iran so great that it’s morally permissible to be complicit in the actual massacre of thousands of real people?  Who’s inflicting terror upon whom here?  At what point does the death toll become so high that someone with any political clout at all finally says enough is enough?  Saudi consent over the Iranian nuclear deal can’t be worth this bloodbath, and if our government feels the need to participate in the Saudi war against Yemeni civilians, maybe it’s time to reconsider our alliance with them.  Would the Saudi war against Yemen be as brutal without aid from the United States?  It might be hard to say with any certainty, but one thing that is certain is that they sure as hell wouldn’t be dropping US bombs from US warplanes onto U.S.-approved targets.  Whatever the short-term interests there are for the US in this fight, the long-term consequences of complicity in the massacre of civilians may emerge sooner than we think.

Shane Smith lives in Norman, Oklahoma and writes for Red Dirt Report.

USA concerned that Russia could start bombing their ISIS terrorists at any moment in Syria

US Says Russian Strikes on ISIS May Begin Soon

French FM Urging Russia to Hurry Up and Attack

US officials told CNN today that Russia has positioned its warplanes to prepare itself for involvement in the war against ISIS, and while they don’t know exactly what their intentions are, Russia could begin launching such strikes at any moment.

The Obama Administration has struggled with their narrative on this possibility, railing at Russia for potential intervention in favor of the Syrian government and saying their involvement in the war against ISIS would make the war take longer.

France seems to be taking the opposite position, with Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius egging Russia on, daring them to hurry up and start launching strikes against ISIS, saying that if Russia is really as against ISIS as they say, they be attacking them.

“What’s important in the fight against Islamic State is not the media strike, it’s the real strike,” Fabius declared, insisting Russia does a lot of talking about being anti-ISIS, but isn’t sending its warplanes against them so far.

While the US officials’ report suggested that Russia’s bombing would involve the warplanes already deployed inside Syria, other reports suggest Russia has relocated a number of its long-range bombers to southern Russian air bases, which would give them the ability to launch strikes into Syria from Russian soil.

Russia has been urging a “broad coalition” against ISIS, seeking coordination with Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the US-led coalition on the fight against the ISIS forces. The call was mocked by President Obama, and the US is said to be reducing intelligence coordination with Iraq to spite them for agreeing to share with Russia.

Bare faced hypocrisy from Obama at the UN

Obama’s Self-Deceit

President Obama, who has boasted of ordering military strikes on seven countries, chastised Russia and China for not abiding by the rules of international behavior, a breathtaking example of hypocrisy or self-deceit

By Joe Lauria

There was stunned silence in the General Assembly Hall on Monday as U.S. President Barack Obama warned leaders against falling back to pre-United Nations days, in which strong nations imposed their will by force against the weak. There was apparent disbelief as he said it was Russia and China that wanted a “return to the rules that applied for most of human history and that pre-date this institution.”

These ancient rules included the “belief that power is a zero-sum game; that might makes right; that strong states must impose their will on weaker ones; that the rights of individuals don’t matter; and that in a time of rapid change, order must be imposed by force.”

The silence in the chamber came because everything Obama ascribed to others perfectly describes U.S. behavior from the end of the Second World War until today.

Since 1945, the U.S. has participated in dozens of documented invasions and overthrows of sovereign governments that resisted U.S. hegemony — the strongest nation imposing its will militarily on the weak. Among the best known are the 1953 and 1954 coups in Iran and Guatemala, and the invasions of Vietnam and Iraq. There were other democracies overthrown to install monarchies or dictatorships, such as Mobutu in Congo in 1961, Suharto in Indonesia in 1965 and Pinochet in Chile in 1973.

There was a setback to the American militarists with the loss in Vietnam, but a decade later Ronald Reagan was back at it, starting with a small invasion of Grenada. George H.W. Bush pounded Panama in 1989 and then devastated Iraqi forces in 1991 with an air and ground campaign, leading to his declaration that “we’ve kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all.” Thirty years after the defeat in Vietnam, his son, George W. Bush, staged a full-scale 2003 invasion of Iraq, unleashing utter chaos that’s led to the most fearsome terrorist power in history.

Yet Obama on Monday was blaming Russia and China for the mess Washington has created, saying, “We see some major powers assert themselves in ways that contravene international law.” Obama cited Russia’s “annexation” of Crimea and “further aggression” in Eastern Ukraine.

He didn’t mention the documented U.S. orchestrated coup against a democratically-elected president in Kiev, which eastern Ukrainians have resisted. Russia has helped them but the U.S. with all its fancy surveillance that can find out almost any detail of your private life has yet to come up with a scrap of evidence of a Russian “invasion” of Ukraine.

At heart is either Obama’s willful ignorance of Ukraine, a clumsy attempt at disinformation, or as Vladimir Putin suggested in his U.N. speech a half hour later, a big measure of self-deception.

Obama said Ukrainians favor the West. That may be true of most western Ukrainians but not the whole country. Then, he said the U.S. has “few economic interests” in Ukraine. That’s woefully ignorant or a blatant lie. Monsanto has a big interest. Then there’s Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and a John Kerry family friend joining the board of Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private gas producer, just after the coup.

And the country’s finance minister is an American, Natalie Jaresko, who was given Ukrainian citizenship on the day she began the job. Why put an American government official in charge of the treasury of a foreign country?

Despite Russia’s “aggression,” Obama said he did not want a new Cold War — just U.S. bases encircling Russia, and China. In the South China Sea, the “U.S. makes no territorial claims,” Obama said, and only has an altruistic interest in protecting freedom of navigation and resolving disputes peacefully and not by “the law of force.” Yet, when the International Court of Justice ruled the U.S. mining of Nicaraguan harbors in the 1980s was illegal, the U.S. just ignored it.

On Syria, Obama (and his junior partners in Europe) insist that President Bashar al-Assad must leave office, as though that would make ISIS lay down its arms. “Realism … requires a managed transition away from Assad and to a new leader, and an inclusive government that recognizes there must be an end to this chaos so that the Syrian people can begin to rebuild,” the President said.

Obama’s position presupposes that the war would end as soon as a new Syrian leader calls off the fight. Instead ISIS is fighting not only to topple Assad, but to take Damascus from whoever may take Assad’s place. They want the capital. It doesn’t matter who is in charge.

Putin argues that Assad’s military is the most effective ground force (along with the Kurds) against the monstrous group and that all nations who want ISIS defeated should work with Assad. “Similar to the anti-Hitler coalition, it could unite a broad range of parties willing to stand firm against those who, just like the Nazis, sow evil and hatred of humankind,” Putin said.

While this is the most practical approach, it would be politically difficult for Western leaders, after three years of calling for Assad’s ouster, to reverse course. Instead the West blames Russian “ambition” in its military build-up in Syria rather than seeing it as a move to help Syria defeat this scourge that came about partly by the West playing around with terrorists who turned into a Frankenstein monster.

“The Islamic State itself did not come out of nowhere,” Putin told the Assembly. “It was initially developed as a weapon against undesirable secular regimes.” He added that it was irresponsible “to manipulate extremist groups and use them to achieve your political goals, hoping that later you’ll find a way to get rid of them or somehow eliminate them.”

Russia warned from three years ago that this could happen. “I’m urged to ask those who created this situation: do you at least realize now what you’ve done?” Putin asked. “But I’m afraid that this question will remain unanswered, because they have never abandoned their policy, which is based on arrogance, exceptionalism and impunity.”

Though Obama told the U.N. that he could essentially blow up the whole world if he wanted to, he’s decided to be a nice guy and seek diplomacy over confrontation with Russia and China. “I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known,” he boasted to the quiet hall, “and I will never hesitate to protect my country or our allies, unilaterally and by force where necessary.”

“I stand before you today believing in my core that we, the nations of the world, cannot return to the old ways of conflict and coercion,” Obama said. “We cannot look backwards.” Obama might try looking into a mirror instead.

Joe Lauria is a veteran foreign-affairs journalist based at the U.N. since 1990. He has written for the Boston Globe, the London Daily Telegraph, the Johannesburg Star, the Montreal Gazette, the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers

 

Wide Confrontations after Zionist Troops Stormed Al-Aqsa, Fires at Al-Qibli Door

Local Editor

Clashes broke out Monday morning inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque between the Zionist occupation forces who stormed the mosque and the Palestinian worshipers, specifically near the Al-Qibli mosque.

The confrontations took place after Zionist troops were deployed to the area for the Jewish Sukkot holiday and as settlers continue their acts of violence in the holy site.

Israeli soldiers fired gas canisters and sound bombs heavily at the worshipers stationed in the mosque, resulting in the outbreak of fires on the Al-Qibli mosque doors, which was surrounded with barricades to separate settlers from the Palestinians there.

They even sprayed pepper gas towards the worshipers inside the mosque leaving several injuries and suffocation cases.

Also on Sunday, clashes erupted across the compound after Israeli police stormed the holy site and fired rubber-coated steel bullets and stun grenades at Palestinian protesters.

Zionist police statement said young Palestinians “threw stones and fireworks at police and border police forces,” who responded with “riot dispersal means”, a moderated term for the use of excessive force and violence against stone-throwers.

Since September 13, Zionist forces have attacked and injured dozens of Palestinians who have held rallies against Zionist assaults on the al-Aqsa Mosque.

Source: Al-Manar Website	28-09-2015 – 16:10 Last updated 28-09-2015 – 16:10

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