Just listen to this pompous ass!

Source

May 30, 2017

I am sure the Russians, the Iranians and the Syrians are terrified out of their wits by this tough talking wannabe cowboy…
But the reporters, yeah, they *truly* love that…

(But, seriously, when will American learn that “talking tough” is considered a sign of weakness, not strength, in most of the cultures of our planet?)

U.S. Wants Control Over Anbar And Beyond – Iraq and Syria Will Prevent It

By Moon Of Alabama

“May 31, 2017 “Information Clearing House” – The U.S. is casting its net over the desert between Iraq and Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to install military bases and power-structures that will guarantee major influence in the area for the foreseeable future. A part of that plan is to develop Sunni proxy forces that will keep the government forces of Damascus and Baghdad out of the area. Another part is to privatize important infrastructure to keep it under direct U.S. control.

To privatize the Iraqi Highway 1 between Baghdad and the Jordanian capital Amman, is a major point in these plans. According to the NYT:

As part of an American effort to promote economic development in Iraq and secure influence in the country after the fight against the Islamic State subsides, the American government has helped broker a deal between Iraq and Olive Group, a private security company, to establish and secure the country’s first toll highway.

The map shows Highway 1 from Baghdad to Amman. Notice the road junction east of the Jordan-Iraq border. There the road splits with one branch going north-west towards Damascus. The point where that road crosses from Iraq to Syria is the al-Tanf border station currently occupied by U.S. forces and their British and Norwegian auxiliaries as well some Syrian “rebels” under U.S. control. The U.S. recently bombed a convoy of Syrian and allied Iraqi forces which was moving towards that area.  The U.S. military dropped leaflets to Syrian troops to order them to stay away from their own border. Who the f*** do those U.S. troops think they are? What is there justification to be there in the first place? Large Iraq and Syrian government forces are now moving towards al-Tanf from the two sides of the border to evict the occupiers. Iraq, Syria, Iran and Russia have agreed that no U.S. position will be tolerated there. U.S. and other foreign troops will either move out voluntary from al-Tanf or they will be removed by force.

Highway 1 and its branch to Damascus is the most important economic lifeline between Syria and Jordan in the west and Iraq and beyond in the east. Whoever controls it, controls major parts of commerce between those countries. Iraq is a country with rich resources. While it is under economic strains after decades of U.S. sanctions and war against it by the U.S. and Takfiri proxy forces it has no long-term need to rent out such major real estate.

Nevertheless the current Iraqi government under Prime Minister al-Abadi signed a preliminary agreement for a 25 year contract with the U.S. company:

Mr. Abadi has awarded the development project to Olive Group, although the final details are still being worked out. The project would include repairing bridges in western Anbar Province; refurbishing the road, known as Highway 1; and building service stations, rest areas and roadside cafes. It would also include mobile security by private contractors for convoys traveling the highway.

Al Abeidi is now under pressure from the Shia majority who elected him into office to renounce the deal. It is obviously that the deal is not in their interest nor that of the country. According to U.S. diplomats one purpose of the deal is:

pushing back on the influence of Shiite Iran, whose growing power in Iraq has alarmed important Sunni allies of the United States like Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Iran has little to do with the road. It is the Shia majority of Iraq that would benefit most from free flowing traffic and commerce on it.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia have enabled the Sunni insurgency in Iraq of which ISIS is just the latest incarnation. To allow the U.S. to control the road and thereby Anbar province in the name of Turkey and Saudi Arabia would guarantee that future Sunni insurgencies could threaten Baghdad whenever “needed”. Just remember how Obama said he used ISIS to throw then Prime Minster Maliki out of office:

The reason, the president added, “that we did not just start taking a bunch of airstrikes all across Iraq as soon as ISIL came in was because that would have taken the pressure off of [Prime Minister Nuri Kamal] al-Maliki.

A U.S. controlled west-Iraq and south-eastern Syria would be a highway for Saudi Arabian miscreants from their country up towards Baghdad and Damascus. It would be an incarnation of the “Salafist principality” the U.S. and other early ISIS supporters have wished for since at least 2012.

The U.S. is willing to obfuscate and to lie to further its imperial plans. The NYT is, as usual, complicit in that:

Playing on painful memories and fears of Iraqis, news outlets have also run false reports that Blackwater — the private security firm that acted with impunity in the early days of the American occupation and gunned down innocent Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007 — had taken on the project.

“The politics of this country are challenging,” said Christian Ronnow, executive vice president of Constellis, the parent company of Olive Group, a private security firm that has worked for years in Iraq.

What the NYT claims are “false reports” are in fact reasonable conclusions:

The [Constellis] Group combines the specialized skills and operational excellence of ACADEMI, Edinburgh International, Strategic Social and Triple Canopy,

ACADEMI

is an American private military company founded in 1997 by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince as Blackwater, renamed as XE Services in 2009 and now known as Academi since 2011 after the company was acquired by a group of private investors.

Olive Group is Constellis Group is Academi is Blackwater – the “false reports” in Iraqi media are way more truthful on that than the NYT is.

The U.S. project in Anbar province and its potential control of Highway 1 through private U.S. forces threatens to put an economic stranglehold on Iraq, Syria and Jordan. I trust that nationalist forces in those countries as well as their allies will do their best to prevent it.

This article was first published by Moon Of Alabama

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.

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Russian Navy firing cruise missiles on ISIS positions near Palmyra

Can the Impossible Happen in Britain?

Photo by Garry Knight | CC BY 2.0

To state the obvious: two weeks can be a long time in western electoral politics.

The Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn has been gaining steadily in the opinion polls, despite a massive media campaign to undermine him, extending from the BBC and the supposedly “liberal” Guardian to the UK’s famously ghastly tabloids. When Theresa May called the election, Labour was 20 or more points behind the Conservatives, but this figure was down to as little as 5 points in some polls conducted before the Manchester bombing atrocity occurred.

The policies put forward in Labour’s manifesto are popular (especially when they are not identified as Labour’s!), Corbyn has been an effective campaigner, but Labour has also been aided by a woefully inept Tory campaign.  The Tory spin doctors and election strategists somehow convinced themselves that the largely untried Theresa May was their trump card, so much so that only her name (accompanied by the vacuous slogan “strong and stable”), and not her party affiliation, featured on their election propaganda.

While the hunch behind this decision of the election strategists was probably the marketing of May as a Thatcher Mark II, she has been a disaster so far.  A stodgy performer in debate, famously unable to think on her feet, May refused to take part in televised debates.  Her few attempts at “connecting with the public” have seen the wheels come off the proverbial car.

She scuttled off rapidly when booed on a visit to a social-housing estate in Bristol– people living in social housing have been under an unrelenting cosh since Thatcher became prime minister in 1979, and only someone in a fantasy conjured-up by Lewis Carroll would envisage a Tory leader being greeted with warmth and affection on a visit to such an estate.  Someone on May’s support team needs to be sent forthwith to a dungeon in the Tower of London for this Carrollian mishap.

Another walk-about in Abingdon (Oxfordshire), potentially less hostile territory, saw May confronted by a voter with learning disabilities visibly upset at having her disability benefit cut by the Tories.  The easily flustered May, seemingly unable to distinguish between learning disabilities and mental health issues, sought desperately to reassure the distressed voter that the Tories had a bunch of new initiatives on the latter.  The massed TV cameras recorded the entire episode, and May became an immediate object of derision.  She retired to her bunker at Tory HQ, and has not been seen in public since.

May’s two one-on-one television interviews have likewise been a disaster.  UK TV interviewers, even those not known for their leftist inclinations, are a much less calmative bunch than their American counterparts (the Orange Swindler would not last 60 seconds with the routinely ill-disposed and aggressive Jeremy Paxman), and May suffered her predictable meltdown.  The sight of her waffling and prevaricating when interviewed by Andrew Marr and Andrew Neil while trying to pull-out her “strong and steady” soundbite as often as possible, was utterly delicious to behold.

So, what’s next for the maladroit May?  TV debates are out, and so it would seem are walk-abouts and one-on-one interviews.  The halt to campaigning observed by all parties after the Manchester carnage has given her some breathing space, but it is hard to see what can be improvised by her handlers.

Theresa May apart, the Tory manifesto has also been a hostage to misfortune.  A grab-bag of vague promises and uncosted policies, it soon suffered from media scrutiny.  The manifesto, and the accompanying vapid sloganeering, are thinly disguised attempts to deflect attention from the one big issue the Tories can’t campaign on and must therefore keep out of public view, namely, the cruel and irresponsible austerity policy they have pursued since 2010.  In parliament, May has voted for every legislative item underpinning this policy, despite touting herself as a “compassionate Conservative”.  Here in the manifesto we are told: “We do not believe in untrammelled free markets. We reject the cult of selfish individualism. We abhor social division, injustice, unfairness and inequality”.  They could have fooled me, and perhaps this was the Tory intention.

Paraded as “fiscal prudence”, Tory austerity has been quite the opposite.

The UK economy has grown since 2010, but, according to the Guardian, 7.4 million Brits, among them 2.6 million children, live in poverty despite being from working families (amounting to 55% of these deemed poor) – an increase of 1.1 million since 2010-2011 (i.e. the first year of austerity).

The report discussed by the Guardian, produced by the reputable Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), shows that the number living below the Minimum Income Standard – the earnings, defined by the public, required for a decent standard of living – rose from 15 million to 19 million between 2008/9 and 2014/5.  The UK’s population is 65 million.

These 19 million people, or just under 1/3rd of the UK’s population, are its “just about managing” families (JAMs).

An important contributory factor in these shifts, the JRF said, was the increased number of people living in basically unaffordable private rental properties, with the number of people in poverty in private rentals doubling in a decade to 4.5 million.

“Failures in the housing market are a significant driver of poverty,” the JRF study said. “This is primarily, but not entirely, due to costs.”

The number of rental evictions has risen by 60% over 5 years to 37,000 annually.   Over the same period mortgage repossessions have fallen from 23,000 to 3,300.

According to an article by Frances Ryan in the Guardian:

For a government to cut in-work social security, reduce child tax credits and freeze working-age benefits in this climate is the equivalent of knowingly removing the life rafts from the millions of citizens who are struggling to stay afloat. Drowning comes in many forms: perhaps eviction notices or hungry children. The Children’s Society says that by 2020, when all the new tax and benefits changes will have been implemented, low-income families making a new claim for support could be up to £9,000 worse off a year. The government’s four-year freeze on working age benefits alone will make four million families poorer.

Social care has become increasingly unaffordable for these struggling families, the NHS is starting to charge for treatment as it undergoes a stealth privatization, they have fewer opportunities for upskilling in order to raise their incomes, and so on.  This while their wages are stagnant even as the cost of living is increasing for them.

“Austerity” always was a hoax attempting to magic the banking-induced crisis of 2007-2009 into a crisis of the welfare system.

It has nothing to do with the “deficit”— if it did, Cameron and Osborne would have serious steps to reduce the “deficit”, instead they chose policies that increased it.

And indeed, UK public sector debt has risen since 2010–  according to the Office of National Statistics, from 60% of GDP in January 2010 to 85.3% in January 2017.

The Tories and their banker pals are determined to make ordinary UK citizens pay for the bankers’ mistakes with reduced wages and pensions, reduced health care, reduced education opportunities, reduced real employment (job “growth” is largely confined to “bullshit” jobs or McJobs), and reduced social services.

Their public position is that ordinary UK citizens are “living beyond their means”, thereby using this as a subterfuge to get the ordinary citizen to pay for the bankers’ fecklessness and criminality.

So far, no politician from any party has stood up and said it is the stock-portfolio class, and not ordinary Ukanians, who live beyond the Ukay’s means!

With the ideological dragooning supplied in endless doses by the rightwing tabloids, the “slackers” and “scroungers” always seem to be the not so well-off or totally indigent, as opposed to predatory bankers and avaricious landlords.  The former tend not to vote under the present electoral system because nothing really changes for them come election-time, while the latter make a point of donating generously to the Tories in order to safeguard their gravy trains.

Kenneth Surin teaches at Duke University, North Carolina.  He lives in Blacksburg, Virginia.

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One day after meeting Putin, French President Macron meets with ISIS-Al Qaeda leaders in Paris

One day after meeting Putin, French President Macron meets with ISIS-Al Qaeda leaders in Paris

If you ever needed any more proof that the new wonder-boy French President is nothing more than a neo-liberal, globalist puppet, then look no further than Macron’s recent meeting in Paris with Syria’s opposition, known as the Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee (HNC)…which includes political and armed groups trying to overthrow the Assad government

Macron says he seeks to review French policy on Syria’s war with Saudi-Qatari-Turkey funded jihadists, but welcoming a terrorist organisation to Paris, one day after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, and days after ISIS bombed Manchester Arena, is no way to revaluate a failed western regime change operation of a sovereign nation…or maybe it is exactly the way Macron’s globalist rulers want him to behave when dealing with Syria.

Reuters reports

The unannounced meeting with Riad Hijab and a broader delegation from the Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee (HNC), which includes political and armed groups, came as Macron seeks to review French policy on the six-year civil war.

“The president spoke of his personal commitment to the Syria dossier and of his support for the Syrian opposition in view of a political transition,” his office said in a statement.

Opposition officials were not immediately available for comment on the meeting.

Macron’s electoral victory has offered an opportunity for Paris to examine its policy on Syria with some considering the previous administration’s stance as too intransigent and leaving it isolated on the subject.

Macron, a newcomer to international diplomacy, said on Monday that his priority in Syria was to eradicate Islamist militants.

Alongside Putin in 17th century palace of Versailles outside Paris, Macron on Monday said he had agreed to set up a working group with Russia, including to exchange information. It was not immediately clear what that would entail.

Macron’s government says it backs U.N.-mediated peace talks in Geneva. However, Macron also called for a “political and diplomatic framework to build peace” without specifying whether it was a new initiative or part of the U.N. process.

More on the Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee (HNC)…

The HNC was founded in December 2015 at a conference held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which was attended by around 100 delegates. At the end of the conference, a joint statement was issued to confirm the formation of “a High Negotiations Committee for the Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces (HNC), with its headquarters in Riyadh, to undertake the tasks of choosing a negotiating delegation and to act reference point for negotiators with the representatives of the Syrian regime on behalf of the participants”.

The group’s chief negotiator, Mohammed Alloush, a member of Jaish al-Islam, resigned from the HNC in May 2016 because of the lack of progress in the Syrian peace process.

In September 2016, the HNC set out a detailed transition plan for Syria, committing the country to democratic and religious pluralism. The 25-page document was launched in London and was welcomed by the United Kingdom’s government.

In January 2017, the HNC announced that it will support the Syrian peace talks in Astana, which began on 23 January.

In February 2017, the HNC chief coordinator Riyad Farid Hijab rejected a statement by Staffan de Mistura that the latter will select delegates for the Syrian opposition in Geneva. He also objected to the participation Democratic Union Party (PYD) in the Geneva conference.

The HNC has faced criticism from Russia because it includes groups like Ahrar al-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam. Its transition plan in September 2016 was also criticized by the opposition Kurdish National Council and the Assyrian Democratic Organization due to it not addressing minority ethnic groups in Syria.

The Kurdish National Council withdrew from the HNC on 29 March 2017 in protest to the latter’s opposition to federalism and human rights for Kurds in Syria.

More on Riad Hijab

Riyad Farid Hijab was Prime Minister of Syria from June to August 2012, serving under President Bashar al-Assad. From 2011 to 2012, he was Minister of Agriculture.

On 6 August 2012, the Syrian government released a statement saying that Hijab had been dismissed.

Shortly thereafter a man describing himself as Hijab’s spokesman and several news organizations stated he had resigned and defected to the rebel side in the Syrian civil war.

Hijab is the highest-ranking defector from the Syrian government.

 

Mattis dismisses civilian victims of USA in Iraq and Syria as merely a ‘Fact of Life’

Mad Dog Mattis Says US Now Focused On ‘Annihilation’ Of ISIS; Civilian Casualties ‘Fact of Life’

Source: Brandon Turbeville, Activist Post

In a signal that the United States is about to ramp up the aggression in its war on Syria, Secretary of Defense, Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis has announced that the U.S. strategy to “defeat ISIS” is changing, stating that a new policy of “attrition” is over and the new policy of “annihilation” is about to begin.

Speaking to CBS’ Face The Nation, Mattis said,

Our strategy right now is to accelerate the campaign against Isis. It is a threat to all civilized nations. And the bottom line is we are going to move in an accelerated and reinforced manner, throw them on their back foot.

We have already shifted from attrition tactics, where we shove them from one position to another in Iraq and Syria, to annihilation tactics where we surround them. Our intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home to North Africa, to Europe, to America, to Asia, to Africa. We’re not going to allow them to do so. We’re going to stop them there and take apart the caliphate.

The United States, however, has long supported the terrorist group both in terms of funding and outright military assistance ever since the organization became publicly known as ISIS ( simply name change from al-Qaeda, an American created and controlled terrorist organization).

Mattis then launched into a familiar but incredibly hypocritical retort regarding the horror of killing women and children, something the United States has become quite adept at doing, particularly in the last two decades. He said,

We have got to dry up their recruiting,” he said. “We have got to dry up their fundraising. The way we intend to do it is to humiliate them, to divorce them from any nation giving them protection, and humiliating their message of hatred, of violence. Anyone who kills women and children is not devout. They … cannot dress themselves up in false religious garb and say that somehow this message has dignity.

Yet when the specific question of civilian casualties came up, Mattis appeared to be paving the way for an increase in the wholesale slaughter of innocent people in Iraq and Syria. Indeed, Mattis’ response appeared to be designed to set the stage and prepare the American people for the horror show that is about to be unleashed in the Middle East with renewed vigor. Mattis said,

Civilian casualties are a fact of life in this sort of situation. We do everything humanly possible consistent with military necessity, taking many chances to avoid civilian casualties at all costs.

The American people and the American military will never get used to civilian casualties. And we will – we will fight against that every way we can possibly bring our intelligence and our tactics to bear.


But, while Mattis feigns sorrow over the death of innocent people, he is obviously quite resigned to civilian deaths since his announcement is one of foreshadowing that seems to be taken straight out of the Israeli playbook. Of course, Mattis is not alone since the US military brass as well as the American people seem quite comfortable with civilian deaths in wars that their country has started.

Laughably, Mattis goes on to attempt to defend the killing of more than 100 civilians in Mosul by a U.S. airstrike as having been the fault of ISIS since the Western-backed organization would not allow civilians to leave the area being bombed. He then argues that the explosions were so massive because the U.S. airstrike hit a building in which ISIS was storing weapons and munitions. Fair enough. There is an argument to be made for his position (assuming, of course, the U.S. was actually fighting ISIS).

However, Mattis’ claims are eerily similar to those made by the Syrian and Russian militaries regarding similar incidents, most notably the alleged chemical weapons attacks in Khan Sheikhoun. At the time, however, the U.S. dismissed such claims out of hand, pretending that they were simply lies and more examples of the cruelty of Assad and his omniscient Russian allies. The idea that a military would unwittingly bomb a warehouse of munitions causing civilian deaths was, according to the West, preposterous. That is, unless the West needs a convenient excuse. When such is the case, the integrity and honor of the West is beyond question.

In fact, even as Mattis’ interview was published, the headlines in the corporate media were alight with accusations of Syrian military atrocities committed as a result of Assad’s much-maligned indiscriminate barrel bombs. But I digress . . .

Mattis also followed in the footsteps of the previous two administrations by reminding Americans that we are the good guys, something Americans need to be reminded of lest they forget or have a different perspective as a result of judging by what they see and the fruit their country bears. “We’re not the perfect guys, but we are the good guys. And so we’re doing what we can,” he said.

At least he admits America isn’t perfect. It’s important to give yourself an out when you are planning on murdering more innocent people. Both Bush and Obama can attest to this.

فشل ضرب محور المقاومة يؤدي إلى تفكيك محور الاعتدال

الأربعاء 31 أيار , 2017 01:23

إيهاب زكي – بيروت برس – 

لا يختلف عاقلان على أن العائلات الحاكمة في شبه الجزيرة العربية، تقوم على قاعدتين رئيسيتين في سعيها إلى البقاء، القاعدة الأولى فطرية وهي العقلية القبلية، والقاعدة الثانية مكتسبة وهي التبعية للولايات المتحدة، فبمتابعة تاريخ نشأة تلك المحميات مرورًا بالخلافات والتباينات وصولًا إلى أزمة اليوم بين أعضاء تلك المحميات في مجلس التعاون، تخرج بعقيدة راسخة بخضوع تلك العائلات لهاتين القاعدتين لا غيرهما، والتغير الوحيد الطارئ هو تغيرٌ ظرفي فرضته طبيعة العصر. فبدلًا من الصراع على الماء والكلأ صار صراعًا على النفط والغاز، وبدلًا من بريطانيا العظمى كمنشئة وحامية صارت الولايات المتحدة، وما يحدث اليوم من صراع إعلامي سياسي بين أعضاء حلفٍ واحد، سميّ يومًا حلف الاعتدال العربي، هو نتيجة طبيعية للقاعدة الجدلية الشهيرة “التراكم الكمّي يؤدي إلى تغيير نوعي”، فإنّ هذا الحلف راكم فشلًا فوق فشل على مدى العقدين الماضيين، في تجربة القضاء على فكرة المقاومة، ثم فشل في محاولات احتوائها، كما فشل في عزل إيران، وفشل في كسر شوكة حزب الله لصالح “إسرائيل”، والطامة الكبرى الفشل في إسقاط سوريا.

مضافًا إلى هذا الفشل المتراكم، فشلٌ آخر في ابتلاع اليمن، وفشلٌ في إنجاز ما يسمى بـ”حلٍ سياسي” للقضية الفلسطينية، وفشلٌ أيضًا في القضاء عليها-على الأقل- عبر “إشهار” تعويم “إسرائيل” كعضو شرق أوسطي متسيد، والإعلان عن انتهاء الصراع العربي-“الإسرائيلي”، وفي قلب هذا الفشل صراع أكثر من ظاهر وأقل من خفي على وراثة السلطة في كلٍ من السعودية وقطر. فهذا التراكم الكمي في الفشل سيؤدي حتمًا إلى تغيير نوعي، لأنّ المشغل الرئيسي لهذه الأدوات مجتمعة ومنفردة-الولايات المتحدة- سيسعى إلى إحداث تغيير داخل أدواته، طالما أنها راكمت الفشل فوق الفشل في تأدية وظائفها وإنجاز مهامها، فأصبح انشطار ما سمّي بمحور الاعتدال باديًا، كما أن الأصابع الأمريكية خلف هذا الانشطار ليست خافية، فهناك تناغمٌ بين الحملة الإعلامية السعودية على قطر وبين بعض التصريحات الأمريكية التشريعي منها والسياسي والإعلامي، ولكن هل هذا التغيير النوعي فحواه تغيير خرائط المحميات الخليجية، أم أنه مجرد ابتزاز أمريكي لأطراف المحور ماليًا أولًا وسياسيًا ثانيًا..؟ ما أرجحه هو تغيير خرائط، ولا أظن زيارة بن سلمان إلى روسيا تأتي خارج هذا السياق، وهي محاولة لقطع الطريق على قطر بالتقارب مع روسيا في حال تفكيك ونقل قاعدة العيديد إلى أبو ظبي أو إلى الرياض، فهل يدفع بن سلمان من حسابه في سوريا لقاء تحييد روسيا عن الأزمة القطرية؟

قد تبدو هذه الأسئلة متوحشة في جنوحها، ولكنها تنبع من تلبس العقلية القبلية التي تجنح نحو الأحقاد الثأرية، متخطيةً كل منطق سياسي أو حتى مصالح سياسية، فقطر هذه يعتبرها السعوديون أرضًا سعودية كامتدادٍ لأرض الإحساء، وفي أفضل الأحوال تعتبرها غِرًا سيء الخلق يناطح شيخ القبيلة، فمثلًا حين انقلب حمد بن خليفة على أبيه، كانت أموال قطر الدولة في حسابٍ شخصيٍ في بريطانيا باسم خليفة، الأمير الأب المنقلَب عليه، فقام الإبن المنقلب على أبيه برفع دعوى قضائية في بريطانيا لاستراداد أموال الإمارة، وبنفس المنطق القبلي تدخل شيخ القبيلة الملك السعودي لاحقًا عبدالله بن عبدالعزيز درءًا للفضائح مع وعد الأمير الإبن حمد بتسليمه الأموال مقابل التنازل عن الدعوى وإغلاق ملفها القضائي إغلاقًا غير قابلٍ للفتح بنصٍ أشرف عليه عتاة المحامين الإنجليز، ولكن الملك السعودي شيخ القبيلة أخلف وعده، فاعتبرها حمد بن خليفة طعنة نجلاء في الظهر، وبدأت الجزيرة وقت انشائها بمهاجمة المملكة، ولا يمكن للملكة أن تسمح بسابقة قضائية مثل هذه، حيث تجعل التمييز بين أموال الملك وأموال الدولة عرفًا قضائيًا، كما حدثت محاولة انقلابية على الابن المنقلب كانت خلفها السعودية، هذا في وقتٍ كانت توصف فيه السياسية السعودية-كما يقولون- بالتأني والحكمة، أما شخصيًا فلا أعرف شيئًا اسمه سياسة سعودية خارج الأوامر والمصالح الأمريكية، فكيف واليوم حيث التهور والرعونة هي أحد أبرز سمات مما يسمى بالسياسة السعودية.

المتابع لقناة الجزيرة يلاحظ أمرين مهمين، الأول أنها تصوّب على الإمارات في الملف اليمني بما يبدو أنه مساندة للأهداف السعودية، مع تجنب استهداف الدور السعودي أو الرد بالمثل على حملات الإعلام السعودي، والأمر الثاني أنها تحاول التصويب على ترامب والمساهمة في الحملات التي تستهدف إدارته أمريكيًا، بما يشي أن قطر تستشعر خطرًا جديًا على كيانها في ظل هذه الإدارة، وأن إقالة ترامب ستساهم في محاولة لجم جموح المحمدين، محمد بن سلمان ومحمد بن زايد. وبغض النظر عن مآلات هذه الأزمة التي ستتضح حدودها على ضوء الأيام والأسابيع المقبلة، يبدو أنّ الفشل الأمريكي في تفكيك محور المقاومة، بدأ يفكر في تفكيك محوره المعتدل، كخطوة اضطرارية لإعادة تشكيل محور أكثر فعالية على أنقاض المحور الذي راكم فشلًا على فشل، وقد يكون إفراغ ما يسمى بمجلس التعاون الخليجي من محتواه، خطوةً أولية على طريق تفكيكه، فعدم فعاليته في احتواء الأزمة القطرية مؤشرٌ جليّ على إفراغه من محتواه وجدواه.

When Will Washington Quit the Business of Killing Syria’s Civilians

When Will Washington Quit the Business of Killing Syria’s Civilians

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israel is the mother of terrorism in the Middle East

Source

The state of Israel was established by Zionist terror organizations such as Irgun (or Etzel), Hagana, and Stern, who used to plant bombs in crowded Palestinian markets, cafes, shops, and buses. What was called Israeli military intelligence then had carried out a bombing campaign in Egypt in 1954, and had hijacked a Syrian civilian airliner in the same year in order to obtain hostages to trade for captured Zionist spies.

Even before the establishment of the Zionist Israeli state, all of its leaders up to the present had committed savage massacres and war crimes against innocent unarmed Palestinian civilians; starting with the massacre of Dir Yasin, Kufr Qasim, Tantura, Sabra and Shatila, Quana, Jenin, and up to the present genocidal financial and economical siege and blockade of the whole Palestinian people. The Geneva Convention defines genocide, among others, as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, including deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.

Israeli prime ministers are the most notorious terrorists. The first Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion had established the Israeli state on the total destruction and obliteration of at least 500 Palestinian towns and villages. Menachem Begin, commanded the terrorist organization Irgun, praised the massacre of Dir Yasin calling it a “miracle”. Begin’s Irgun had committed many terrorist attacks against Palestinian and British civilians, that led Ben Gurion to refer to the Irgun as “Jewish Nazis” and compared Begin to Hitler. Yitzhak Shamir masterminded the murder of hundreds of Palestinian and British civilians, and was responsible for the bombing of King David Hotel in Jerusalem. His Lehi terrorist gang was responsible for the assassination of the British minister in the Middle East, Lord Moyne, in Cairo in November 1944, and the assassination of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte in September 1948

Yitzhak Rabin carried the massacres in Palestinian towns of Lud and Ramleh and ordered his soldiers to break the bones of Palestinian youngsters’ bones during the Intifada. Ehud Barak orchestrated the assassination of three Palestinian leaders in Lebanon in 1970. Ariel Sharon, hailed by Israelis as “king of Israel”, was the most notorious butcher of them all. His whole career was filled with massacres of Palestinian, Egyptian, and Lebanese civilians. All the Israeli Prime Ministers had committed racial and religious cleansing on a very large scale and this cleansing is still going on until today.

After the establishment of the Israeli state on the usurped Palestinian land all the Zionist terror organizations had united together in one organization to become the Israeli army. This Israeli army became a terrorist organization for hire. This was clear when Israel joined Britain and France in their war against Egypt in 1956 after Egyptian President Naser had nationalized the Suez Canal. Among the payments Israel received was Dimona nuclear reactor built by France, and heavy water for nuclear material from Britain.

Terrorism is embodied in the Israeli army, who had invaded all the neighboring Arab states; Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. The army committed many massacres and war crimes murdering unarmed innocent civilians, demolishing civilian homes, razing agricultural lands, and indiscriminately bombing and destroying whole Arab cities.

Shifting the Blame: How US Made Iran Responsible for 9/11

Shifting the Blame: How US Made Iran Responsible for 9/11

Shifting the Blame: How US Made Iran Responsible for 9/11

Shifting the Blame: How US Made Iran Responsible for 9/11

The official U.S. government line is that Iran is the main country responsible for the 9/11 attacks in America. On 9 March 2016, a U.S. civil court ruled that Iran must pay to some victims of the 9/11 attacks $10.5 billion in fines, and the Obama Administration had no comment, so the U.S. press ignored the verdict almost totally. But this verdict was the only official U.S. court ruling thus far about state-sponsorship of the 9/11 attacks, 16 years after the event. It was therefore huge news on 9 March 2016 — it created a precedent, for the U.S. government to allege that Iran had caused the 9/11 attacks and is consequently ‘the number one terrorist state’ (as Israelis have long claimed). But it received very little coverage at the time.

The event’s significance was the precedent that this verdict set, but most of the ‘news’media simply didn’t report this important precedent: it was the first official U.S. governmental conclusion alleging that Iran had, in effect, ‘invaded’ America, on 11 September 2001; and, yet, even now, no one is saying that Iran invaded the U.S. on 9/11, because the U.S. government isn’t yet trying to prepare the public to support an invasion of Iran by American forces. Still, this precedent could become the start for such preparation, if neither of America’s Iran-hating ‘allies’, Israel and/or Saudi Arabia, can be induced to invade.

President Trump, on May 20th, advanced toward the possibility of invading Iran, a long way, when he announced a record-shattering $350 billion sale of U.S.-made weapons to Saudi Arabia, and the White House said «This package of defense equipment and services support the long-term security of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region in the face of Iranian threats». The symbolism here was that Saudi Arabia is America’s ally, and that Iran is America’s enemy. The stage is set, in case a U.S. President will want to take that stage.

President Trump, on 5 February 2017, was asked in a Super Bowl television interview, what his policies would be regarding Iran, and he answered (video here, transcript here): «They have total disregard for our country. They are the number one terrorist state». (When he was running for the U.S. Presidency, in 2016, he had spoken only about «Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia’s role on the World Trade Center and the attack. That’s very serious stuff. It’s sort of nice to know who your friends are and perhaps who your enemies are». But now that he was the U.S. President, and his biggest initial American jobs achievement — already in the works during his Presidency’s start — would be an all-time record high $350 billion sale of U.S.-made weapons to the Sauds, Trump as President has been mentioning the Sauds only as ‘allies’, no longer as supporters of terrorism.)

All of the information that’s known about Iran’s actual role in 9/11 is contained in the judge’s 22 December 2011 «Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law» in the civil court case, which the judge stated solely upon the basis of the research that the law firm for the suing American victims had set forth. Basically, what their case came down to is that some of the 9/11 hijackers had travelled through Iran prior to 9/11. Among those «Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law» were no allegations of evidence to prove that Iran had participated in the planning of the 9/11 attacks, nor of any Iranians paying any of the hijackers. However, one anti-government Iranian, named Mesbahi, referred to a flight simulator that maybe had been purchased from Iran, and he was alleged to have said that he «believes that the simulator was probably used to train the 9/11 hijacker pilots». That’s all. For these things, the judge fined the Iranian government $10.5B, and told the suing victims to get the money any way they could (which might be not at all, since Iran mocked and rejected the verdict — but the precedent for ‘Iran caused 9/11’ was set).

What, then, was the reality of Iran and the 9/11 attacks? Even the civil suit’s claimants didn’t allege anything substantial for the period prior to 9/11, but what about the period since 9/11?

On 23 May 2013, FBI Agent Daniel A. Mehochko was honored by a U.S. military School of Advanced Military Studies, for «writing the best monograph in the AOASF [that school’s] program» and this 104-page study was titled «Iran’s Post 9/11 Grand Bargain: Missed Opportunity for Strategic Rapprochement Between Iran and the United States». Its «Abstract» and «Conclusion» say:

The events of 9/11 … provided an unprecedented opportunity for a strategic rapprochement between the United States and Iran. After 9/11, Iran not only denounced the attacks and cooperated with the United States in Afghanistan, but also offered to negotiate a comprehensive resolution of differences with no preconditions. 

The failure to recognize the impact of the 1953 coup on Iran’s collective identity, and subsequent policy decisions in support of the shah, only reinforced the view that the United States was the primary source of Persian humiliation. … The Bush neoconservatives, dominating the NSC policy formulation process, viewed Iran through the same lens they viewed al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Saddam Hussein. Americans have a short attention span: the administration responded to Iran through the context of 1979, yet few considered that most Iranians still viewed America through the events of 1953. Regime change was the wrong policy for Iran. The militarized foreign policy approach that the administration thought worked so well in Afghanistan and Iraq was not relevant to Iran. As the Bush administration was about to discover, one cannot apply a singular policy to the complexity of the Middle East. The Bush Doctrine did just that. 

Trump is continuing George W. Bush’s policy.

Mehochko wrote, on page 52:

Iran’s response to 9/11 surprised many observers: spontaneous candlelight vigils in Tehran mourned the American dead, the mayors of Tehran and Isfahan sent condolence messages to the people of New York City, and Iranians observed a moment of silence before a national soccer match. The Iranian government issued a strong statement condemning the terrorist attacks, and President Khatami publicly expressed his «deep regret and sympathy with the victims». During his November visit to the UN General Assembly, Khatami went so far as to request permission to visit ground zero in order to offer prayers and light a candle for the victims.88 

On page 55:

At the January 2002 Afghanistan Donors Conference in Tokyo, Iran pledged $540 million in assistance for the new Afghan government, compared to the $290 million committed by the United States. While in Tokyo, an Iranian representative approached Dobbins and expressed his desire to not only continue cooperation in Afghanistan, but work on other issues with the appropriate American officials. At this same conference, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill received a similar message from the Iranian government. Both Dobbins and O’Neill reported Iran’s offers to Rice and Powell, but no reply was given to Iran. Later, during a March 2002 meeting in Geneva, the Iranian delegation met again with Dobbins, and offered military assistance to house and train up to 20,000 Afghan troops under the American led effort. Dobbins relayed this offer to the administration, but Powell deferred the issue to Rice, who deferred the issue to Rumsfeld. Days later, the issue was on the agenda for discussion at a NSC Principals Committee meeting. During the meeting, Dobbins relayed Iran’s offer, but Rumsfeld ignored the issue, and no one else seemed interested. 

Page 59:

In October 2001, Flynt Leverett, Middle East expert for the Department of State’s Policy Planning Staff, was responsible for developing a strategy to address the offers of support from Syria, Libya, Iran, and other troublesome countries. Leverett’s proposal to Powell was basically a quid pro quo engagement: if these countries agree to expel terrorist groups and cease efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, the United States, in return, will normalize relations. In December, when this policy proposal came up for discussion at a NSC Deputies Committee meeting (chaired by Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley), Hadley, as well as the representatives from the vice president’s office and the OSD, rejected the idea. 

Then, Mehochko stated: «The Pentagon was already exploring options for regime change in Tehran». Furthermore: «Israel and Pakistan were also alarmed about the increased cooperation between Iran and the United States».

On page 65, Mehochko quoted from President Bush’s State of the Union Address on 29 January 2002:

Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September 11th, but we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade…States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.

Clearly, the U.S. is set upon conquest. First, Afghanistan was invaded; then, Iraq; then, Libya; then, Syria — all of them destroyed (and radicalized — which the U.S. started in Afghanistan back in 1979). Perhaps Iran will be next. What is the point of anyone’s trusting a government like that?

Mehochko’s report ignored the fact that the Islamic world is split between Sunnis, led by Saudi Arabia, versus Shiites, led by Iran, and that the Sauds’ desire to exterminate all Shia goes back at least to the 1744 compact between Muhammad ibn Saud and Muhammad ibn Wahhab, which formed Saudi Arabia, in a compact of hate. Mehochko’s report ignores the crucial alliance between the U.S. and the Saud family. Mehochko ignores that the U.S. co-founded Al Qaeda along with the Sauds in 1979 in order to conquer Russia, which the American aristocracy hate, and conquer Iran, which the Saudi aristocracy hate. But compared to what most American officials and military and intelligence operatives and scholars write about Iran and the nations that are friendly toward it, Mehochko’s paper was remarkably honest, so it’s cited here.

The U.S. government has and hides massive reams of rock-solid evidence that leaders of the Saud family, which is the royal family who own all of Saudi Arabia, not only were the top funders of Al Qaeda and of the 9/11 attacks, but continued afterward being the world’s top funders of not only Al Qaeda but also of many of the other jihadist groups that accept and follow Al Qaeda’s leadership.

If Trump were sincere, then, he would instead publicly expose the fraud that U.S. foreign policy has been based upon, and he would expose the historical record, which proves that the U.S. should be protecting Iran and its allies from the Saudi-led fundamentalist-Sunni war against Iran and against all of the world except Sunni-allied Israel and except Sunni-ruled countries. Russia and China and India would then become also U.S. allies, and the possibility of a globe-annihilating nuclear world war, WW III, would immediately plunge. Hundreds of trillions of dollars that will otherwise be spent on preparations for WW III would then go instead toward constructive expenditures. But something prevents American Presidents from doing any such thing as that. Apparently, America’s long war to conquer Iran, Russia, and China, must go on, no matter what. The 9/11 attacks kicked it into high gear.

First, the U.S. punished Afghanistan for 9/11. Then, the U.S. punished Iraq for 9/11. Then, the U.S. court said that Iran somehow was the nation guilty for 9/11. Then, the U.S. President said that Iran is ‘the number one terrorist state’.

The stage is set. But after an intermission, what will the remaining acts be? Has the script been written for what is to come? Does anyone know how the play that started on 9/11 will end?

All that can be concluded from the evidence thus far is that the Sauds did 9/11 with inside-job cooperation from George W. Bush, and that afterward, a country uninvolved in it — Iraq — was invaded and destroyed, and another country uninvolved in it — Iran — has recently become fined for having caused it.

How Israeli Moves in Jerusalem Are Scotching Trump’s ‘Ultimate Deal’

Global Research, May 30, 2017

A decision by Donald Trump this Thursday could prove fateful for the immediate future of Jerusalem, the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the region.

He must decide whether to renew a presidential waiver, signed by his predecessor, Barack Obama, that expires on June 1. The six-month waiver delays implementing a law passed by Congress in 1995 that requires the US to recognise occupied Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocate its embassy there from Tel Aviv.

It is a law every president for the past 22 years has baulked at. It would pre-empt the Oslo accords and negate Washington’s assumed role as “honest broker”. Carrying out Congress’s wish would deny the Palestinians East Jerusalem, the only credible capital of a future Palestinian state.

But equally significantly, the law would recognise Israel’s efforts to claim sovereignty over the Old City’s holy places, especially the incendiary site of Al Aqsa mosque. That could provoke a conflagration both locally, among Palestinians, and more generally in the Middle East.

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Al-Aqsa mosque (Source: Wikipedia)

Trump’s key advisers are reported to be bitterly divided. Some, such as secretary of state Rex Tillerson, warn that, if the president fails to approve the deferral, his claims to be crafting the “ultimate deal” to bring peace to the region will be doomed from the outset.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies, including in the US Congress, are doing their best to pressure Trump in the opposite direction.

On Sunday, Netanyahu staged a provocative stunt, holding his weekly cabinet meeting in a tunnel under Al Aqsa mosque compound to announce measures to bring millions more Jewish visitors to the occupied Old City, including a new cable car to the edge of the mosque.

It was Netanyahu’s decision to open the Western Wall Tunnel in 1996, when he first became prime minister, that brought the Oslo process into almost terminal crisis at an early stage. Three days of clashes killed more than 100 Palestinians and 17 Israeli soldiers.

Next Tuesday, meanwhile, the US Congress and Israel’s parliament in Jerusalem are due to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Israel’s illegal occupation of the city in a ceremony conducted via video link.

The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday that either Trump or vice-president Mike Pence are due to participate, in what could be interpreted as the first tacit recognition by the White House of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

That would be a continuation of Trump’s break with official US policy towards Jerusalem during his visit to the region last week. He became the first sitting president to visit the Jewish prayer plaza at the Western Wall, below Al Aqsa. It was unclear whether his advisers had explained that where he stood had been a Palestinian neighbourhood 50 years ago, before it was ethnically cleansed.

Trump stuffed a note into the wall, in what observers hoped was a plea for divine help in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But the Western Wall visit was more probably an effort to placate his core supporters. Christian evangelicals paid for dozens of billboards across Jerusalem reminding Trump that he won the election only because of their votes – and that they expect the US embassy to be moved to Jerusalem.

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Western Wall in Jerusalem (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The day after Trump’s departure, Netanyahu exploited the president’s attendance at the wall to further damage prospects for peacemaking. He made a provocative speech to mark “Jerusalem Day”, Israel’s annual show of strength in East Jerusalem.

He claimed that Trump had disproved the “lies” promoted by the United Nations cultural body, Unesco, when it voted this month to re-state that Jerusalem is occupied.

In truth, it was Netanyahu who indulged in gross mendacity, claiming that East Jerusalem had been “desolate” and “neglected” before its occupation. Israel had “redeemed” the city, he said, while Al Aqsa mosque would “always remain under Israeli sovereignty”.

His supporters tried to give that claim concrete expression by staging the largest-ever march through the Old City on Jerusalem Day. Palestinians were forced into hiding or fled early as police allowed 60,000 Jewish ultra-nationalists to besiege the heart of East Jerusalem.

In a sign of the power balance in Israel, a small group of 50 left-wing Jews – many from the US – linked arms to try to block the march at the Old City’s entrance. Footage showed police brutally arresting them, grabbing them in chokeholds and breaking one woman’s arm.

Jerusalem is the most intractable of the final-status issues set out in the Oslo process. Those expecting miracles of Trump are going to be disappointed. His commitment to pressuring Netanyahu is weak, while the Israeli prime minister’s commitment to making concessions is non-existent.

Whether Trump signs the waiver or not on Thursday, all indications are that the US president – faced with domestic pressures and an intransigent Israeli government – is going nowhere with his “ultimate deal”.

The only real question to be decided on Thursday is whether Trump prefers to take the fast or protracted route to failure.

A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is http://www.jonathan-cook.net.

Reality and its Enemies – An Analysis (28 May 2017) by Lawrence Davidson

tothepointanalyses

 Part I – Reality

There is an ongoing reality that is destroying hundreds of thousands of lives in the Middle East. And though most Americans are ignorant of the fact, and many of those who should be in the know would deny it, the suffering flows directly from decisions taken by Washington over the last 27 years. Some of the facts of the matter have just been presented by the first Global Conflict Medicine Congress held at the American University of Beirut (AUB) earlier this month (11-14 May 2017). It has drawn attention to two dire consequences of the war policies Americans have carried on in the region: cancer-causing munition matierial and drug-resistant bacteria.

— Cancer-causing munition material: Materials such as tungsten and mercury are found in the casing of penetrating bombs used in the first and second Gulf wars. These have had long-term effects on survivors, especially those who have been wounded by these munitions. Iraqi-trained and Harvard-educated Dr. Omar Dewachi, a medical anthropologist at AUB fears that “the base line of cancers [appearing in those exposed to these materials] has become very aggressive. … When a young woman of 30, with no family history of cancer, has two different primary cancers – in the breast and in the oesophagus – you have to ask what is happening.” To this can be added that doctors are now “overwhelmed by the sheer number of [war] wounded patients in the Middle East.”

— Drug-resistant bacteria: According to Glasgow-trained Professor Ghassan Abu-Sittah, head of plastic and reconstructive surgery at AUB Medical Center, drug resistance was not a problem during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988. However, after the fiasco of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, things began to change. In the period after 1990, Iraq suffered under a vicious sanctions regime imposed by the United Nations at U.S. insistence. During the next 12 years “Iraqis were allowed to use only three antibiotics” and bacterial resistance quickly evolved. Those resistant bacteria spread throughout the region, particularly after the American invasion of the country in 2003. Today, according to a Medecins Sans Frontieres analysis, “multidrug resistant [MDR] bacteria now accounts for most war wound infections across the Middle East, yet most medical facilities in the region do not even have the laboratory capacity to diagnose MDR, leading to significant delays and clinical mismanagement of festering wounds.”

Insofar as these developments go, it is not that there aren’t contributing factors stemming from local causes such as factual fighting. However, the major triggers for these horrors were set in motion in Washington. As far as I know, no American holding a senior official post has ever accepted any responsibility for this ongoing suffering.

 

Part II – Hiding Reality

As the cancers and untreatable infections grow in number in the Middle East, there is here in the United States a distressing effort to rehabilitate George W. Bush – the American president whose decisions and policies contributed mightily to this ongoing disaster. It is this Bush who launched the unjustified 2003 invasion of Iraq and thereby – to use the words of the Arab League – “opened the gates of hell.” His rehabilitation effort began in ernest in April 2013, and coincided with the opening of his presidential library. In an interview given at that time, Bush set the stage for his second coming with an act of self-exoneration. He said he remained “comfortable with the decision making process” that led to the invasion of Iraq – the one that saw him fudging the intelligence when it did not tell him what he wanted to hear – and so also “comfortable” with the ultimate determination to launch the invasion. “There’s no need to defend myself. I did what I did and ultimately history will judge.”

The frivolous assertion that “history will judge” is often used by people of suspect character. “History” stands for a vague future time. Its alleged inevitable coming allows the protagonist to fantasize about achieving personal glory unchallenged by present, usually significant, ethical concerns.

Those seeking George W. Bush’s rehabilitation now like to contrast him to Donald Trump. One imagines they thereby hope to present him as a “moderate” Republican. They claim that Bush was and is really a very smart and analytical fellow rather than the simpleton most of us suspect him to be. In other words, despite launching an unnecessary and subsequently catastrophic war, he was never as ignorant and dangerous as Trump. He and his supporters also depict him as a great defender of a free press, again in contrast to Donald Trump. However, when he was president, Bush described the media as an aider and abettor of the nation’s enemies. This certainly can be read as a position that parallels Trump’s description of the media as the “enemy of the American people.”

But all of this is part of a public relations campaign and speaks to the power of reputation remodeling – the creation of a facade that hides reality. In order to do this you have to “control the evidence” – in this case by ignoring it. In this endeavor George W. Bush and his boosters have the cooperation of much of the mainstream media. No sweat here: the press has done this before. Except for the odd editorial the mainstream media also contributed to Richard Nixon’s rehabilitation back in the mid 1980s. These sorts of sleights-of-hand are only possible against the background of pervasive public ignorance.

 

Part III – Closed Information Environments

Local happenings are open to relatively close investigation. We usually have a more or less accurate understanding of the local context in which events play out, and this allows for the possibility of making a critical judgment. As we move further away, both in space and time, information becomes less reliable, if for no other reason than it comes to us through the auspices of others who may or may not know what they are talking about. As a society, we have little or no knowledge of the context for foreign events, and thus it is easy for those reporting on them to apply filters according to any number of criteria. What we are left with is news that is customized – stories designed to fit preexisting political or ideological biases. In this way millions upon millions of minds are restricted to closed information environments on subjects which often touch on, among other important topics, war and its consequences.

So what is likely to be more influential with the locally oriented American public: George W. Bush’s rehabilitated image reported on repeatedly in the nation’s mainstream media, or the foreign-based, horror-strewn consequences of his deeds reported upon infrequently?

This dilemma is not uniquely American, nor is it original to our time. However, its dangerous consequences are a very good argument against the ubiquitous ignorance that allows political criminals to be rehabilitated even as their crimes condemn others to continuing suffering. If reputation remodelers can do this for George W. Bush, then there is little doubt that someday it will be done for Donald Trump. Life, so full of suffering, is also full of such absurdities.

UK: Theresa May protest song ‘liar liar’ hits No 1 on iTunes

Source

Theresa May protest song
Theresa May protest song ‘liar liar’ (youtube)
A song describing Prime Minister Theresa May as a “liar” and calling the country “broken” has become the most downloaded on iTunes.

(skynews) — Captain Ska’s song, which calls the PM a “liar”, has been banned by radio stations despite reaching No 1 on iTunes.

Although Captain Ska’s anti-Tory song Liar Liar is proving popular among downloads, it is unlikely to be playing on a radio near you any time soon.

Liar Liar is set be the highest new entry on the UK Official Singles Chart this week, but impartiality rules during the election period mean it is unlikely to get radio air time, regardless of chart position.

The Big Top 40 show on Heart and Capital FM has banned the song from being played.

The song samples clips of Tory speeches and has the chorus “She’s a liar liar, you can’t trust her, no, no, no”.

Another lyric talks about the NHS, saying: “When there’s nurses going hungry and schools in decline, I don’t recognise this broken country of mine.”

Other lyrics by the London-based ska band focus on poverty levels, schools and police cuts.

The seven-piece group is made up of session musicians who have performed with Vampire Weekend, Paloma Faith and The Streets.

Describing their music as “new wave political”, the band said: “The success of this song shows people are fed up with this government of the rich, for the rich.

“We’re overwhelmed with the support and our message is that people do have the power to change society if we act together.”

All proceeds raised from the song between now and election day will be split between food banks and campaign group The People’s Assembly Against Austerity.

The song was released on Friday, but an earlier version of the song released in 2010 in response to the coalition government reached number 1 in the UK reggae chart and number 89 in the official charts.

RUSSIA’S INFORMATION AND PRESS DEPARTMENT OF THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS ASK WHY STILL NO UN INVESTIGATION INTO CHEMICAL ALLEGATIONS IN SYRIA

in Gaza

May 25, 2017, by The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation:

“On May 23, the UNSC held its successive discussion on the state of affairs around the so-called Syrian “chemical dossier”. The Western “troika” of permanent members of the UN Security Council sought to give an anti-Assad and anti‑Russian pronounced spin to this event. It was reconfirmed that these “exposers” of Damascus were not interested in establishing the truth in a crucial issue of who actually stood behind the alleged use of sarin on April 4, 2017, in the Syrian province of Idlib. Representatives of the United States, Great Britain and France have desperately resisted any attempt to figure out to what extent their verdict delivered “in absentia” about the allegedly undeniable responsibility of the Bashar Al-Assad Government for this chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun was justified.

An unsightly scene has been developed. It seems that almost two months after the chemical incident nobody has been in a hurry to visit Khan Sheikhoun in order to examine all the circumstances of such a high-impact case. Moreover, the Westerners have ruled out even the very option of visiting the Shayirat airbase where, according to their own allegations, the sarin used in Khan Sheikhoun was stored.

Unfortunately, no activity has been undertaken in this regard by the OPCW Fact‑Finding Mission (FFM) that proceeds with postponing its visit to Khan Sheikhoun blaming unfavorable security conditions. As for the leadership of the OPCW – UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), it is yet to develop a plan of investigatory actions indicating sites to visit, individuals to question and documents to claim.

Russia’s position on this ongoing situation is well known and crystal clear: the investigation of this incident should be carried out as scrupulously as possible, in strict compliance with the JIM and FFM mandates approved by the UNSC and OPCW and include all investigatory actions, methods and proceedings envisaged in relevant UNSC resolutions and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Both Khan Sheikhoun and Shayirat airbase must be visited, the first as the site of this barbaric deed and the second as facility claimed to be allegedly in a direct relation with it. The established vicious practice within the JIM and FFM of conducting investigations in a remote mode based on the evidence provided by questionable witnesses or sometimes even “false victims” is absolutely unacceptable. The resources of NGOs that compromised themselves long ago and have established links with militants and terrorist entities are widely used. This is not just an imitation of work – we are dealing with a deliberate, intentional falsification in pursuance of clearly established political objectives.

We once again call upon our Western partners, flaunting their quasi-evidence, to answer a number of the specific questions. In particular, whether the fundamental CWC procedure of chain of custody was observed during the collection of biomedical and other samples, or not? Isn’t it time to stop building far-reaching accusatory conclusions on crudely orchestrated, staged video-materials and other unreliable information, with which the irreconcilable Syrian opposition and its foreign patrons abundantly provide the JIM and FFM?

Returning to the issue of a visit to the Shayirat airbase, we recall that, in the early April 2017, Damascus has already provided official guarantees of secure access to it for the FFM specialists. Moreover, the Syrian Government has demanded that such a visit be organized without delay, thus confirming its willingness to fulfill its commitments arising from p. 12 of the FFM Mandate (Terms of Reference) and provisions of p. 15 of Part XI of the Verification Annex to the CWC. It is explicitly stated there that “the inspection team (of the OPCW) shall have the right of access to any and all areas which could be affected by the alleged use of chemical weapons”. Therefore, all prerequisites for organizing such a visit in terms of ensuring security and fulfilling the obligations under the Convention have already been created. So, this is in stark contrast with the JIM’s inactivity and an indifferent stand of the OPCW’s leadership, which believes that visit to the airbase is beyond the FFM competence.

We insist that along with the FFM the JIM should get involved in the investigation of the situation at the Shayirat airbase. We recall that operative paragraph 6 of UNSC resolution 2319 directs the Joint Investigative Mechanism to offer its services to the OPCW. UNSC resolution 2235, which in fact established the Mechanism, contains pp. 3 and 4 stipulating the requirement to identify those responsible for acquiring and stockpiling chemical weapons. Besides, p. 7 of this resolution clearly states the need for full access to all locations relevant to the investigation. So, why has this provisions been flagrantly disregarded by our opponents?

Not only we but also a number of other countries deem a visit to the Shayirat airbase necessary “based on the facts and circumstances known at the time” (p. 7 of UNSC resolution 2235).

We urge the JIM leadership and the OPCW Technical Secretariat to undertake immediate measures to rectify the current situation, send their specialists to Khan Sheikhoun and the Shayirat airbase without delay, ensure comprehensive and impartial investigation of all circumstances of this case and take other measures under their mandates to “…identify to the greatest extent feasible individuals, entities, groups, or governments who were perpetrators, organisers, sponsors or otherwise involved in the use of chemicals as weapons, including chlorine or any other toxic chemical, in the Syrian Arab Republic…” (p. 5 of UNSC resolution 2235).

Further avoidance of a comprehensive investigation will bring into question the capacity of the JIM and FFM and the necessity of their further existence accordingly.”

*

RELATED LINKS/EXCERPTS:

MIT Professor Emeritus Dispels Lies of White House ‘Intelligence’ Report on Khan Shaykhun, Syria

America Illegally Bombs Syria Under False Pretexts. Links for critical thinking.

Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, Political and Media Adviser to the Syrian President:

“Following the brutal American bombing of the air base, we did not witness any dispersal of toxic chemicals in and around the air base; so where is this alleged stockpile of chemicals being kept at al-Shayrat air base? How did it suddenly disappear without a trace after the American criminal missile attack?”

No ‘Red Lines’ After Western Backed Terrorists Massacre of Idlib’s Foua Civilians

Syrian Army and Hezbollah strike jihadist militants at Lebanese border

BEIRUT, LEBANON (5:21 P.M.) – As we reported earlier today, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) together with Hezbollah, conducted a powerfull missile strike against jihadist rebels in the Qalamoun mountains.

According to Hezbollah’s official media wing, the jihadist rebels were travelling in the Faleeta Barrens near the Lebanes border crossing, when the attack was unleashed upon them.

In addition to pictures of the missile strike Al-Masdar News has now also obtained the video below showing the attack:

 

In pictures: Syrian Army, Hezbollah strike jihadist rebels on Lebanese border

BEIRUT, LEBANON (12:15 P.M.) – The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), alongside Hezbollah, carried out, yesterday, a powerful missile strike against a group of jihadist rebels in the Qalamoun Mountains.

According to Hezbollah’s official media wing, their forces and the Syrian Arab Army carried out missile strikes against militants traveling in the Faleeta Barrens near the Lebanese border-crossing.

Pictures from this attack were released by Hezbollah’s Military Media this morning; they show the moment the missile struck the jihadist positions in the Faleeta Barrens.

Recently, Hezbollah has given the Lebanese Army several border-points in Lebanon’s Beqa’a Governorate; however, the Faleeta Barrens of Syria still have a few pockets of resistance that require the Lebanese group to remain in the area.

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VIDEO: Battle of Marawi: ISIS Trans-regional caliphate – OZ Analysis video map (May 30, 2017)

BEIRUT, LEBANON (8:28 P.M.) – The Wahhabi terrorist internationale known as the Islamic State has spread its domain of armed occupation to the Philippine city of Marawi. On the 23rdof May, two Jihadist factions – the Maute group and Abu Sayyaf militia – operating on the Philippine island of Mindanao under the banner of ISIS launched a shock attack on Marawi, a predominately Muslim city of 220,000 people. The assault came about with the sudden uprising of a battalion-sized sleeper cell inside the city which sent government forces into total disarray. For the presentation to follow, OZ Analysis would like to thank Al-Masdar News Deputy CEO Chris Tomson for his cooperation – via personal communication – in the understanding of the military situation in Marawi, as an exceptionally informed source.
THIS NARRATION SCRIPT IS THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF OZ ANALYSIS

What began with the activation of some five hundred ISIS-linked sleeper troops in the area of the provincial jail and main police station resulted in the releasing of an unknown number of prisoners who will undoubtedly be recruited by the terrorist conglomerate and the capture and looting of the city’s main armoury. With this achieved, ISIS spread towards the centre of the city, laying siege to the Pakpak Hospital and the City Hall, and into the eastern suburbs, isolating the city harbour.
THIS NARRATION SCRIPT IS THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF OZ ANALYSIS

After a full day of gunfights, government forces (including both local police and the army) outnumbered and unable to consolidate any tenable positions in Marawi were driven in rout from the city. With the seizure of Marawi’s main infrastructures and the establishment of a number of checkpoints throughout the city, ISIS de facto conquered the rump of Marawi.

THIS NARRATION SCRIPT IS THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF OZ ANALYSIS

After consolidating itself over the main part of Marawi, ISIS forayed beyond the city limits, launching threatening attacks in the direction of the Mindanao State University and southwestern suburbs. Government forces were able to parry these attacks. However, ISIS did at some point establish a guerrilla-style presence in the countryside to the southwest of Marawi where it continues to harass the main communication line used by government forces with snipers and hit-and-run attacks. This has, to a degree, compromised the ability of government forces to reinforce and resupply their presence on the outskirts of the city. It also serves to demoralise government troops before they reach the frontlines around Marawi.

 

THIS NARRATION SCRIPT IS THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF OZ ANALYSIS

In recent days, government forces have regrouped and launched a counter-offensive into the western and southern sectors of Marawi. During this time airstrikes have been observed in and around the habour area. Whilst it must be said that overall disposition of government and ISIS forces within the city remains vague due to contradictory reports; what can be more or less confirmed is government forces have since liberated the Pakpak Hospital and the City Hall. No reports have appeared which indicate that the provincial jail or the police station have yet been retaken from ISIS and indeed these locations will likely become final strongpoints as ISIS is expunged from the city. Furthermore, it is possible that ISIS has either abandoned or been forced out of Marawi’s eastern suburbs. However, in the meantime, this analysis will assume that ISIS remains in the area until better information is available.

THIS NARRATION SCRIPT IS THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF OZ ANALYSIS

Overall, the last couple days has shown that government forces have recovered from the initial shock of the ISIS attack on Marawi and, through a series of containment actions and counterattacks, now appear to hold the strategic initiative in the battle for the city.

Related 

Syrian War Report – May 30, 2017: Tiger Forces Prevail Against ISIS In Aleppo

May 30, 2017

Voiceover by Harold Hoover

The Bazreh area in eastern Damascus has been fully liberated from militants.

On Monday, the last batch of militants and their supporters left the area and Barzeh was taken under full control by government forces.

With the liberation of Bazreh, government forces made a large step in a wider effort aimed at securing the Damascus countryside from various terrorist threats.

According to some pro-government sources, the area of Jobar controlled mostly by Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS) terrorists, excluded from the ceasefire agreement, could become the next target for the Syrian army.

Meanwhile, the Syrian military has deployed the 4th Armoured Division and its special forces known as al-Ghaith Forces in Daraa aiming to repel the ongoing advance of HTS and its allies and to reverse their gains in the city.
In early May, HTS seized about 40 buildings northeast of the Al-Manshiyya district that had been also captured by militants.

In the province of Aleppo, the Syrian Army Tiger Forces have regained the villages of Hamedaia, Mestariha, Maza, Wasteh, and the nearby areas and advanced on the ISIS-held town of Maskanah from northern and western directions.

Government forces also continued advancing in the Maskanah countryside aiming to link up with army units deployed near Khanasser.

On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that France would launch an immediate strike in response to any use of chemical weapons in Syria. The French president made this statement following a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Macron also slammed the Russian state-run media outlets RT and Sputnik, labeling them as a “deceitful propaganda”. Earlier on Monday, Macron and his Russian counterpart met in the Palace of Versailles to discuss bilateral relations.

The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) have reached the border with Syria in the western part of the province of Nineveh.

A prominent Iranian general,commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Soleimani, was spotted among PMU units in the border area. This means that the PMU push to the border had likely been coordinated with Iran and Iranian-backed forces in Syria.

Much will depend upon on how the PMU reacts to the continued tensions between US-led forces and the Syrian military in the border area.

A spokesman of the PMU also announced that the group is ready to fight ISIS in Syria in coordination with the Damascus government.

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بعد قمة الرياض… السعودية مخازن وقطر نتوء في مهبّ الريح!

بعد قمة الرياض… السعودية مخازن وقطر نتوء في مهبّ الريح!

محمد صادق الحسيني

من بين تداعيات تمثيلية أو احتفالية الرياض الهوليودية الترامبية، اشتعال حرب الأدوار بين آل سعود وآل ثاني، اذا لم نقل «سباق الهجن» على عروش تذروها الرياح…!

ولعل في ثنايا صفقات التسلح التي اجملت بمئات المليارات كان ثمة ما يشي بهذا السباق المجنون بين العائلتين الحاكمتين وإليكم بعض تلك الخفايا…

أولاً: خلافاً لما يبدو للعامة من أنّ الأزمة التي تعصف بالعلاقات السعودية القطرية هي ليست أكثر من عاصفة في فنجان إلا أنّ الحقيقة غير ذلك تماماً…

إذ إنها أزمة ناتجة عن تغيّر قسري في خطط السيد الأميركي في ما يسمّيه الشرق الأوسط. تغيير يعود لسببين أساسيين، ألا وهما:

– فشله الذريع والاستراتيجي في ضرب محور المقاومة بمكوّناته الأربعة، الإيرانية والسورية والعراقية واللبنانية.

– الإفلاس المالي الذي تعاني منه الحكومة الاميركية وهو إرث تركه لترامب ساكن البيت الأبيض الديمقراطي السابق….

ثانياً: أما السبب المباشر لظهور هذه الأزمة السعودية القطرية بهذه الحدة، فليس خلافاً في وجهات النظر بين الطرفين كما يعتقد البعض، وإنما جاء نتيجة خدعة كبرى تعرّض لها السعودي والقطري في آن معاً من قبل السيد الأميركي، الذي خدع السعودي بأن باعه وهم دور الوكيل الأوحد لتسويات المنطقة مقابل تعهّد مملكة آل سعود العملي بتغطية قيمة رزمة المساعدات الأميركية لـ»إسرائيل»، والتي تلامس الأربعين مليار دولار، والتي كان قد تمّ الاتفاق عليها بين «إسرائيل» والولايات المتحدة بالأساس في آخر أيام إدارة أوباما…

ما أوحى للسعودي عملياً بأنّ الولايات المتحدة تريد إنهاء الدور القطري في إدارة أزمات المنطقة بسبب الفشل الذريع الذي تواجهه الحكومة القطرية في ميادين المواجهة كافة من ليبيا الى سورية… وعليه فإنّ الولايات المتحدة تفكر بنقل قواعدها العسكرية من قطر الى السعودية..

تلك الموافقة التي حصلت خلال زيارة الرئيس الأميركي للرياض والتي أثمرت عن توقيع اتفاقية منفصلة وسريعة بين الحكومة السعودية ووزارة الدفاع الأميركية حول قيام الأخيرة بتقديم خدمات صيانة واستشارات وخدمات لوجستية مختلفة للجيش السعودي بقيمة أربعين مليار دولار…

وهي في الحقيقية خدمات وهمية لا تتعدّى كونها غطاء لمشاركة آل سعود مع الجيش «الإسرائيلي» في جرائمه ضدّ الدول العربية بشكل عام والشعب الفلسطيني بشكل خاص…!

في حين تمثلت خديعة السيد الأميركي للعميل القطري بالإيحاء له بأنّ نقل القواعد سيتمّ إرضاء للسعودية في مقابل الصفقات المالية الضخمة التي وقعت عليها مع الطرف الأميركي…!

ثالثاً: في الحقيقة فإنّ الرئيس الأميركي هنا يكون قد مارس خدعة كبرى ضدّ الطرفين السعودي والقطري، بالاضافة الى خداع الأطراف الدولية الكبرى التي تعمل على إنهاء الهيمنة الاحادية الاميركية على ادارة الأزمات الدولية، وذلك عندما تمّ الإعلان عن صفقات تسليح ضخمة بين الولايات المتحدة والسعودية ليست سوى عملية نصب واحتيال وخداع استراتيجي مكشوف يمارسه سيد البيت الأبيض هدفه الأساسي، التحشيد الاستراتيجي العملياتي ضدّ المحور الصيني الروسي الإيراني…

أي أنّ ما يُسمّى بالجيش السعودي لا علاقة له بما تمّ الاتفاق عليه في تلك الصفقات، وإنما هي صفقات أسلحة لصالح الجيش الأميركي مموّلة سعودياً سيتمّ تخزينها في الأراضي السعودية حتى بعيداً عن أعين الجيش السعودي…

تماماً كما هو الحال في موضوع القواعد العسكرية الأميركية التي سيجري نقلها من العيديد والسيلية الى السعودية توفيراً للنفقات وزيادة أمن هذه القواعد والتي ستكون ضمن مظلة الحماية الصاروخية لمنظومة الدفاع الجوي الأميركية من طراز ثاد THAD والتي وافقت مملكة آل سعود على إقامتها على أراضيها…!

وقد يكون هذا هو بالضبط سبب استدعاء القيصر الروسي لولي ولي العهد السعودي محمد بن سلمان والذي سيقابل سيد الكرملين اليوم الثلاثاء، حيث سيقوم الرئيس الروسي بإبلاغه رفض روسيا القاطع لموافقة آل سعود على إقامة قواعد لنظام ثاد الأميركي للدفاع الجوي الصاروخي باعتباره تهديداً مباشراً وخطيراً للأمن القومي الروسي. الأمر الذي لا يمكن لروسيا التساهل معه ولا مع مَن يتآمر على أمنها القومي، ما يعني عملياً أنّ أمام آل سعود في هذا السياق خيارين لا ثالث لهما:

إما التراجع عن الاتفاقية وإما أن تصبح السعودية هدفاً في بنك أهداف سلاح الصواريخ الروسي، وهي الرسالة الحازمة التي سيسمعها بن سلمان ولا غير..

رابعاً: قصارى القول فإنّ سبب الأزمة السعودية القطرية المشتعلة فجأة ليس سوى صناعة أميركية بامتياز اقتضتها المصالح الاميركية العليا ولا غير..! هذا التحوّل المفاجئ في حركة ترامب البهلوانية هو الذي جعل مشيخة قطر تشعر بأنها تُرِكَت في مهبّ الريح، مما أرغم الذي يحكمها، تميم بن حمد، للهروع مرتعداً الى الجار الإيراني القوي الصاعد والمقتدر لعله يجد حماية لعرشه من غدر الأيام، واحتمال ابتلاع عرشه في لحظة التحوّل الأميركية الهوجاء، كما سبق وحصل مع أبيه من قبل…!

هذا الأمر البتة لا يُخفى منه شيء على القيادة الإيرانية، وهي ليست غافلة عن الجرائم التي ارتكبها حاكم قطر، ولا زال، في كلّ من العراق وسورية ولبنان ومصر وليبيا. ولعلّ من المفيد هنا التذكير بأنّ وحدات من المرتزقة المسماة بالجيش القطري لا زالت، وتحت قيادة سعودية، تشارك في ذبح الشعب اليمني كما أنّ مجموعات داعش وغيرها من المسلحين الإرهابيين في ليبيا لا Image result for ‫نهاية مؤلمة خلال 7 سنوات .. ألمانيا تحدد موعد سقوط آل سعود وإنهيار المملكة‬‎زالت تقاتل بأسلحة مموّلة من الدولة القطرية، بل إنّ بعض هؤلاء المسلحين يرتدون الزّي العسكري القطري ويمكن لأيّ كان مشاهدتهم وتصويرهم في أماكن وجودهم. ومن نافل القول التذكير بالدور القطري الإجرامي الخاص في مشروع تدمير سورية…

من هنا، فإنّ طلب تميم الحماية من الجار الإيراني المقتدر لا بدّ أن يترافق بشهادة حسن سلوك يُصدرها محور المقاومة لهذا الحاكم الطائش الذي قد يتوهّم للحظة بأنه الفارس الذي يمكن الركون إليه متى أراد هو فقط، لأنه شارك يوماً في سباق الخيل الذي نظّمته والدته موزة…!

في حين أنّ شروط إصدار هذه الشهادة فهو يعرفها تماماً ولا داعي لتكرارها عليه، علماً أننا نودّ تذكيره بشرط قد يكون خارج نطاق استيعابه العقلي وقدراته الذهنية ألا وهو انّ وقف تمويله وتسليحه لمجرمي التنظيمات المسلحة التي تحارب الدولة الوطنية في كلّ من العراق وسورية غير كافٍ على الإطلاق، بل عليه أن يتعهّد رسمياً بدفع تعويضات لجميع الشعوب التي تضرّرت من سياسات العصابة التي حكمت وتحكم قطر…

خاصة أنّ مشروع مشغله الصهيو أميركي، والذي هدف الى تدمير الدولة السورية وتوجيه ضربة موجعة الى محور المقاومه، يشارف على الانتهاء بعدما غدت سيطرة الجيش العراقي وقوات الحشد الشعبي في العراق على قاطع الحدود العراقيه السورية مسألة ساعات…

الفرصة تضيق أكثر فأكثر على النتوء القطري في الجزيرة العربية والتعبير للصحافة السعودية في ظلّ استمرار تقدّم الجيش العربي السوري وحلفائه في البادية السورية تمهيداً لتطوير الهجوم باتجاه دير الزُّور وقاطع التنف وانتهاء بعزل وتطويق قواعد العدوان الأميركية البريطانية الأردنية المقامة هناك تمهيداً لتصفيتها وتطهير الأرض السورية من هذا الرجس الاستعماري المقيت مرة واحدة وإلى الأبد.

سلطانك قائم سيدي حتى ظهور القائم.

بعدنا طيّبين، قولوا الله…

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Qatar’s price is 400 billion dollars received by Trump سعر قطر 400 مليار قبضها ترامب

Qatar’s price is 400 billion dollars received by Trump

Written by Nasser Kandil,

مايو 30, 2017

Every reader can check the foisted part in the speech attributed to the Prince of Qatar when he reads the section about the US President “who will not continue due to legal prosecutions and legal irregularities” this talk cannot be issued by a major country that announces the hostility to America, so how from a small country that at the end it is under the control of America and its rule is protected by US military base.

The Saudi intention through the media platforms funded and operated by Mohammed Bin Salman on refusing the Qatari speech about violating the website of the Official News Agency and foisting a statement at the mouthpiece of the Prince means a deliberate intention to engage. The intention on preparing media reports and distributing them under the responsibility of Qatar about the relationship with Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Al Nusra, ISIS, Hezbollah, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, and Iran is a part of a preliminary campaign for a work that is supposed it needs the cover of Gulf, Arab, and international public opinion, so Egypt, UAE, Bahrain, America, and Israel are partners in estimating this coverage every one for a special reason regarding what is attributed to Qatar.

The interpretation of the war on Iran at Riyadh summit is by overpower Qatar which forms a Turkish expansion in the Gulf and a source of traditional inconvenience to Saudi Arabia, so controlling the Saudi leadership by a young Prince as Mohammed Bin Salman requires a prestige that did not obtained by the war on Yemen, so it is supposed to have another war, and to put the Gulf as a pure dominance area of Saudi Arabia in confronting Iran. Qatar has a huge gas wealth and an active satellite channel, so getting angry from them due to the Qatari rule that belongs to Saudi Arabia is a qualitative adding financially and in media.

King Salman gave the US President what he wants as money, deals, and politics especially regarding the relationship with Israel, so Qatar no longer has what distinguishes it in this respect. When Saudi Arabia joins the normalization, Qatar becomes small issue. What the King wants is to stabilize his successor his son in power and to compensate the loss in Syria and the inability in Yemen so that is represented by Qatar.

Probably the Saudi intelligence has opened the activities of the center of the electronic war which is called by the combating extremism center “moderation” in the presence of the US President Donald Trump. Its first duties was hacking the website of the Qatari Official News Agency and publishing attributed speech to the Qatari Price when he was sleeping, the statement has been published at midnight, so it is a strange timing to publish such a speech to the Prince of Qatar before the morning. The goal is to postpone the Qatari negation to what has been published and to accuse Qatar as a result of the delay of publishing speech and claiming the hacking, after it saw the dangerous reactions. This is said by the Saudis and whom they bring to comment on that speech.

Three years ago, the Saudis try to get the US green light to resolve the position of Qatar, and to put it under the Saudi control, it seems that the opportunity has not come but through the visit of Trump to Riyadh and his bartering the attracting deals with the Qatari rule especially in the light of the Turkish-American dispute, the position of Qatar with Turkey, and the Egyptian pressure on Washington to control the Qatari performance in the issue of the Muslim Brotherhood. Trump intended to name Hamas Movement as a terrorist movement in his speech at the summit, while Qatar boasts because it succeeded in bringing Hamas to the settlements through a new document, and the presence of Saudi-US understanding to escalate against Iran, and to consider the cooperation with Iran in Astana Path and the bilateral relationships by Qatar a double dealing. The result was selling Qatar to Saudi Arabia for four billion dollars received by Trump who  has given the green light.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,

سعر قطر 400 مليار قبضها ترامب

ناصر قنديل

– يستطيع كلّ قارئ مدقق اكتشاف الدسّ في الكلام المنسوب لأمير قطر عندما يقرأ المقطع الخاص بالحديث عن الرئيس الأميركي «الذي لن يستمرّ بسبب ملاحقات عدلية وتجاوزات قانونية». وهو كلام لا يمكن صدوره من دولة عظمى تجاهر بالعداء لأميركا فكيف بدولة صغيرة تدور في الفلك الأميركي في نهاية المطاف، وتحمي حكمَها قاعدة عسكرية أميركية؟

– الإصرار السعودي عبر منابر الإعلام المموّلة والمشغّلة من محمد بن سلمان، على رفض الكلام القطري عن اختراق موقع وكالة الأنباء القطرية الرسمية ودسّ البيان بلسان الأمير، يعني نية مبيّتة بالاشتباك، والإصرار على إعداد تقارير إعلامية وتوزيعها عن مسؤولية قطر عن العلاقة بالقاعدة وطالبان والنصرة وداعش وحزب الله وحماس والإخوان المسلمين وإيران، هو جزء من حملة تمهيدية لعمل ما يُفترض أنه يحتاج لتغطية رأي عام خليجي وعربي ودولي، فتكون مصر والإمارات والبحرين وأميركا و«إسرائيل» شركاء في تقديم هذه التغطية كلّ لسبب يخصّه بما يُنسب لقطر.

– ترجمة الحرب على إيران في قمة الرياض هو بالاستيلاء على قطر، التي تشكّل امتداداً تركياً في الخليج ومصدر إزعاج تقليدي للسعودية. وضبط الزعامة السعودية بأمير شاب كمحمد بن سلمان يستدعي مهابة لم تأتِ بها حرب اليمن، ويفترض أن تأتي بها حرب أخرى، ووضع الخليج كمنطقة نفوذ خالصة للسعودية في مواجهة إيران، كيف وأنّ قطر ثروة غاز هائلة وقناة فضائية فاعلة يرتب الاستيلاء عليهما بحكم قطري تابع للسعودية إضافة نوعية مالياً وإعلامياً.

– منح الملك سلمان للرئيس الأميركي ما يريد من مال وصفقات وسياسة، خصوصاً في مجال العلاقة بـ»إسرائيل»، ولم يعُد لقطر ما تتميّز به في هذا المجال. فهذه السعودية عندما تنضمّ للتطبيع تصير قطر تفصيلاً صغيراً، وما يريده الملك تثبيت خلافة ولده في الحكم، وتعويضاً عن الخسارة في سورية والعجز في اليمن تمثله قطر.

– الأرجح أنّ المخابرات السعودية افتتحت نشاطات مركز الحرب الإلكترونية الذي أطلق عليه اسم مركز مكافحة التطرف «اعتدال»، بحضور الرئيس الأميركي دونالد ترامب، وكانت أولى مهامه قرصنة موقع الوكالة القطرية ونشر كلام منسوب للأمير القطري وهو نائم. فالبيان تمّ نشره على موقع الوكالة منتصف الليل، وهو توقيت غريب عجيب لنشر كلام قيل في وضح النهار لأمير الدولة، الذي يأوي إلى فراشه الساعة التاسعة ليلاً، والهدف تأخُّر النفي القطري لما نشر، واتهام قطر بسبب التأخير بأنها نشرت الكلام وتقوم بسحبه والادّعاء بالقرصنة لأنها تلمّست خطورة ردود الأفعال. وهذا ما يقوله السعوديون ومَن يستجلبونهم للتعليق على الكلام.

– منذ ثلاثة أعوام والسعوديون يسعون للحصول على الضوء الأخضر الأميركي لحسم وضع قطر ووضعها تحت الإبط السعودي. ويبدو أنّ الفرصة لم تحن إلا بزيارة ترامب للرياض ومقايضته الصفقات المغرية برأس الحكم القطري، خصوصاً في ظلّ الخلاف التركي الأميركي وموقع قطر مع تركيا، وضغط مصر على واشنطن طلباً لضبط الأداء القطري في قضية الإخوان المسلمين، وتعمّد ترامب تسمية حركة حماس كحركة إرهابية في خطابه في القمة، بينما تتباهى قطر بنجاحها في جلب حماس إلى خط التسويات بوثيقة جديدة، ووجود تفاهم سعودي أميركي على التصعيد بوجه إيران، واعتبار التعاون مع إيران في مسار أستانة والعلاقات الثنائية من جانب قطر لعباً على الحبال، وكانت الحصيلة بيع قطر للسعودية بأربعمئة مليار دولار قبضها ترامب، فأعطى الضوء الأخضر.

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Is Trump Pushing Merkel to Create A German Superpower?

Is Trump Pushing Merkel to Create A German Superpower?

EDITOR’S CHOICE | 30.05.2017

Is Trump Pushing Merkel to Create A German Superpower?

Jacob HEILBRUNN

Donald Trump entered office hoping that he could splinter the European Union. But what if his presidency has the effect of further unifying it — against America?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s announcement that Europe can no longer rely on America as a partner and “must take our destiny into our own hands” marks a turning point. Every American administration since 1945 has tried to work closely with Germany and NATO. Ronald Reagan even visited Bitburg cemetery in May 1985, in the face of controversy at home over the presence of SS graves, in order not to undermine the German chancellor Helmut Kohl, who had stood by him in installing intermediate range Pershing missiles in 1983.

Trump is pushing Germany and Europe in a different direction. Now that France has elected Emanuel Macron president, Merkel is moving to fashion a Franco-German axis that will pursue a common economic and military path. This will signal a significant diminution in American prestige and influence abroad. Imagine, for example, that Merkel decided to defy Trump’s push for sanctions and isolating Iran by establishing trade ties with North Korea, including selling it weapons.

We aren’t there yet. But Trump’s approach to Europe and elsewhere has been predicated on the notion that he can singlehandedly defy the rules of the game and extract what he wants. The problem is that he is emboldening Germany to become the superpower of Europe and inevitably it will pursue what it considers its own interests. This is after all the nation that invented the term realpolitik.

So far Merkel is focusing on building up a joint military command in Brussels and improving relations with Poland. Poland’s president has visited Berlin twice this year. Both Germany and Poland view Russia similarly. With Britain out of the picture, Merkel reckons she can move more quickly toward solidifying common EU military measures. She is also looking at cleaning up the EU’s finances. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports that she wants to vouchsafe Brussels the economic clout to help ailing economies and boost reform efforts. In this regard, she will focus on trying to meet French demands for an easing of onerous fiscal demands on Southern Europe at least half way.

There is little appetite, at least as far as I could tell at a conference in Berlin sponsored by the American Council on Germany at the German Foreign Ministry, for transforming the country into a Fuehrungsmacht, or leading power. But Trump may be accelerating, willy-nilly, a development that he does not fully grasp. Overall it is hard to see what benefits America would derive by withdrawing from the Paris accords on the environment other than emotional satisfaction. It also seems clear from his complaints about German cars being sold in America that Trump doesn’t know that many are manufactured in places like Alabama.

Until now, the core relationship in American foreign policy in Europe has been with Germany. That tie appears not simply to be fraying but on the verge of snapping. It will be no small irony if Trump has impelled Europe to transform itself into a unified great power.

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