Yemen’s Supreme Political Council member, Mohammad Ali al-Houthi, says the maritime routes through the Red Sea are safe for any vessel except those belonging to “Israel” or heading for its ports.
Yemen | Al-Houthi to Al-Mayadeen: All options are on the table to respond to any potential American aggression
Yemen’s Supreme Political Council member, Mohammad Ali al-Houthi, confirmed in a statement to Al Mayadeen that the goal of the maritime coalition was intended to protect “Israel” and not international navigation.
Al-Houthi stressed that the discourse and statements of the Yemeni Armed Forces confirm that international navigation is safe for everyone, except for Israeli ships or those bound to the ports of the Israeli occupation.
The official also indicated, in his statement, that the US supports the massacres in the Gaza Strip, demanding that those who feel insecure in the Red Sea and seek security must stop the Israeli massacres.
Regarding the repercussions of the declared maritime coalition, dubbed Operation Prosperity Guardian, al-Houthi confirmed that the US move is militarizing the Red Sea and impacting international shipping traffic. Al-Houthi also indicated that the Yemeni people cannot stand by idly if Yemen is exposed to US or even non-US aggressions, explaining that “all options are on the table to respond to any possible American aggression.”
Through Al Mayadeen, al-Houthi advised both Saudi Arabia and the UAE “not to stand with the Israelis in the face of those who support the Palestinian people,” considering that it is not right for Saudi Arabia to be neutral toward what is happening to the Palestinians.
Al-Houthi further declared that Yemen “would prefer if Saudi Arabia were not to take part in any alliance that supports Israel.”
In the same context, the Yemeni official also indicated that the Israeli occupation posed a threat to the future of Saudi Arabia, and noted that Egypt protected the Suez Canal when it rejected the offer to join the US-led alliance in the Red Sea.
Moreover, al-Houthi warned that any country that opens its airspace to fighter jets that bomb Yemen will be dealt with, adding that the Yemeni Armed Forces are “working to overcome the practical field challenges facing the missiles that we use to target the occupying entity.”
Al-Houthi, through Al Mayadeen,called on every Muslim “whose heart is strained by what is happening in Palestine” to withdraw their financial assets from the banks of countries that support “Israel”.
Everyone must raise their voice to stop the aggression
On his part, Yemeni Ansar Allah spokesperson Mohammad Abdel Salam reaffirmed that “normal people” living “human values” would “strongly reject the continued massacre of the Zionist enemy entity against the people of Gaza.”
Abdel Salam considered that “Israel’s” massacres were supposed to cause world concern, stating that Yemen’s naval operations were only a source of concern to the Zionist entity for pushing it to halt its aggression and lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The spokesperson warned the whole world against Israeli attempts to implicate them in expanding the confrontation to new fronts. Particularly, Abdel Salam noted that the Arab and Islamic states in the region must do all that is possible to support the Gaza Strip and not “grant” the prime minister of the Israeli occupation, Benjamin Netanyahu, “a lifeline from his predicament.”
الشعوب السوية التي تعيش القيم الإنسانية ترفض بشدة استمرار كيان العدو الصهيوني في مجازره بحق أهل غزة وهذا ما يفترض أن يثير قلق العالم، أما عمليات اليمن البحرية فليست مصدر قلق لأحد سوى للكيان الصهيوني لدفعه نحو وقف عدوانه ورفع حصاره عن غزة، وكل العالم يجب أن يقف هذا الموقف وألا…
He also called on the world to “raise its voice in support of an immediate cessation of aggression and lift the siege on Gaza”, commending Malaysia’s position not to welcome Israeli vessels.
Yemen’s Ministry of Transport in Sanaa issued a statement confirming that navigation in the Red and Arab Seas was “safe for all vessels other than those of the Zionist enemy or destined for its ports”.
In its statement, the Ministry stated that vessels destined for “Israel” were subject to prevention and targeting from the Yemeni Armed Forces. The statement reassured all shipping companies, global shipping lines, and relevant organizations, including the International Maritime Organization and the International Transport Workers’ Federation, that this will continue until the blockade on the Gaza Strip was lifted.
Elena Panina, Director of the RUSSTRAT Institute – Machine Translated and cleaned up from the Russian original.
MOSCOW, June 29, 2022, RUSSTRAT Institute.
BRICS expansion has been discussed for a long time. It is significant that the last summit on June 24 in the BRICS Plus format was attended by such countries as Algeria, Argentina, Cambodia, Egypt, Fiji, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Senegal, Thailand and Uzbekistan.
At the same time, the fact that the first applications for membership were submitted by Argentina and Iran, which did not take part in the BRICS Plus meeting, does not seem accidental.
Initially, the BRICS group was created as an association of the largest developing economies in the world. However, in the modern world, it is political decisions that determine the nature of the development of economic ties. It is quite logical that the first countries with a pronounced geopolitical sovereignty and having their own geopolitical scores with the collective West are preparing to join the expanded BRICS.
Iran is already almost two and a half thousand years old, since the time of Cyrus the Great is a powerful historical power, and its geopolitical significance cannot be overestimated. The geography itself determines the potential of its influence on the countries of the Arab world up to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf, in the Transcaucasus, Central Asia, as well as on the Afpak region (Afghanistan and Pakistan). Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran’s state ideology has been anti-Western. Tehran is engaged in an intense struggle with the US-British coalition for influence in Iraq, and is helping Syria in the fight against terrorism.
From an economic point of view, Iran’s potential is also great. The Iranian economy is in the world’s top 20 in terms of purchasing power parity, the country is third in the world after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela in terms of proven oil resources, and has 16 percent of the world’s proven gas reserves.
Argentina, since the time of General Juan Domingo Peron, has also clearly felt its geopolitical role, being one of the regional leaders in Latin America. This role is recognized all over the world. Argentina, while not one of the world’s largest economies, is nevertheless a full member of the G20. Having survived the failed war with Great Britain over the Falkland Islands (Malvinas), as well as the collapse of liberal reforms according to the IMF recipes, the country has an obvious request to find an independent path of development. Today, Argentina is in a difficult economic situation, it has a huge external debt. However, the potential of Argentina as one of the global food exporters has significantly increased in recent years.
For various reasons, both Iran and Argentina are extremely interested in BRICS projects to create new international settlement systems that are alternative to the global hegemony of the dollar. Iran, which is under sanctions, life itself has forced to go to “de-dollarization”, the country practically does not use the US currency. For Argentina, the transition to a hypothetical new monetary and financial zone would mean an escape from the stranglehold of the IMF, from the pressure of American creditors, which today have an extremely destructive impact on the national economy.
In any case, against the background of aggressive pressure from the United States and its allies on potential new BRICS members, the desire of Iran and Argentina to join the community requires a certain amount of foreign policy courage. There is reason to assume that the process of their joining the BRICS will be successful, since both countries do not cause rejection even in India, which until recently was the main opponent of expansion. We can confidently predict that in the near future the process of adding new members to the BRICS will continue due to the entry of a number of Asian and African countries.
But even now, the BRICS expansion at the expense of Iran and Argentina is the final departure of the community from the idea of Goldman Sachs analyst Jim O’Neill, who coined this abbreviation twenty years ago, who decided to designate such a term as “emerging economies” that are “catching up” with the developed West.
We can say that BRICS is confidently turning into a “collective Non-West”, from a community of emerging markets it is finally transformed into a community of world powers with a pronounced geopolitical sovereignty.
This comment was chosen by moderator SA from the post “Weekly China Newsbrief and Sitrep”.Comment by Ahino Wolf Sushanti
I’m from Malaysia. China has traded with Malaysia for 2000 years. In those years, they had been the world’s biggest powers many times. Never once they sent troops to take our land. Admiral Zhenghe came to Malacca five times, in gigantic fleets, and a flagship eight times the size of Christopher Columbus’ flagship, Santa Maria. He could have seized Malacca easily, but he did not. In 1511, the Portuguese came. In 1642, the Dutch came. In the 18th century the British came. We were colonised by each, one after another.
When China wanted spices from India, they traded with the Indians. When they wanted gems, they traded with the Persian. They didn’t take lands. The only time China expanded beyond their current borders was in Yuan Dynasty, when Genghis and his descendants Ogedei Khan, Guyuk Khan & Kublai Khan concurred China, Mid Asia and Eastern Europe. But Yuan Dynasty, although being based in China, was a part of the Mongolian Empire.
Then came the Century of Humiliation. Britain smuggled opium into China to dope the population, a strategy to turn the trade deficit around, after the British could not find enough silver to pay the Qing Dynasty in their tea and porcelain trades. After the opium warehouses were burned down and ports were closed by the Chinese in ordered to curb opium, the British started the opium I, which China lost. Hong Kong was forced to be surrendered to the British in a peace talk (Nanjing Treaty). The British owned 90% of the opium market in China, during that time, Queen Victoria was the world’s biggest drug baron. The remaining 10% was owned by American merchants from Boston. Many of Boston’s institutions were built with profit from opium.
After 12 years of Nanjing Treaty, the West started getting really really greedy. The British wanted the Qing government: 1. To open the borders of China to allow goods coming in and out freely, and tax free. 2. Make opium legal in China. Insane requests, Qing government said no. The British and French, with supports from the US and Russia from behind, started Opium War II with China, which again, China lost. The Anglo-French military raided the Summer Palace, and threatened to burn down the Imperial Palace, the Qing government was forced to pay with ports, free business zones, 300,000 kilograms of silver and Kowloon was taken. Since then, China’s resources flew out freely through these business zones and ports. In the subsequent amendment to the treaties, Chinese people were sold overseas to serve as labor.
In 1900, China suffered attacks by the 8-National Alliance(Japan, Russia, Britain, France, USA, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary). Innocent Chinese civilians in Peking (Beijing now) were murdered, buildings were destroyed & women were raped. The Imperial Palace was raided, and treasures ended up in museums like the British Museum in London and the Louvre in Paris.
In late 1930’s China was occupied by the Japanese in WWII. Millions of Chinese died during the occupancy. 300,000 Chinese died in Nanjing Massacre alone.
Mao brought China together again from the shambles. There were peace and unity for some time. But Mao’s later reign saw sufferings and deaths from famine and power struggles.
Then came Deng Xiao Ping and his infamous “black-cat and white-cat” story. His preference in pragmatism than ideologies has transformed China. This thinking allowed China to evolve all the time to adapt to the actual needs in the country, instead of rigidly bounded to ideologies. It also signified the death of Communism in actually practice in China. The current Socialism+Meritocracy+Market Economy model fits the Chinese like gloves, and it propels the uprise of China. Singapore has a similar model, and has been arguably more successful than Hong Kong, because Hong Kong being gateway to China, was riding on the economic boom in China, while Singapore had no one to gain from.
In just 30 years, the CPC have moved 800 millions of people out from poverty. The rate of growth is unprecedented in human history. They have built the biggest mobile network, by far the biggest high speed rail network in the world, and they have become a behemoth in infrastructure. They made a fishing village called Shenzhen into the world’s second largest technological centre after the Silicon Valley. They are growing into a technological power house. It has the most elaborate e-commerce and cashless payment system in the world. They have launched exploration to Mars. The Chinese are living a good life and China has become one of the safest countries in the world. The level of patriotism in the country has reached an unprecedented height.
For all of the achievements, the West has nothing good to say about it. China suffers from intense anti-China propaganda from the West. Western Media used the keyword “Communist” to instil fear and hatred towards China. Everything China does is negatively reported.
They claimed China used slave labor in making iPhones. The truth was, Apple was the most profitable company in the world, it took most of the profit, leave some to Foxconn (a Taiwanese company) and little to the labor.
They claimed China was inhuman with one-child policy. By the way absolutely recommended by the UN-Health-Organisation at that time. At the same time, they accused China of polluting the earth with its huge population. The fact is the Chinese consume just 30% of energy per capita compared to the US.
They claimed China underwent ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang. The fact is China has a policy which priorities ethnic minorities. For a long time, the ethnic minorities were allowed to have two children and the majority Han only allowed one. The minorities are allowed a lower score for university intakes. There are 39,000 mosque in China, and 2100 in the US. China has about 3 times more mosque per Muslim than the US. When terrorist attacks happened in Xinjiang, China had two choices: 1. Re-educate the Uighur extremists before they turned terrorists. 2. Let them be, after they launch attacks and killed innocent people, bomb their homes. China chose 1 to solve problem from the root and not to do killing. How the US solve terrorism? Fire missiles from battleships, drop bombs from the sky.
During the pandemic, When China took extreme measures to lock-down the people, they were accused of being inhuman. When China recovered swiftly because of the extreme measures, they were accused of lying about the actual numbers. When China’s cases became so low that they could provide medical support to other countries, they were accused of politically motivated. Western Media always have reasons to bash China.
Just like any country, there are irresponsible individuals from China which do bad and dirty things, but the China government overall has done very well. But I hear this comment over and over by people from the West: I like Chinese people, but the CPC is “evil”\’. What they really want is the Chinese to change the government, because the current one is too good.
Fortunately China is not a multi-party democratic country, otherwise the opposition party in China will be supported by notorious NGOs (Non-Government Organization) of the USA, like the NED (National Endowment for Democracy), to topple the ruling party. The US and the British couldn’t crack Mainland China, so they work on Hong Kong. Of all the ex-British colonial countries, only the Hong Kongers were offered BNOs by the British. Because the UK would like the Hong Kongers to think they are British citizens, not Chinese. A divide-and-conquer strategy, which they often used in Color Revolutions around the world.
They resort to low dirty tricks like detaining Huawei’s CFO & banning Huawei. They raised a silly trade war which benefits no one. Trade deficit always exist between a developing and a developed country. USA is like a luxury car seller who ask a farmer: why am I always buying your vegetables and you haven’t bought any of my cars?
When the Chinese were making socks for the world 30 years ago, the world let it be. But when Chinese started to make high technology products, like Huawei and DJI, it caused red-alert. Because when Western and Japanese products are equal to Chinese in technologies, they could never match the Chinese in prices. First world countries want China to continue in making socks. Instead of stepping up themselves, they want to pull China down.
The recent movement by the US against China has a very important background. When Libya, Iran, and China decided to ditch the US dollar in oil trades, Gaddafi’s was killed by the US, Iran was being sanctioned by the US, and now it’s China’s turn. The US has been printing money out of nothing. The only reason why the US Dollar is still widely accepted, is because it’s the only currency which oil is allowed to be traded with. The US has an agreement with Saudi that oil must be traded in US dollar ONLY. Without the petrol-dollar status, the US dollars will sink, and America will fall. Therefore anyone trying to disobey this order will be eliminated. China will soon use a gold-backed crypto-currency, the alarms in the White House go off like mad.
China’s achievement has been by hard work. Not buy looting the world.
I have deep sympathy for China for all the suffering, but now I feel happy for them. China is not rising, they are going back to where they belong. Good luck China.
يقع بحر الصين الجنوبي بين الصين الشعبية شمالاً، وفيتنام وماليزيا غرباً، وجزء من ماليزيا في الجنوب الغربي، والفلبين في الشرق. وهو بالتالي يتوسّط أهم ممرّين بحريين، في كل منطقة آسيا وغرب المحيط الهندي، وهما مضيق مالاقا الواقع بين ماليزيا وجزيرة سومطرة الإندونيسية ومضيق تايوان الواقع بين جزيرة تايوان الصينية المنشقة والبر الصيني (جمهورية الصين الشعبية).
تنبع أهمية هذه الممرات او المصائد البحرية من كونها معبراً اجبارياً لسفن التجارة الدولية الى دول كل تلك المنطقة من العالم، بما في ذلك اليابان وكوريا الشمالية والجنوبية والفلبين وإندونيسيا وفيتنام ودول اخرى.
فعلى سبيل المثال لا الحصر فإن:
ما قائمتة 37.3 ترليون دولار من حجم التجارة العالمية يمر عبر المضيقين وبالتالي عبر بحر الصين الجنوبي وأن 80% من واردات الصين النفطية والغازية تصل الى الصين عبر هذين المضيقين. وان 39,8 من إجمالي واردات الصين وصادراتها الى العالم تمر عبر هذين المضيقين. وبما أن بحر الصين الجنوبي يحتوي على مجموعات عدة من الجزر، مثل مجموعة جزر باراسيل (Paracel Islands)، التي لا تبعد أكثر من 250 كم عن البر الصيني / مقاطعة هاينان / وجزر سبراتلي (Spratly Islands)، وانطلاقاً من المسؤولية الدولية، التي تقع على عاتق جمهورية الصين الشعبية، كدولة عظمى وعضو دائم في مجلس الامن الدولي، فإن بكين قد عملت ومنذ انتصار الثورة في البلاد سنة 1949 على تأمين طرق التجارة الدولية في تلك البحار. وبما ان مجموعات الجزر، المذكورة اعلاه، تقع في نقاط حساسة من هذا البحر، فإن تأمينها، او بالأحرى تعزيز حمايتها، كان دائماً جزءاً من مسؤوليات بكين الأساسية، في حماية وتأمين طرق الملاحة التجارية الدولية. خاصة أن هذه الجزر جميعها ليست مشمولة بأية اتفاقيات دولية قد تشمل أساساً قانونياً، لاي جهة كانت، كي تطعن في سيادة الصين الشعبية عليها، وذلك لأنها كانت عبر التاريخ جزرًا صينية خالصة.
ولمزيد من الإضاءة على الموضوع فلا بد من الاشارة الى بعض الحقائق الهامة، المتعلقة بهذه الجزر، وأهم هذه الحقائق ما يلي:
1
ـ ان هذه الجزر بقيت خاضعة لسيطرة الدولة الصينية، ما قبل الفترة شيوعية، حتى سنة 1930، عندما قام الجيش الإمبراطوري الياباني باحتلال معظمها وأقام عليها قواعد او مرتكزات عسكرية له.
2
ـ ان الحكومة الفرنسية، بموجب اتفاقية جنيف، الموقعة سنة 1954 لإنهاء حرب الهند الصينية، بعد هزيمة فرنسا في معركة ديان بيان فو الفيتنامية، بقيادة الجنرال جياب، قد أعطت حق السيادة على معظم هذه الجزر لفيتنام الجنوبية، جنوب خط عرض 17، والذي بقي خاضعاً لحكم قادة محليين تابعين للاستعمار الأجنبي. علماً انه كان من المفترض، حسب اتفاقية جنيف نفسها، اجراء انتخابات عامة في جنوب فيتنام سنة 1956، لإعادة توحيد البلاد. لكن فرنسا وبدعم واضح من الولايات المتحدة قد عرقلت ذلك ومهدت بذلك لحرب فيتنام الثانية التي تورطت فيها الولايات المتحدة ومُنيت بهزيمة نكراء سنة 1975.
3
ـ ان جمهورية الصين الشعبية، وقبل هزيمة الولايات المتحدة، في حرب الهند الصينية – فيتنام وكمبوديا ولاوس – وسقوط سايغون، عاصمة جنوب فيتنام، وفي إجراء احترازي، لتعزيز امن تلك الجزر، وبعد ان اضطرت واشنطن ان تعطيها ضمانات بعدم التدخل في شؤون تلك الجزر، قامت بتعزيز حامياتها العسكرية فيها، وذلك خوفاً من قيام الجيش الاميركي باحتلال هذه الجزر ونشر فلول قواتة الهاربة من فيتنام الجنوبية فيها، واقامة قواعد عسكرية لضمان استمرار هيمنته على تلك المنطقة من العالم.
ولكن فشل تلك المحاولة الاميركية، أواسط سبعينيات القرن الماضي، لم يمنعها من مواصلة التحرش بالصين، ومحاولة إعادة سيطرتها على تلك الممرات البحرية الهامة. اذ انها لجأت، ومنذ بداية القرن الحالي، بتحريض دول المنطقة، وخاصة فيتنام، التي باعتها واشنطن قطعاً بحرية مهمة، ضد جمهورية الصين الشعبية، وشنت حملة إعلامية واسعة ضد بكين، خاصة بعد احتلال واشنطن لأفغانستان سنة 2001، وبدء عمليات الحشد والتطويق الاستراتيجيين لجمهورية الصين الشعبية، من قبل الولايات وحلفائها الغربيين في حلف شمال الأطلسي. كما ان اكتشاف النفط والغاز أواخر العشرية الاولى من هذا القرن، في بعض مناطق وجزر بحر الصين الجنوبي، قد صعَّد من عدوانية واشنطن بشكل كبير ضد الصين، اذ انها واصلت إرسال قطعها البحرية، من الاسطول الاميركي السابع على وجة الخصوص، الى بحر الصين الجنوبي وذلك بحجة أن الصين تقيم جزراً صناعية في هذا البحر لبناء منشآت عسكرية صينية عليها.
وعلى الرغم من مواصلة الصين سياسة الاستثمار في الحلول الدبلوماسية، ومواصلة الجهود السلمية للتوصل الى حلول سلمية، يرضى بها الجميع، وتحافظ على مصالح جميع الدول المعنية بموضوع بحر الصين الجنوبي وتوصلها الى اتفاقية مع مجموعة دول آسيان العشرة ASEAN COUNTRIES)) وتوقيعها بتاريخ 20/7/2011، وذلك كقاعدة للتعاون بين تلك الدول والصين الشعبية وحل جميع الخلافات البحرية بالطرق السلمية، إلا ان واشنطن لجأت الى خطوة استفزازية وتصعيدية، مثلت عدواناً مباشراً على مصالح الصين، وذلك عندما قامت سنة 2015 وفِي عهد باراك اوباما، بالتعاون مع دول الاستعمار القديم، فرنسا وبريطانيا، بتشكيل قوة بحرية أُطلق عليها اسم: فريدوم أوف ناڤِغيشن Freedom of navigation، ضمّت خلالها عدداً من مدمرات وبوارج الاسطول السابع الاميركي، الى جانب مدمرات وطرادات وفرقاطات فرنسية وبريطانية عدة، والتي بدأت بعمليات الاستفزاز والتحرش، بالجزر الصينية، وبقطع القوات البحرية الصينية، التي تقوم بأعمال الدورية الروتينية، في بحر الصين الجنوبي وبحر الصين الشرقي. وقد تصاعدت هذة الاستفزازات الأميركية الى حد عرقلة أعمال سفن الصيد الصينية وبشكل مستمر.
كما عمدت الاساطيل الاميركية منذ عام 2016، وفِي مسلسل خطوات استفزازية جديدة ضد الصين الشعبية، وضمن تعزيز عمليات الحشد الاستراتيجي الاميركي ضد الصين، بتنظيم تدريبات عسكرية بحرية مع القوات البحرية لدول آسيان، وهي: ميانمار، تايلاند، كمبوديا، ماليزيا، سنغافورة، إندونيسيا، بروناي، الفلبين وفيتنام، لاوس، التي تدّعي بعض منها السيادة على بعض جزر بحر الصين الجنوبي.
علماً ان قطع المجموعة البحرية الاميركية الاوروبية المشار اليها اعلاه تتعمد إجراء التمارين العسكرية مع سلاح البحرية لكل دولة من دول آسيان على حدة، وذلك لضمان وجود القطع البحرية الاميركية بشكل دائم في تلك البحار.
ولعله من الجدير بالذكر ايضاً ان رئيس الولايات المتحدة الحالي قد اكد، ومنذ تسلمة الحكم، على ما يلي:
أ ـ ضرورة تعزيز عملية: فريدوم أوف ناڤيغيشن، الاميركية الاوروبية المشار اليها اعلاه، في منطقة بحر الصين الجنوبي وذلك حفاظاً على استراتيجية استمرار ديناميكية (حركية) الانتشار العسكري الاميركي هناك.
ب ـ ان تكون استراتيجية الولايات المتحدة للانتشار العسكري الاميركي، في المنطقة، غير قابلة للتخمين او التوقع او التقدير وضرورة ان يتم نشر القطع البحرية هناك دون سابق إنذار ودون الاعلان عن ذلك.
ج ـ وفي هذا الإطار قامت القطع البحرية الاميركية الأوروبية، المكلفة بعملية فريدوم أوف ناڤيغيشن، ومنذ شهر أيار 2019 حتى اليوم، بتنفيذ اربع عمليات «دورية»، في محيط جزر باراسيل وجزر سبراتلي الصينية،
في بحر الصين الجنوبي، بالإضافة الى القيام بعمليات تحليق جوي، في اجواء الجزر المذكورة اعلاه، من قبل قاذفتي قنابل استراتيجيتين أميركيتين من طراز B 52، وفي الفترة الزمنية نفسها، المذكورة اعلاه.
فهل تقبل الولايات المتحدة أن تقوم القطع البحرية الصينية بأعمال الدورية البحرية، في محيط جزيرتي كاتارينا آيلاند (Catalina island)و تشانيل آيلاند (Chanel Island)، قبالة شواطئ لوس انجيلوس، ام أنها ستعتبر ذلك عدواناً صينياً على سيادتها؟
اوقفوا عدوانكم قبل أن يفوت الأوان وتصبح سواحلكم مسرحاً مفتوحاً للقطع البحرية الصينية وغيرها من الدول التي ترفض عنجهيتكم وعدوانكم المدان. انتهى زمن العربدة البحرية والجوية ولم تعد تخيف أحداً وأنتم تعلمون ذلك جيداً ولن تفيدكم المكابرة الزائفة والتي يجب ان تستعيضوا عنها بسياسة التعاون المثمر مع كل دول العالم ولإنقاذ اقتصادكم ومستقبل أجيالكم قبل كل شيء.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR voiced mounting concern on Thursday over a “grave immediate risk” to Rohingya refugees aboard boats in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, urging Southeast Asian nations not to close avenues to asylum.
Several fishing trawlers carrying hundreds of Rohingya, members of a Muslim minority from Myanmar, are bound for Bangladesh, after being turned back from Malaysia where they were seeking asylum, according to rights groups.
Last week, a boat carrying nearly 400 starving and emaciated Rohingya arrived on the southern coast of Bangladesh after drifting for weeks in the sea between Thailand and Malaysia, the Bangladesh coast guard said. Survivors said dozens had died.
Indrika Ratwatte, director of UNHCR’s Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, said it was urging “greater coordination and responsibility-sharing by states” to avert a crisis.
“We are increasingly concerned by reports of failure to disembark vessels in distress and of the grave immediate risk this poses to the men, women and children on board,” he said, Reuters reported.
“In the context of the unprecedented current COVID-19 crisis, all states must manage their borders as they see fit. But such measures should not result in the closure of avenues to asylum, or of forcing people to return to situations of danger.”
Malaysian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Human rights groups fear restrictions to stem the spread of the virus across Southeast Asia could trigger a repeat of a 2015 crisis when a crackdown by Thailand prompted smugglers to abandon Rohingya at sea on crowded, rickety boats.
Bangladesh officials have said they will not accept new arrivals, but a coast guard official said a search was underway for the boats.
“If we cannot rescue these Rohingya people then who will take the responsibility for their lives?” another official said.
More than a million Rohingya live in refugee camps in southern Bangladesh, the majority having been driven from homes in Myanmar after a 2017 military crackdown which the Myanmar army claimed was a response to attacks by Rohingya insurgents.
Myanmar denies persecuting Rohingya and claims they are not an indigenous ethnic group but rather immigrants from South Asia, even though many Rohingya are able to trace their ancestry back centuries.
Finally, a clear and convincing — and unrefuted — case can now be presented to the public, as to precisely whom the guilty party was, that downed the MH17 Malaysian airliner over Ukraine on 17 July 2014, and why it was done. The complete case, which will be fully documented here, displays unequivocally who needed the MH17 murders (of 298 persons) to be perpetrated. This mass-murder was done for one leader’s very pressing obsession. For him, it simply had to be done, and done at that precise time. The full MH17 case will be presented here, to be judged by the public, because no court of law which possesses the power to bring this (or even any) case on the MH17 murders, is willing to do so, and because the evidence in this 17 July 2014 case has become overwhelming, and is unrefuted. This evidence is accepted by both sides. But it still remains effectively hidden from the publics in the United States and its allied countries. (The present news-report, which is the first ever to present this entire case, is submitted to all news-media in English-speaking countries, so that any of them that wishes to provide its audience access to this uncontested and conclusive evidence in the MH17 case can do so, by publishing this article. Any of them that won’t, don’t want their audience to have access to the conclusive evidence in this case, because this article is being made available to all of them to publish, free of charge; so, there is no other reason not to publish it.)
The complete evidence will be described, and all of the conclusive evidence is linked-to, proving who perpetrated, and who demanded, the shoot-down on 17 July 2014 of the Malaysian airliner MH17.
This article will start by demonstrating the most important thing, and will demonstrate it by means of links to the most conclusive evidence of all. This is the evidence which absolutely proves that the official Netherlands-headed investigation into this matter is an intentional and utter fraud — a fraud which has already been conclusively answered and exposed by the Russian Government. (Netherlands headed the investigation because 196 of the 298 murder-victims were Dutch.) Russia’s response provided, in excruciating detail, not only clear disproofs of the Netherlands-headed investigation’s conclusions of Russian guilt, but also (and on the basis of the very same evidence that the official investigation had made public on 24 May 2018) provided the still-unrefuted (but nonetheless still effectively hidden) proofs of Ukraine’s actual and incontestable guilt, in this mass-murder. This evidence, of the Netherlands team’s fraudulence, carries the investigation a large part of the way toward its ultimate conclusion, regarding whom the person was who had demanded Ukraine to commit this crime.
So, Russia’s response, on 17 September 2018, used that Netherlands-headed team’s own documentation, to disprove that team’s attribution of guilt to Russia, and to prove conclusively Ukraine’s guilt as having been the actual perpetrator of this mass-murder. Thus, the Netherlands-headed team includes the actual perpetrator, Ukraine, and not only the Netherlands Government, which had helped overthrow Ukraine’s prior and democratically elected Government and bring Ukraine’s current regime into power in February 2014, just months prior to the MH17 shoot-down, which resulted from that US coup.
Most readers who click onto the links here will be shocked. What will shock them is the evidence, because it has not been published in The West (except summarized in less than a half-dozen obscure news-media — and, even there, generally not documented, such as it is here).
The links will document and fully prove this stunning turnabout, from Russia to Ukraine. The documentation that was cited by Ukraine and Ukraine’s fellow team-member (the team’s leader) Netherlands, against Russia, on May 24th of 2018, contained previously unrecognized details (which were first pointed out in the Russian presentation on September 17th of 2018) which irrefutably convict Ukraine. Consequently, Russia’s response was ignored in The West, despite that presentation’s having been based upon the very same items of evidence that had been introduced by the Netherlands-led team on May 24th. Thus, the items of evidence, there, are the same that the Netherlands-led team had themselves provided. The items of evidence here are not in dispute.
The current article will be the first-ever to hone-in on the especially shocking key data in Russia’s data-packed September 17th response, the key evidence that Russia was calling attention to there, and which prove Ukraine’s guilt beyond any reasonable doubt — prove it on the basis of the very same evidence that had been introduced by Ukraine’s own team in their presentation four months earlier. Using the other side’s evidence to convict that other side is what makes this denouement the stunning turnabout that it is.
The Netherlands-headed Ukrainian team still refuses to answer the Russian presentation, which responds to the Ukrainian team’s May 24th presentation. Western ‘news’-media have likewise almost completely ignored Russia’s response. (One Dutch medium did report on it but dismissed it by focusing on a subordinate part: their report said and focused on “Russia now claims that the video images the investigators used to track the missile’s transport to the Ukraine, were manipulated.” However, the part of Russia’s presentation that will be discussed in the present article was being entirely ignored in that Dutch news-report, which, as you will see here, has nothing to do with any claim of manipulated evidence. Britain’s BBC likewise focused-in on the “manipulated evidence” that Russia’s presentation had attacked. The Washington Post instead headlined “Who spread disinformation about the MH17 crash? We followed the Twitter trail”, and it focused-in on how polarized the public is over the MH17 case. The West’s ‘news’-coverage was virtually entirely misdirection and disinformation, as you will recognize from what follows here. And the evidence here is linked-to, so that you can see it for yourself.)
Russia’s response documented beyond any question, at all, that this airliner was shot down by the Ukrainian Government, and that Western (i.e., US-allied) ‘news’media have been and are covering-up this crucial historical fact and The West’s still-ongoing lies about the downing of MH17.
Those lies are the basis of US and EU anti-Russia sanctions, which remain in effect despite the basis for those sanctions having been exposed unequivocally, on September 17th, to be based on lies. Thus, continuing to hide those lies is crucial to the liars. This is the reason why Russia’s blazingly detailed presentation on September 17th has been virtually ignored — to protect the actually guilty. The evidence here proves that those sanctions, themselves, are nothing but frauds against the public, and crimes against Russia — ongoing additional crimes, which have been, and remain, effectively hidden till now.
The reader can see and consider here all of the conclusive evidence in the MH17 case — it can be reached via the present article’s links. Unlike the ‘news’-reports in The West’s ‘news’-media, the presentation here is not presuming readers’ trust, but is instead providing to all readers access to the actual evidence — evidence that is accepted by both sides. That’s what the links here are for: examination by any skeptics.
Skepticism in judging anything is not only good; it is essential to justice. Trust should never be given; it should only be earned. Otherwise, no democracy can function. Only dictatorship can function in a country that’s controlled by lies, and by liars. Liars are believed by people who have faith in them. Thus, faith in anything or anyone can poison judgment. The way to test the case that is presented here is to click onto a link wherever one wants to see and examine the evidence. Without examining (usually by spot-checking) the evidence, no reader can intelligently judge any case. Dictatorship is almost inevitable in a counry where spot-checking of the actual evidence isn’t the norm. Most ‘news’-media don’t even enable such spot-checking. This is why ‘news’-media are so often actually propaganda-media instead.
So, here’s the complete MH17 case, for any reader to judge:
—
The last announcement from the official investigation, the Netherlands-headed “Joint Investigative Team” (JIT), was on 24 May 2018, and it headlined “Update in criminal investigation MH17 disaster”. It said:
The JIT is convinced that the BUK-TELAR [missile and launcher] that was used to down MH17, originates from the 53rd Anti Aircraft Missile brigade (hereinafter 53rd brigade), a unit of the Russian army from Kursk in the Russian Federation. … This fingerprint has been compared with numerous images of BUK-TELARS, both Ukrainian and Russian ones. The only BUK-TELAR on which this combination of characteristics also was found, is a BUK-TELAR that was recorded several times when it joined a convoy of the 53rd brigade on 23 – 25 June 2014.
Consequently, the JIT presumes that within the 53rd brigade and within the circle around it, people have knowledge about the operation in which that particular BUK-TELAR was deployed. … Already in September 2016, the JIT disclosed that MH17 was downed with a BUK missile of the 9M38 series. …
The missile engine’s casing shows the number 9 д 1318869032.
Typical of Western ‘news’-media’s coverage of that presentation, was CNN’s report the same day, May 24th of 2018. It was headlined “Missile that downed MH17 ‘owned by Russian brigade’”. It stated: “‘At the time this area was under control of pro-Russian separatists,’ said Fred Westerbeke, chief prosecutor of the National Prosecutor’s Office of the Netherlands. The Buk launcher of the 9M38 series ‘was transported from the territory of the Russian Federation and was returned to that territory of the Russian Federation afterwards’.”
The Ukrainian side claimed they had finally found evidence which would enable them definitively to place the blame for the MH17 shoot-down on Russia. So, the very next day, May 25th, Britain’s Telegraph bannered “Netherlands and Australia call for compensation for MH17 victims as they accuse Russia of downing plane” and reported that “Australia and the Netherlands have said they hold Russia legally responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 over Ukraine in 2014 and will seek reparations for relatives of the 298 people killed.” This demand against Russia was coming “the day after the Dutch-led international investigation concluded that the Russian military had deployed the Buk surface-to-air missile that shot down the plane.”
Four months later, on 17 September 2018, the Russian Ministry of Defense youtubed its response, which is titled “Briefing on newly discovered evidence pertaining to the crash of the MH17 flight”. It presented the actual history of the Buk missile and launcher which Ukraine and the other Governments on the JIT said had brought down the MH17. (The JIT includes four countries, Netherlands, Ukraine, Belgium, and Australia, with a fifth, Malaysia, having been brought in only later, after it finally agreed to allow Ukraine a veto over any conclusions that the team will publish. Malaysia’s participation started on 4 December 2014; but whether Malaysia has actually been allowed to play a role in the ‘investigation’ isn’t clear.) Russia, during the intervening months after the JIT’s May 24th presentation, had tracked down all of those serial numbers, 8868720, and 1318869032, and 9M38, and found (as you can see there by clicking on each, especially onto the “Briefing” itself) that after the acquisition of the launcher and missile, by Ukraine in 1986, from Russia, that missile and its launcher had always, and constantly since their transfer to Ukraine in 1986, remained in Ukraine, and never again were located in Russia. So: if the JIT’s supplied evidence is authentic — which the Ukrainian team asserts it to be — then it outright convicts Ukraine. This is an evidentiary checkmate, against the Ukrainian side.
—
With the passage now of years, the precise cause of the shooting-down of the Malaysian passenger plane MH17 on 17 July 2014 has been becoming clearer and clearer, despite the rigorous continuing attempts by Western ‘news’ media to cover it up and to hide from the public the growing and by-now irrefutable evidence (presented here) that clearly shows what and who actually brought down this airliner.
In the years since I headlined on August 24th of 2014 the news, “MH-17 ‘Investigation’: Secret August 8th Agreement Seeps Out: Perpetrator of the Downing in Ukraine, of the Malaysian Airliner, Will Stay Hidden”, the key fact about the official ‘investigation’ has actually been that the Government of Ukraine was, on 8 August 2014, granted veto-power over any official finding which would be produced by the Joint Investigative Team. On 20 November 2014, Russian Television headlined “Dutch government refuses to reveal ‘secret deal’ into MH17 crash probe” and reported that Holland’s science-publishers Elsevier had filed for this information under that country’s Freedom of Information Act, and the Government simply refused to comply with that law. The leaders of Western nations apparently want the black-box and much other basic data in their possession to remain hidden, and the four nations had signed this secret agreement to allow the Government of Ukraine to block any report that incriminates Ukraine in the MH17 shoot-down. But additional evidence has nonetheless become public, and all of it confirms and adds yet further details to the explanation that was first put forth by the retired German Lufthansa pilot Peter Haisenko, whose independent investigation had concluded that Ukrainian Government fighter-jets intentionally shot down this civilian plane. He did not rule out the possibility that a Buk missile had simultaneously been used there, but he made clear that at least one fighter-jet had been used in this shoot-down.
However, if those parts of a Buk missile, which were the focus of the Netherlands team’s presentation on May 24th, were indeed retrieved from the crash-site as that team claims, then a Buk missile had also hit the MH17. Serious question would nonetheless exist as to whether that Buk was fired by troops who were working for Ukraine, or instead for Russia (or else for Donbas separatists who were working in conjunction with Russia, which was Ukraine’s and America’s original version of the event).
Precisely what the method was, by which the direct perpetrators brought down the MH17, has gradually become clearer, despite this continuation of Western secrecy (and Ukraine’s veto-power over the ‘findings’) regarding the contents of the black boxes, and of the US satellite images, and of the Ukrainian air-traffic-control radar recordings, and of other evidence-sources that are still being held secret by The West and not made available to their ‘news’ media nor to anyone outside a tight official circle of those Western nations’ intelligence agencies.
But now, Russia has actually — on 17 September 2018 — exposed the outright fraudulence of the JIT’s 24 May 2018 presentation, and The West (the US Government’s allies) entirely ignored the conclusive evidence that that presentation by the JIT itself actually contained and to which Russia was pointing, so that there can no longer be reasonable doubt about The West’s intentional and still ongoing fraudulence regarding the entire MH17 matter.
Also entirely ignored in the Ukrainain team’s ‘explanation’ of the event is why Ukraine’s air-traffic control had guided the MH17’s pilot to fly over the conflict-zone where Ukraine’s civil war was being waged and where Ukraine’s war-planes were bombing. The MH17’s pilot was instructed by Ukraine’s air-traffic control to take that path instead of the one that the airline had planned and that had become normal during the civil war. This was highly abnormal, and it doomed the MH17. Clearly, only Ukraine’s Government could, and did, do that — change the route, and for only that one plane. Yet, still, the Netherlands-headed team blames Russia and is trusted in The West, but Russia is not. (Now, why would that be?)
Though Russia doesn’t possess those black boxes (which, by chance, were handed by the pro-Russian separatists to the Malaysian Government’s representative, and yet that Government handed them to Netherland’s Government instead of to Russia’s — apparently trusting Netherlands more than trusting Russia or even themselves), Russia does possess, and publicly reveals, evidence that’s conclusive on its own; and it is 100% consistent with Haisenko’s reconstruction of the event, regardless whether a Buk was involved or not. Russian Television had issued in October 2014 a 25-minute documentary on the event, and it starts with people whom they interviewed in that region, who were describing their having seen at least one and perhaps two planes rising toward the airliner, and then the airliner coming down from the sky. Other witnesses told them that they saw an SU-25 fighter plane take off in that general area just minutes before the airliner came down.
FIRST, THE MISSING BBC REPORT:
The BBC had previously posted to their website on 23 July 2014, just six days after the event itself, a news report in Russian via their Russian service (fortunately archived by Global Research), about the downing, but they quickly removed it without explanation. Fortunately, however, some Russian-speakers had managed to download it before it was yanked; and at least two of those downloads were posted to youtube, the first one having been posted there on 28 July 2014, with English subscripts, and with the headline, “UKRAINE Eyewitness Confirm Military Jet Flew Besides MH17 Airliner: BBC Censors Video 25Jul2014”. (It’s gone now, but, actually, several witnesses, and not just one, were interviewed there — there wasn’t just one “Eyewitness”.) Furthermore, Global Research posted on 10 September 2014 a transcript of it, headlining, “Deleted BBC Report. ‘Ukrainian Fighter Jet Shot Down MHI7’, Donetsk Eyewitnesses.” (The video itself is still at youtube and it will be linked-to just below here, so that you will be able to view it.)
The interviews by the BBC were done by their reporter Olga Ivshina. (Also see http://archive.is/vFoh9.) She had filmed local residents in the crash-debris area. In one passage of her 23 July 2014 news-report, there were two residents simultaneously who described what they had seen. One of them said, “And there was another aircraft.” The other continued immediately, in order to describe the other plane, “a military one, beside it [‘it’ being the airliner]. Everybody saw it. It was proceeding underneath below the civilian one.”
Here is the second, and clearer, version of that clip. (It’s the one that’s still live at youtube.) The key portion on it is at 0:38-042 in the video:
That was the 9 September 2014 repost of it, with the same subscript-translation into English, only the visual is sharper.
And here is an apology, dated 25 July 2014, by the BBC, for their having removed their original video of this interview — and yet they still didn’t repost it; they still continue to blockade it; even today the only versions available, of these, the earliest recorded interviews of people who said they witnessed the event, are the independently posted ones, but here is the BBC’s apology:
So: clearly, BBC has done all that they could to remove evidence, which they had mistakenly broadcast, which had fit the retired Lufthansa pilot Peter Haisenko’s reconstruction of the event, and which contradicted the US-Ukrainian reconstruction of it — the reconstruction that Western ‘news’ media project, and on the basis of which US President Barack Obama won from the EU stiff increases in, and subsequent extensions of, the economic sanctions against Russia, all on the basis of lies.
(Subsequently, on 17 December 2018, South Front headlined “‘EDITORIAL BOARD DEMANDS BLOOD’: INSIDE LOOK AT HOW BBC TRIES TO FIND PROOF OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCE ON YELLOW VEST PROTESTS”, and they reported that Ivshina had texted to a BBC stringer, on the streets of Paris, instructions of what story-lines were wanted by BBC management regarding the “Yellow Vests” demonstrations against French President Emmanuel Macron, ”Yes, I’m searching for the angles))) The editorial board wants blood, yo)))”. “And if you find these ultra-rightists [at the protests], will they talk about Putin and Moscow? Well, at least the Russians go to the protests, right?” Ivshina was instructing her French stringer what to look for, in order for her to be able to report the type of ‘news’ that her bosses wanted to publish. Perhaps Ivshina had been chastised in 2014 and had learned to never again be caught reporting anything that challenges the UK Government’s anti-Russia propaganda-line.)
So, this valuable eyewitness-testimony to the MH17 event is available despite Western ‘news’ media (or, more-accurately, propaganda-media), and the reason for the news-suppression is clear to anyone who views that BBC 23 July 2014 report, which presents several eyewitnesses, interviewed separately as individuals, not as a group, and yet all of whose testimonies — perhaps despite Ivshina’s wish for them not to say this — report having observed the very same basic narrative, of at least one military jet rising toward the airliner just before it came down.
In other words: it is clear that BBC had yanked this report because it didn’t confirm the West’s story-line, which says that Ukrainian pro-Russian separatists had fired a “Buk” ground-based missile at the airliner, thinking that the civilian plane was a Ukrainian Government war-plane about to bomb them and their families. But, first of all, the Ukrainian Government was virtually admitting there that they were bombing these villagers, which means that they were perpetrating an ethnic cleansing operation there, which indeed that Government was doing; but, secondly, the Ukrainian Government’s statement also acknowledged that if the event had happened in that way, it would have been unintentional, a tragic accident on the part of the rebels there. (The JIT’s line now is that it was instead an outright Russian attack against the MH17.)
So, then, why did “the international community” respond with massive economic sanctions against Russia on account of this downing — by, as it turns out, Ukraine? The whole Western propaganda position was designed for a public of sheer fools, if not of outright psychopathic ones, who cared not a bit about the plights of the victims of an ethnic-cleansing campaign. They cared only about victims in “The West.” The West’s basic story-line doesn’t make sense without recognizing that we were financing ethnic cleansing to clear the land in southeastern Ukraine, and that any support that Russia would be providing to those separatists would have been defensive in nature, not offensive. Yet Russia gets the blame when this passenger jet goes down? Even though Ukraine’s air-traffic control had guided the pilot there? In any case, that story-line of Russian guilt is false, from start to finish. And now (at least after 17 September 2018) it is finished. But Western ‘news’-media still continue to broadcast the lies, as if it weren’t.
Here is how outright ludicrous it actually is, and sound reason in itself that anyone in the military had to have known, from the very get-go, that the “Buk” ‘explanation’ was a line of pure malarkey:
THE RUSSIAN DOCUMENTARY:
The 22 October 2014 Russian documentary was titled, “MH-17: The Untold Story,” and it presents, among much else, videos of several “Buk” missiles being fired on other occasions, just to show how utterly ludicrous the initial Ukraine-US-and-allied ‘explanation of the MH17 event was. On 5 November 2014, I summarized that, with screen-shots from the Russian documentary.
So, when even the BBC’s reporter wasn’t able to find anyone in that entire region who recounts having seen anything of the sort, just how likely would the Ukrainian Government’s line on that matter — that not only was this done by a lone Buk but it was fired by (at first) pro-Russian separatists, and (then) by the Russian army — actually be? Obviously, any person with any military knowledge whatsoever had to have recognized virtually immediately that the Ukrainian Government’s story-line on the MH-17 downing was a pile of sheer malarkey, but did anyone in the Western ‘news’ media report that it was — that the Western line there was not just a lie, but an absurd one, one that requires an ignorant public in order for it to be able to be taken seriously at all by the public? One that requires an ignorant public, to remain ignorant? This is supposed to be the Western ‘news’ media, with a free press, and a democracy, a truthfully informed citizenry, who can vote based upon truths, not on mere lies?
Several of the locals there told Russian TV’s reporter that they had seen a military jet rise toward the airliner; and not a one of these individuals were any of the same ones who had testified the exact same thing to the BBC’s reporter, whose news-piece had been squelched by her managers.
HERE IS HOW MH17 WAS SHOT DOWN:
Now, to the substance of the explanation of how this plane was actually brought down:
Earlier, I had summarized the evidence for Peter Haisenko’s reconstruction of the event, but I questioned his having accepted the eyewitness testimony to the effect that the planes that shot down the airliner were SU-25s. In Haisenko’s Russian TV interview, he stuck by his belief that it was probably SU-25s instead of SU-27s or Mig 29s, both of which are also in the Ukrainian Air Force, and all three of which use 30-millimeter machine-guns or “cannons.” But since the fact is that all three of those attack-plane models use machine-guns (“cannons”) with 30-caliber bullets (which is the size that clearly was used, especially on the cockpit), the effect would be identically-sized round 30-caliber entry-holes, no matter what. My last major report on that evidence, prior to the 8 August 2014 formation of the JIT and their mutual agreement to report nothing that would be incriminating to Ukraine’s Government regarding the MH17 incident, was “Systematically Reconstructing the Shoot-Down of the Malaysian Airliner: The Guilt Is Clear and Damning.” That basically fills in (and the links, in that report, document with pictures and videos that) the actual way that this plane was downed, and that why it was downed was “to get the EU to go along with stiffened sanctions against Russia”. Obama (via the regime that he had installed in a February 2014 coup in Kiev) succeeded there in getting the international sanctions against Russia that he had been wanting. Obama, and certainly not Putin — and now we know it wasn’t Russia at all (not even if a Buk was involved) — was the key person behind this. The 298 MH17 murder-victims on 17 July 2014 were murdered by Barack Obama (via his agents such as Victoria Nuland — she ran Obama’s Ukrainian operation), just as clearly as (if not even more clearly than) Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud (via his agents at the Sauds’ Istanbul Consulate) murdered Jamal Khashoggi on 2 October 2018.
International actions (such as economic sanctions) are based upon such fabrications, and ‘evidence’ taken out of its full context, as this from the far-right Forbes commentator Paul Roderick Gregory, but there are no such fakes, nor out-of-context items of evidence, in the case that has been presented here. That’s the difference between news-reporting versus propaganda; but, in the United States today, propaganda passes as if it were ‘news,’ and authentic news that doesn’t fit the regime’s cooked-up narrative is suppressed entirely. The scandal isn’t just Obama, and it’s not just Ukraine; it is also the propaganda-organs, and even (though to the least extent) their audiences who subscribe to such lying ‘news’-media.
Western governments, and their ‘news’ media, are treating their citizens, their own publics, not really as citizens, but as suckers. They are treating them as subjects, instead of as citizens. This is not authentic democracy. It is neo-feudal; it is, in fact, fascism.
The entire “Buk” ‘explanation’ of the downing of the Malaysian airliner (the idea that only a Buk missile caused the physical wreckage which was found) is for suckers only; and everyone in official circles, and in the press, who peddles it, is just as fake as the ridiculous story-line that he or she is peddling. To fall for it, after being provided all of the authentic evidence, which has been linked-to here, one would have to be a willing slave to psychopaths. In this case, the psychopath was Obama, who not only had perpetrated a bloody coup to overthrow the democratically elected President of Ukraine in February 2014 but who also was now struggling, and had a very pressing obsession, to get the EU to accept his sanctions against Russia for its having accepted the pleas of Crimeans (who had voted 75% for that President) to become restored again to Russia. The 14 July 2014 mass-murder that was set up to be blamed against Russia was Obama’s trick that enabled him to win his way on this.
CONCLUSIONS:
By no means do we know every detail about how the MH17 was shot down, but what we do now know for certain is that the narrative for that event which was supplied by Ukraine’s team on May 24th — the official account of how it happened — isn’t just false; it is outright fraudulent. Ukraine’s team supplied evidence which, if it is authentic, actually convicts Ukraine. And Western ‘news’-media hide this crucial fact.
So, now, we know why Western governments have hidden, instead of making available to the public, the black-box data and the other evidence that they still refuse to provide to the public. They are aiming to scam the public, not to inform it. Lying is their game. They might call it ‘patriotism.’ Traitors would likely do that. Traitors to any country could do it. And, so, they do. Their believers constitute their political base.
Unfortunately, anyone they fool becomes their tool, and everyone else is purely their victim — helpless to oust (much less, to replace) the tyrants who make things bad for everyone but themselves and their colleagues, the insiders at the very top.
Just the day before the MH17 shoot-down, Bloomberg News had headlined, on 16 July 2014, “EU Readies Russia Sanctions Amid US Pressure on Ukraine”, and reported that “the US urges the bloc to take a tougher stance against Moscow.” The day before that, on July 15th, Bloomberg’s headline had been “EU Leaders Weigh Sanctions Against Russia Over Ukraine”, and that report opened, “European Union leaders meeting in Brussels will consider expanded sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine conflict, as the US urges the bloc to take a tougher stand against Moscow.” Was the July 17th event only coincidentally timed perfectly in order to achieve what Obama was determined to produce: the first Ukraine-based anti-Russia sanctions? The regime that Obama had installed in Ukraine in February 2014 needed not only his support, but also the support of the IMF (in order to obtain loans), and of the EU (which it was seeking to join). There was probably even more pressure placed upon the leaders in Ukraine than there was upon the leaders in the EU. But there was plenty upon them both. The EU was widely reported to be balking at increasing the sanctions against Russia. Obama needed the EU to approve quickly his increased sanctions, so as to keep the momentum going for his entire anti-Russian campaign, which had been the reason behind his February 2014 coup in Ukraine. Something dramatic now was needed, in order for Obama to win the EU’s full cooperation. After all, Obama had secretly started at least by 2011 his operation to take over Ukraine. This operation was, for him, one of the central objectives of his entire two-term Presidency. Ukraine — and Ukraine alone — now had within its power the capacity to deliver to him the EU’s participation. Ukraine delivered it, precisely when it was the most urgently needed. This was essential in order for Ukraine to be able to enter the EU. And entering the EU would be essential in order for Ukraine to be able to enter NATO — the next key step in the Bilderbergers’ plan.
Perhaps the survivors’ families and Malaysia Airlines (which is owned by the Malaysian Government), and their Governments, will file both civil and criminal charges now initially against Ukraine and its President Petro Poroshenko, and ultimately against Victoria Nuland, Barack Obama, and the United States, but also against the Dutch Government, for its collusion with the United States Government in its fraudulent ‘investigation’ that had pre-established blame against Russia. (However, the secret agreement that Malaysia signed to join the JIT might prohibit Malaysia from joining such suits.) Netherlands pre-established Russian blame especially by means of its 8 August 2014 secret four-party agreement (joined later by Malaysia’s Government) to allow Ukraine, an actual suspect in this case, to hold veto power over the assignment of blame in this entire matter. However, not only the survivors of the 298 victims should be suing, but all of the victims should be represented in this case. There were also many violations of international laws. Obama’s coup against Ukraine was one such. The MH17 shoot-down resulted from that coup, couldn’t have occurred without it, and was an extension from it. That coup is thus an important part of the MH17 case.
On 20 September 2017, the now 5 countries in the JIT signed a joint “Memorandum of Understanding” saying “Arrangements for signatories and other grieving nations to make financial contributions to the national proceedings in the Netherlands will be laid down in a financial memorandum of understanding,” and that “This Memorandum will remain in effect for five years and will be automatically extended for successive five-year periods.” So, they intend to continue their ‘investigation’ into MH17 until they can present to the world evidence that Russia did it. Perhaps before that happens, however, all of the victims and their children will already have passed away and this fraud and farce will finally end, as secretly as it began, and only few people will even care, anymore, about it.
Or will victims and their families, instead, initiate whatever legal proceedings they can, right now, against all members of the JIT, for their cover-up, and against the ringleaders, in the US, who demanded this mass-murder to be done, and against the perpetrators in Ukraine, who actually ordered and did it?
Maybe they’ll even be able to get Barack Obama to return to the Nobel committee their 2009 Peace Prize.
Now, which major news-media in The West will report these solidly documented facts? Isn’t it time, finally, that they should start doing that? Or, do they have no honor, at all?
THE NEW ARAB – More that 600,000 Israeli Jews live in illegal settlements on Palestinian land.
A Malaysian NGO has become the first organisation in the world to file a lawsuit against Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC), claiming that the state has violated United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334.
The resolution, which was passed in 2016, reaffirmed that Israeli settlements on Palestinian land since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a violation of international law.
The Malaysia-based My Aqsa Foundation said Israel’s continued settlement activity in the occupied territories is an insult to the UN’s authority.
“This resolution requires Israel to immediately stop all illegal activities in the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem and the West Bank,” MyAqsa chief executive Noorazman Mohamed Samsuddin was quoted by Free Malaysia Today as saying. “MyAqsa is convinced that the violation of Resolution 2334 will cause chaos and security instability not only in West Asia but also throughout the world,” he added.
MyAqsa’s CEO said that the group formalised the claims against Israel on Wednesday. He added that studies by his NGO had shown that Israel has violated at least 28 Security Council resolutions.
The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2334 in December 2016, however, it is only recommendatory in nature. The UNSC is unable to take punitive action against Israel to force it to abide by Resolution 2334.
Today, more than 600,000 Israelis live in settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, in constructions considered illegal under international law.
I’m sitting at the splendid building of the Singapore National Library, in a semi-dark room, microfilm inserted into a high-tech machine. I’m watching and then filming and photographing several old Malaysian newspapers dating back from October 1965.
These reports were published right after the horrible 1965 military coup in Indonesia, which basically overthrew the progressive President Sukarno and liquidated then the third largest Communist party on Earth, PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia). Between one and three million Indonesian people lost their lives in some of the most horrifying massacres of the 20th century. From a socialist (and soon to be Communist) country, Indonesia descended into the present pits of turbo-capitalist, as well as religious and extreme right-wing gaga.
The United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Holland and several other Western nations, directly sponsored the coup, while directing both the pro-Western treasonous factions in the military, as well as the religious leaders who stood, from the start, at the forefront of the genocide.
All this information is, of course, widely available in the de-classified archives of both the CIA and U.S. State Department. It can be accessed, analyzed and reproduced. I personally made a film about the events, and so have several other directors.
But it isn’t part of the memory of humanity. In Southeast Asia, it is known only to a handful of intellectuals.
In Malaysia, Singapore or Thailand, the Indonesian post-1965 fascism is a taboo topic. It is simply not discussed. “Progressive” intellectuals here are, like in all other ‘client’ states of the West, paid to be preoccupied with their sex orientation, with gender issues and personal ‘freedoms’, but definitely not with the essential matters (Western imperialism, neo-colonialism, the savage and grotesque forms of capitalism, the plunder of local natural resources and environment, as well as disinformation, plus the forcefully injected ignorance that is accompanied by mass amnesia) that have been shaping so extremely and so negatively this part of the world.
In Indonesia itself, the Communist Party is banned and the general public sees it as a culprit, not as a victim.
The West is laughing behind the back of its brainwashed victims. It is laughing all the way to the bank.
Lies are obviously paying off.
No other part of the world has suffered from Western imperialism as much after WWII, as Southeast Asia did, perhaps with two exceptions, those of Africa and the Middle East.
In so-called Indochina, the West murdered close to ten million people, during the indiscriminate bombing campaigns and other forms of terror – in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The above mentioned Indonesian coup took at least 1 million human lives. 30% of the population of East Timor was exterminated by the Indonesian occupation, which was fully supported by the West. The Thai regime, fully subservient to the West, killed indiscriminately its leftists in the north and in the capital. The entire region has been suffering from extreme religious implants, sponsored by the West itself, and by its allies from the Gulf.
But the West is admired here, with an almost religious zeal.
The U.S., British and French press agencies and ‘cultural centers’ are spreading disinformation through local media outlets owned by subservient ‘elites’. Local ‘education’ has been devotedly shaped by Western didactic concepts. In places like Malaysia, Indonesia, but also Thailand, the greatest achievement is to graduate from university in one of the countries that used to colonize this part of the world.
Victim countries, instead of seeking compensation in courts, are actually admiring and plagiarizing the West, while pursuing, even begging for funding from their past and present tormentors.
Southeast Asia, now obedient, submissive, phlegmatic and stripped off the former revolutionary left-wing ideologies, is where the Western indoctrination and propaganda scored unquestionable victory.
The same day, I turned on the television set in my hotel room, and watched the Western coverage of the situation in Idlib, the last stronghold of the Western-sponsored terrorists on Syrian territory.
Russia has called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting warning that the terrorists might stage a chemical attack, and then blame it, together with the West, on the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.
NATO battleships have been deployed to the region. There can be no doubt – it has been a ‘good old’ European/North American scenario at work, once again: ‘We hit you, kill your people, and then bomb you as a punishment’.
Imperialist gangsters then point accusative fingers at the victims (in this case Syria) and at those who are trying to protect them (Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, China). Just like in a kindergarten, or a primary school; remember? A boy hits someone from behind and then screams, pointing at someone else: “It was him, it was him!” Miraculously, until now, the West has always gotten away with this ‘strategy’, of course, at the cost of billions of victims, on all continents.
That is how it used to be for centuries, and that is how it still works. That is how it will continue to be, until such terror and gangsterism is stopped.
For years and decades, we were told that the world is now increasingly inter-connected, that nothing of great importance could happen, without it being immediately spotted and reported by vigilant media lenses, and ‘civil society’.
Yet, thousands of things are happening and no one is noticing.
Just in the last two decades, entire countries have been singled-out by North America and Europe, then half-starved to death through embargos and sanctions, before being finally attacked and broken to pieces: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya to mention just a few. Governments of several left-wing nations have been overthrown either from outside, or through their own, local, servile elites and media; among them Brazil, Honduras and Paraguay. Countless Western companies and their local cohorts are committing the unbridled plunder of natural resources in such places as Borneo/Kalimantan or the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), totally ruining tropical forests while murdering hundreds of species.
Are we, as a planet, really inter-connected? How much do people know about each other, or about what is done to their brothers and sisters on different continents?
I have worked in some 160 countries, and I can testify without the slightest hesitation: ‘Almost nothing’. And: ‘Less and much less!’
The Western empire and its lies, has managed to fragment the world to previously unknown extremes. It is all done ‘in the open’, in full view of the world, which is somehow unable to see and identify the most urgent threats to its survival. Mass media propaganda outlets are serving as vehicles of indoctrination, so do cultural and ‘educational’ institutions of the West or those local ones shaped by the Western concepts. That includes such diverse ‘tools’ as universities, Internet traffic manipulators, censors and self-censored individuals, social media, advertisement agencies and pop culture ‘artists’.
There is a clear pattern to Western colonialist and neo-colonialist barbarity and lies:
Indonesian President Sukarno and his closest ally the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) were trying to build a progressive and self-sufficient country. Therefore, they had to be stopped, government overthrown, party members massacred, PKI itself banned and the entire country privatized; sold to foreign interests. The overwhelming majority of Indonesians are so brainwashed by the local and Western propaganda that they still blame the Communists for the 1965 coup, no matter what the CIA archives say.’
Mossadegh of Iran was on the same, progressive course. And he ended up the same way as Sukarno. And the whole world was then charmed by the butcher, who was put to power by the West – the Shah and his lavish wife.
Chile in 1973, and thereafter, the same deadly pattern occurred, more evidence of how freedom-loving and democratic the West is.
Patrice Lumumba of Congo nationalized natural resources and tried to feed and educate his great nation. Result? Overthrown, killed. The price: some 8 million people massacred in the last two decades, or maybe many more than that (see my film: Rwanda Gambit). Nobody knows, or everyone pretends that they don’t know.
Syria! The biggest ‘crime’ of this country, at least in the eyes of the West, consisted of trying to provide its citizens with high quality of life, while promoting Pan-Arabism. The results we all know (or do we, really?): hundreds of thousands killed by West-sponsored murderous extremists, millions exiled and millions internally displaced. And the West, naturally, is blaming Syrian President, and is ready to ‘punish him’ if he wins the war.
Irrational? But can global-scale fascism ever be rational?
The lies that are being spread by the West are piling up. They overlap, often contradict one another. But the world public is not trained to search for the truth, anymore. Subconsciously it senses that it is being lied to, but the truth is so horrifying, that the great majority of people prefer to simply take selfies, analyze and parade its sexual orientation, stick earphones into its ears and listen to empty pop music, instead of fighting for the survival of humanity.
A soothing voice, calm body language, and a friendly face. Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is on TV again.
Modern life does not leave too much time for television anymore. People have to run harder than ever to make ends meet; that is why, perhaps, they have become more selective regarding the programs they watch because the time spared for this activity is very limited. But, there’s always time to watch the Sayyed deliver his speech; if not for its calming and reassuring effect, then for a true understanding of what is happening in the region.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s speech commemorating thetwelfth anniversary of victory against “Israel’s” last campaign of destruction was nothing less than what is always expected from the leader of the Lebanese Resistance: Dose after dose of encouragement for the common man based on informative current life events’ analysis. The Sayyed has never been known to have ever said anything untrue or exaggerated; his credibility is actually so high, it is said that the part of the “Israeli” public searching for the truth makes it a point to follow up on his television appearances.
Sayyed Nasrallah begins his speech with the usual courtesy he is famed to furnish for everyone. He gives thanks to the heroes of the battlefield along with the country’s armed forces and security forces and then moves on to thank the past and present presidents, prime ministers, and speakers of the parliament. He thanks the victims of the “Israeli” aggression and, generally, all the good people of the world. Gratitude did not spare Iran and Syria for their support.
The central topic of the Sayyed’s speech was the US scheme to assign “Israel” as the major force in the region and how the first phase of this plan was to eradicate Hezbollah to leave a void in the axis of countries refusing to sell the Palestinian cause. He said that “Israel’s” failure to wipe out Hezbollah delayed actioning the remaining phases and even helped in the further failure of breaking Syria and Iran.
The Sayyed explained the Zionist strategies and showed how they all crumbled down to a point where “Israel” now suffers, more than ever, from disarray on all levels; including the cabinet whose ministers fight among themselves continuously. On the other hand, he showed how the resistance and its allies are now, more than ever, stronger in every way.
Global intelligence services, according to the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, are among the parties waiting in line to open negotiations with the Syrian government. Now that it is a matter of little time until Syria declares total victory, the issue of repatriation of foreign terrorists has become a priority in the worries’ scale. The Europeans will not back up a Trump request to give the Golan Heights to “Israel” for good and risk losing relations with the Syrian government whose security cooperation is much needed.
Trump’s administration is slowly facing a growing international isolation, Saudi Arabia has lost its top men in Malaysia and Pakistan as well as its war on Yemen, and Israel who has supported the Syrian so-called rebels in every imaginable way has lost all bets against the legal Syrian government. The situation faced by the enemies of the righteous axis is disastrous.
This was just a part of what the Sayyed had discussed. He promised to continue with new topics and expand some of the ones he had already mentioned when he gives his next speech on the occasion of the victory against “Israel’s” losing tools in Lebanon, the terrorists of “ISIS” and others.
Listening to the Secretary-General of Hezbollah is a true pleasure. No one else can lift away the frustration caused by the Zionist media machine like he does. His strength and positive attitude are contagious just like his tone of voice and manners are loveable. The man is very real in words and actions; he deals with people’s daily concerns. Sayyed Nasrallah warned against falling for shady social media news and statements. He extended a wish that everyone contemplates what they have heard or seen before taking a position. Has social media not proved to be the new age epidemic of modern societies in so many instances?
Thank God for the presence of such decent and professional names in the journalism industry as Mr. Imad Marmal, Mrs. Manar Sabbagh and many more. They are the pillars that hold the ceiling of truth high in the media world that Sayyed Nasrallah is warning us about.
It would be unwarranted to worry about Lebanon in the presence of men like Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
– يعرف خبراء المال والاقتصاد أن الفارق كبير بين دعوات البعض للعودة إلى الذهب كضامن للاحتياط النقدي للحكومات كضامن لعملتها الوطنية، وبين إصدار عملة جديدة لدولة بعينها أو لدول عدة معاً. وبالمقابل معنى أن تكون العملة الجديدة ذهبية، خصوصاً عندما تكون جامعة لمدى يتخطى دولة واحدة، فالخيار الأول بات غير واقعي منذ خروج الولايات المتحدة الأميركية من اتفاقية بريتون وودز التي أقرّت عام 1945 وربطت الدولار بالذهب بسعر ثابت مقابل اعتماد الدولار عملياً لتسعير سائر العملات، وفي عام 1971 فكت واشنطن ربط الدلاور بالذهب وبقي الدولار مهيمناً على سوق العملات، وأي عودة تستدعي موافقة أميركية مستحيلة، وشمولاً عالمياً مستحيلاً أيضاً، هذا عدا عن ميل الحكومات بلا استثناء للحفاظ على حرية إصدرات نقدية بلا عبء توفير تغطيتها الذهبية وتحمل نتائجها التضخمية للالتفاف والمناورة على الأزمات التي تواجهها في الأسواق والموازنات.
– معلوم أن إصدار عملة جديدة في أي بلد هو شأن سيادي خاص، أكانت ذهبية أم ورقية، كحال الجنيه الاسترليني والجنيه الكندي الذهبي المابل ومثلها رغم قلة التداول عملات الباندا الصينية والجاموس والنسر الأميركيين، وكذلك إصدار عملة عابرة لعدد من الدول شأن يخص الدول المتعاقدة كما هو حال اليورو بين دول الاتحاد الأوروبي، والذي مرّ بمرحلة تساكن مؤقتة بين دول الاتحاد قبل أن يصبح بديلاً كلياً لها، كما هو معلوم أن الخروج الأميركي من ربط الدولار بالذهب عائد إلى كون ثلاثية العملية المالية الأميركية عبر العالم تتكوّن من المكانة التجارية للبضائع الأميركية كشريك تجاري أول لكل بلاد العالم، والمكانة المصرفية للمصارف الأميركية كمهيمن على اللعبة المصرفية، والضلع الثالث لهذا الثنائي هو العقوبات التي استفحل استخدامها، وصارت قيداً حقيقياً على الاستقلال الاقتصادي والنمو لاقتصادات العالم، وصار التفلّت منها ومن آثارها المدمرة أمام التوحش الأميركي في اللجوء إليها مرهون بتحرير التجارة البينية للدول، أي عمليات المتاجرة التي لا تتم مع أميركا ولا بواسطتها، من قيد المرور بالمصارف الأميركية والعملة الأميركية.
– تصطدم محاولات اللجوء إلى العملات القوية الموجودة في التداول لإجراء العمليات المالية والتجارية بواسطتها، بمخاطرة تهرّب المصارف الكبرى في دول المنشأ للعملات القوية من إغضاب المصارف الأميركية وخشيتها من التعرّض للعقوبات الأميركية بداعي المضاربة غير المشروعة على الدولار، ولذلك تأتي الحاجة لبدائل من خارج السياق التقليدي المألوف، خصوصاً في تبادل السلع الاستراتيجية كالنفط والغاز، والتي تشكل حساباتها المالية مصدر قوة لسيطرة الدولار الأميركي وعبره السياسات الأميركية في العالم، وسبباً للتحكم الأميركي بدول وحكومات، ومحاولات إخضاع وترويض للبعض الآخر، وفي الأشهر الأخيرة دخل العالم مع حالة من اللاعقلانية الأميركية تهدد بتدمير اقتصادات دول، في ظل أزمة اقتصادية أميركية يجري السعي لمواجهتها بالاستناد لسياسة ضرائبية وجمركية تتغوّل تدريجاً لتصير أقرب للعقوبات وفرض الغرامات والخوّات على الاقتصاد العالمي، وفي ظل عجز أميركي عن فرض الهيمنة عبر القوة العسكري فتحل العقوبات بديلاً منها، وصار البديل العقلاني للتعامل الحصري بالدولار الأميركي، وليس للبديل الدائم ولا الشامل عنه ضرورة اقتصادية وتنموية وسياسية للعديد من الدول.
– عام 2003 قام الاقتصادي الآسيوي رئيس حكومة ماليزيا يومها والعائد إلى الحكم الآن، مهاتير محمد، وأثناء انعقاد القمة الإسلامية في بلده وترؤسه لها بطرح مشروع الدينار الذهبي الإسلامي، الذي لاقى ترحيباً نظرياً واسعاً يومها، وبات واضحاً أن جهوداً أميركية حثيثة بذلت لإطاحته ومن ثم إطاحة مهاتير محمد نفسه، وليس خافياً كم كان للسعودية دور محوري في المهمتين. ولم يكن بعيداً عن الإسناد للموقف السعودي بطلب أميركي كل من حكومتي تركيا، العضو في حلف الأطلسي والساعية لنمو تحت العباءة الأميركية يومها، وباكستان الواقعة تحت نفوذ أميركي سعودي مزدوج، والمعتمدة على الدعم المالي السعودي والدعم العسكري الأميركي، يومها، وفيما رحّبت إيران بالمشروع ذهب ترحيبها أدراج الرياح بصفتها دولة واقعة تحت الحصار والعقوبات من الجانب الأميركي وقد وجدت متنفساً في المشروع.
– اليوم وفيما تتحرّر باكستان بفوز حزب الإنصاف ورئيسه عمران خان المناوئين لأميركا والسعودية بالأغلبية النيابية، وتصادم أنقرة وواشنطن على الصعيدين السياسي والاقتصادي وصولاً لحرب عملات تخوضها واشنطن على العملة التركية. ويعود مهاتير محمد إلى سدة القرار الماليزي بمواجهة الهيمنة الأميركية السعودية، وتستعدّ إيران لمواجهة حزمات العقوبات المتصاعدة، يبدو التطلّع للعودة لمشروع الدينار الذهبي الإسلامي أكثر من ضرورة للدول التي يشكل مجموعها السكاني، قرابة نصف مليار نسمة، ويشكل حجم اقتصاداتها ما مجموعه قرابة ثلاثة تريليونات دولار، وفيما تشكل إيران الدولة الوحيدة المنتجة للنفط والغاز تشكل تركيا وباكستان أهم ممرات لأنابيب النفط والغاز وتشكل ماليزيا اهم دولة لمصافي النفط وصناعة البتروكيمياويات، وتشكل تجارة النفط والغاز وصناعة المشتقات قرابة نصف تريليون دولار في الدول الأربع وحدها كقطاع يمكن البدء به فوراً باعتماد الدينار الذهبي الإسلامي كعملة لتبادل النفط والغاز ومشتقاتهما وصناعاتهما، بينما يوضع الدينار الذهبي الإسلامي في سلة العملات المتداولة عالمياً، ويمكن تبادل السلع بواسطته مع دول كروسيا والصين وسائر دول البريكس، وعدد من الدول الأوروبية، عدا أن وضعه في التداول سيتكفّل وحده عبر تسعير العملات المحلية بالقياس له بحماية هذه العملات من الحرب الأميركية عليها وتردّداتها.
للمرة الثانية في 2018، يستهدف العدو كادراً في «حماس» في الخارج. فبعد محاولة فاشلة لاغتيال محمد حمدان في صيدا، استشهد المهندس فادي البطش في كوالالمبور، ليظهر أن سياسة الاغتيالات لم تتوقف، وهو ما يضع الحركة أمام اختبار الرد، في ظل قرارها التاريخي والمعروف بوقف العمل في الخارج
لم تكن عملية اغتيال المهندس «القسامي» فادي البطش في العاصمة الماليزية كوالالمبور، فجر أول من أمس (السبت)، استثناء مقارنة بعمليات الاغتيال الإسرائيلية التي ينفذها العدو في اتجاهين: الأول استهداف القيادة العسكرية والأمنية أو الكوادر الناشطين، والثاني قتل العقول المسؤولة عن تطوير قدرات المقاومة خلال السنوات الأخيرة، وهو ما يدفع وفق أوساط قريبة في «حماس» إلى «التفكير جدياً في نقل جزء من المعركة مع الاحتلال خارج فلسطين المحتلة»، لكنه قرار لم يتخذ بعد، خصوصاً أن القرار الحركي على صعيد المكتب السياسي هو تجنّب أي عمل خارج فلسطين.
السبب في هذا الاتجاه في التفكير هو استمرار تلقي «حماس» ضربات قاسية (اغتيال محمود المبحوح في الإمارات، ومحمد الزواري في تونس، وأخيراً فادي البطش، مع عدد من المحاولات منها ما صارت معلنة مثل محمد حمدان في لبنان وأخرى أخفيت لأسباب أمنية)، فيما يتسبب السكوت عن هذه الضربات في خلل في معادلة الردع، إذ لا تفكر إسرائيل في عواقب هذه العمليات، خصوصاً أنها لم تنفذ عملياتها في «دول مفتوحة» (بسبب سهولة الدخول والخروج) فقط، بل حتى في دول مثل لبنان وتونس. ومن بوادر هذا القرار التهديد اللافت لرئيس المكتب السياسي للحركة، إسماعيل هنية، الذي توعد فيه بنقل المعركة إلى الخارج، إذ قال أمس، إن «المعركة مع إسرائيل انتقلت إلى خارج الأراضي المحتلة، وللعدو حساب مفتوح مع الشعب الفلسطيني، لا سيما أنه ينقل المعركة إلى الخارج».
ووفق المعلومات، كان البطش (35 سنة) يعمل مع فريق من المختصين على «تطوير القدرات العسكرية بهدف إنجاز مفاجآت للاحتلال وإيلامه في أي معركة مقبلة»، وهو غادر قطاع غزة عام 2012 لإكمال دراسته العلمية في ماليزيا. وخلال رحلات في الخارج إلى عدد من الدول، التقى عدداً من الخبراء بهدف توفير دعم علمي وتقني يطور القدرات العسكرية للمقاومة بما في ذلك أدوات تتجاوز الوسائل التكنولوجية التي يمتلكها الاحتلال.
وبينما تبنت الحركة الشهيد ووصفته بأنه «ابنها العالم»، التزم جناحها العسكري «كتائب القسام» الصمت إعلامياً ورسمياً، لكن وُضعت لافتة كبيرة أمام بيت عائلته مكتوب عليها «القائد القسامي». ووفق مصادر، لم تعلن «القسام» رسمياً التبني لأسباب عدة أبرزها تجنب إحراج الحكومة الماليزية، لأن ذلك قد يؤثر في وضع الطلبة الفلسطينيين هناك، وأيضاً انتظاراً لوصول الجثمان. من ناحية ثانية، يوجب التبني الرسمي في هذه المرحلة حدوث رد عسكري من غزة، وهو ما قد يشوش على «مسيرات العودة» على حدود القطاع.
للبطش أبحاث في مجال الطائرات المسيرة وإنتاج الصواريخ
ووفق التقييم داخل «القسام»، يبدو أن الاستخبارات الإسرائيلية وضعت البطش في قائمة المراقبة خلال السنوات الماضية بعد تقديمه عدداً من الأبحاث التي يمكن للمقاومة الاستفادة منها في مجال الطائرات المسيرة من دون طيار وأيضاً إنتاج الصواريخ التي يمكن توجيهها بدقة كبيرة. وفيما جاء اغتيال البطش قبل يوم من قراره السفر إلى تركيا للمشاركة في مؤتمر علمي، يسود تقدير لدى أمن المقاومة أن الوصول إلى البطش واتخاذ قرار اغتياله جاء نتيجة تواصله مع أشخاص تراقبهم إسرائيل، وتتهمهم بالعمل لمصلحة المقاومة.
في المقابل، أظهرت التصريحات الإسرائيلية حجم سعادة كبيراً باغتيال البطش، إذ قال عضو المجلس الوزاري المصغر (الكابينت) يوآف جالنت، «سنطارد كل واحد حتى لو كان على حافة العالم ونحضره إلى المحكمة أو يموت ويذهب إلى مقبرة». أما وزير الأمن أفيغدور ليبرمان، فقال في مقابلة مع القناة الثانية: «لم يكن الرجل صديقاً ولم يعمل على تحسين البنية التحتية في غزة، لقد كان يعمل على تحسين دقة الصواريخ… تصفية الحسابات مع المنظمات الإرهابية أمر نراه كل يوم، وأفترض أن هذا أيضاً ما حدث في هذه الحالة»، مطالباً السلطات المصرية بمنع نقل الجثمان إلى غزة. وتخشى عائلة البطش من أن ترضخ القاهرة للطلب الإسرائيلي، خصوصاً أن ليبرمان كان قد قال في العشرين من كانون الثاني الماضي إن مصر تنسق مع إسرائيل في عدد من القضايا منها إدارة معبر رفح.
في سياق متصل، قال المحلل العسكري في صحيفة «معاريف» العبرية، يوسي مليمان، إن التفاصيل تشير إلى أن العملية جاءت باحترافية تشابه طرق الاغتيال التي يستخدمها «الموساد»، وهي تشابه عملية اغتيال فتحي الشقاقي عام 1995، وعدداً من العلماء النوويين الإيرانيين في أوقات أخرى (استهدف البطش عبر شخصين كانا على دراجة نارية وأطلقا عليه 10 رصاصات أصيب بـ4 منها، إحداها اخترقت رأسه من الخلف، ليستشهد من الفور). ويقول مليمان إن «ماليزيا التي لا تربطها علاقات رسمية بإسرائيل أصبحت أخيراً قاعدة تدريبات لعناصر حماس العسكرية، والبطش كان ناشطاً في القسام… وقد كتب مقالات عدة عن تسيير الطائرات كهربائياً، وكان يعمل على تطوير قدرات حماس الهجومية».
أما القناة العاشرة، فقالت إن عملية الاغتيال في ماليزيا «محاولة لضرب الدفء الذي تمنحه الدولة الآسيوية لحماس، إذ إنها تجنّد الطلاب هناك وتؤهلهم عسكرياً في تركيا ثم ترسلهم إلى الضفة الغربية لتأسيس خلايا مسلحة». في غضون ذلك، قالت السلطات الماليزية إنها فتحت تحقيقاً في الحادثة وطلبت مساعدة «منظمة الشرطة الجنائية الدولية» (انتربول) و «منظمة الشرطة في دول جنوب شرقي آسيا» (آسيانبول).
يذكر أن البطش أب لثلاثة أطفال، وقد حصل على درجتي البكالوريوس والماجستير في الهندسة الكهربائية من الجامعة الإسلامية في غزة أواخر 2009، ثم حصل على قبول من جامعة مالايا الماليزية لدراسة الدكتوراه. وخلال دراسته، أعدّ عشرات الأبحاث أهمّها عن رفع كفاءة شبكات نقل الطاقة الكهربائية باستخدام تكنولوجيا إلكترونيات القوى، كما عمل محاضراً في جامعة ماليزية خاصة. ونتيجة لكفاءته العلمية نال عدداً من الجوائز العلمية الرفيعة منها منحة «خزانة» الحكومية المعدّة للماليزيين، لكنه كان أول عربي يحصل عليها في 2016. وقد كان في طريقه لإمامة صلاة الفجر في أحد المساجد في ضاحية غومباك في العاصمة.
December 16, 2016 (Tony Cartalucci – NEO) – Parroting the US State Department’s rhetoric, almost verbatim to justify the decision, a UK envoy vowed to fly warplanes over, and sail warships through the South China Sea over “concerns” regarding “freedom of navigation there.”
The envoy, Kim Darroch, told a Washington think tank that British Typhoon aircraft currently deployed on a visit to Japan would fly across disputed parts of the South China Sea to assert international overflight rights, but gave no time frame. Speaking at an event also attended by Japan’s ambassador to Washington, Darroch said that most future British defense capacity would have to be directed toward the Middle East, but added: “Certainly, as we bring our two new aircraft carriers onstream in 2020, and as we renew and update our defense forces, they will be seen in the Pacific.
The time frame of 2020 assumes that the United States will still have any significant presence in the region, somehow reversing the otherwise irreversible retreat it has been undergoing throughout Asia-Pacific over the past decade.
The US Has Run Out of Friends in Asia, So Brings Along Europe
Client regimes the United States and its European allies have cultivated throughout the region have either turned on them or have been effectively removed from power, or even the prospect of ever holding power again.
The Philippines, quite literally a territory of the United States until the end of World War 2, and a nation that vacillated between independence from and interdependence with Washington for decades since, has recently become more vocal about perceived inequities in Manila-Washington relations. This is primarily because of the much more significant – and growing – ties Manila has with Beijing.
US-backed opposition forces in Malaysia have repeatedly tried and failed to oust the ruling government in street protests led by Anwar Ibrahim’s political alliance under the brand name “Bersih.”
In neighboring Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra and his political opposition party were ousted from power in 2014 and have since been incrementally picked apart through legislative and judicial proceedings. Even as Shinawatra clung to power, Thailand’s establishment began shifting away from Cold War ties with the US and toward closer ties with not only Beijing, but also Moscow as well as its regional neighbors.
In Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party are increasingly hemorrhaging political legitimacy as her followers carry out what could be described as genocide against Myanmar’s Rohingya minority. The United States has cynically elected to draw an increasing amount of attention to this in a bid to prevent Suu Kyi from double dealing with both Washington and Beijing.
Vietnam has recently showed reluctance to sign the US-initiated and dominated Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement, being one of the few nations in Southeast Asia to have agreed to it in the first place, while Cambodia’s previously pro-Western government headed by Hun Sen has become increasingly vocal about US meddling both in Cambodia, and across the region, openly taking Beijing’s side in the South China Sea dispute.
Even Indonesia finds itself increasingly repelled by America’s overbearing stick and its increasingly unappealing carrot.
Collectively, the region is attempting to rebalance itself to accommodate and cooperate with the rise of China, and create checks and balances in the void America’s mismanaged “Pacific Century” has left.
The Specter of Empire
It is perhaps ironic that the United States finds itself increasingly isolated in Asia amid its own attempts to isolate Beijing. It is also ironic that it is ending its “Pacific Century” the same way it began, side-by-side European nations attempting to impose Western interests on a region of the planet quite literally oceans away.
However, unlike during the age of empires, the US and any European nation that joins it in Asia-Pacific today, will find a region of the planet on parity with Western technology, wealth and power. Militarily speaking, the number of facilities the US and its European allies can exploit in the region are shrinking both in number and in relative significance to growing Asian military power – including China’s expanding Pacific forces.
However, in addition to military power, the US still maintains vast political and media networks throughout Asia. The US State Department’s Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) aims to indoctrinate thousands of young Asian students and professionals, provide them with both fronts to operate as well as significant financial and political support to continue their work, all in an effort to transform the region’s values and principles to align with Washington’s interests.
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), its subsidiaries, and “aid” organizations like USAID all continue to build opposition fronts aimed at pressuring and altogether overthrowing political establishments across Asia. Together, this signifies a US that may be in retreat, but a US that still poses a potent threat to peace, stability, and prosperity across the region.
The inclusion of British forces in Asia-Pacific to augment US provocations presents a threat to Asian stability. With Asia increasingly trading among themselves and with the rest of Eurasia, instability brought by US-European meddling is perhaps the only threat that could actually undermine “freedom of navigation,” trade, and economic growth – the very things the US claims its presence in Asia-Pacific is meant to protect.
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
The South China Sea is and will continue to be the ultimate geopolitical flashpoint of the young 21st century – way ahead of the Middle East or Russia’s western borderlands. No less than the future of Asia – as well as the East-West balance of power – is at stake.
To understand the Big Picture, we need to go back to 1890 when Alfred Mahan, then president of the US Naval College, wrote the seminal The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783. Mahan’s central thesis is that the US should go global in search of new markets, and protect these new trade routes through a network of naval bases.
That is the embryo of the US Empire of Bases – which de facto started after the Spanish-American war, over a century ago, when the US graduated to Pacific power status by annexing the Philippines, Hawaii and Guam.
Western – American and European — colonialism is strictly responsible for the current, incendiary sovereignty battle in the South China Sea. It’s the West that came up with most land borders – and maritime borders — of these states.The roll call is quite impressive. Philippines and Indonesia were divided by Spain and Portugal in 1529. The division between Malaysia and Indonesia is owed to the British and the Dutch in 1842. The border between China and Vietnam was imposed to the Chinese by the French in 1887. The Philippines’s borders were concocted by the US and Spain in 1898. The border between Philippines and Malaysia was drawn by the US and the Brits in 1930.
We are talking about borders between different colonial possessions – and that implies intractable problems from the start, subsequently inherited by post-colonial nations. And to think that it had all started as a loose configuration. The best anthropological studies (Bill Solheim’s, for instance) define the semi-nomadic communities who really traveled and traded across the South China Sea from time immemorial as the Nusantao – an Austronesian compound word for “south island” and “people”.
The Nusantao were not a defined ethnic group; rather a maritime internet. Over the centuries, they had many key hubs, from the coastline between central Vietnam and Hong Kong to the Mekong Delta. They were not attached to any “state”, and the notion of “borders” didn’t even exist.Only by the late 19th century the Westphalian system managed to freeze the South China Sea inside an immovable framework. Which brings us to why China is so sensitive about its borders; because they are directly linked to the “century of humiliation” – when internal Chinese corruption and weakness allowed Western barbarians to take possession of Chinese land.
Tension in the nine-dash line
The eminent Chinese geographer Bai Meichu was a fierce nationalist who drew his own version of what was called the “Chinese National Humiliation Map”. In 1936 he published a map including a “U-shaped line” gobbling up the South China Sea all the way down to James Shoal, which is 1,500 km south of China but only over 100 km off Borneo. Scores of maps copied Meichu’s. Most included the Spratly Islands, but not James Shoal.
The crucial fact is that Bai was the man who actually invented the “nine-dash line”, promoted by the Chinese government – then not yet Communist – as the letter of the law in terms of “historic” Chinese claims over islands in the South China Sea.
Everything stopped when Japan invaded China in 1937. Japan had occupied Taiwan way back in 1895. Now imagine Americans surrendering to the Japanese in the Philippines in 1942. That meant virtually the entire coastline of the South China Sea being controlled by a single empire for the fist time in history. The South China Sea had become a Japanese lake.
Not for long; only until 1945. The Japanese did occupy Woody Island in the Paracels and Itu Aba (today Taiping) in the Spratlys. After the end of WWII and the US nuclear-bombing Japan, the Philippines became independent in 1946; the Spratlys immediately were declared Filipino territory.In 1947 the Chinese went on overdrive to recover all the Paracels from colonial power France. In parallel, all the islands in the South China Sea got Chinese names. James Shoal was downgraded from a sandbank into a reef (it’s actually underwater; still Beijing sees is as the southernmost point of Chinese territory.)
In December 1947 all the islands were placed under the control of Hainan (itself an island in southern China.) New maps — based on Meichu’s — followed, but now with Chinese names for the islands (or reefs, or shoals). The key problem is that no one explained the meaning of the dashes (which were originally eleven.)
So in June 1947 the Republic of China claimed everything within the line – while proclaiming itself open to negotiate definitive maritime borders with other nations later on. But, for the moment, no borders; that was the birth of the much-maligned “strategic ambiguity” of the South China Sea that lasts to this day.
“Red” China adopted all the maps — and all the decisions. Yet the final maritime border between China and Vietnam, for instance, was decided only in 1999. In 2009 China included a map of the “U-shaped” or “nine-dash line” in a presentation to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf; that was the first time the line officially showed up on an international level.
No wonder other Southeast Asian players were furious. That was the apex of the millennia-old transition from the “maritime internet” of semi-nomadic peoples to the Westphalian system. The post-modern “war” for the South China Sea was on.
Gunboat freedom
In 2013 the Philippines – prodded by the US and Japan – decided to take its case about Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) in the South China Sea to be judged according to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Both China and Philippines ratified UNCLOS. The US did not. The Philippines aimed for UNCLOS – not “historical rights”, as the Chinese wanted — to decide what is an island, what is a rock, and who is entitled to claim territorial rights (and thus EEZs) in these surrounding waters.UNCLOS itself is the result of years of fierce legal battles. Still, key nations – including BRICS members China, India and Brazil, but also, significantly, Vietnam and Malaysia – have been struggling to change an absolutely key provision, making it mandatory for foreign warships to seek permission before sailing through their EEZs.
And here we plunge in truly, deeply troubled waters; the notion of “freedom of navigation”.
For the American empire, “freedom of navigation”, from the West Coast of the US to Asia – through the Pacific, the South China Sea, the Malacca Strait and the Indian Ocean – is strictly subordinated to military strategy. Imagine if one day EEZs would be closed to the US Navy – or if “authorization” would have to be demanded every time; the Empire of Bases would lose “access” to…its own bases.
Add to it trademark Pentagon paranoia; what if a “hostile power” decided to block the global trade on which the US economy depends? (even though the premise — China contemplating such a move — is ludicrous). The Pentagon actually pursues a Freedom of Navigation (FON) program. For all practical purposes, it’s 21st century gunboat diplomacy, as in those aircraft carriers showboating on and off in the South China Sea.The Holy Grail, as far as the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is concerned, is to come up with a Code of Conduct to solve all maritime conflicts between Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and China. This has been dragging on for years now because mostly the Philippines wanted to frame the Chinese under a set of binding rules but was only ready to talk until all ten ASEAN members had agreed on them first.
Beijing’s strategy is the opposite; bilateral discussions to emphasize its formidable leverage. Thus China assuring the support of Cambodia – quite visible early this week when Cambodia prevented a condemnation of China regarding the South China Sea at a key summit in Laos; China and ASEAN settled for “self-restraint.”
Watch Hillary pivoting
In 2011 the US State Department was absolutely terrified with the planned Obama administration withdrawals from both Iraq and Afghanistan; what would happen to superpower projection? That ended in November 2011, when then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton coined the by now famous “pivot to Asia”.
“Six lines of action” were embedded in the “pivot”. Four of these Clinton nicked from a 2009 report by the Washington think tank CSIS; reinvigorating alliances; cultivating relationships with emerging powers; developing relationships with regional multilateral bodies; and working closely with South East Asian countries on economic issues. Clinton added two more: broad-based military presence in Asia, and the promotion of democracy and human rights.
It was clear from the start – and not only across the global South — that cutting across the rhetorical fog the “pivot” was code for a military offensive to contain China. Even more seriously, this was the geopolitical moment when a South East Asian dispute over maritime territory intersected with the across-the-globe confrontation between the hegemon and a “peer competitor”.
What Clinton meant by “engaging emerging powers” was, in her own words, “join us in shaping and participating in a rules-based regional and global order”. This is code for rules coined by the hegemon – as in the whole apparatus of the Washington consensus.
No wonder the South China Sea is immensely strategic, as American hegemony intimately depends on ruling the waves (remember Mahan). That’s the core of the US National Military Strategy. The South China Sea is the crucial link connecting the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and ultimately Europe.And so we finally discover Rosebud — the ultimate South China Sea “secret”. China under Clinton’s “rule-based regional and global order” effectively means that China must obey and keep the South China Sea open to the US Navy.
That spells out inevitable escalation further on down the sea lanes. China, slowly but surely, is developing an array of sophisticated weapons which could ultimately “deny” the South China Sea to the US Navy, as the Beltway is very much aware.
What makes it even more serious is that we’re talking about irreconcilable imperatives. Beijing characterizes itself as an anti-imperialist power; and that necessarily includes recovering national territories usurped by colonial powers allied with internal Chinese traitors (those islands that The Hague has ruled are no more than “rocks” or even “low-tide elevations”).
The US, for its part, is all about Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny. As it stands, more than Russia’s western borderlands, the Baltics or “Syraq”, this is where the hegemon “rules” are really being contested. And the stakes couldn’t be higher. That’ll be the day when the US Navy is “denied” from the South China Sea; and that’ll be the end of its imperial hegemony.
Posted on October 16, 2015 by uprootedpalestinians
October 16, 2015 (F. William Engdahl – NEO) – Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin, a little more than a year ago, in July 2014 were the focus of attention in Europe and North America, accused, without a shred of forensic evidence, of shooting down an unarmed civilian Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine. The Russians were deemed out to restore the Soviet Union with their agreement to the popular referendum of Crimean citizens to annex into the Russian Federation and not Ukraine. Western sanctions were being thrown at Russia by both Washington and the EU. People spoke of a new Cold War. Today the picture is changing, and profoundly. It is Washington that is on the defensive, exposed for the criminal actions it has been doing in Syria and across the Middle East, including creating the recent asylum crisis in Germany and large parts of the EU.
As a student of international politics and economics for most of my adult life, I must say the emotional restraint that Vladimir Putin and the Russian government have shown against tasteless ad hominem attacks, from people such as Hillary Clinton who likened Putin to Adolf Hitler, is remarkable. But more than restraint is required to bring our world from the brink or some might say, the onset of a World War III. Brilliant and directed action is essential. Here something extraordinary has taken place in the very few days since President Vladimir Putin’s September 28, UNGA speech in New York.
What he said…
What Putin said to the UN General Assembly must be noted to put what he and Russia did in the days immediately following into clear focus. First of all he made clear what the international law behind the UN Charter means and that Russia is scrupulously abiding by the Charter in actions in Syria. Russia, unlike the US, has been formally asked by the legitimate Syrian government to aid its war against terror.
To the UN delegates and heads of state Putin stated, “The decisions debated within the UN are either taken in the form of resolutions or not. As diplomats say, they either pass or they don’t. Any action taken by circumventing this procedure is illegitimate and constitutes a violation of the UN Charter and contemporary international law.”
He continued, “We all know that after the end of the Cold War the world was left with one center of dominance, and those who found themselves at the top of the pyramid were tempted to think that, since they are so powerful and exceptional, they know best what needs to be done and thus they don’t need to reckon with the UN, which, instead of rubber-stamping the decisions they need, often stands in their way.”
Putin followed this with a clear message to Washington and NATO governments on the subject of national sovereignty, something anathema to many who embrace the Nirvana supposed to come from globalization, homogenization of all to one level: “What is the meaning of state sovereignty, the term which has been mentioned by our colleagues here?” Putin rhetorically asked. “It basically means freedom, every person and every state being free to choose their future. By the way, this brings us to the issue of the so-called legitimacy of state authorities. You shouldn’t play with words and manipulate them. In international law, international affairs, every term has to be clearly defined, transparent and interpreted the same way by one and all.”
Putin added, “We are all different, and we should respect that. Nations shouldn’t be forced to all conform to the same development model that somebody has declared the only appropriate one. We should all remember the lessons of the past. For example, we remember examples from our Soviet past, when the Soviet Union exported social experiments, pushing for changes in other countries for ideological reasons, and this often led to tragic consequences and caused degradation instead of progress. “
Those few words succinctly point to what is fundamentally wrong in the international order today. Nations, above all the one proclaiming herself Sole Superpower, Infallible Hegemon, the USA, have arrogantly moved after the collapse of the main adversary, the Soviet Union in 1990, to create what can only be called a global totalitarian empire, what G.H.W. Bush in his September 11, 1991 address to Congress called a New World Order. I believe with conviction that borders do matter, that respect for different cultures, different historical experiences is essential in a world of peace. That is as much true with nations as with individual human beings. We seem to have forgotten that simple notion amid all the wars of the past decades. Vladimir Putin reminds us.
Then the Russian president goes to the heart of the matter. He lays bare the true activities of the Obama Administration in Syria and the Middle East in arming and training “moderate” Islamist terrorists to attack Washington’s bête noire, Syria’s duly-elected and recently re-elected President, Bashar al Assad.
Putin states, “instead of learning from other people’s mistakes, some prefer to repeat them and continue to export revolutions, only now these are “democratic” revolutions. Just look at the situation in the Middle East and Northern Africa…problems have been piling up for a long time in this region, and people there wanted change. But what was the actual outcome? Instead of bringing about reforms, aggressive intervention rashly destroyed government institutions and the local way of life. Instead of democracy and progress, there is now violence, poverty, social disasters and total disregard for human rights, including even the right to life.”
Then in a remark addressed to Washington and their NGO Color Revolutions known as the Arab Spring, Putin pointedly asks,“I’m urged to ask those who created this situation: do you at least realize now what you’ve done?“
Putin, without naming it, addresses the US and NATO role in creating ISIS, noting with precision the curious anomaly that the sophisticated new US Treasury unit to conduct financial sanctions against terrorist organizations, has utterly ignored the funding sources of ISIS, their oil sales facilitated by the Turkish President’s own family to name just one. The Russian President stated, “…the Islamic State itself did not come out of nowhere. It was initially developed as a weapon against undesirable secular regimes. Having established control over parts of Syria and Iraq, Islamic State now aggressively expands into other regions. It seeks dominance in the Muslim world and beyond…The situation is extremely dangerous. In these circumstances, it is hypocritical and irresponsible to make declarations about the threat of terrorism and at the same time turn a blind eye to the channels used to finance and support terrorists, including revenues from drug trafficking, the illegal oil trade and the arms trade.
And what Putin is doing…
Russia in the last weeks has completely out-maneuvered the diabolical, and they are diabolical, agenda of the Obama Administration not only in Syria but also in the entire Middle East and now in the EU with unleashing the flood of refugees. He openly reached out to invite Obama in their New York September 30 meeting to cooperate together in defeating ISIS. Obama stubbornly insisted that first Assad must go, despite the fact that Christine Wormuth, the Pentagon Undersecretary responsible for the Syrian war, confirmed Russian statements about Assad’s essential role today in any defeat of ISIS. She told the US Senate that Assad’s military “still has considerable strength,” adding, “it’s still the most powerful military force on the ground. The assessment right now is the regime is not in imminent danger of falling.”
Now come the howls of protest from neo-con warhawks, like the ever-ready-for-war Senator John McCain, chairman of the NGO International Republican Institute of the democratic revolution exporting US-backed NGO, National Endowment for Democracy. Or we hear flaccid protests from President Obama. This is because Washington finds itself deeply exposed to the light of world scrutiny for backing terrorists in Syria against a duly-elected state leader and government. The US warhawks accuse Russia of hitting “the moderate opposition” or civilians.
Emperor’s New Clothes
Russia’s Putin is playing the role ever so elegantly, even gracefully, of the small boy in the Hans Christian Anderson classic fairy tale from 1837, The Emperor’s New Clothes. The boy stands with his mother amid thousands of other villagers in the crowd outside the vain Emperor’s palace balcony, where the disassociated king struts around the balcony naked, thinking he is wearing a magnificent new suit of clothes. The boy shouts, to the embarrassment of all servile citizens who pretend his clothes are magnificent, “Mother, look the Emperor has no clothes!”
What do I mean? In the first four days of precision bombing of select sites in Syria Russian advanced fighter jets firing Kh-29L air-to-surface laser-guided missiles that strike targets with a precision less than two meters, managed to destroy key ISIS command centers, munitions depots and vital infrastructure. According to the Russian Defense Ministry official reports, with photos, Su-34 bombers attacked an ISIS special training camp and munition depot near Al-Tabqa, Ar-Raqqah province,” a critical ISIS outpost captured in August, 2014 after bitter battles. “As a result of explosion of the munition depot, the terrorist training camp was completely destroyed,” the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman stated. Russian Su-25 jets have also attacked training camp of the Islamic State in the Syrian Idlib, destroying a workshop for explosive belt production.
Moscow states its air force has “engaged 3 munition, fuel and armament depots of the illegal armed groups. KAB-500 aviation bombs detonated the munition and armament,” and they used BETAB-500 concrete-piercing bombs to destroy four command posts of the ISIS armed groups. The facilities with terrorists are completely destroyed,” the Moscow spokesman added. Russia’s aviation conducted 20 flights and carried out 10 airstrikes against facilities of the Islamic State (ISIL) terrorist group in the past 24 hours. Then Moscow announced they had also hit key outposts of other terror groups such as the Al Qaeda-franchise, Al Nusra Front.
These are the so-called “moderates” that McCain and the Washington warhawks are weeping over. Washington has been creating what it calls the “New” Syrian Forces (NSF), which they claim is composed of “moderate” terrorists, euphemistically referred to as “rebels.” Imagine how recruitment talks go: CIA recruiter, “Mohammed, are you a moderate Islamist? Why yes, my dear CIA trainer. Please take me, train me and arm me in the fight against the ruthless dictator Assad and against ISIS. I’m on your side. You can trust me…”
In late September it was reported that Major Anas Obaid a.k.a. Abu Zayd, on completing his CIA training in Turkey, defected from the train-and-equip program to join Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda in Syria) immediately on entering Syria. Incredibly, US officials admit that Washington does not track or exercise command-and-control of its Jihadist proxies once they enter Syria. Abu Zayd’s defection after being trained in advanced warfare techniques by the US, is typical. Other elements of the New Syrian Forces directly handed all their weapons to Nusra upon entering Syrian territory at the town of Atareb at the end of September.
These latest “moderate” defections to join Al Qaeda’s Al-Nusra Front affiliate in Syria come less than two weeks after Gen. Lloyd Austin III, head of the US “war against ISIS,” during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Syria, admitted that the US military program that intended produce 5,400 trained fighters a year has so far only resulted in “four or five” who still remain on the ground and active in combat. The rest have all joined ISIS or Al Nusra Front of Al Qaeda, the US-backed “moderate opposition” to ISIL.
What the successful Russian precision airstrikes have done is expose in all its ugly nakedness the Emperor’s New Clothes. For more than one year, the Obama Administration claims it has committed the most awesome airpower on the planet allegedly to destroy ISIS, which has been described as a “ragtag band of militants running around the desert in basketball shoes.”
Curiously, until last week, ISIS has only expanded its web of power in Syria and Iraq under US bombings. Now, within 72 hours, the Russian military, launching only 60 bombing runs in 72 hours, hitting more than 50 ISIS targets, has brought the ISIS combatants into what the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman described as a state of “panic” where more than 600 have deserted. And, according to Moscow, the fight is only beginning, expected, they say to last three to four months.
The Obama Administration has been training terrorists of Al Qaeda/Al Nusra, allegedly to fight ISIS, much like the disgraced General David Petraeus did in Iraq and Afghanistan along with Obama’s special ISIS coordinator, the just-resigned General John Allen. The US-trained “moderate” terrorists were being readied, it’s now clear to all the world, in reality, to battle Assad and open the way for a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Syria and a real plunge into darkness for the world if that were to succeed.
Now, with the truth in the open, exposed by the remarkable successes of a handful of Russian fighter jets in four days against ISIS, accomplishing more than the US “anti-ISIS coalition” in more than one year, it is clear to the world Washington has been playing a dirty double game.
Now that hypocritical Obama Administration mask has been blown off with the precision hit of a Russian laser-guided Kh-29L missile. As German and other EU governments have admitted, much to the strong objection of Washington, Putin has demonstrated that Russia is the essential part of any peaceful resolution of the Syria war. That in turn has a huge bearing on the current asylum-seeker crisis in Germany and other parts of the EU. It also has a huge bearing on prospects for world peace. The Norwegian Parliament’s Nobel Peace Prize Committee, rather than consider John Kerry, might consider Vladimir Putin and Russian Defense Minister, Sergey Shoygu, for the prize.
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
Previous articles explained no credible evidence suggests Russia or Donbass freedom fighters had anything to do with downing MH17.
What benefit could they possibly have gotten from downing a commercial aircraft unrelated to conflict on the ground – especially knowing the uproar it would cause?
Washington and Kiev gained plenty from blaming their crime on convenient adversaries – 298 lost passenger and crew member lives bought lots of useful propaganda.
On Tuesday, media scoundrels featured the following headlines:
New York Times: “Malaysian Airlines Crash Investigators to Examine Possible Missile Parts in Eastern Ukraine” – alleging surface-to-air Russian ones, highlighting Ukraine, Washington and other Western countries saying the aircraft “was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile fired from territory in eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists.”
Washington Post publishing an AP article titled: “Prosecutors: Possible Buk missile parts found at MH17 site” – again alleging surface-to-air Russian made.
Wall Street Journal: “MH17 Investigators Examine Possible Missile Parts” – pointing fingers at Russia. Saying the “widely held view (is) that the plane was brought down by an advanced antiaircraft weapon.”
Chicago Tribune: “Prosecutors: Possible missile parts found at Malaysia plane crash site” – suggesting they’re from a Russia made BUK missile.
Washington Times: “Possible Russian missile parts found at MH17 crash site: investigators.”
CNN: “MH17 investigators: Possible missile parts found…from a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air-missile system – the type of system that the case’s lead prosecutor already said is suspected to have downed the plane.”
The BBC was worst of all headlining: “MH17: ‘Russian missile parts’ at Ukraine crash site.” The UK government owned and operated propaganda service pronounced Russia guilty despite no evidence whatever suggesting it – ignoring eyewitnesses they interviewed last year saying Ukrainian warplanes were seen overflying Donbass near MH17 when it was downed. The BBC then buried the story.
Most reports indicated no proved link between the parts found and MH17’s downing, nor responsibility for the crime. At the same time, they hyped a possible surface-to-air likely Russian made BUK missile despite no evidence of this type weapon used.
High-resolution photos showed cockpit damage from likely 30 millimeter air-to-air cannon fire downed the plane. Only Ukrainian warplanes and helicopters patrolled the skies over Donbass – no others. Kiev complicit with Washington downed MH17. It’s hard drawing any other conclusion.
Don’t expect it from the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) investigating cause, not responsibility for the incident or the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) comprised of Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine outrageously, charged with bringing “perpetrators of the attack on MH17 to justice.”
No independently verified evidence suggests a surface-to-air missile downed MH17. None exists. Yet the US-manipulated Joint Investigation Team in cooperation with the Dutch Safety Board issued a statement saying in part:
Investigation continues into “parts (found), possibly from a Buk surface-air-missile system. (They’re) of particular interest to the criminal investigation as they can possibly provide more information about who was involved in the crash of MH17” – strongly suggesting Russia and/or Donbass freedom fighters in less than so many words.
None of the above major media reports (and many others) or either investigation team suggested the possibility of Ukraine’s culpability – despite BBC reported eyewitness testimony explained above and other evidence indicating its warplane downed MH17, not Russian or Donbass surface-to-air missiles.
An object found on an Indian Ocean island is not part of a plane door but a generic ladder that has nothing to do with missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a Malaysian official said Sunday.
The debris was found on the island of Reunion, where a piece of a Boeing 777 wing flap was found on a beach in the town of Saint Andre on Wednesday.
“I read all over media it (the new debris) was part of a door,” Malaysian Director General of Civil Aviation Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told AFP and other media outlets. “But I checked with the Civil Aviation Authority, and people on the ground in Reunion, and it was just a domestic ladder.”
Flight 370 disappeared on March 8, 2014, after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, bound for Beijing with 239 people aboard. Most of the victims were Chinese.
The item was handed to authorities after it washed ashore south of Reunion’s capital of St Denis in the north, according to the the BBC. The BBC and Sky News were among outlets initially reporting the object might be part of an aircraft door. Sky News said the object was discovered in a different location to a wing flap, which was found on the northeast of the island on Wednesday.
Reunion is a French territory of more than 800,000 people almost 600 miles east of Madagascar. The island is about 3,500 miles southwest of Maylaysia and more than 2,000 miles from the vast area of the Indian Ocean where Flight 370 is suspected to have crashed. The wing flap, suspected to be from Flight 370, arrived at a testing facility in France on Saturday. The “flaperon” was escorted to the DGA TA aeronautical testing site near Toulouse, southern France, by police motorcycles and a police car.
Experts in Toulouse will begin work to determine whether the part came from the missing Boeing 777 on Wednesday, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. An investigating judge is due to meet with Malaysian authorities and French aviation investigative agency representatives Monday.
Malaysia’s Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai, citing French authorities and Boeing, confirmed Sunday that the flaperon had been verified as being from a Boeing 777, the same type of aircraft as Flight 370. Representatives from the U.S., France, China and Boeing were working to establish whether the flaperon came from the flight, he said.
Malaysian officials said they would seek help from territories near Reunion to try to find more plane debris and to allow access to crash experts, the Associated Press reported.
I’m surprised no one is questioning how a piece of MH370’s wing, clear of signs of corrosion, could be washed high up on a beach in La Reunion 500 days later. The wreckage which required four people to carry was apparently buoyant enough to float. A piece of luggage was conveniently placed nearby.
Vladimir Putin is to Blame, according to the Mainstream Media.
Both the MH17 and the MH370 crashes are currently in the news. While MH17 is the object of the UN Security Council Resolution, US officials confirm that debris of MH370 have been found in the French island of La Reunion in the Indian Ocean.
This incisive July 2014 article by Criminology Professor Jason Kissner of California State University analyzes the relationship between the two Malaysian airline crashes.
Four months after the vanishing of Malaysia Airlines flight 370, Malaysian Airlines flight 17 was allegedly brought down by a surface-to-air missile.
Western Mainstream Media (MSM) hastened–on the basis of very thin evidence joined with the refusal to even mention other evidence–to attribute blame to the “appropriate” party, which in the case of flight 17 happens to be Vladimir Putin.
Careful observers of the mainstream media processes are well aware that this sort of thing is what we are to expect, and undoubtedly helps explain the very low level of trust people place in MSM institutions.
Here, of course with the leave of figures such as Anderson Cooper and Barack Obama, we are going to do some of our own thinking about, and analysis of, certain key pieces of evidence. In so doing, we should not be surprised if we arrive at conclusions different from that which our Ruling Class masters would have us believe.
First, let’s present the currently prevailing theory as to what happened. K.T. McFarland, national security analyst at Fox, presents “three possible scenarios” pertaining to the attribution of responsibility.
Of the three “possible” scenarios McFarland presents (and one wonders exactly what scenarios are supposed to be impossible), McFarland (and many others) appears to favor the prospect that pro-Russian rebel separatists are responsible. The theory is that motive and opportunity coincide in that group better than they do with respect to other potential malfeasants.
Maybe the separatists are responsible. But the case is hardly closed, and plenty of evidence that people such as McFarland choose to ignore should be considered as objectively as possible.
And here is evidence reported by Zero Hedge that may be very important:
“While there are various questions that have already emerged from what was supposed to be Ukraine’s “slam dunk” proof confirming Russian rebel involvement in today’s MH-17 tragedy, perhaps one just as gaping question emerges when one looks at what is clearly an outlier flight path in today’s final, and tragic, departure of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777.
Perhaps the best visualization of what the issue is, comes from Vagelis Karmiros who has collated all the recent MH-17 flight paths as tracked by Flightaware and shows that while all ten most recent paths pass safely well south of the Donetsk region, and cross the zone above the Sea of Azov, it was only today’s tragic flight that passed straight overhead Donetsk.”
The Karmiros evidence could of course be wrong, but can we prove that it is wrong now, and can we be 100% confident that what the MSM tells us is true?
And, if it’s wrong, why hasn’t the Karmiros evidence been refuted? The answer to that is that it’s probably because it hasn’t received any discussion. Why not?
[Moreover Russia’s last ruling monarch of the Romanov family Tsar Nicholas II, together with his wife Tsarina Alexandra and their five children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei were executed on 17 July 1918. Subliminal message to Putin? No doubt it’s another “coincidence”]
So “17s” are everywhere. To be sure, though, each of the items in the last paragraph is easily ranged under the heading “coincidence.”
But before we do that, there is one more piece of evidence to consider. Upon having done so, we will synthesize all of the evidence by thinking in terms of probabilities.
There is evidence at YouTube that seems to indicate that CNN recently used footage of a helicopter downing in Syria and represented it as depicting the downing of a helicopter, by pro-Russian forces, in the Ukraine (go to 2:39 for a photo comparison).
Now to the probabilistic summary.
Reasoning with probabilities is notoriously tricky, so we have to proceed carefully. Fortunately, a simple coin flip analogy can be employed. If you flip a fair 50/50 coin twice, four possible sequences can occur, and each has an equal likelihood of occurring {HH, HT, TH, TT}. The equal likelihood of the possible sequences flows from the standard supposition that the coin flips are independent of one another, which is simply to say that an H on flip 1 says nothing about whether flip 2 will produce an H or a T.
The analogy with MH 17 is as follows. If five months ago (before the vanishing of MH 370) you had contemplated the likelihood that the next two major airline disasters to receive massive global coverage would each involve Malaysia Airlines, you would have been justified in concluding that the likelihood was very low indeed. By analogy, it would be like specifying only an {H, H} sequence as the outcome ahead of time (a {T, T} sequence would represent the same airline as having been involved, but not Malaysia Airlines).
Now what the Western mainstream media are implicitly arguing is that MH 370 and MH 17 have no real link and are only connected with massive airline disasters in recent months by chance; they’re saying that it could just as well have been any two flights so linked (by analogy, {H, H} or {H, T} or {T, H} or {T, T}). If this argument is valid, nothing at all should be made at all of the fact that Malaysia Airlines was involved in both instances, since all possible sequences are accounted for and no sequence is much more likely than any other.
And yet, the evidence presented in this article suggests that MH 370 and MH 17 are linked in ways that might not be due to chance. Both MH 370 and MH 17 appear to have lost communicative contact, and both appear to have veered off course on very unusual routes. How many aircraft of other airlines have done so in recent months, never mind how many of the 55 aircraft over Donetsk did so on July 17? How many aircraft other than MH 17 had their inaugural voyage on the date of July 17?
These considerations suggest that, in fact, in the cases of MH 370 and MH 17 we might not be dealing with a “fair coin.”
In turn, the following very reasonable question presents itself: was Malaysia Airlines in particular targeted on July 17, and, if so, what ragtag rebel would have even been in a position to do that (especially given the route alteration, if true), and, if so, how did they accomplish it?
One suspects that the MSM will completely ignore these considerations and will likely coalesce, for several reasons, around an account that blames the episode on an accidental discharge that Putin can nonetheless be blamed for given the hostilities in the region.
However that may be, one thing is almost certainly true: the likelihood that Western MSM would in any way, shape, or form discuss evidence implicating U.S. aligned interests in the demise of MH 17 is virtually nil, no matter how compelling such evidence might be.
Dr. Jason Kissner is Associate Professor of Criminology at California State University. Dr. Kissner’s research on gangs and self-control has appeared in academic journals. His current empirical research interests include active shootings
Filed under: Malaysia, US Foreign Policy, USA | Tagged: US Congress | Comments Off on I’m surprised no one is questioning how a heavy piece of MH370’s wing could be washed high up on a beach in La Reunion 500 days later
Malaysia, frustrated by the refusal of the official international investigation-team to produce any clear evidence yet of whom to blame for the downing of the MH17 Malaysian airliner over the Ukrainian civil-war zone on 17 July 2014, has finally forced the team to request the UN to investigate. They’ve forced the original four nations on the team to accept UN adjudication of any final report. This will enable a court-proceeding to make the ultimate determination of guilt (upon which judgment penalties and compensation will be assessed), and this court-determination would inevitably allow whatever party is being blamed by the five-member official investigating team, to present its own evidence in the case, so that the court will make the ultimate determination — the official investigating team will not be performing that crucial judgmental function.
Malaysia was long prohibited from even participating in this investigational team, but on 5 November 2014, a deal was finally reached with the four nations that did comprise the team — four U.S. allies: Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, and (a suspect in possibly having downed the MH17) Ukraine itself (though it had lost none of its citizens in the disaster) — so, the next day, Malaysia’s New Straits Timesheadlined “Malaysia to join MH17 criminal probe team,” and reported that, “The prime minister said the country had been invited to play a bigger role in the recovery and investigation of the ill-fated aircraft, believed to have been downed by a missile over eastern Ukraine on July 17.” The Malaysian report went on then, pointedly, to note: “In July, the Dutch and Ukrainian authorities agreed that the bulk of the operations would be carried out by the Netherlands, with assistance from countries whose citizens were on board the flight. Malaysia had repeatedly asked to be part of the joint investigation team, currently comprising investigators from the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Ukraine.” Implicitly, that phrase “Malaysia had repeatedly asked to be part of the investigating team” said that Malaysia had consistently been refused membership until 5 November 2014. In fact, even by late November of 2014, Malaysia continued to be refused membership, and I headlined on November 30th, “Malaysia Becomes Angry About Exclusion from MH17 Investigation.” That refusal was especially outrageous because, like three of the four nations that already were on the team, Malaysia had lost (44) citizens from the downing. But in addition, Malaysia had lost the plane, from it. There was no excuse for the four pro-Western nations to exclude Malaysia, and for their limiting the investigating-team to only Ukraine (a key suspect in the downing) and three of its allies. And, between November and now, Malaysia has finally become so fed-up with the team’s continuing refusal to act, and to declare the culprit, so that the rest of the team finally consented to Malaysia’s demand to transfer the investigation over to the UN.
On 24 June 2015, Agence France Press, a mouthpiece for yet another Western nation (France), bannered, “Netherlands, Malaysia push for UN tribunal for MH17 culprits,” and Thailand’s Bangkock Post headlined this same story more honestly and directly, as “Malaysia demands UN court for MH17 shootdown,” but carried unchanged the anti-Russian-slanted AFP text. The anti-Russian-slanted AFP ‘news’ report said “It remains unclear, however, whether Russia would back the creation of the special tribunal” (something which they could also have said of the U.S., for example) and included a sub-head: “- Getting Russia on board -,” which section had only this brief and anonymously sourced reference to Russia: “The diplomat [unidentified] said the countries were mindful of the need to ‘avoid a Russian veto’ [as if a Russian veto would have been likelier than an American one, etc.].” That’s propaganda for a regime, not news-reporting for a democracy — it delivers the bias (to whip up support for war), along with its sugar-coated pro-regime facts.
Finally, Malaysia is having some success in pulling this criminal investigation away from the clearly proven criminal (Ukraine — which now is itself a U.S. client-state) and its friends.
Anyone who believes Western ‘news’ media about international affairs is simply laying his mind out to be raped by agents of the local nation’s aristocracy. Almost everything has become propaganda now. Honest journalism is squelched, if not strangled.
That’s why, if you’ll google the headline of this news-report, none of the major mainstream and ‘alternative’ ‘news’ sites will likely come up — though it has been sent to all of them.
Anti-Russia propaganda over Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was bad enough. Now one CNN aviation analyst is blaming Russia for the missing MH370 plane as well – and the Western press is eating it up.
Malaysia Airlines MH370 vanished in March last year, shortly after departing from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing. Efforts to find the plane have turned up nothing so far, and the fate of the Boeing 777 and its passengers is unknown.
One of the aviation experts consulted by CNN during the MH370 coverage has now claimed that Russia hijacked the plane. In a lengthy feature for New York magazine, Jeff Wise proposed a theory that MH370 was hijacked by Vladimir Putin (who else?) and landed at the “slowly crumbling” Baikonur Spaceport.
@yurybarmin@NYMag Ok can Borat then fly MH370 to its final destination to solve the problem?
Except Baikonur isn’t some sort of secret Area 51 facility; all manned space flights to the International Space Station (ISS) take off from there. In fact, the first part of Expedition 40 to the ISS took off from Baikonur on March 25, 2014.
Wise admitted he had no idea what the possible motive for such a heist could have been, but said in the article that Russia was a “paranoid fantasist’s dream” and that, when he heard about the Russians being suspected in the destruction of MH17, it “seemed so perfectly to tie the bow” on this construction. However implausible or downright insane his theory seems, he is perfectly certain of it.
“Why, exactly, would Putin want to steal a Malaysian passenger plane? I had no idea,” Wise confesses.
There is nothing wrong with having an opinion, even if it is crazy and not based on evidence or observable reality. Judging by his observations about MH17 and Russia, Wise has clearly fallen victim to what psychologists call confirmation bias – a tendency to see and interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.
However, almost the entire mainstream press in the West suffers from this when it comes to Russia – prompting several commentators to dub the phenomenon ‘Putin Derangement Syndrome.’ Witness the recent announcement by a “Pentagon think-tank” that Vladimir Putin is supposedly autistic, dutifully reported as fact. Now it seems Jeff Wise’s fantasy is due for the same treatment.
Ed Lucas accused @RT_com of promoting conspiracy theorists. Doesn’t he write for the Daily Mail? This is mad stuff pic.twitter.com/0YHzBjqfUs
The Daily Mail, for example, has already presented Wise’s theory as fact, tacking it onto the legitimate news coverage of the newly released National Geographic documentary about MH370. According to the Daily Mail’s ever-so-helpful bullet points, “Putin ‘spoofed’ the flight data and landed the plane in Kazakhstan.”
As a reminder, when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over the war zone in eastern Ukraine on July 2014, Kiev and the mainstream Western media ignored every single fact of the case in order to blame Russia, and Vladimir Putin personally. British tabloids led the pack, with headlines like ‘Putin’s rebels blew up plane,’ (The Daily Express), ‘Putin killed my son’ (The Daily Mail), and ‘PUTIN’S MISSILE’ (The Sun).
When asked about evidence of these charges, the West offered none. And after the Russian military released its own findings about MH17, Western coverage of the shoot down abruptly fell silent. News that the Kiev government actually signed a non-disclosure agreement with the Netherlands, Belgium, and Australia in early August, reserving the right to gag any revelations in the MH17 investigation, did not fit the “blame Russia” narrative – so it was ignored.
We have nothing personally against Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins. We’re sure he’s a first-rate father and responsible taxpayer. But The Independent’sweekend profile of Mr. Higgins and his YouTube detective work should make even the most ardent Bellingcat fanboyblush with embarrassment. Higgins’ work is hotly contested and far from accepted as authoritative or even reliable, as Russia Insider has previously demonstrated. You would never know this if you read Ian Burrell’s recent profile of the blogger-sleuth.
Instead we are led to believe that Higgins’ critics are nothing more than “jealous rivals” who vandalize his Wikipedia page with rude names. That’s seriously the closest Burrell comes to even mentioning, in passing, the fact that there are plenty of thoughtful critics with legitimate criticisms of Bellingcat. Isn’t that sort of…fishy?
We will now endeavor to show that Eliot Higgins is right about everything. According to The Independent:
Higgins “has exposed the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime”
This is an incredibly bold claim to make. But don’t take our word for it. Just askThe Associated Press:
The U.S. government insists it has the intelligence to prove it, but the American public has yet to see a single piece of concrete evidence — no satellite imagery, no transcripts of Syrian military communications — connecting the government of President Bashar Assad to the alleged chemical weapons attack last month that killed hundreds of people.
Or have a look at the write-up by Project Censored, the award-winning media research program founded by Sonoma State University:
In a report assessing possible implications of faulty US intelligence Richard Lloyd, a former UN weapons inspector, and Theodore A. Pistol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), examined the delivery rocket’s design and calculated possible trajectories based on the rocket’s payload. The authors concluded that sarin gas, “could not possibly have been fired at East Ghouta from the ‘heart’, or from the Eastern edge, of the Syrian government controlled area shown in the intelligence map published by the White House on August 30, 2013.”
Even France, one of Assad’s most vicious critics, plainly admits that
“samples it had collected suggesting Syrian government forces had used chlorine gas in the country’s civil war may not prove to be conclusive.”
If Higgins is certain that he has cracked the Da Vinci Code of the Syrian chemical attacks, he needs to get on the phone with the Associated Press and the United Nations and set the record straight. Also, he should get a job at MIT.
How did The Independent fail to mention this?
Higgins
“embarrassed Putin’s regime with detailed photographs allegedly tracking the movements through Ukraine of a Russian missile launcher linked to the downing of Malaysian airliner MH17…It’s testimony to the meticulous nature of Bellingcat’s work that the Russians have failed to disprove the website’s allegations”
Is there a rule somewhere that a government has to respond to every accusation made by a guy with a blog?
We’ve seen several YouTube videos which make strong cases to support the theory that Barack Obama could be a secret space lizard, and yet he refuses (i.e. “has failed”) to disprove this allegation. Can you even begin to imagine? The Russian government won’t formally respond to a blog — How preposterous!
The reality, friends, is that nobody knows what the heck happened to MH17. This could be easily remedied if the US released the satellite images it claims to have. But, just like with Syria, it appears that the US feels quite comfortable making serious accusations without providing any real evidence. Because who needs evidence when you have bloggers?
“The question is whether a great army of investigative citizen journalists will follow his lead”
The answer, we hope, is no.
Governments should be required to present evidence when they accuse other nations of blowing up airplanes or gassing their population. How is it even remotely acceptable that people are saying, “Well, the US won’t share any information, but thank goodness we have amateurs combing through Russian Facebook accounts.”
And yet, somehow this is a trendy way to think, in 2015.
The South China Sea is and will continue to be the ultimate geopolitical flashpoint of the young 21st century – way ahead of the Middle East or Russia’s western borderlands. No less than the future of Asia – as well as the East-West balance of power – is at stake.
Riley Waggaman
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 