10 New Messages
Digest #4530
Messages
Thu Oct 25, 2012 5:22 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://english.
Voice of Russia
October 25, 2012
Russia, Peru and Ecuador join voices on Syria
====
Quito wouldn’t support a military intrusion into Syria, whatever the pretext, saying that “military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya proved to be catastrophic” for these countries.
====
Russia, Peru and Ecuador have taken a common stance on the Syrian issue.
During the visits of Peruvian and Ecuadorian delegations to Moscow, the three nations declared they saw eye to eye on an array of international issues and urged the international community to adhere to the UN Charter and the groundwork principles of international law when dealing with the Syrian crisis, which they stressed should be settled through a dialogue between the regime and the opposition.
“The principle of non-interference has been adopted and advocated by the United Nations and Peru means to keep to it in the Syrian case,” Peru's Deputy Foreign Minister José Beraún Araníbar told the Voice of Russia. He also underlined that Peru saw political dialogue as the only viable means of peace enforcement and supported a joint UN/Arab League initiative to this effect.
Ecuadorian Deputy Foreign Minister Marco Vinicio Albuja Martínez said in his interview to the Voice of Russia that the Rafael Correa administration “respected and adhered to the principle of nations’ self-identification
Mr. Albuja Martínez added Quito wouldn’t support a military intrusion into Syria, whatever the pretext, saying that “military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya proved to be catastrophic” for these countries.
------------
http://www.itar-
Itar-Tass
October 25, 2012
Russia hopes Brahimi’s visit to Moscow would promote Syrian settlement
UNITED NATIONS: Russia hopes that the Moscow visit by United Nations and Arab League Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi due on October 29 will promote a settlement of the Syrian conflict, Russia’s United Nations ambassador Vitaly Churkin said on Wednesday.
“We are waiting for him in Moscow early next week,” he said. “We hope that the Moscow talks will make it possible for Russia to make another contribution to the settlement of the Syrian crisis.”
He stressed that Russia “resolutely supports” Lakhdar Brahimi’s efforts in this area.
On Tuesday, a diplomatic source told Itar-Tass that the United Nations and Arab League envoy will pay a one-day working visit to Moscow on October 29.
On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council called on Syria’s conflicting parties to accept Lakhdar Brahimi’s plan and agree to a ceasefire during the holiday of Eid al-Adha marked on October 26-29. The United Nations Security Council said the lull must be used to offer help to the Syrians and called on the Syrian authorities to grant humanitarian organizations free access to the population. Lakhdar Brahimi said he hoped to use the lull in fighting to "discuss a longer and more effective ceasefire."
Churkin expressed satisfaction over the United Nations Security Council’s statement which, in his words, is based on a draft offered by the Russian delegation on Monday.
============
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Voice of Russia
October 25, 2012
Russia, Peru and Ecuador join voices on Syria
====
Quito wouldn’t support a military intrusion into Syria, whatever the pretext, saying that “military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya proved to be catastrophic” for these countries.
====
Russia, Peru and Ecuador have taken a common stance on the Syrian issue.
During the visits of Peruvian and Ecuadorian delegations to Moscow, the three nations declared they saw eye to eye on an array of international issues and urged the international community to adhere to the UN Charter and the groundwork principles of international law when dealing with the Syrian crisis, which they stressed should be settled through a dialogue between the regime and the opposition.
“The principle of non-interference has been adopted and advocated by the United Nations and Peru means to keep to it in the Syrian case,” Peru's Deputy Foreign Minister José Beraún Araníbar told the Voice of Russia. He also underlined that Peru saw political dialogue as the only viable means of peace enforcement and supported a joint UN/Arab League initiative to this effect.
Ecuadorian Deputy Foreign Minister Marco Vinicio Albuja Martínez said in his interview to the Voice of Russia that the Rafael Correa administration “respected and adhered to the principle of nations’ self-identification
Mr. Albuja Martínez added Quito wouldn’t support a military intrusion into Syria, whatever the pretext, saying that “military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya proved to be catastrophic” for these countries.
------------
http://www.itar-
Itar-Tass
October 25, 2012
Russia hopes Brahimi’s visit to Moscow would promote Syrian settlement
UNITED NATIONS: Russia hopes that the Moscow visit by United Nations and Arab League Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi due on October 29 will promote a settlement of the Syrian conflict, Russia’s United Nations ambassador Vitaly Churkin said on Wednesday.
“We are waiting for him in Moscow early next week,” he said. “We hope that the Moscow talks will make it possible for Russia to make another contribution to the settlement of the Syrian crisis.”
He stressed that Russia “resolutely supports” Lakhdar Brahimi’s efforts in this area.
On Tuesday, a diplomatic source told Itar-Tass that the United Nations and Arab League envoy will pay a one-day working visit to Moscow on October 29.
On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council called on Syria’s conflicting parties to accept Lakhdar Brahimi’s plan and agree to a ceasefire during the holiday of Eid al-Adha marked on October 26-29. The United Nations Security Council said the lull must be used to offer help to the Syrians and called on the Syrian authorities to grant humanitarian organizations free access to the population. Lakhdar Brahimi said he hoped to use the lull in fighting to "discuss a longer and more effective ceasefire."
Churkin expressed satisfaction over the United Nations Security Council’s statement which, in his words, is based on a draft offered by the Russian delegation on Monday.
============
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Thu Oct 25, 2012 5:22 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://news.
Xinhua News Agency
October 25, 2012
Russia eyes additional measures to counter U.S. anti-missile threat
====
The anti-missile system would be technically capable of threathening the Russian capital by 2020, Komoyedov said.
====
MOSCOW: Russia needs to undertake additional measures to counter a threat from the U.S. anti-missile system, a high-ranking parliament member of Russia said here Thursday.
"Absolutely different things are necessary," head of the State Duma Defense Committee Vladimir Komoyedov told reporters when asked if the Russian Iskander missiles could surpass [neutralize] the U.S. missile shield in Europe.
In 2011, then-President Dmitry Medvedev warned that Russia would station Iskander tactic missiles in the western exclave of Kaliningrad and southern Krasnodar region, should the United States implement its phased approach to the anti-missile defense program.
The European Phased Adaptive Approach envisaged a four-step deployment of the anti-missile facilities from 2011 to 2020 and moved the sea-based Aegis systems closer to Russian borders.
The first two phases have already been completed and the third would be finished in 2018.
The anti-missile system would be technically capable of threathening the Russian capital by 2020, Komoyedov said.
"Development of the anti-missile defense consists of four phases. The last one, to be completed by 2020, will cover (territory) including Moscow," he said, adding that Russia possessed all the necessary technologies and ability to face such developments.
In May, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said Russia would not need any additional means to fulfill that task as the existing Iskander missiles are capable to neutralize the U.S. launching facilities.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that the anti-missile issue may cause an "ice age" in relations with the United States.
============
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Xinhua News Agency
October 25, 2012
Russia eyes additional measures to counter U.S. anti-missile threat
====
The anti-missile system would be technically capable of threathening the Russian capital by 2020, Komoyedov said.
====
MOSCOW: Russia needs to undertake additional measures to counter a threat from the U.S. anti-missile system, a high-ranking parliament member of Russia said here Thursday.
"Absolutely different things are necessary," head of the State Duma Defense Committee Vladimir Komoyedov told reporters when asked if the Russian Iskander missiles could surpass [neutralize] the U.S. missile shield in Europe.
In 2011, then-President Dmitry Medvedev warned that Russia would station Iskander tactic missiles in the western exclave of Kaliningrad and southern Krasnodar region, should the United States implement its phased approach to the anti-missile defense program.
The European Phased Adaptive Approach envisaged a four-step deployment of the anti-missile facilities from 2011 to 2020 and moved the sea-based Aegis systems closer to Russian borders.
The first two phases have already been completed and the third would be finished in 2018.
The anti-missile system would be technically capable of threathening the Russian capital by 2020, Komoyedov said.
"Development of the anti-missile defense consists of four phases. The last one, to be completed by 2020, will cover (territory) including Moscow," he said, adding that Russia possessed all the necessary technologies and ability to face such developments.
In May, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said Russia would not need any additional means to fulfill that task as the existing Iskander missiles are capable to neutralize the U.S. launching facilities.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that the anti-missile issue may cause an "ice age" in relations with the United States.
============
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============
Thu Oct 25, 2012 5:22 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://rt.com/
RT
October 25, 2012
'600 killed in Bani Walid fighting in one day' – source
Video at URL above
====
The people of Bani Walid have been appealing for help from the international community – but Moscow's aid efforts were stopped by the United States.
Washington blocked a draft statement, proposed by Russia, on the resolution of violence in Bani Walid earlier this week. The statement called for a peaceful solution to the conflict.
====
Amid conflicting reports that the Libyan city of Bani Walid was captured by army forces, RT has learned that 600 people were allegedly killed in Wednesday’s fighting, and over 1,000 have been hospitalized. Locals are appealing for international aid.
Libyan officials claimed that government forces conducted a 20-day siege before capturing Bani Walid, the last stronghold for supporters of the Gaddafi regime, and seized the city. Sources in the town gave conflicting reports, saying that local militias were responsible for the siege and now control of the area.
“We continue to receive conflicting reports. From sources on the ground, we’re hearing that the army is withdrawing from the city, although we are hearing of widespread killings. Government sources say the city has fallen,” RT correspondent in neighboring Lebanon, Paula Slier, said.
An individual in Italy who allegedly has relatives in Bani Walid spoke to RT about the current state of the city. Calling himself Alwarfally – referring to a tribe from Bani Walid – he asked to remain anonymous for the interview.
He said he contacted his family in the besieged city, who told him that the situation there has stabilized: The militia retreated, but only after kidnapping a local member of the Council of the Elders, which was tasked by Bani Walid’s tribal leaders with governing the city after the fall of Gaddafi.
“Bani Walid’s people got control of the city again,” Alwarfally told RT. “[The] situation in Bani Walid is better now. The militia fell back after the fight that happened yesterday, and everything is good.”
“The militia kidnapped the consul of Bani Walid, his health is poor,” he said. “They will take him to Misrata and I don’t know what will happen to him. He is a very good man. He didn’t have anything to do with what happened, he is just a council member in Bani Walid.”
Alwarfally also claimed that at least hundreds of people were killed during the 20-day siege.
“The number is really big,” he said. “One the first day that [the militia] came, there were about 70 bodies from the fighting. Yesterday night there was 600.”
“The number of people in the hospitals is over 1000,” he added.
Whether government forces or militias are behind the violence, video footage from the town paints a very graphic picture.
“Some of the photos and video we’ve been receiving show dismembered bodies and children who have been killed. Some of that footage is coming from Bani Walid television,” Slier said.
Militias blockaded the town for the past 20 days in an attempt to locate those responsible for the death of Omran Shaaban – the man credited with capturing Muammar Gaddafi last year. The Warfalla tribe controlling Bani Walid was accused of kidnapping and torturing Shaaban.
The people of Bani Walid have been appealing for help from the international community – but Moscow's aid efforts were stopped by the United States.
Washington blocked a draft statement, proposed by Russia, on the resolution of violence in Bani Walid earlier this week. The statement called for a peaceful solution to the conflict.
============
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http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
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============
RT
October 25, 2012
'600 killed in Bani Walid fighting in one day' – source
Video at URL above
====
The people of Bani Walid have been appealing for help from the international community – but Moscow's aid efforts were stopped by the United States.
Washington blocked a draft statement, proposed by Russia, on the resolution of violence in Bani Walid earlier this week. The statement called for a peaceful solution to the conflict.
====
Amid conflicting reports that the Libyan city of Bani Walid was captured by army forces, RT has learned that 600 people were allegedly killed in Wednesday’s fighting, and over 1,000 have been hospitalized. Locals are appealing for international aid.
Libyan officials claimed that government forces conducted a 20-day siege before capturing Bani Walid, the last stronghold for supporters of the Gaddafi regime, and seized the city. Sources in the town gave conflicting reports, saying that local militias were responsible for the siege and now control of the area.
“We continue to receive conflicting reports. From sources on the ground, we’re hearing that the army is withdrawing from the city, although we are hearing of widespread killings. Government sources say the city has fallen,” RT correspondent in neighboring Lebanon, Paula Slier, said.
An individual in Italy who allegedly has relatives in Bani Walid spoke to RT about the current state of the city. Calling himself Alwarfally – referring to a tribe from Bani Walid – he asked to remain anonymous for the interview.
He said he contacted his family in the besieged city, who told him that the situation there has stabilized: The militia retreated, but only after kidnapping a local member of the Council of the Elders, which was tasked by Bani Walid’s tribal leaders with governing the city after the fall of Gaddafi.
“Bani Walid’s people got control of the city again,” Alwarfally told RT. “[The] situation in Bani Walid is better now. The militia fell back after the fight that happened yesterday, and everything is good.”
“The militia kidnapped the consul of Bani Walid, his health is poor,” he said. “They will take him to Misrata and I don’t know what will happen to him. He is a very good man. He didn’t have anything to do with what happened, he is just a council member in Bani Walid.”
Alwarfally also claimed that at least hundreds of people were killed during the 20-day siege.
“The number is really big,” he said. “One the first day that [the militia] came, there were about 70 bodies from the fighting. Yesterday night there was 600.”
“The number of people in the hospitals is over 1000,” he added.
Whether government forces or militias are behind the violence, video footage from the town paints a very graphic picture.
“Some of the photos and video we’ve been receiving show dismembered bodies and children who have been killed. Some of that footage is coming from Bani Walid television,” Slier said.
Militias blockaded the town for the past 20 days in an attempt to locate those responsible for the death of Omran Shaaban – the man credited with capturing Muammar Gaddafi last year. The Warfalla tribe controlling Bani Walid was accused of kidnapping and torturing Shaaban.
The people of Bani Walid have been appealing for help from the international community – but Moscow's aid efforts were stopped by the United States.
Washington blocked a draft statement, proposed by Russia, on the resolution of violence in Bani Walid earlier this week. The statement called for a peaceful solution to the conflict.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Thu Oct 25, 2012 5:22 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://en.rian.
Russian Information Agency Novosti
October 25, 2012
US Coordinates MANPADS Supplies to Syrian Rebels - Russia
====
In 2003, over 95 countries signed the Elements of Export Controls for MANPADS, which was later updated. A further agreement on restricting proliferation of MANPADS was signed in May 2004 by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, including the United States.
====
MOSCOW: The United States does not supply Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s opponents with man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) but provides coordination and logistics support to such supplies, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.
“True, the US does not supply MANPADS to militants in Syria,” ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said. “At the same time, it is also well known that Washington is in the know about supplies of various types of armaments to illegal armed formations operating in Syria.”
“Moreover, the United States, judging by the acknowledgements of American officials published by US media, provides coordination and logistics support for such deliveries,” Lukashevich said.
Lukashevich was commenting on Russian General Staff Chief Nikolai Makarov’s statement and Washington’s reaction to it. Makarov said on Wednesday that Syrian rebels fighting President Assad's regime are now armed with MANPADS including US-made Stingers - a claim the US denied.
Lukashevich said Russia’s position remains unchanged.
“We are calling on all countries to stop feeding illegal armed formations in Syria, to do everything possible to prevent MANPADS from getting into the hands of those whose actions are impossible to control, especially with account for militants’ threats to shoot down civil aircraft,” the Russian diplomat said.
NBC news reported in August the rebels had been supplied with unspecified MANPADS, possibly initiated by Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Qatar, which have repeatedly called for lending military support to the Syrian opposition.
US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in mid-October she could not confirm whether the rebels had been supplied with such missiles, and maintained the United States was against the uncontrolled spread of MANPADS.
Russia has previously stated it regards the rebels' acquisition of MANPADS as a dangerous development.
In 2003, over 95 countries signed the Elements of Export Controls for MANPADS, which was later updated. A further agreement on restricting proliferation of MANPADS was signed in May 2004 by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, including the United States.
While there has been no conclusive proof of use of MANPADS in Syria, various rebel groups have claimed they possess them, and videos posted on YouTube earlier this month appear to show rebels in Aleppo armed with Soviet-era SA-7 Strela missiles, the world's most widely-produced MANPADS weapon.
Several videos have also been posted appearing to show Mi-8 helicopters and MiG-23 fighter-bombers being shot down by Syrian rebels, although the weapons used appear to be heavy machine guns rather than surface-to-air missiles.
The US-made General Dynamics Stinger was supplied in the hundreds to the Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan during the Soviet Union's military campaign in the 1980s, and made a radical impact on the use of Soviet air power there, according to the then-head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, Mohammed Yousaf, who was involved in supplying them.
The US Central Intelligence Agency later set up a "buy-back" operation in a bid to recover the weapons after the Soviet Union withdrew its forces from Afghanistan amid concern that the weapons could be used by radical Islamist groups to shoot down a civilian airliner.
MANPADS are shoulder-launched missiles which can be carried and fired by one person. Usually guided by infra-red seekers that home in on an aircraft's engine heat, they can often hit targets as high as 13,000 feet at a range of up to a few miles, and are especially dangerous to large and slow aircraft like civilian airliners and helicopters. Several civilian aircraft have been shot down with MANPADS since the late 1970s.
...
The West is pushing for President Assad’s ouster while Russia and China are trying to prevent outside interference in Syria, saying that the Assad regime and the opposition are both to blame for the bloodshed. Veto-wielding Moscow and Beijing have three times blocked sanctions resolutions on Syria.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Russian Information Agency Novosti
October 25, 2012
US Coordinates MANPADS Supplies to Syrian Rebels - Russia
====
In 2003, over 95 countries signed the Elements of Export Controls for MANPADS, which was later updated. A further agreement on restricting proliferation of MANPADS was signed in May 2004 by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, including the United States.
====
MOSCOW: The United States does not supply Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s opponents with man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) but provides coordination and logistics support to such supplies, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.
“True, the US does not supply MANPADS to militants in Syria,” ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said. “At the same time, it is also well known that Washington is in the know about supplies of various types of armaments to illegal armed formations operating in Syria.”
“Moreover, the United States, judging by the acknowledgements of American officials published by US media, provides coordination and logistics support for such deliveries,” Lukashevich said.
Lukashevich was commenting on Russian General Staff Chief Nikolai Makarov’s statement and Washington’s reaction to it. Makarov said on Wednesday that Syrian rebels fighting President Assad's regime are now armed with MANPADS including US-made Stingers - a claim the US denied.
Lukashevich said Russia’s position remains unchanged.
“We are calling on all countries to stop feeding illegal armed formations in Syria, to do everything possible to prevent MANPADS from getting into the hands of those whose actions are impossible to control, especially with account for militants’ threats to shoot down civil aircraft,” the Russian diplomat said.
NBC news reported in August the rebels had been supplied with unspecified MANPADS, possibly initiated by Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Qatar, which have repeatedly called for lending military support to the Syrian opposition.
US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in mid-October she could not confirm whether the rebels had been supplied with such missiles, and maintained the United States was against the uncontrolled spread of MANPADS.
Russia has previously stated it regards the rebels' acquisition of MANPADS as a dangerous development.
In 2003, over 95 countries signed the Elements of Export Controls for MANPADS, which was later updated. A further agreement on restricting proliferation of MANPADS was signed in May 2004 by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, including the United States.
While there has been no conclusive proof of use of MANPADS in Syria, various rebel groups have claimed they possess them, and videos posted on YouTube earlier this month appear to show rebels in Aleppo armed with Soviet-era SA-7 Strela missiles, the world's most widely-produced MANPADS weapon.
Several videos have also been posted appearing to show Mi-8 helicopters and MiG-23 fighter-bombers being shot down by Syrian rebels, although the weapons used appear to be heavy machine guns rather than surface-to-air missiles.
The US-made General Dynamics Stinger was supplied in the hundreds to the Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan during the Soviet Union's military campaign in the 1980s, and made a radical impact on the use of Soviet air power there, according to the then-head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, Mohammed Yousaf, who was involved in supplying them.
The US Central Intelligence Agency later set up a "buy-back" operation in a bid to recover the weapons after the Soviet Union withdrew its forces from Afghanistan amid concern that the weapons could be used by radical Islamist groups to shoot down a civilian airliner.
MANPADS are shoulder-launched missiles which can be carried and fired by one person. Usually guided by infra-red seekers that home in on an aircraft's engine heat, they can often hit targets as high as 13,000 feet at a range of up to a few miles, and are especially dangerous to large and slow aircraft like civilian airliners and helicopters. Several civilian aircraft have been shot down with MANPADS since the late 1970s.
...
The West is pushing for President Assad’s ouster while Russia and China are trying to prevent outside interference in Syria, saying that the Assad regime and the opposition are both to blame for the bloodshed. Veto-wielding Moscow and Beijing have three times blocked sanctions resolutions on Syria.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Thu Oct 25, 2012 5:22 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://english.
Voice of Russia
October 25, 2012
US President – Master of Drones
Nikita Sorokin
====
Americans, including industrialists, financiers and presidents, sincerely perceive the United States as a country tasked with promotion of messianic ideas. In the past few years, America has often acted as a world policeman, while its president has played the role of a prosecutor or a judge.
Regardless of the results of the upcoming presidential elections, America will continue to conduct experiments related to the notorious “theory of chaos”.
====
Whoever becomes the next president of the United States this will be the most powerful person in the world. Under US law, the president has the right to take unilateral decisions on starting a large-scale war or conducting local military operations.
“The President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities” - that is an extract from the War Powers Resolution passed on November 7, 1973.
Since 1974, there have been more than 50 cases when US presidents asked for the Congress’ sanction for conducting military operations. The geography of these military operations included the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia and other countries.
However the president does not disturb the Congress on such “nothings” as, for example, a clutter of mujahedeens somewhere in Pakistan. Without any sanction, the president orders the army to kill them by means of unmanned flying vehicles or drones. The drones are multi-purpose vehicles, Bruce Fein, the former juridical advisor in the Reagan administration, said in an interview with the “Voice of Russia”.
Americans, including industrialists, financiers and presidents, sincerely perceive the United States as a country tasked with promotion of messianic ideas. In the past few years, America has often acted as a world policeman, while its president has played the role of a prosecutor or a judge. According to the Watson Institute for International Studies, a possible anti-terror war will cause about 4 trillion dollars in damages in the United States. Meanwhile, the US’ military operations in the Middle East show no signs of ending.
However, Arabs and Muslims refuse to perceive Americans as fighters against terrorism, Afif Osman of the Lebanese University told the Voice of Russia on Thursday.
"We see the army intruding into our house and promising to save us from terrorism," Osman says. "But we cannot understand what terrorism they are talking about. In Iraq, for example, terrorism, banditry and inter-confessional strife appeared only after the US’ invasion, and Al-Qaeda appeared in Iraq only after the Americans. It is safe to assume, therefore, that the US itself creates enemies and fights them in a show of force," Osman concludes.
Some experts say that the US is implementing the “Obama project” in the Middle East, where the incumbent US President acts as a “good policeman”. Regardless of the results of the upcoming presidential elections, America will continue to conduct experiments related to the notorious “theory of chaos”. The “Arab Spring” has already become the first result of the practical use of this theory, a topic that we will cover in detail in a separate commentary.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Voice of Russia
October 25, 2012
US President – Master of Drones
Nikita Sorokin
====
Americans, including industrialists, financiers and presidents, sincerely perceive the United States as a country tasked with promotion of messianic ideas. In the past few years, America has often acted as a world policeman, while its president has played the role of a prosecutor or a judge.
Regardless of the results of the upcoming presidential elections, America will continue to conduct experiments related to the notorious “theory of chaos”.
====
Whoever becomes the next president of the United States this will be the most powerful person in the world. Under US law, the president has the right to take unilateral decisions on starting a large-scale war or conducting local military operations.
“The President in every possible instance shall consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities” - that is an extract from the War Powers Resolution passed on November 7, 1973.
Since 1974, there have been more than 50 cases when US presidents asked for the Congress’ sanction for conducting military operations. The geography of these military operations included the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia and other countries.
However the president does not disturb the Congress on such “nothings” as, for example, a clutter of mujahedeens somewhere in Pakistan. Without any sanction, the president orders the army to kill them by means of unmanned flying vehicles or drones. The drones are multi-purpose vehicles, Bruce Fein, the former juridical advisor in the Reagan administration, said in an interview with the “Voice of Russia”.
Americans, including industrialists, financiers and presidents, sincerely perceive the United States as a country tasked with promotion of messianic ideas. In the past few years, America has often acted as a world policeman, while its president has played the role of a prosecutor or a judge. According to the Watson Institute for International Studies, a possible anti-terror war will cause about 4 trillion dollars in damages in the United States. Meanwhile, the US’ military operations in the Middle East show no signs of ending.
However, Arabs and Muslims refuse to perceive Americans as fighters against terrorism, Afif Osman of the Lebanese University told the Voice of Russia on Thursday.
"We see the army intruding into our house and promising to save us from terrorism," Osman says. "But we cannot understand what terrorism they are talking about. In Iraq, for example, terrorism, banditry and inter-confessional strife appeared only after the US’ invasion, and Al-Qaeda appeared in Iraq only after the Americans. It is safe to assume, therefore, that the US itself creates enemies and fights them in a show of force," Osman concludes.
Some experts say that the US is implementing the “Obama project” in the Middle East, where the incumbent US President acts as a “good policeman”. Regardless of the results of the upcoming presidential elections, America will continue to conduct experiments related to the notorious “theory of chaos”. The “Arab Spring” has already become the first result of the practical use of this theory, a topic that we will cover in detail in a separate commentary.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Thu Oct 25, 2012 5:22 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://presstv.
Press TV
October 25, 2012
US drone warfare to last '15 years'
Audio at URL above
The U.S. drone war in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and other nations could last for "14-15 years," according to an American investigative journalist and manager of Stop NATO.
"In 2001, when the U.S. began its so-called war on terror, the United States only had 200 drones; the Pentagon that is. The U.S. now currently has, the Pentagon and the CIA have an estimated 8,000 drones eleven years later. That's a 40-fold increase in the amount of them", Rick Rozoff said in a phone interview with the U.S. Desk on Thursday.
According to CBS News, in 2008, after Barack Obama won the presidency in the U.S., the drone strikes escalated and soon began occurring almost weekly, later nearly daily, and so became a permanent feature of life for those living in the tribal borderlands of northern Pakistan.
In the latest U.S. drone attack in Pakistan, at least five people were killed on Wednesday in Mir Ali area of the North Waziristan agency.
In their final debate on Monday, both U.S. President Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney emphasized the need to continue drone strikes inside Pakistan.
============
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Stop NATO website and articles:
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============
Press TV
October 25, 2012
US drone warfare to last '15 years'
Audio at URL above
The U.S. drone war in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and other nations could last for "14-15 years," according to an American investigative journalist and manager of Stop NATO.
"In 2001, when the U.S. began its so-called war on terror, the United States only had 200 drones; the Pentagon that is. The U.S. now currently has, the Pentagon and the CIA have an estimated 8,000 drones eleven years later. That's a 40-fold increase in the amount of them", Rick Rozoff said in a phone interview with the U.S. Desk on Thursday.
According to CBS News, in 2008, after Barack Obama won the presidency in the U.S., the drone strikes escalated and soon began occurring almost weekly, later nearly daily, and so became a permanent feature of life for those living in the tribal borderlands of northern Pakistan.
In the latest U.S. drone attack in Pakistan, at least five people were killed on Wednesday in Mir Ali area of the North Waziristan agency.
In their final debate on Monday, both U.S. President Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney emphasized the need to continue drone strikes inside Pakistan.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
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stopnato-subscribe@
============
Thu Oct 25, 2012 5:38 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
To be published in Z Magazine, November 2012
Beyond Double Standards - and Hypocrisy
Edward S. Herman
====
The long U.S. use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs is testimony to an anti-civilian bias in military operations, as is the long tradition of “we don’t make body counts.” The Iraq war of 2003 was begun with a “shock and awe” bombing program that was openly designed to terrorize the leaders and population and encourage surrender. The same was true of the 1999 escalation of the bombing of Serbia and increased orientation to attacking civilian facilities.
The hegemony of the double standard, and its partner, hypocrisy, flows from concentrated power, and their joint success in this modern age that, according to Steven Pinker, is one of the “Long Peace,” “recivilization” and the rise of our “better angels” after an unfortunate period like the 1960s. It is a marvelous illustration of the human capacity for self-deception.
====
Double standards have always been with us, but I wonder if they haven’t reached new heights, along with hypocrisy, in the age of the “war on terrorism,” “humanitarian intervention,” and the proclaimed “responsibility to protect” (R2P), to be implemented by global interventionists who have institutionalized torture (or made it one de facto legitimate policy option), “extraordinary renditions” to torture regimes, the intensive use of drone bombings, including “double-tap” actions, and who have declared the entire earth a U.S. “free fire zone”?
These same drone organizers and apologists also speak almost daily about “our values” as they terrorize and kill, but see themselves as defending human rights and democracy and engaging in “self defense.” George W. Bush attacked Iraq in alleged (but completely contrived) fear of Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” but as soon as it became inescapably evident that this was a fraud, and that many thousands had already been killed based on this lie, Bush was allowed to be striving for freedom and democracy in Iraq, but for unknown reasons neglecting Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and shrinking it in the homeland!
But his opening war gambit lie was salable to the New York Times and its colleagues, and to the intellectuals and pundits with influence. For example, on October 9, 2002, the saintly Elie Wiesel said on the Oprah Winfrey Show that “Anything is better than war. I am not for war. But we have to disarm that assassin” — namely Saddam Hussein, who, according to Bush, Cheney and Judith Miller, and hence Wiesel and Winfrey, possessed these WMD. Thus “War is the Only Option,” in the title of Wiesel’s subsequent commentary in The Observer (Dec. 22, 2002). It helps being a saint to be able to get away with such a blatant contradiction based on a lie.
After the WMD gambit was exhausted we had the gang quickly accepting the new “democracy promotion” objective in Iraq, because Bush said that was so, and was “risking all” in pressing on with it, as asserted by Michael Ignatieff in his New York Times classic, “Who Are the American People to Think That Freedom is Theirs to Spread” (Oct. 7, 2005). George Packer, writing in the New Yorker back in 2004, agreed with Ignatieff that “it’s clear that, however clumsy and selective the execution, Bush wants democratization to be his legacy. So when his critics, here and abroad, claim that his rhetoric merely provides cynical cover for an American power grab, they misjudge his sincerity and tend to sound like defenders of the status quo.” (“Invasion versus Persuasion, “New Yorker, December 20, 2004.). So Packer, like Ignatieff, knows that Bush was sincere, but he is not a defender of the status quo and does suggest that we should “hold him
to his own talk.”
The “terrorism” double standard has long been institutionalized, with establishment spokespersons internalizing the propaganda rule that we and the Israelis only “retaliate” to the terrorism of enemies and targets. The establishment pundits have been able to swallow a lot, and play dumb on a large scale, to stay with this usage. Thus Luis Posada Carriles, a member in high-standing of the Cuban refugee terror network, guilty of numerous terrorist acts, including the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 with 73 resultant deaths, walks the streets of Miami today and is beyond extradition, whereas the United States is working hard to get Julian Assange extradited to this country for prosecution for whistleblowing on U.S. diplomacy and terrorist-war criminal acts. (His most notorious disclosure was of a U.S. helicopter team in Iraq remorselessly killing civilians and journalists on the ground, a revelation that clearly threatened U.S. national
security.)
It should also be noted that while killer Posada is free, the Cuban Five infiltrators of Cuban terrorist groups in Florida who were seized in the United States in 1998 while trying to gain information on terrorist plots against Cuba, and shared some of this information with the FBI, have been imprisoned since 1998, their counter-terrorism efforts transformed into espionage.
These manifestations of a gross double standard, hypocrisy, and serious injustice, are ignored by the mainstream media and don’t interfere with the rule that the United States is fighting a “war on terror.”
The most recent display of the terrorism double standard is the State Department’s September 2012 removal of the Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), from its list of designated terrorist organizations. The MEK worked earlier on behalf of Saddam Hussein and sometimes killed Americans, and reportedly has collaborated with the Israelis in assassinating Iranian scientists, but with the escalated U.S.-Israel low-level warfare against Iran, MEK can be moved into a new, more positive “freedom fighter” category. This has other amusing features. For one thing, MEK has very large amounts of money that it has spent in organizing protests and lobbying in Europe and the United States, the funding suspected to come from the freedom-loving Saudis and other governments hostile to Iran.
Even while on the terrorist list, MEK was able to organize, propagandize and lobby in the United States and elsewhere in the West. It has also paid large sums to U.S. notables like Howard Dean, Tom Ridge, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and Ed Rendell to write and speak on their behalf. No prosecutions are in prospect for “material aid” to terrorists in this case.
One of the wonders of the war on terror is its massive use of airpower, increasingly drone warfare, and the U.S.’s ability to get this accepted in the West as a response to terror and not a case of terrorism itself. This has of course been accompanied by complementary apologetics: notably, that military targets are carefully chosen so that any “innocent” civilian deaths are not deliberate but unintended “collateral damage.” But if civilian deaths are predictable even if the specific victims are not known, the killings are deliberate and war crimes. Furthermore, the claims of care in targeting, and concern, and denials that civilian killings are sometimes quite acceptable, are false, but are taken as true by patriotic pundits and intellectuals (see my “Tragic Errors In U.S. Military Policy: Targeting the civilian population,” Z Magazine, September 2002).
The long U.S. use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs is testimony to an anti-civilian bias in military operations, as is the long tradition of “we don’t make body counts.” The Iraq war of 2003 was begun with a “shock and awe” bombing program that was openly designed to terrorize the leaders and population and encourage surrender. The same was true of the 1999 escalation of the bombing of Serbia and increased orientation to attacking civilian facilities. But no matter: The United States does not terrorize, by patriotic and power definition.
It is also notable that studies which focus intensively on terrorism from the air are ignored or downplayed by the mainstream media. The fine book by Beau Grosscup on Strategic Terror: The Politics and Ethnics of Aerial Bombardment (Zed Books, 2006) was not reviewed in any mainstream source in the United States. The mainstream may be preoccupied with “terrorism,” but writings on the subject have to stay within the party-line orbit to get a hearing.
A real problem has been presented to the media by the September 2012 report produced jointly by a Stanford Law School and New York University School of Law team entitled Living Under Drones (see http://livingunderd
The Stanford-NYU authors explicitly deny the official claims of precise surgical strikes by the drones: “This narrative is false.” They also report that an important feature of the drone war is the regular use of a second missile strike shortly after the first strike - the combination euphemistically labelled a ”double tap” — killing many local onlookers and rescue workers coming to the aid of the first-strike’s victims.
These secondary strikes “have discouraged average civilians from coming to one another’s rescue, and even inhibited the provision of emergency medical assistance from humanitarian workers.” The director of the charitable organization Reprieve is quoted in the report as saying: “An entire region is being terrorized by the constant threat of death from the skies...Their way of life is collapsing..
This sounds like a really dirty war OF terrorism, but while this is suggested in the London Independent (Jerome Taylor, “Outrage at CIA’s deadly ‘double tap’ drone strikes,” Sept. 25, 2012), the New York Times had not yet mentioned the existence of the Living Under Drones document at the time of writing (Sept. 30, 2012). This is not news fit-to-print rapidly and with prominence, as happens when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserts that the government of Bashir Al-Assad would have ”blood on its hands” if it “refuses to allow this life-saving aid [that Clinton promises] to reach civilians.” (Steven Lee Myers, “Nations Rebuke Leader of Syria as Assault Rages,” NYT, February 25, 2012. p 1; see also the long NYT article of March 3, 2012 on “Syria Blocks Red Cross From Taking Aid to Devastated Rebel Enclave in Homs.”)
This brings us to some other double standard marvels. Iran is under steady attack and threat because of its alleged non-cooperation with the West and its UN instrument, the International Atomic Energy Agency, in their efforts to get Iran to terminate its nuclear program. Meanwhile, the United States can refuse to carry out its NPT promise to work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, and Israel can build up a sizeable nuclear weapons arsenal with Western collusion outside of any IAEA jurisdiction, and both can threaten Iran on a daily basis, in a double standard that would be hard to surpass. Similarly, Israel can ethnically cleanse Palestinians on a systematic basis for decades without any penalty from the “international community” which in fact gives consistent support to this immoral and illegal process. Only when a U.S. and Western target is accused of ethnic cleansing, as with Serbia in the 1990s, do the Western moralists, officials and
their UN agents get aroused and move into action.
The hegemony of the double standard, and its partner, hypocrisy, flows from concentrated power, and their joint success in this modern age that, according to Steven Pinker, is one of the “Long Peace,” “recivilization” and the rise of our “better angels” after an unfortunate period like the 1960s. It is a marvelous illustration of the human capacity for self-deception.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Beyond Double Standards - and Hypocrisy
Edward S. Herman
====
The long U.S. use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs is testimony to an anti-civilian bias in military operations, as is the long tradition of “we don’t make body counts.” The Iraq war of 2003 was begun with a “shock and awe” bombing program that was openly designed to terrorize the leaders and population and encourage surrender. The same was true of the 1999 escalation of the bombing of Serbia and increased orientation to attacking civilian facilities.
The hegemony of the double standard, and its partner, hypocrisy, flows from concentrated power, and their joint success in this modern age that, according to Steven Pinker, is one of the “Long Peace,” “recivilization” and the rise of our “better angels” after an unfortunate period like the 1960s. It is a marvelous illustration of the human capacity for self-deception.
====
Double standards have always been with us, but I wonder if they haven’t reached new heights, along with hypocrisy, in the age of the “war on terrorism,” “humanitarian intervention,” and the proclaimed “responsibility to protect” (R2P), to be implemented by global interventionists who have institutionalized torture (or made it one de facto legitimate policy option), “extraordinary renditions” to torture regimes, the intensive use of drone bombings, including “double-tap” actions, and who have declared the entire earth a U.S. “free fire zone”?
These same drone organizers and apologists also speak almost daily about “our values” as they terrorize and kill, but see themselves as defending human rights and democracy and engaging in “self defense.” George W. Bush attacked Iraq in alleged (but completely contrived) fear of Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” but as soon as it became inescapably evident that this was a fraud, and that many thousands had already been killed based on this lie, Bush was allowed to be striving for freedom and democracy in Iraq, but for unknown reasons neglecting Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and shrinking it in the homeland!
But his opening war gambit lie was salable to the New York Times and its colleagues, and to the intellectuals and pundits with influence. For example, on October 9, 2002, the saintly Elie Wiesel said on the Oprah Winfrey Show that “Anything is better than war. I am not for war. But we have to disarm that assassin” — namely Saddam Hussein, who, according to Bush, Cheney and Judith Miller, and hence Wiesel and Winfrey, possessed these WMD. Thus “War is the Only Option,” in the title of Wiesel’s subsequent commentary in The Observer (Dec. 22, 2002). It helps being a saint to be able to get away with such a blatant contradiction based on a lie.
After the WMD gambit was exhausted we had the gang quickly accepting the new “democracy promotion” objective in Iraq, because Bush said that was so, and was “risking all” in pressing on with it, as asserted by Michael Ignatieff in his New York Times classic, “Who Are the American People to Think That Freedom is Theirs to Spread” (Oct. 7, 2005). George Packer, writing in the New Yorker back in 2004, agreed with Ignatieff that “it’s clear that, however clumsy and selective the execution, Bush wants democratization to be his legacy. So when his critics, here and abroad, claim that his rhetoric merely provides cynical cover for an American power grab, they misjudge his sincerity and tend to sound like defenders of the status quo.” (“Invasion versus Persuasion, “New Yorker, December 20, 2004.). So Packer, like Ignatieff, knows that Bush was sincere, but he is not a defender of the status quo and does suggest that we should “hold him
to his own talk.”
The “terrorism” double standard has long been institutionalized, with establishment spokespersons internalizing the propaganda rule that we and the Israelis only “retaliate” to the terrorism of enemies and targets. The establishment pundits have been able to swallow a lot, and play dumb on a large scale, to stay with this usage. Thus Luis Posada Carriles, a member in high-standing of the Cuban refugee terror network, guilty of numerous terrorist acts, including the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 with 73 resultant deaths, walks the streets of Miami today and is beyond extradition, whereas the United States is working hard to get Julian Assange extradited to this country for prosecution for whistleblowing on U.S. diplomacy and terrorist-war criminal acts. (His most notorious disclosure was of a U.S. helicopter team in Iraq remorselessly killing civilians and journalists on the ground, a revelation that clearly threatened U.S. national
security.)
It should also be noted that while killer Posada is free, the Cuban Five infiltrators of Cuban terrorist groups in Florida who were seized in the United States in 1998 while trying to gain information on terrorist plots against Cuba, and shared some of this information with the FBI, have been imprisoned since 1998, their counter-terrorism efforts transformed into espionage.
These manifestations of a gross double standard, hypocrisy, and serious injustice, are ignored by the mainstream media and don’t interfere with the rule that the United States is fighting a “war on terror.”
The most recent display of the terrorism double standard is the State Department’s September 2012 removal of the Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), from its list of designated terrorist organizations. The MEK worked earlier on behalf of Saddam Hussein and sometimes killed Americans, and reportedly has collaborated with the Israelis in assassinating Iranian scientists, but with the escalated U.S.-Israel low-level warfare against Iran, MEK can be moved into a new, more positive “freedom fighter” category. This has other amusing features. For one thing, MEK has very large amounts of money that it has spent in organizing protests and lobbying in Europe and the United States, the funding suspected to come from the freedom-loving Saudis and other governments hostile to Iran.
Even while on the terrorist list, MEK was able to organize, propagandize and lobby in the United States and elsewhere in the West. It has also paid large sums to U.S. notables like Howard Dean, Tom Ridge, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and Ed Rendell to write and speak on their behalf. No prosecutions are in prospect for “material aid” to terrorists in this case.
One of the wonders of the war on terror is its massive use of airpower, increasingly drone warfare, and the U.S.’s ability to get this accepted in the West as a response to terror and not a case of terrorism itself. This has of course been accompanied by complementary apologetics: notably, that military targets are carefully chosen so that any “innocent” civilian deaths are not deliberate but unintended “collateral damage.” But if civilian deaths are predictable even if the specific victims are not known, the killings are deliberate and war crimes. Furthermore, the claims of care in targeting, and concern, and denials that civilian killings are sometimes quite acceptable, are false, but are taken as true by patriotic pundits and intellectuals (see my “Tragic Errors In U.S. Military Policy: Targeting the civilian population,” Z Magazine, September 2002).
The long U.S. use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs is testimony to an anti-civilian bias in military operations, as is the long tradition of “we don’t make body counts.” The Iraq war of 2003 was begun with a “shock and awe” bombing program that was openly designed to terrorize the leaders and population and encourage surrender. The same was true of the 1999 escalation of the bombing of Serbia and increased orientation to attacking civilian facilities. But no matter: The United States does not terrorize, by patriotic and power definition.
It is also notable that studies which focus intensively on terrorism from the air are ignored or downplayed by the mainstream media. The fine book by Beau Grosscup on Strategic Terror: The Politics and Ethnics of Aerial Bombardment (Zed Books, 2006) was not reviewed in any mainstream source in the United States. The mainstream may be preoccupied with “terrorism,” but writings on the subject have to stay within the party-line orbit to get a hearing.
A real problem has been presented to the media by the September 2012 report produced jointly by a Stanford Law School and New York University School of Law team entitled Living Under Drones (see http://livingunderd
The Stanford-NYU authors explicitly deny the official claims of precise surgical strikes by the drones: “This narrative is false.” They also report that an important feature of the drone war is the regular use of a second missile strike shortly after the first strike - the combination euphemistically labelled a ”double tap” — killing many local onlookers and rescue workers coming to the aid of the first-strike’s victims.
These secondary strikes “have discouraged average civilians from coming to one another’s rescue, and even inhibited the provision of emergency medical assistance from humanitarian workers.” The director of the charitable organization Reprieve is quoted in the report as saying: “An entire region is being terrorized by the constant threat of death from the skies...Their way of life is collapsing..
This sounds like a really dirty war OF terrorism, but while this is suggested in the London Independent (Jerome Taylor, “Outrage at CIA’s deadly ‘double tap’ drone strikes,” Sept. 25, 2012), the New York Times had not yet mentioned the existence of the Living Under Drones document at the time of writing (Sept. 30, 2012). This is not news fit-to-print rapidly and with prominence, as happens when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserts that the government of Bashir Al-Assad would have ”blood on its hands” if it “refuses to allow this life-saving aid [that Clinton promises] to reach civilians.” (Steven Lee Myers, “Nations Rebuke Leader of Syria as Assault Rages,” NYT, February 25, 2012. p 1; see also the long NYT article of March 3, 2012 on “Syria Blocks Red Cross From Taking Aid to Devastated Rebel Enclave in Homs.”)
This brings us to some other double standard marvels. Iran is under steady attack and threat because of its alleged non-cooperation with the West and its UN instrument, the International Atomic Energy Agency, in their efforts to get Iran to terminate its nuclear program. Meanwhile, the United States can refuse to carry out its NPT promise to work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, and Israel can build up a sizeable nuclear weapons arsenal with Western collusion outside of any IAEA jurisdiction, and both can threaten Iran on a daily basis, in a double standard that would be hard to surpass. Similarly, Israel can ethnically cleanse Palestinians on a systematic basis for decades without any penalty from the “international community” which in fact gives consistent support to this immoral and illegal process. Only when a U.S. and Western target is accused of ethnic cleansing, as with Serbia in the 1990s, do the Western moralists, officials and
their UN agents get aroused and move into action.
The hegemony of the double standard, and its partner, hypocrisy, flows from concentrated power, and their joint success in this modern age that, according to Steven Pinker, is one of the “Long Peace,” “recivilization” and the rise of our “better angels” after an unfortunate period like the 1960s. It is a marvelous illustration of the human capacity for self-deception.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
To subscribe for individual e-mails or the daily digest, unsubscribe, and otherwise change subscription status:
stopnato-subscribe@
============
Thu Oct 25, 2012 5:38 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Blue Pilgrim" bluepilgrim1
For those who have not been reading Arthur Silber's excellent blog,
The Power of Narrative, and for those who have but don't know that he
is apparently somewhat recovered from his chronic illness, and is
writing again, I refer you to http://powerofnarra
which is the latest of a few recent articles.
October 24, 2012
Paths of Resistance (I): The Refusal to Identify and Reject Evil
The essence of my argument in "Accomplices to Murder" is contained in
these two paragraphs:
As I have written before: "the claim of a 'right' to dispense death
arbitrarily -- the claim that the State may murder anyone it chooses,
whenever it desires -- constitutes a separate category altogether, a
category of which this particular claim is the sole unit. When death
is unleashed, all possibility of action is ended forever." For this
reason -- and it is the only reason required -- it is not "perfectly
rational and reasonable" to decide that "the evils of their candidate
[Obama] are outweighed by the evils of the GOP candidate."
There is no evil beyond the claimed "right" to murder by arbitrary
edict, to murder anyone, anywhere, anytime. If you support this
particular evil -- and if you vote for Obama, you support it -- then
you will support anything.
The fuller argument will be found in the preceding article.
Almost all Americans remain blithely unaware of the meaning and
implications of their government's unrestricted program of murder, a
program which targets anyone the State chooses, for any reason it
identifies -- or refuses to identify. To be precise, we should say
that almost all Americans refuse to acknowledge the meaning and
implications of the State's murder program.
[...]
Thu Oct 25, 2012 7:18 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://english.
Voice of Russia
October 25, 2012
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely: Benghazi attack carried out by al-Qaeda-linked terrorists?
John Robles
[For the time-tested use of terrorists to advance governments' agendas, see Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, Jack London's The Iron Heel and Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Possessed, inter alia.]
====
[T]he terrorist groups most likely connected with the attack, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al-Sharia, and other groups were working with the CIA and the US government in Libya in the operation to overthrow Muammar Kaddafi. For a Secretary of State who is blinded by her own political ambitions this connection would not be something she would want to come out.
The aggressive invasion and assassination of the head of state of the sovereign country of Libya was a crime against humanity. Of course they are going to lie.
====
Playing politics with the deaths of their personnel, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have proven: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Newly uncovered e-mails show that Clinton and Obama knew within hours that the Benghazi attack was carried out by al-Qaeda-linked terrorists. The same terrorists they contracted to destroy Libya and assassinate the late Muammar Gaddafi.
You have to hand it to United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, you could get whiplash watching her flip-flop back and forth, her statements and positioning on the Benghazi attack changing and dodging back and forth like some Wimbledon tennis match on amphetamines with the fast-forward locked on hyper-speed.
Not long ago I wrote about the Clintons and their hiring of a legal team in the event that she was blamed for the security failures that allowed the Benghazi attack to take place. Clinton took the fall the next day, in a political move to protect Obama’s re-election bid. I also went into the fact that the attack was actually aimed at a CIA base in Benghazi and not on Stevens. Clinton has not gone into this. Now it is revealed that Clinton and the Obama administration knew it was a terrorist attack almost immediately, and said nothing.
Another political move? This latest revelation begs a lot of questions, among them: are Clinton’s political ambitions and her dream of being the first woman president of the United States in 2016 getting in the way of her performing her job as Secretary of State? Is she incompetent? Or is she just following the Clinton tradition of flipping and flopping as the wind changes?
Whatever the case for the Clinton obfuscation, the release of the e-mails is damning to put it mildly. Yet Clinton continues to side-step, dodge and obfuscate. She warns us to take the e-mails cautiously, and downplays their significance, even saying that the news that it was a terrorist attack came from social networks and that is not evidence.
The e-mails in question started to come in within 20 minutes of the attack, and according to Reuters were obtained from government sources. Reuters reports that the first email was sent at 16:05 Washington time, 20-30 minutes after the attack began, with the subject line being “U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack”. The text read: “[A]pproximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well. Ambassador Stevens, who is currently in Benghazi, and four (redacted) personnel are in the compound safe haven. The 17th of February militia is providing security support.”
The second e-mail was sent at 16:54 Washington time with the subject being: “Update 1: U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi” and text reporting that : “[T]he firing at the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi had stopped and the compound had been cleared...a ‘response team’ was at the site attempting to locate missing personnel.”
A third e-mail sent at 18:07 carried the subject line: “Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack.” The message reported: “Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli.”
Why then did the White House and Clinton continue to place the blame on the video “The Innocence of Muslims” for days after the attack? Well, for one the terrorist groups most likely connected with the attack, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al-Sharia, and other groups were working with the CIA and the US government in Libya in the operation to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi. For a Secretary of State who is blinded by her own political ambitions this connection would not be something she would want to come out.
In fact, as was made clear by the actions of the Clintons in gathering a legal team, they are terrified of the American public seeing any failure in Libya. Clinton and her glib “We came! We saw! He died!” comments on the brutal and unjust assassination of Gaddafi from the start showed the true beast beneath her aging and waning exterior. That and her self-congratulatory stance on the decimation of yet another country by the US proves her godless inhumanity and the fact that she will do anything, including murdering thousands, if not millions, to attain her political ambitions.
This time the checks and balances come from the Republican side, Democrats being cowed into submission to protect the party’s president and Clinton. According to ABC News, Republican Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte wrote a letter questioning Obama why his administration "consistently described the attack for days afterward as a spontaneous response to an anti-Islam video. These emails make clear that your administration knew within two hours of the attack that it was a terrorist act and that Ansar al-Sharia, a Libyan militant group with links to al-Qaeda, had claimed responsibility for it… This latest revelation only adds to the confusion surrounding what you and your administration knew about the attacks in Benghazi, when you knew it, and why you responded to those tragic events in the ways that you did."
Clinton and Obama may tell a lie or two to the American people every day; they are politicians; they are concerned for their political futures. It is a shame that they would play politics with the deaths of their own personnel and continue to attempt to paint their complete utter and total failure in Libya as some sort of victory.
Unless killing Muammar Gaddafi at any cost was the goal to begin with? The aggressive invasion and assassination of the head of state of the sovereign country of Libya was a crime against humanity. Of course they are going to lie.
============
Stop NATO e-mail list home page with archives and search engine:
http://groups.
Stop NATO website and articles:
http://rickrozoff.
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============
Voice of Russia
October 25, 2012
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely: Benghazi attack carried out by al-Qaeda-linked terrorists?
John Robles
[For the time-tested use of terrorists to advance governments' agendas, see Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, Jack London's The Iron Heel and Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Possessed, inter alia.]
====
[T]he terrorist groups most likely connected with the attack, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al-Sharia, and other groups were working with the CIA and the US government in Libya in the operation to overthrow Muammar Kaddafi. For a Secretary of State who is blinded by her own political ambitions this connection would not be something she would want to come out.
The aggressive invasion and assassination of the head of state of the sovereign country of Libya was a crime against humanity. Of course they are going to lie.
====
Playing politics with the deaths of their personnel, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have proven: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Newly uncovered e-mails show that Clinton and Obama knew within hours that the Benghazi attack was carried out by al-Qaeda-linked terrorists. The same terrorists they contracted to destroy Libya and assassinate the late Muammar Gaddafi.
You have to hand it to United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, you could get whiplash watching her flip-flop back and forth, her statements and positioning on the Benghazi attack changing and dodging back and forth like some Wimbledon tennis match on amphetamines with the fast-forward locked on hyper-speed.
Not long ago I wrote about the Clintons and their hiring of a legal team in the event that she was blamed for the security failures that allowed the Benghazi attack to take place. Clinton took the fall the next day, in a political move to protect Obama’s re-election bid. I also went into the fact that the attack was actually aimed at a CIA base in Benghazi and not on Stevens. Clinton has not gone into this. Now it is revealed that Clinton and the Obama administration knew it was a terrorist attack almost immediately, and said nothing.
Another political move? This latest revelation begs a lot of questions, among them: are Clinton’s political ambitions and her dream of being the first woman president of the United States in 2016 getting in the way of her performing her job as Secretary of State? Is she incompetent? Or is she just following the Clinton tradition of flipping and flopping as the wind changes?
Whatever the case for the Clinton obfuscation, the release of the e-mails is damning to put it mildly. Yet Clinton continues to side-step, dodge and obfuscate. She warns us to take the e-mails cautiously, and downplays their significance, even saying that the news that it was a terrorist attack came from social networks and that is not evidence.
The e-mails in question started to come in within 20 minutes of the attack, and according to Reuters were obtained from government sources. Reuters reports that the first email was sent at 16:05 Washington time, 20-30 minutes after the attack began, with the subject line being “U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack”. The text read: “[A]pproximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well. Ambassador Stevens, who is currently in Benghazi, and four (redacted) personnel are in the compound safe haven. The 17th of February militia is providing security support.”
The second e-mail was sent at 16:54 Washington time with the subject being: “Update 1: U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi” and text reporting that : “[T]he firing at the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi had stopped and the compound had been cleared...a ‘response team’ was at the site attempting to locate missing personnel.”
A third e-mail sent at 18:07 carried the subject line: “Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack.” The message reported: “Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli.”
Why then did the White House and Clinton continue to place the blame on the video “The Innocence of Muslims” for days after the attack? Well, for one the terrorist groups most likely connected with the attack, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al-Sharia, and other groups were working with the CIA and the US government in Libya in the operation to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi. For a Secretary of State who is blinded by her own political ambitions this connection would not be something she would want to come out.
In fact, as was made clear by the actions of the Clintons in gathering a legal team, they are terrified of the American public seeing any failure in Libya. Clinton and her glib “We came! We saw! He died!” comments on the brutal and unjust assassination of Gaddafi from the start showed the true beast beneath her aging and waning exterior. That and her self-congratulatory stance on the decimation of yet another country by the US proves her godless inhumanity and the fact that she will do anything, including murdering thousands, if not millions, to attain her political ambitions.
This time the checks and balances come from the Republican side, Democrats being cowed into submission to protect the party’s president and Clinton. According to ABC News, Republican Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte wrote a letter questioning Obama why his administration "consistently described the attack for days afterward as a spontaneous response to an anti-Islam video. These emails make clear that your administration knew within two hours of the attack that it was a terrorist act and that Ansar al-Sharia, a Libyan militant group with links to al-Qaeda, had claimed responsibility for it… This latest revelation only adds to the confusion surrounding what you and your administration knew about the attacks in Benghazi, when you knew it, and why you responded to those tragic events in the ways that you did."
Clinton and Obama may tell a lie or two to the American people every day; they are politicians; they are concerned for their political futures. It is a shame that they would play politics with the deaths of their own personnel and continue to attempt to paint their complete utter and total failure in Libya as some sort of victory.
Unless killing Muammar Gaddafi at any cost was the goal to begin with? The aggressive invasion and assassination of the head of state of the sovereign country of Libya was a crime against humanity. Of course they are going to lie.
============
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Thu Oct 25, 2012 7:48 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff
http://rt.com/
RT
October 26, 2012
Bani Walid reportedly being wiped out as media remain silent
Video at URL above
Attention: NATO apologists, humanitarian interventionists and "responsibility to protect" advocates
====
“They destroyed everything; brought chaos, death and destruction with them. When families wanted to return to their homes these militias directed their guns towards them, shot at them, and they were all forced to flee.”
“I can confirm that pro-government militias used internationally prohibited weapons. They used phosphorus bombs and nerve gas,” Afaf Yusef, an activist from Bani Walid, told RT. “We have documented all this in videos – we recorded the missiles they used and the white phosphorus raining down from these missiles.”
“The whole world needs to see who they are targeting,” he added. “Are they really Gaddafi's men? Are the children, women and old men killed, Gaddafi's men?”
====
The Libyan city of Bani Walid is reported to be under heavy attack from pro-government forces and militias. Witnesses say that more civilians are being killed by shelling, while houses are engulfed in flames.
Earlier reports suggested that the city had fallen, but continuing reports of wide-scale killing and armed gangs and militias patrolling the streets and looting people’s homes indicate that those reports are not true.
An individual in Italy who claims to have relatives in Bani Walid told RT earlier that at over 600 people have so far been killed while the number of people in hospitals is over 1,000.
A local told RT that the troops patrolling the streets were bulldozing homes and setting them on fire.
“Bani Walid was invaded by militias from Misrata,” a local woman said. “They destroyed everything; brought chaos, death and destruction with them. When families wanted to return to their homes these militias directed their guns towards them, shot at them, and they were all forced to flee.”
She also confirmed that the local hospital is incapable of treating the amount of wounded.
“We are unable to move the injured to other places for treatment because Misrata militias and their allies threaten to kill everybody who does so,” she said.
A local journalist reporting from the outskirts of the city, because no media are allowed to enter the city, told RT that thousands of people are stranded on the desert highway outside the city after they tried to return to Bani Walid in a confusion over whether or not the city had fallen.
Refugees are being prevented from going back into the city by army roadblocks.
While the army claims that it is targeting the city in order to rid it of pro-Gaddafi forces, many who have been injured or killed are children, women and the elderly. Meanwhile, reports continue to emerge about troops using unconventional weapons in the city. A local activist told RT that the army is preventing media from entering Bani Walid simply because they fear the press might report their “crimes and terrible deeds.”
“I can confirm that pro-government militias used internationally prohibited weapons. They used phosphorus bombs and nerve gas,” Afaf Yusef, an activist from Bani Walid, told RT. “We have documented all this in videos – we recorded the missiles they used and the white phosphorus raining down from these missiles.”
Many people died without being wounded or shot but as a result of gases, he said.
“The whole world needs to see who they are targeting,” he added. “Are they really Gaddafi's men? Are the children, women and old men killed, Gaddafi's men?”
Those trapped in Bani Walid have been crying out to the United Nations for help, but they are not being heard, with the UN Mission in Libya saying it has no men in the city and cannot provide any additional information on what is happening on the ground. The director of the UN mission refused to comment on why they were not inside the city.
Meanwhile, when asked why the West is ignoring the massacres in Bani Walid, US Department of State Spokesperson Victoria Nuland told RT that Washington is “watching the situation very closely” while its position on the situation remains “absolutely clear.”
“We support the efforts of the Libyan government to get control of militias and to provide security throughout the country, including in Bani Walid, and to do so in a way that is respectful of the human rights of all citizens and allows humanitarian organizations to get in,” Nuland said.
Despite the claims that it is following the situation closely, the last time Bani Walid was mentioned on the US State Department’s website at the beginning of this year.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he is not concerned by the fact that the Libyan Army is deployed inside the city, but rather worried about the authorities and human rights violations that are reportedly taking place. He also urged the United Nations to provide information on what is really going on the ground.
As the United States and other powers are failing to condemn the excessive use of force in the city, many questions remain about why they are silent about human rights abuses taking place in Bani Walid. Also, earlier this week, Washington blocked a draft statement proposed by Russia on the resolution calling for a peaceful solution to the conflict in Bani Walid.
RT
October 26, 2012
Bani Walid reportedly being wiped out as media remain silent
Video at URL above
Attention: NATO apologists, humanitarian interventionists and "responsibility to protect" advocates
====
“They destroyed everything; brought chaos, death and destruction with them. When families wanted to return to their homes these militias directed their guns towards them, shot at them, and they were all forced to flee.”
“I can confirm that pro-government militias used internationally prohibited weapons. They used phosphorus bombs and nerve gas,” Afaf Yusef, an activist from Bani Walid, told RT. “We have documented all this in videos – we recorded the missiles they used and the white phosphorus raining down from these missiles.”
“The whole world needs to see who they are targeting,” he added. “Are they really Gaddafi's men? Are the children, women and old men killed, Gaddafi's men?”
====
The Libyan city of Bani Walid is reported to be under heavy attack from pro-government forces and militias. Witnesses say that more civilians are being killed by shelling, while houses are engulfed in flames.
Earlier reports suggested that the city had fallen, but continuing reports of wide-scale killing and armed gangs and militias patrolling the streets and looting people’s homes indicate that those reports are not true.
An individual in Italy who claims to have relatives in Bani Walid told RT earlier that at over 600 people have so far been killed while the number of people in hospitals is over 1,000.
A local told RT that the troops patrolling the streets were bulldozing homes and setting them on fire.
“Bani Walid was invaded by militias from Misrata,” a local woman said. “They destroyed everything; brought chaos, death and destruction with them. When families wanted to return to their homes these militias directed their guns towards them, shot at them, and they were all forced to flee.”
She also confirmed that the local hospital is incapable of treating the amount of wounded.
“We are unable to move the injured to other places for treatment because Misrata militias and their allies threaten to kill everybody who does so,” she said.
A local journalist reporting from the outskirts of the city, because no media are allowed to enter the city, told RT that thousands of people are stranded on the desert highway outside the city after they tried to return to Bani Walid in a confusion over whether or not the city had fallen.
Refugees are being prevented from going back into the city by army roadblocks.
While the army claims that it is targeting the city in order to rid it of pro-Gaddafi forces, many who have been injured or killed are children, women and the elderly. Meanwhile, reports continue to emerge about troops using unconventional weapons in the city. A local activist told RT that the army is preventing media from entering Bani Walid simply because they fear the press might report their “crimes and terrible deeds.”
“I can confirm that pro-government militias used internationally prohibited weapons. They used phosphorus bombs and nerve gas,” Afaf Yusef, an activist from Bani Walid, told RT. “We have documented all this in videos – we recorded the missiles they used and the white phosphorus raining down from these missiles.”
Many people died without being wounded or shot but as a result of gases, he said.
“The whole world needs to see who they are targeting,” he added. “Are they really Gaddafi's men? Are the children, women and old men killed, Gaddafi's men?”
Those trapped in Bani Walid have been crying out to the United Nations for help, but they are not being heard, with the UN Mission in Libya saying it has no men in the city and cannot provide any additional information on what is happening on the ground. The director of the UN mission refused to comment on why they were not inside the city.
Meanwhile, when asked why the West is ignoring the massacres in Bani Walid, US Department of State Spokesperson Victoria Nuland told RT that Washington is “watching the situation very closely” while its position on the situation remains “absolutely clear.”
“We support the efforts of the Libyan government to get control of militias and to provide security throughout the country, including in Bani Walid, and to do so in a way that is respectful of the human rights of all citizens and allows humanitarian organizations to get in,” Nuland said.
Despite the claims that it is following the situation closely, the last time Bani Walid was mentioned on the US State Department’s website at the beginning of this year.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he is not concerned by the fact that the Libyan Army is deployed inside the city, but rather worried about the authorities and human rights violations that are reportedly taking place. He also urged the United Nations to provide information on what is really going on the ground.
As the United States and other powers are failing to condemn the excessive use of force in the city, many questions remain about why they are silent about human rights abuses taking place in Bani Walid. Also, earlier this week, Washington blocked a draft statement proposed by Russia on the resolution calling for a peaceful solution to the conflict in Bani Walid.
