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By Eric Zuesse

The leader of the Ukrainian separatists says that their efforts to get Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to accept their territory as being a part of Russia have been firmly rejected by Putin’s Government; and, so, “We will build our own country.” (This important statement from the rebel leader Andrei Purgin on Wednesday, September 17th, was inconspicuously buried halfway through an AP news story that focused instead on “East Ukraine Casualties.” It’s common for propagandistic news reports, such as characterize the U.S. media , to bury what’s important in the news story, and not even to headline that crucial information. So: this information was buried, and was not headlined.)

Russia’s Government has thus made clear that it is not seeking to add to its territory. While Russia has accepted the approximately million refugees who have fled to Russia from Ukraine’s civil war, Russia does not want any part of Ukraine’s territory. Crimea was traditionally part of Russia, throughout the period 1783-1954, until the leader of the Soviet Union gifted Crimea to Ukraine (the nation that was called the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic) in 1954, but the residents of Crimea never accepted that, and they overwhelmingly considered themselves still to be Russians . Furthermore, the Russian Navy’s lease on the Crimean port of Sebastopol for its Black Sea Fleet extended till 2042, and the February 2014 coup-installed Ukrainian Government wanted to cancel it, which threatened crucial Russian national defense. Furthermore, many of those new Ukrainian leaders wanted a nuclear war against Russia. So, Putin accepted Crimea back into Russia, but he will not admit more than that as being added to Russian territory.

Crimea is viewed as not being an addition to Russia, but instead as voluntarily rejoining Russia, irrespective of the new Ukrainian Government’s campaign to eliminate ethnic Russians from Ukraine’s southeast. No other part of post-1954 Ukraine had previously been part of Russia, and this includes the southeastern portion of Ukraine, whose residents ethnically descended from Russian immigrants who had settled there.

Consequently, the ethnic-cleansing campaign that has been going on by the new, Obama-installed, Ukrainian Government, against the residents in Ukraine’s southeast , will continue, at least until the surviving residents there become a small enough proportion of the Ukrainian national electorate so that a nationwide Ukrainian election — which hasn’t been held in Ukraine since the February 2014 coup — will choose leaders who are acceptable to the U.S. Government, which planned and financed that February coup . Only by killing and driving out enough of those people — the ones in the areas that overwhelmingly voted for the man whom Obama overthrew — will become possible a democratic Ukraine that allies itself with the U.S.

President Putin and President Obama have regularly been in direct contact with one-another ever since Obama’s coup occurred in February. Perhaps Putin’s declining to accept Ukrainian territory into Russia is part of an agreement between the two leaders in which Obama is, for his part, declining the urgings from congressional Republicans and conservative Democrats for the U.S. to provide weapons to the Ukrainian military to expedite their ethnic cleansing campaign .

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity .

20 September, 2014
Countercurrents.org

By Garikai Chengu

Much like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS) is made-in-the-USA, an instrument of terror designed to divide and conquer the oil-rich Middle East and to counter Iran’s growing influence in the region.

The fact that the United States has a long and torrid history of backing terrorist groups will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore history.

The CIA first aligned itself with extremist Islam during the Cold War era. Back then, America saw the world in rather simple terms: on one side, the Soviet Union and Third World nationalism, which America regarded as a Soviet tool; on the other side, Western nations and militant political Islam, which America considered an ally in the struggle against the Soviet Union.

The director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, General William Odom recently remarked, “by any measure the U.S. has long used terrorism. In 1978-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the U.S. would be in violation.”

During the 1970’s the CIA used the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as a barrier, both to thwart Soviet expansion and prevent the spread of Marxist ideology among the Arab masses. The United States also openly supported Sarekat Islam against Sukarno in Indonesia, and supported the Jamaat-e-Islami terror group against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan. Last but certainly not least, there is Al Qaeda.

Lest we forget, the CIA gave birth to Osama Bin Laden and breastfed his organization during the 1980’s. Former British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, told the House of Commons that Al Qaeda was unquestionably a product of Western intelligence agencies. Mr. Cook explained that Al Qaeda, which literally means an abbreviation of “the database” in Arabic, was originally the computer database of the thousands of Islamist extremists, who were trained by the CIA and funded by the Saudis, in order to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan.

America’s relationship with Al Qaeda has always been a love-hate affair. Depending on whether a particular Al Qaeda terrorist group in a given region furthers American interests or not, the U.S. State Department either funds or aggressively targets that terrorist group. Even as American foreign policy makers claim to oppose Muslim extremism, they knowingly foment it as a weapon of foreign policy.

The Islamic State is its latest weapon that, much like Al Qaeda, is certainly backfiring. ISIS recently rose to international prominence after its thugs began beheading American journalists. Now the terrorist group controls an area the size of the United Kingdom.

In order to understand why the Islamic State has grown and flourished so quickly, one has to take a look at the organization’s American-backed roots. The 2003 American invasion and occupation of Iraq created the pre-conditions for radical Sunni groups, like ISIS, to take root. America, rather unwisely, destroyed Saddam Hussein’s secular state machinery and replaced it with a predominantly Shiite administration. The U.S. occupation caused vast unemployment in Sunni areas, by rejecting socialism and closing down factories in the naive hope that the magical hand of the free market would create jobs. Under the new U.S.-backed Shiite regime, working class Sunni’s lost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Unlike the white Afrikaners in South Africa, who were allowed to keep their wealth after regime change, upper class Sunni’s were systematically dispossessed of their assets and lost their political influence. Rather than promoting religious integration and unity, American policy in Iraq exacerbated sectarian divisions and created a fertile breading ground for Sunni discontent, from which Al Qaeda in Iraq took root.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) used to have a different name: Al Qaeda in Iraq. After 2010 the group rebranded and refocused its efforts on Syria.

There are essentially three wars being waged in Syria: one between the government and the rebels, another between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and yet another between America and Russia. It is this third, neo-Cold War battle that made U.S. foreign policy makers decide to take the risk of arming Islamist rebels in Syria, because Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, is a key Russian ally. Rather embarrassingly, many of these Syrian rebels have now turned out to be ISIS thugs, who are openly brandishing American-made M16 Assault rifles.

America’s Middle East policy revolves around oil and Israel. The invasion of Iraq has partially satisfied Washington’s thirst for oil, but ongoing air strikes in Syria and economic sanctions on Iran have everything to do with Israel. The goal is to deprive Israel’s neighboring enemies, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas, of crucial Syrian and Iranian support.

ISIS is not merely an instrument of terror used by America to topple the Syrian government; it is also used to put pressure on Iran.

The last time Iran invaded another nation was in 1738. Since independence in 1776, the U.S. has been engaged in over 53 military invasions and expeditions. Despite what the Western media’s war cries would have you believe, Iran is clearly not the threat to regional security, Washington is. An Intelligence Report published in 2012, endorsed by all sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies, confirms that Iran ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Truth is, any Iranian nuclear ambition, real or imagined, is as a result of American hostility towards Iran, and not the other way around.

America is using ISIS in three ways: to attack its enemies in the Middle East, to serve as a pretext for U.S. military intervention abroad, and at home to foment a manufactured domestic threat, used to justify the unprecedented expansion of invasive domestic surveillance.

By rapidly increasing both government secrecy and surveillance, Mr. Obama’s government is increasing its power to watch its citizens, while diminishing its citizens’ power to watch their government. Terrorism is an excuse to justify mass surveillance, in preparation for mass revolt.

The so-called “War on Terror” should be seen for what it really is: a pretext for maintaining a dangerously oversized U.S. military. The two most powerful groups in the U.S. foreign policy establishment are the Israel lobby, which directs U.S. Middle East policy, and the Military-Industrial-Complex, which profits from the former group’s actions. Since George W. Bush declared the “War on Terror” in October 2001, it has cost the American taxpayer approximately 6.6 trillion dollars and thousands of fallen sons and daughters; but, the wars have also raked in billions of dollars for Washington’s military elite.

In fact, more than seventy American companies and individuals have won up to $27 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last three years, according to a recent study by the Center for Public Integrity. According to the study, nearly 75 per cent of these private companies had employees or board members, who either served in, or had close ties to, the executive branch of the Republican and Democratic administrations, members of Congress, or the highest levels of the military.

In 1997, a U.S. Department of Defense report stated, “the data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement abroad and an increase in terrorist attacks against the U.S.” Truth is, the only way America can win the “War On Terror” is if it stops giving terrorists the motivation and the resources to attack America. Terrorism is the symptom; American imperialism in the Middle East is the cancer. Put simply, the War on Terror is terrorism; only, it is conducted on a much larger scale by people with jets and missiles.

Garikai Chengu is a research scholar at Harvard University.
19 September, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By Peter Symonds
US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday laid fresh allegations of chemical weapons use against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, thereby establishing another pretext for turning the imminent US air war in Syria against the regime in Damascus.

A year ago, the Obama administration exploited the now discredited claims that the Syrian military had carried out a gas attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, in order to prepare a devastating aerial assault on the country’s armed forces, infrastructure and industry. While the attacks were called off at the last minute, the US has never relinquished its aim of regime-change and has seized on Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) atrocities to justify a new, illegal war of aggression.

Speaking in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Kerry renewed the claim that the Syrian military was using chemical weapons in the country’s civil war. “We believe there is evidence of Assad’s use of chlorine, which when you use it—despite it not being on the list—it is prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention,” he said.

Last September, the Syrian government agreed to the destruction of its stockpiles of chemical weapons and the facilities used to manufacture and store them. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced last month that it had completed the task of supervising the destruction of the materials and facilities. Yet, at the time, Kerry continued to press the issue, claiming that “much more work must be done” to deal with “discrepancies and omissions” in Syria’s chemical weapons’ declaration last year.

Now, as the US is about to launch air strikes on ISIS militias in Syria, Kerry has publicly revived the issue. Chlorine was never part of last year’s agreement because it is a basic chemical with many industrial applications. As such it also provides a convenient device for making further lurid allegations against the Assad regime.

Claims that the Syrian military used chlorine against opposition-held villages can be traced to an “independent investigation” carried out by the right-wing British newspaper, the Telegraph, in April. The Telegraph, which has links to the British military and intelligence establishment, passed on soil samples from the villages to the OPCW, which issued a report last week confirming strong traces of chlorine and ammonia. The UN body could not and did not, however, determine who used the gas.

Just as the US exploited the Ghouta gas attack last year as a casus belli for war on Syria, so Kerry used the latest chemical weapons claims to make clear that the US is still gunning for Assad. He declared that there was no “long-term future” for Assad in power, adding: “The Syrian opposition is not going to stop fighting Assad. We recognise that reality.”

Kerry’s comments underline the real purpose of Washington’s plans to train and arm at least 5,000 “moderate” Syrian opposition fighters. While nominally aimed against ISIS, these militias would form the core of armed forces to oust Assad and establish a pro-Western regime in Damascus. Yesterday the US Senate, following a vote in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, overwhelmingly approved—78 to 22—the Obama administration’s plan to build up anti-Assad forces in Syria.

US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel told the House Armed Services Committee that he and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Martin Dempsey had signed off on detailed plans for air strikes on ISIS targets inside Syria. Referring to the US Central Command, Hagel said: “CENTCOM’s plan includes targeted actions against ISIL [ISIS] safe havens in Syria, including its command and control, logistics capabilities and infrastructure.” He added: “Our actions will not be restrained by a border that exists in name only.” All that is now required is Obama’s approval.

According to a SyriaDeeply report this week, civilians in the Syrian city of Raqqa, currently held by ISIS, are already fleeing. Abu Ahmad, who left with his family, said: “We will not stay in our homes waiting for death to find us because of some targeting error.” A shop keeper inside Raqqa told the Guardian: “I believe most of the casualties will be civilian. The majority will be from Raqqa and very few from ISIS.”

The timing of the stepped-up war inside Iraq and air strikes in Syria is likely to be determined during next week’s UN General Assembly meeting. The Australian Financial Review reported today: “The final plans to wage war against Islamic State will be co-ordinated in private meetings between world leaders in New York… clearing the way for action to start.” Obama is due to address the General Assembly and chair a meeting of the UN Security Council.

The Obama administration is still trying to consolidate its “coalition of the willing” to wage war in the Middle East. President Francois Hollande announced yesterday that France was prepared to carry out air strikes in Iraq, but not in Syria, citing concerns that extending the air war would strengthen the Assad regime. The British government has held off making detailed commitments until the results of the Scottish referendum are finalised.

Kerry declared on Wednesday that some Arab countries were committed to military action, saying: “We have significant levels of support to conduct military operations.” He did not name specific nations, however. Turkey has refused to allow US war planes to operate from its military bases but this week revived plans to establish a buffer zone along its border with Syria as a possible staging area for pro-Western, anti-Assad militias.

Obama has repeatedly declared that the US will not commit ground troops to combat in Iraq and Syria. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who has sent war planes and 600 military personnel to Iraq, including 150 SAS special forces, repeats the same mantra.

The worthlessness of such statements was underscored by an Australian “retired senior defence insider” who commented in yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald: “You don’t send in the SAS to run seminars and give white-board presentations back at headquarters. These guys are our most highly trained killers, and that’s what they will be doing.”

The determination of the US and its allies to play down their involvement in a war in the Middle East stems from real fears of the emergence of anti-war opposition on a scale beyond that which erupted against the criminal US-led invasion on Iraq in 2003.

19 September, 2014
WSWS.org

 

On 11th of September this year, the Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno presented Cuba’s report regarding United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/8, entitled “The necessity of putting an end to the economic, commercial, financial blockade of Cuba by the United States”.

In his speech Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno reporting on hostile U.S. policy and stressed that the blockade has become a financial war. “The U.S. blockade of Cuba is increasingly damaging. It has become a financial war,” asserted Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno, during a meeting with the press to present the country’s report regarding United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/8, entitled “The necessity of putting an end to the economic, commercial, financial blockade of Cuba by the United States.”

Moreno reported that the economic harm caused to the country “has reached more than a trillion, considering the depreciation of the dollar, as compared to the value of gold on the international market.” The exact total he presented: $1,112,534,000,000, despite a reduction in the price of gold last year.

“At current prices, over all of these years, the blockade has caused damages totaling more than 116.8 billion dollars,” Moreno added, speaking at the Solidaridad con Panamá Special Education School, attended by hundreds of physically disabled children.

The Deputy Minister recalled that, for example, Cuba’s Special Education system includes 982 educational workshops which serve to integrate these children into the social and productive lives of their communities.

Restrictions imposed by the blockade, however, impede the acquisition of materials, supplies and technology for these workshops, impacting 22,872 students with special needs.

He explained that, as a result of the hostile U.S. policy, Cuban children facing retinal cancer can not benefit from Brachytherapy radiation treatment, because the radioactive iodine plates needed are only produced by the U.S. corporation 3M.

Just as the report states, “The blockade, in addition to being illegal, is morally unjustifiable,” and “No similar system of unilateral sanctions exists, enforced against any other country in the world, for such a prolonged period of time.”

Moreno asserted, “Not a single aspect of the Cuban people’s social life exists, in which the destructive, destabilizing effects of the blockade have not had an impact.”

The Deputy Minister recalled that the blockade is not a single law, but rather a legislative package which has an extra-territorial reach, adding, “Not a single aspect of the country’s economic or social life exists which escapes the destabilizing effects of the hostile policy imposed on the island for more than half a century.”

He emphasized that the blockade dictates that Cuba can not import or export anything to or from U.S. territory, or use the U.S. dollar in transactions. Cuba can not access credit for any purchases, and according to the Helms Burton Law, any ship which docks in Cuba to do business must wait 180 days before returning to U.S. territory.

“It has a brutal impact on Cuba’s economy and society,” Moreno reiterated.

He emphasized that a fallacy has emerged with some analysts saying the blockade has become more “flexible,” but the facts clearly indicate on a daily basis that the hostile U.S. policy remains in full force. The U.S. government is currently focusing on sanctioning third countries which have relations with Cuba, enforcing the absurd pretension that U.S. law is universally applicable when it comes to the issue of Cuba.”

He presented, as an example of this strategy, the case of an Australian company with headquarters in the U.S. which was forced to comply with blockade regulations.

Moreno described the financial persecution of Cuba by quoting the UN report which states, “Since January of 2009 through June 2 of this year alone, the Obama administration has forced 36 U.S. and international entities to pay almost 2.6 billion dollars [in fines] for maintaining ties with Cuba.”

A relentless campaign to disrupt Cuba’s financial transactions is currently one of the most visible reflections of U.S. efforts to strangle the country’s economy. The Deputy Minister recalled, as an example, the exorbitant fine recently levied on the French bank Paribas for handling Cuban transactions, and those of other U.S. sanctioned countries.

To read full Report by Cuba regarding United Nations General Assembly Resolution 68/8, entitled “The necessity of putting an end to the economic, commercial, financial blockade of Cuba by the United States”, please visit http://www.cubavsbloqueo.cu/sites/default/files/informe_de_cuba_2014.pdf

23 September 2014

By Taj Hashmi

One may not subscribe to the conspiracy theories that imaginative Muslims have been circulating since 9/11 attacks, the latest being the portrayal of the ISIS “Caliph” as a Jewish, planted by Israel to further destabilize the region. One may, however, consider the formation of Obama’s “Coalition of the Willing” of more than 30 countries against the so-called Islamic State a ridiculous idea; or ominously, even a ploy to eventually invade Syria and Iran, as per the Pentagon Plan, leaked by retired General Wesley Clark in 2007.

Peace loving people everywhere heaved a sigh of relief at President Obama’s earlier declaration about not having a “strategy yet” to counter the ISIS threat, soon after this enigmatic terrorist group captured Mosul and parts of northern Iraq. They hoped Obama would not intervene in Iraq and Syria militarily. However, the hope was dashed. On the eve of the 13th anniversary of 9/11, Obama seemed to have succumbed to the pressure of U.S. warmongers, who consider the rise of ISIS as the prelude to another 9/11.

Obama ordered airstrikes on Syria to rout the ISIS militants. He allocated 500 additional military advisers to Iraq, and simultaneously rejected talks of an all-out war. As of mid-September, the U.S. allocated $500 million to train 5,000 fighters to fight against the ISIS. We were told, it could take three years or more to defeat the 30,000 ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria (some sources give the figure of 100,000), who have less than 100 battle tanks and field guns and no air force.

One wonders, if the U.S. is going to spend billions of dollars over the years in just training Iraqis to fight the ISIS as it did in Afghanistan to train Afghans to fight the Taliban! What Thomas Friedman once told about the ridiculous idea of spending billions to train Afghans to fight is relevant to what America is going to repeat in Iraq: “Americans’ training Afghan to fight is like someone training Brazilians to play soccer ….Who are training the Taliban? …. American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan may be compared with an unemployed couple’s adopting a child”. It seems “Who are training the ISIS fighters?” is another taboo of a question to the U.S. Administration.

We know the ISIS or IS (Ad-Dawlaht ul-Islamiyya) does not pose any security threat to the U.S. or Europe, let alone any existential threat to countries in the region, especially war-torn Syria and Iraq. We also know that as there are various geopolitical factors behind the enigmatic rise of this terror outfit as an “Islamic State”, and the “forerunner” of a transnational “Caliphate”; so are there vested interest groups across the region and in distant capitals – Washington, London, Ottawa and Canberra – who have hyped up the ISIS menace as a much bigger security threat than al Qaeda or its ilk ever posed to the West and its allies. The ISIS is no longer a “non-state actor” but a “state actor” in the military sense of the expressions. Since states cannot resort to unconventional methods of warfare, tiny Lebanon is capable of defeating the Islamic State in a conventional war.

America and its allies want the overthrow of the Syrian and Iranian regimes, and are paradoxically fighting the ISIS, which has also been fighting Assad, and all pro-Iranian elements in Syria and Iraq. One wonders why the enemy’s enemy is not a friend to the West! This “paradox” looks quite ominous. The American, British, Australian and other Western nations definitely want to go well beyond crushing the enigmatic and vulnerable ISIS, which Peter Baker thinks is nothing but “Extending a Legacy of War”. He believes by ordering a sustained military campaign against the ISIS, President Obama “ensured that he would pass his successor a volatile and incomplete war, much like the one he inherited when he took office”. As Baker considers the war against ISIS “the next chapter in a generational struggle”, his arguments corroborate this writer’s belief that the world is already witnessing another “Hundred-Year War” since the birth of Israel in 1948.

Despite his prior rejection of all-out war in Iraq and Syria, President Obama seems to have yielded to the pressure of the Military Industrial Complex, which wants to drag America to another long war. Apparently, Obama’s strategy is about authorizing air attacks on ISIS-held territories in Iraq and Syria without the Congress and UN approval. We do not agree with analysts who believe that Obama’s war on ISIS is a distraction from preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, which is still very important to America, and the first priority for Israel. Interestingly, the ISIS has not yet identified Israel as enemy, and ISIS fighters publicly set fire to the Palestinian flag.

All wars that America fought since the end of World War II, were without Congress approval, hence illegal. Obama’s strategy of launching air attacks on Syrian territory, without the permission of Syrian government – purportedly to defeat the ISIS – amounts to a violation of international law. Unfortunately, as terrorist outfits do not respect international law, so does the U.S., the second largest democracy in the world.

It seems, Obama Strategy is not going to accomplish what it purportedly aims at achieving: defeating the ISIS to restore peace, and good governance in Iraq, Syria and throughout the region. Obama’s open support for rebels and dissidents to overthrow the Syrian and Iranian regimes, and his unwillingness to collaborate with Syria and Iran to defeat the ISIS are bound to back fire. While Ayatollah Khameini believes the ISIS was “made-in-the-USA”, most Iraqi Sunnis consider their government as a bigger threat than the ISIS. As Syrian rebels are least interested to fight the ISIS, so is the ISIS uninterested in fighting them. Arab leaders’ tepid support for the war efforts will not give rich dividends either. They are nervous about domestic backlash from participation in America’s war efforts against ISIS.

Again, Obama does not want a replay of Bush’s Iraq War of 2003. His strategy is not about launching another “shock-and-awe” like 2003 as he does not want the war on ISIS look like another American war. If the Obama strategy is all about routing the ISIS with ineffective air attacks, it is bound to fail. However, if the real strategy is about regime change operations in Syria and Iran, then it is altogether a different matter.

The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, U.S.

17 September, 2014
Countercurrents.org

 

By William Blum

Ever since serious protest broke out in Ukraine in February the Western mainstream media, particularly in the United States, has seriously downplayed the fact that the usual suspects – the US/European Union/NATO triumvirate – have been on the same side as the neo-Nazis. In the US it’s been virtually unmentionable. I’m sure that a poll taken in the United States on this issue would reveal near universal ignorance of the numerous neo-Nazi actions, including publicly calling for death to “Russians, Communists and Jews”. But in the past week the dirty little secret has somehow poked its head out from behind the curtain a bit.

On September 9 NBCnews.com reported that “German TV shows Nazi symbols on helmets of Ukraine soldiers”. The German station showed pictures of a soldier wearing a combat helmet with the “SS runes” of Hitler’s infamous black-uniformed elite corps. (Runes are the letters of an alphabet used by ancient Germanic peoples.) A second soldier was shown with a swastika on his helmet. 1

On the 13th, the Washington Post showed a photo of the sleeping quarter of a member of the Azov Battalion, one of the Ukrainian paramilitary units fighting the pro-Russian separatists. On the wall above the bed is a large swastika. Not to worry, the Post quoted the platoon leader stating that the soldiers embrace symbols and espouse extremist notions as part of some kind of “romantic” idea.

Yet, it is Russian president Vladimir Putin who is compared to Adolf Hitler by everyone from Prince Charles to Princess Hillary because of the incorporation of Crimea as part of Russia. On this question Putin has stated:

The Crimean authorities have relied on the well-known Kosovo precedent, a precedent our Western partners created themselves, with their own hands, so to speak. In a situation absolutely similar to the Crimean one, they deemed Kosovo’s secession from Serbia to be legitimate, arguing everywhere that no permission from the country’s central authorities was required for the unilateral declaration of independence. The UN’s international court, based on Paragraph 2 of Article 1 of the UN Charter, agreed with that, and in its decision of 22 July 2010 noted the following, and I quote verbatim: No general prohibition may be inferred from the practice of the Security Council with regard to unilateral declarations of independence. 2

Putin as Hitler is dwarfed by the stories of Putin as invader (Vlad the Impaler?). For months the Western media has been beating the drums about Russia having (actually) invaded Ukraine. I recommend reading: “How Can You Tell Whether Russia has Invaded Ukraine?” by Dmitry Orlov 3

And keep in mind the NATO encirclement of Russia. Imagine Russia setting up military bases in Canada and Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Remember what a Soviet base in Cuba led to.

Has the United States ever set a bad example?

Ever since that fateful day of September 11, 2001, the primary public relations goal of the United States has been to discredit the idea that somehow America had it coming because of its numerous political and military acts of aggression. Here’s everyone’s favorite hero, George W. Bush, speaking a month after 9-11:

“How do I respond when I see that in some Islamic countries there is vitriolic hatred for America? I’ll tell you how I respond: I’m amazed. I’m amazed that there’s such misunderstanding of what our country is about that people would hate us. I am – like most Americans, I just can’t believe it because I know how good we are.” 4

Thank you, George. Now take your pills.

I and other historians of US foreign policy have documented at length the statements of anti-American terrorists who have made it explicitly clear that their actions were in retaliation for Washington’s decades of international abominations. 5
But American officials and media routinely ignore this evidence and cling to the party line that terrorists are simply cruel and crazed by religion; which many of them indeed are, but that doesn’t change the political and historical facts.

This American mindset appears to be alive and well. At least four hostages held in Syria recently by Islamic State militants, including US journalist James Foley, were waterboarded during their captivity. The Washington Post quoted a US official: “ISIL is a group that routinely crucifies and beheads people. To suggest that there is any correlation between ISIL’s brutality and past U.S. actions is ridiculous and feeds into their twisted propaganda.”

The Post, however, may have actually evolved a bit, adding that the “Islamic State militants … appeared to model the technique on the CIA’s use of waterboarding to interrogate suspected terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.” 6

Talk given by William Blum at a Teach-In on US Foreign Policy, American University, Washington, DC, September 6, 2014

Each of you I’m sure has met many people who support American foreign policy, with whom you’ve argued and argued. You point out one horror after another, from Vietnam to Iraq. From god-awful bombings and invasions to violations of international law and torture. And nothing helps. Nothing moves this person.

Now why is that? Are these people just stupid? I think a better answer is that they have certain preconceptions. Consciously or unconsciously, they have certain basic beliefs about the United States and its foreign policy, and if you don’t deal with these basic beliefs you may as well be talking to a stone wall.

The most basic of these basic beliefs, I think, is a deeply-held conviction that no matter what the United States does abroad, no matter how bad it may look, no matter what horror may result, the government of the United States means well. American leaders may make mistakes, they may blunder, they may lie, they may even on the odd occasion cause more harm than good, but they do mean well. Their intentions are always honorable, even noble. Of that the great majority of Americans are certain.

Frances Fitzgerald, in her famous study of American school textbooks, summarized the message of these books: “The United States has been a kind of Salvation Army to the rest of the world: throughout history it had done little but dispense benefits to poor, ignorant, and diseased countries. The U.S. always acted in a disinterested fashion, always from the highest of motives; it gave, never took.”

And Americans genuinely wonder why the rest of the world can’t see how benevolent and self-sacrificing America has been. Even many people who take part in the anti-war movement have a hard time shaking off some of this mindset; they march to spur America – the America they love and worship and trust – they march to spur this noble America back onto its path of goodness.

Many of the citizens fall for US government propaganda justifying its military actions as often and as naively as Charlie Brown falling for Lucy’s football.

The American people are very much like the children of a Mafia boss who do not know what their father does for a living, and don’t want to know, but then wonder why someone just threw a firebomb through the living room window.

This basic belief in America’s good intentions is often linked to “American exceptionalism”. Let’s look at how exceptional US foreign policy has been. Since the end of World War 2, the United States has:

1. Attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically-elected.

2. Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.

3. Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.

4. Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.

5. Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.

6. Led the world in torture; not only the torture performed directly by Americans upon foreigners, but providing torture equipment, torture manuals, lists of people to be tortured, and in-person guidance by American teachers, especially in Latin America.

This is indeed exceptional. No other country in all of history comes anywhere close to such a record.

So the next time you’re up against a stone wall … ask the person what the United States would have to do in its foreign policy to lose his support. What for this person would finally be TOO MUCH. If the person mentions something really bad, chances are the United States has already done it, perhaps repeatedly.

Keep in mind that our precious homeland, above all, seeks to dominate the world. For economic reasons, nationalistic reasons, ideological, Christian, and for other reasons, world hegemony has long been America’s bottom line. And let’s not forget the powerful Executive Branch officials whose salaries, promotions, agency budgets and future well-paying private sector jobs depend upon perpetual war. These leaders are not especially concerned about the consequences for the world of their wars. They’re not necessarily bad people; but they’re amoral, like a sociopath is.

Take the Middle East and South Asia. The people in those areas have suffered horribly because of Islamic fundamentalism. What they desperately need are secular governments, which have respect for different religions. And such governments were actually instituted in the recent past. But what has been the fate of those governments?

Well, in the late 1970s through much of the 1980s, Afghanistan had a secular government that was relatively progressive, with full rights for women, which is hard to believe, isn’t it? But even a Pentagon report of the time testified to the actuality of women’s rights in Afghanistan. And what happened to that government? The United States overthrew it, allowing the Taliban to come to power. So keep that in mind the next time you hear an American official say that we have to remain in Afghanistan for the sake of women’s rights.

After Afghanistan came Iraq, another secular society, under Saddam Hussein. And the United States overthrew that government as well, and now the country is overrun by crazed and bloody jihadists and fundamentalists of all kinds; and women who are not covered up are running a serious risk.

Next came Libya; again, a secular country, under Moammar Gaddafi, who, like Saddam Hussein, had a tyrant side to him but could in important ways be benevolent and do marvelous things for Libya and Africa. To name just one example, Libya had a high ranking on the United Nation’s Human Development Index. So, of course, the United States overthrew that government as well. In 2011, with the help of NATO we bombed the people of Libya almost every day for more than six months. And, once again, this led to messianic jihadists having a field day. How it will all turn out for the people of Libya, only God knows, or perhaps Allah.

And for the past three years, the United States has been doing its best to overthrow the secular government of Syria. And guess what? Syria is now a playground and battleground for all manner of ultra militant fundamentalists, including everyone’s new favorite, IS, the Islamic State. The rise of IS owes a lot to what the US has done in Iraq, Libya, and Syria in recent years.

We can add to this marvelous list the case of the former Yugoslavia, another secular government that was overthrown by the United States, in the form of NATO, in 1999, giving rise to the creation of the largely-Muslim state of Kosovo, run by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The KLA was considered a terrorist organization by the US, the UK and France for years, with numerous reports of the KLA being armed and trained by al-Qaeda, in al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan, and even having members of al-Qaeda in KLA ranks fighting against the Serbs of Yugoslavia. Washington’s main concern was dealing a blow to Serbia, widely known as “the last communist government in Europe”.

The KLA became renowned for their torture, their trafficking in women, heroin, and human body parts; another charming client of the empire.

Someone looking down upon all this from outer space could be forgiven for thinking that the United States is an Islamic power doing its best to spread the word – Allah Akbar!

But what, you might wonder, did each of these overthrown governments have in common that made them a target of Washington’s wrath? The answer is that they could not easily be controlled by the empire; they refused to be client states; they were nationalistic; in a word, they were independent; a serious crime in the eyes of the empire.

So mention all this as well to our hypothetical supporter of US foreign policy and see whether he still believes that the United States means well. If he wonders how long it’s been this way, point out to him that it would be difficult to name a single brutal dictatorship of the second half of the 20th Century that was not supported by the United States; not only supported, but often put into power and kept in power against the wishes of the population. And in recent years as well, Washington has supported very repressive governments, such as Saudi Arabia, Honduras, Indonesia, Egypt, Colombia, Qatar, and Israel.

And what do American leaders think of their own record? Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was probably speaking for the whole private club of our foreign-policy leadership when she wrote in 2000 that in the pursuit of its national security the United States no longer needed to be guided by “notions of international law and norms” or “institutions like the United Nations” because America was “on the right side of history.” 7

Let me remind you of Daniel Ellsberg’s conclusion about the US in Vietnam: “It wasn’t that we were on the wrong side; we were the wrong side.”

Well, far from being on the right side of history, we have in fact fought – I mean actually engaged in warfare – on the same side as al Qaeda and their offspring on several occasions, beginning with Afghanistan in the 1980s and 90s in support of the Islamic Moujahedeen, or Holy Warriors.

The US then gave military assistance, including bombing support, to Bosnia and Kosovo, both of which were being supported by al Qaeda in the Yugoslav conflicts of the early 1990s.

In Libya, in 2011, Washington and the Jihadists shared a common enemy, Gaddafi, and as mentioned, the US bombed the people of Libya for more than six months, allowing jihadists to take over parts of the country; and they’re now fighting for the remaining parts. These wartime allies showed their gratitude to Washington by assassinating the US ambassador and three other Americans, apparently CIA, in the city of Benghazi.

Then, for some years in the mid and late 2000s, the United States backed Islamic militants in the Caucasus region of Russia, an area that has seen more than its share of religious terror going back to the Chechnyan actions of the 1990s.

Finally, in Syria, in attempting to overthrow the Assad government, the US has fought on the same side as several varieties of Islamic militants. That makes six occasions of the US being wartime allies of jihadist forces.

I realize that I have fed you an awful lot of negativity about what America has done to the world, and maybe it’s been kind of hard for some of you to swallow. But my purpose has been to try to loosen the grip on your intellect and your emotions that you’ve been raised with – or to help you to help others to loosen that grip – the grip that assures you that your beloved America means well. US foreign policy will not make much sense to you as long as you believe that its intentions are noble; as long as you ignore the consistent pattern of seeking world domination, which is a national compulsion of very long standing, known previously under other names such as Manifest Destiny, the American Century, American exceptionalism, globalization, or, as Madeleine Albright put it, “the indispensable nation” … while others less kind have used the term “imperialist”.

In this context I can’t resist giving the example of Bill Clinton. While president, in 1995, he was moved to say: “Whatever we may think about the political decisions of the Vietnam era, the brave Americans who fought and died there had noble motives. They fought for the freedom and the independence of the Vietnamese people.” Yes, that’s really the way our leaders talk. But who knows what they really believe?

It is my hope that many of you who are not now activists against the empire and its wars will join the anti-war movement as I did in 1965 against the war in Vietnam. It’s what radicalized me and so many others. When I hear from people of a certain age about what began the process of losing their faith that the United States means well, it’s Vietnam that far and away is given as the main cause. I think that if the American powers-that-be had known in advance how their “Oh what a lovely war” was going to turn out they might not have made their mammoth historical blunder. Their invasion of Iraq in 2003 indicates that no Vietnam lesson had been learned at that point, but our continuing protest against war and threatened war in Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, and elsewhere may have – may have! – finally made a dent in the awful war mentality. I invite you all to join our movement. Thank you.

William Blum is the author of:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.williamblum.org

Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.

Email bblum6 [at] aol.com

Notes

1. NBC News, “German TV Shows Nazi Symbols on Helmets of Ukraine Soldiers”, September 6 2014

2. BBC, March 18, 2014

3. Information Clearinghouse, “How Can You Tell Whether Russia has Invaded Ukraine?”, September 1 2014

4. Boston Globe, October 12, 2001

5. See, for example, William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower (2005), chapter 1

6. Washington Post, August 28, 2014

7. Foreign Affairs magazine (Council on Foreign Relations), January/February 2000

Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission, provided attribution to William Blum as author and a link to this website are given.

17 September, 2014
Williamblum.org

 

By Peter Symonds

At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey set the stage for a massive and protracted expansion of US military operations in Iraq and Syria.

“This will require a sustained effort over an extended period of time. It is a generational problem,” Dempsey told the committee.

In his opening testimony, Dempsey contradicted President Obama’s pledge last week that there would be no American troops engaged in combat in Iraq or Syria. “To be clear,” he stated, “if we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] targets, I will recommend that to the president.”

Obama has already authorised the deployment of 1,600 American military personnel in Iraq, including the placement of US troops with Kurdish peshmerga militia and Iraqi army forces fighting ISIL, more commonly known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). Speaking on behalf of the US military hierarchy, Dempsey made clear that such advisers could not be confined to headquarters, but would be needed to provide “close combat advising” in complex operations such as dislodging ISIS from urban areas like Mosul.

In remarks bordering on insubordination, Dempsey implicitly criticised Obama when he explained that the president had already turned down the recommendation of Central Command chief, General Lloyd Austin, to deploy American troops as spotters to call in air strikes during last month’s offensive to retake the Mosul Dam from ISIS.

Dempsey’s public disagreement points to tensions with the White House and the degree to which the military and intelligence apparatus are calling the shots in the new US-led war in the Middle East. The real purpose of the military intervention, a revival of plans shelved last year, is the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This will necessarily require a far greater American military commitment than currently acknowledged.

In the space of just over a month, what was initially announced as limited air strikes to protect the Yazidi minority in Iraq has been transformed into a full-blown war in Iraq and Syria involving the US and some 40 allies. Both Dempsey and Hagel reaffirmed yesterday that the air war that has already begun in Iraq would be taken into Syria. “This is an Iraq-first strategy… but not an Iraq-only one,” Dempsey said.

Hagel told the Senate Committee that Obama will meet with General Austin today at the Central Command headquarters in Tampa for a briefing on the war preparations. “The plan includes targeted actions against ISIL safe havens in Syria—including its command and control, logistics capabilities, and infrastructure,” he stated.

Hagel dismissed any notion of Syrian national sovereignty, declaring that “our actions will not be restrained by a border in name only. As the president said last week, ‘if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.’”

As was the case in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Obama administration is launching an illegal war of aggression over the vocal opposition of the Syrian government, which is well aware that it is the real target.

While maintaining the pretext of destroying ISIS, Hagel put Assad squarely in the US cross-hairs. “As we pursue this program,” he declared, “the United States will continue to press for a political resolution to the Syrian conflict resulting in the end of the Assad regime. Assad has lost all legitimacy to govern, and has created the conditions that allowed ISIL and other terrorist groups to gain ground and terrorise and slaughter the Syrian population.”

The cynicism is staggering. For the past three years, the Obama administration and its allies, especially Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, have backed, financed and armed the anti-Assad militias to overthrow the Syrian government. Having turned a blind eye to atrocities carried out in Syria by ISIS and other reactionary Islamist forces, Washington has seized on the beheading of two American journalists to justify the launching of a war to oust Assad.

Along with US air strikes in Syria, Hagel detailed plans to “train, equip and resupply more than 5,000 [Syrian] opposition forces over one year. The package of assistance that we initially provide would consist of small arms, vehicles, and basic equipment like communications, as well as tactical and strategic training.”

Hagel’s claims that there will be “a rigorous vetting process” to ensure that “weapons do not fall into the hand of radical elements of the opposition” have no credibility. The very fact that the training will take place in Saudi Arabia, one of the chief backers of Islamist militias in Syria, including ISIS, makes clear that the “vetting” will be to ensure that the overriding commitment of these forces is to oust Assad.

In his remarks, Dempsey spoke of the need to “destroy ISIL in Iraq,” where it threatens the stability of the US puppet regime in Baghdad. But he set a more modest goal for Syria, where the Islamist organisation could still be called on as part of the regime-change operation against Assad. There he said the aim was to “disrupt ISIL.”

Dempsey also indicated that the US was pressuring unnamed Sunni Arab nations with “very considerable” Special Forces to commit troops to assist anti-Assad militias on the ground in Syria. While he did not name specific countries, they likely include Qatar and Saudi Arabia, whose intelligence agencies have undoubtedly been active inside Syria.

A revealing exchange in the Senate hearing involving Republican Senator John McCain with Hagel and Dempsey underscored the purpose of the unfolding war. After declaring that it was a “fundamental fallacy” to rely on the Syrian opposition to prioritise fighting ISIS ahead of fighting Assad, McCain asked whether these militias would receive American air cover if attacked by the Syrian military.

The question came too close to the truth—that such an attack, real or fabricated, would provide a convenient pretext for unleashing devastating air strikes against the Syrian military. Responding to McCain, Hagel did not rule out the possibility, simply saying: “We’re not there yet, but our focus is on ISIL.”

Dempsey was more open, stating that “if we were to take [fighting] Assad off the table, we’d have a much more difficult time” persuading the Syrian opposition to join the US-led war. He said the administration had an “ISIL-first strategy”—meaning an open assault against Assad would soon follow.

Behind the backs of the American people and without even the fig leaf of congressional authorisation—which both parties would overwhelming provide, if asked—the Obama administration is embarking on a reckless and illegal war of aggression aimed at securing US hegemony over the Middle East and beyond. While Assad is the immediate target, the US is preparing for a confrontation with his backers—Iran and Russia—that threatens to trigger a far more devastating war.

17 September, 2014
WSWS.org

 

By Naomi Klein

The most important climate gathering next week will not be happening at the UN, but in the streets: thousands upon thousands of us will be sounding the climate alarm, literally, at the historic People’s Climate March on September 21. While the decision was made not to have speeches during the march, at 12:58pm there will be two minutes of silence followed by the unleashing of a chorus of magnificent sound—part of what organizers are describing as a global call for climate justice—complete with church bells and some 32 marching bands. (Bring your noisemakers!)

The sounding of the climate alarm is an important metaphor: it reminds us, as I write in my book, that “politicians aren’t the only ones with the power to declare a crisis. Mass movements of regular people can declare one too.”

And many of the people making the noise are already showing us the path forward, the real exits from the crisis. They are, for example, the daring activists saying “No!” to new carbon frontiers around the world—heroic denizens of a global, roving conflict zone known as Blockadia, waging nonviolent resistance to fossil fuel expansion plans and putting their bodies on the line from East Texas to the Niger Delta, to Northern Greece.

And they are the frontline communities most directly impacted by extraction and climate change, who are also pioneering some of the most exciting models for making a “just transition” away from fossil fuels. (Like solar co-ops in Richmond, California, where workers have been living under the shadow of the local, notoriously dirty Chevron oil refinery; or a Navajo proposal to convert abandoned mining land on their reservation into solar arrays that could power their communities and urban centers beyond; or the idea that we could compensate Indigenous groups for protecting the carbon buried under their ancestral forests or sequestered in the trees, instead of kicking them out in order to safely market forest “offsets” to polluting corporations.)

They are also the dogged young campaigners of the fossil fuel divestment movement, which has swept across hundreds of campuses, cities, states, charitable foundations, and religious institutions with startling speed. This is just the first stage of a growing effort to delegitimize the profits of the fossil fuel industry, and – most excitingly – to figure out how to redirect those resources in the service of real climate solutions.

“To change everything, we need everyone,” goes one of the slogans of the People’s Climate March, and that is absolutely right: our movements and solutions must be as varied and numerous as the depth and scope that this crisis demands. We need everyone in the climate fight—the labour movement, health care workers, teachers, farmers, everyone defending the public sector and community values and solidarity where they live. We’re not there yet, but powerful glimpses of the kind of deep and diverse movement we need are starting to appear.

That is what this march is about for me: it is an expression of how profoundly the climate movement has changed since the days of elite summit hopping and the inside-game of beltway cap-and-trade fights. Indeed the People’s March is the physical convergence of many new and resurgent climate movements, united in their firm belief that the time to confront the climate criminals in now.

And these movements are ready for a fight. On the day after the family-friendly march, many will be back on the streets, engaging in civil disobedience at centers of financial power around the world—including, of course, Wall Street.

Two years ago, the force of Superstorm Sandy literally flooded New York’s financial district. Who can forget the image of Goldman Sachs surrounded with sand bags. Or the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek, with the headline, “It’s Global Warming, Stupid.”

The thing is: capitalism is kind of stupid. The big brains on Wall Street all know climate change is real. They go on about “stranded assets” and “carbon bubbles” and climate change creating an atmosphere of “risky business.” But even knowing all these medium and long term risks to their very survival, they still can’t resist the short term profits that flow from cooking the planet. As I explore in my book, former NY mayor Michael Bloomberg himself – perhaps the most climate conscious billionaire going — invests his personal fortune in a fund specializing in oil and gas assets.

Clearly, Wall Street needs some help. Which is why we are going to flood them again. With our bodies this time. Wearing blue. If you are in the neighbourhood, come too.

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, author, and syndicated columnist.

17 September, 2014
Thischangeseverything.org

By James Bamford

In Moscow this summer, while reporting a story for Wired magazine, I had the rare opportunity to hang out for three days with Edward J. Snowden. It gave me a chance to get a deeper understanding of who he is and why, as a National Security Agency contractor, he took the momentous step of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents.

Among his most shocking discoveries, he told me, was the fact that the N.S.A. was routinely passing along the private communications of Americans to a large and very secretive Israeli military organization known as Unit 8200. This transfer of intercepts, he said, included the contents of the communications as well as metadata such as who was calling whom.

Typically, when such sensitive information is transferred to another country, it would first be “minimized,” meaning that names and other personally identifiable information would be removed. But when sharing with Israel, the N.S.A. evidently did not ensure that the data was modified in this way.

Mr. Snowden stressed that the transfer of intercepts to Israel contained the communications — email as well as phone calls — of countless Arab- and Palestinian-Americans whose relatives in Israel and the Palestinian territories could become targets based on the communications. “I think that’s amazing,” he told me. “It’s one of the biggest abuses we’ve seen.”

It appears that Mr. Snowden’s fears were warranted. Last week, 43 veterans of Unit 8200 — many still serving in the reserves — accused the organization of startling abuses. In a letter to their commanders, to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to the head of the Israeli army, they charged that Israel used information collected against innocent Palestinians for “political persecution.” In testimonies and interviews given to the media, they specified that data were gathered on Palestinians’ sexual orientations, infidelities, money problems, family medical conditions and other private matters that could be used to coerce Palestinians into becoming collaborators or create divisions in their society.

The veterans of Unit 8200 declared that they had a “moral duty” to no longer “take part in the state’s actions against Palestinians.” An Israeli military spokesman disputed the letter’s overall drift but said the charges would be examined.

It should trouble the American public that some or much of the information in question — intended not for national security purposes but simply to pursue political agendas — may have come directly from the N.S.A.’s domestic dragnet. According to documents leaked by Mr. Snowden and reported by the British newspaper The Guardian, the N.S.A. has been sending intelligence to Israel since at least March 2009.

The memorandum of agreement between the N.S.A. and its Israeli counterpart covers virtually all forms of communication, including but not limited to “unevaluated and unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence metadata and content.” The memo also indicates that the N.S.A. does not filter out American communications before delivery to Israel; indeed, the agency “routinely sends” unminimized data.

Although the memo emphasizes that Israel should make use of the intercepts in accordance with United States law, it also notes that the agreement is legally unenforceable. “This agreement,” it reads, “is not intended to create any legally enforceable rights and shall not be construed to be either an international agreement or a legally binding instrument according to international law.”

It should also trouble Americans that the N.S.A. could head down a similar path in this country. Indeed, there is some indication, from a top-secret 2012 document from Mr. Snowden’s leaked files that I saw last year, that it already is. The document, from Gen. Keith B. Alexander, then the director of the N.S.A., notes that the agency had been compiling records of visits to pornographic websites and proposes using that information to damage the reputations of people whom the agency considers “radicalizers” — not necessarily terrorists, but those attempting, through the use of incendiary speech, to radicalize others. (The Huffington Post has published a redacted version of the document.)

In Moscow, Mr. Snowden told me that the document reminded him of the F.B.I.’s overreach during the days of J. Edgar Hoover, when the bureau abused its powers to monitor and harass political activists. “It’s much like how the F.B.I. tried to use Martin Luther King’s infidelity to talk him into killing himself,” he said. “We said those kinds of things were inappropriate back in the ’60s. Why are we doing that now? Why are we getting involved in this again?”

It’s a question that American and Israeli citizens should be asking themselves.

James Bamford is the author of three books on the National Security Agency, including “The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret N.S.A. from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America.”

16 September 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/

By Feroze Mithiborwala

Proof exists that Western Governments paid ransom money via Qatar to free ISIS held Hostages.

In the last month we have witnessed the brutal & cold-blooded beheadings of two journalists namely US citizens James Foley & Steven Sotloff, as well as British aid-worker David Haines. The ISIS ensured that the brutal videos were viewed across every TV channel & newspaper the world over.

Even as these very murders are being used as an instrument of propaganda by the US & British political elite to drum up support for another senseless war in the Middle East, we need to ask the questions as to whether the three unfortunate victims could have been saved. This even as Alan Hemming another British journalist being held hostage by the ISIS could be the next to be sent to his death.

The British PM David Cameron has used this tragedy to build the case in Britain to support the impending US-Nato led war on Iraq & Syria. Even as the Iraqi Government has requested foreign nations to assist in the war against the ISIS, no such appeal has yet been announced by the Syrian Government.

This would thus make any military action on Syrian soil illegal under international law & an attack on the sovereignty of a nation. The US-UK led Nato coalition have no intention of approaching the United Nations Security Council to approve the military strikes, as they are aware that both Russia & China will thwart their war plans with their veto. Last year in 2013, the British Parliament had rejected any British role in the US attack on Syria. British PM Cameron is thus is a very difficult situation once again. Both the French & the American governments have avoided a debate in their respective parliaments and senates, due to the obvious illegality of the entire venture.

As recently as the 12th of September, Mr. Philips Hammond, British Foreign Secretary said that “Britain will not be part of the airstrikes in Syria”. To which there was an immediate counter from 10 Downing Street stating that the government has “not ruled anything out”.

British PM David Cameron has taken recourse to sheer manipulation by stating that the UK Government does not need any permission from the Assad regime (Syrian Government) as “he had used chemical weapons against Syrian civilians. He has waged war against his own people and therefore is illegitimate”.

On the first count, Cameron has taken recourse to sheer lies, as it has been proved beyond doubt that the “chemical weapons attack” was engineered by the Western backed rebels themselves, so as to blame the Syrian Government & pave the way for Western intervention. This plan was foiled—later, due to Russian mediation, the Syrian Government in a gesture of goodwill, agreed to destroy & handover all chemical weapons to the UN.

Cameron feigns sheer ignorance as he refuses to acknowledge the fact that the Syrian government led by President Bashar Al Assad enjoys the support of the majority of the population, a fact attested to by all independent observers. In the recently held elections on the 3rd of June, to which this writer was a witness, more than 73% of the population turned out to vote & 88% of the people chose Mr. Bashar Al Assad to be the President of Syria.

Mr. Philip Sands, Prof of International Law, University College of London states that, “David Cameron does not even have a wafer-thin legal justification to support UK taking part in airstrikes against the ISIS in Syria according to international law”. He further says that “there is no authorization from the UNSC, or apparent case of self-defense, or even a little precedent of intervention on humanitarian grounds.”

In the case of Iraq, since the Iraqi Government has requested military support in terms of air-strikes, it can yet be taken to the respective parliaments for discussion & approval. But in the case of Syria, the government has made no such request and thus it would be a breach of national sovereignty & international law.

Thus the recent cold-blooded murders of the Foley, Sotloff & Haines are being used by both Obama & Cameron to promote their war agendas.

Both the Foley & Sotloff families have gone on record stating that they were threatened by a counter-terrorism official from the National Security Council, who categorically stated that any contact or attempt to pay ransom to the hostage takers would be considered as “material support for terrorism”. Apparently, US & UK refuse to negotiate with terrorists and thus refuse to pay ransom to free their citizens. But is this true?
Consider the following :

• James Foley was executed on August 19, 2014

• Steven Sotloff on September 2, 2014

• And David Haines on September 13, 2014.

• Interestingly Theo Curtis, an American writer was released on August 24, 2014.

The first three were all held by the ISIS & executed, whilst Theo Curtis, held by the Jabhat al Nusra (Al Qaeda of Syria) was released due to the mediation undertaken by Qatar. Theo’s family stated that “they were not privy to the exact terms that were negotiated. We were repeatedly told by the representatives of the Qataris that they were mediating for Theo’s release on the basis humanitarian grounds, without payment of money”. The terms that Nusra finally agreed to were never made known to the public.

Also European hostages held in James Foley’s cell in Syria where he was being held by ISIS, also have attained their freedom. From information obtained from the former hostages, their families, negotiators & officials – upto $2.5 million was paid for each of the hostages. (Rukmini Callimachi, New York Times)

Also during this very period more than a dozen European hostages were also released by the Yemeni Al Qaeda, once again due to Qatari mediation.

In all of these cases, clearly ransom money has been exchanged for the safety of the hostages, though it has been denied officially.

In an interview, David S. Cohen U.S. Treasury undersecretary for terrorism states, “ransoms have become the main source of funding for al Qaeda-related groups in Yemen and North Africa and an important source for such groups in Syria and Iraq”. He estimated that $120 million in ransom flowed to such groups from 2004 to 2012 and that since then, Yemen’s Al Qaeda branch alone has collected at least $20 million.

“Absolutely, Western states were paying direct” in Yemen, said Alistair Burt, Britain’s state minister for the Middle East until October, speaking of his time overseeing the region. “Western states that frankly ought to have known better were covertly paying ransoms.” (Ellen Knickmeyer, Wall Street Journal, 29/06/14)

Interestingly, in May 2014, Qatar negotiated a deal involving US Soldier Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for Taliban prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay.

Thus clearly precedents exist whereby the governments of the US, UK & other European nations have all negotiated with terrorists & have paid out millions of dollars to ensure that their citizens are freed from captivity. Yet in the case of Foley, Sotloff & Haines, the governments deliberately chose not to.

Feroze Mithiborwala is International Correspondent, Medhajnews.com http://medhajnews.com/proof.html

15 September, 2014
Medhajnews.com