Syria’s Qusair Victory Matters

by Stephen Lendman

The Qusair victory has been a serious setback for the Washington-led coalition of interventionists in Syria's internal affairs.

The Qusair victory has been a serious setback for the Washington-led coalition of interventionists in Syria’s internal affairs.

Qusair’s strategically important. Western-backed death squads controlled it for over a year. On June 5, Syrian forces triumphed. Insurgent fighters were routed. Many were killed. Others were captured. Remaining elements fled.  On June 8, Buwayda village was secured. It was the final area-held insurgent position. Syria’s in full control. Qusair borders Lebanon. It’s in central Homs province. It’s part of an important insurgent supply route.

According to General Yahya Suleiman:

“Whoever controls Qusair control the center of the country, and whoever controls the center of the country controls all of Syria.”

On June 8, an unnamed senior Syrian military officer said:

“We can now declare Qusair and the surrounding area to be a fully liberated area. We will go after the terrorists wherever they are.”

On June 6, the Los Angeles Times headlined “Syria loyalists in Damascus cheered by Qusair victory,” saying:

A man called Ali said “(w)e never thought of defeat; now we know the final triumph is coming.”  LA Times writers said “victory in Qusair was one of a string of recent battlefield successes that has not only improved the government’s strategic position, but also boosted morale among loyalists in the capital and elsewhere.”

A previous article cited a recent NATO study. It shows 70% of Syrians support Assad. They do so for good reason. They’re outraged about foreign intervention.  Western-backed death squads are responsible for mass killing and destruction. They’ve committed appalling atrocities. Syrians want them routed and defeated. They want their sovereignty respected. They want peace and stability restored.

Pro-Assad solidarity’s increasing. LA Times writers said Syrians “view the president as holding back a wave of Islamic extremists funded by Turkey, Arab states and the West.”  Washington’s fully in charge. It’s running things. It has from inception. It’s orchestrating ongoing fighting. LA Times writers didn’t explain. A Syrian merchant did, saying “(t)his so-called revolution is not of our making.”

What’s ahead remains to be seen. Regime change is longstanding US policy. Plans won’t change. Conflict continues. It does so despite decisive Syrian victories.  Qusair’s most important of all. Other areas have been liberated. Perhaps ahead they all will be. Death squad fighters are no match against superior Syrian military power. Cutthroats excel only in killing civilians and committing gruesome atrocities.

Whether Washington plans US-led NATO intervention bears close watching. Israel’s very much involved. Netanyahu actively supports Al Qaeda and other extremist Islamists.  So does Washington. Syria knows its liberating struggle goes on. Conflict could continue for years. It’s Washington’s call.

Decisions made there matter. Obama officials will decide what follows. Nothing suggests peace and stability breaking out. Plans call for continued death, destruction, subversion and destabilization.

Michel Chossudovsky is right. “The West should pay reparations to Syria,” he said. War crimes must be addressed. Washington, key NATO partners, Israel and rogue Arab state allies bear full responsibility.  What’s ongoing reflects naked aggression. Syria was invaded. Death squads are Western-backed proxy foot soldiers. There’s no ambiguity about Washington’s war. Conflict was planned years ago.

Only its timing remained to be determined. When and how it ends isn’t known. Ordinary Syrians suffer most. The longer conflict persists, the greater Assad support grows.  Syrians depend on his protection. They deplore Western and/or Israeli control. They value their sovereign independence. They want no part of extremist Islamist governance. They alone deserve the right to choose who’ll lead them.

Recent key events are important. For over 10 days, anti-government protests rocked Turkey. Prime Minister Erdogan is Washington’s lead attack dog.  Millions of Turks reject his hardline rule. Turkey is more police state than democracy. Dissent isn’t tolerated. No country imprisons more journalists than Turkey.

Police brutality is well known. Dissenters are targeted. Civil and human rights abuses are commonplace. Nonviolent protesters are attacked violently.  Turks have multiple reasons for outrage. They reject authoritarian rule. They want social justice. They deplore Erdogan’s involvement against Syria. They want regional stability restored.

Perhaps they’ll influence Turkish anti-Syrian policy. Erdogan’s domestic concerns may compromise his belligerent involvement.  Most Turks want no part of it. They want major internal change. So far they’re staying the course. They erected thousands of tents in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. They warned authorities against storming it.

So-called pro-Erdogan demonstrations appear government orchestrated. Most people don’t endorse thuggish rule. Erdogan’s more despot than democrat.  Turkish Nobel Literature Prize laureate Orhan Pamuk expressed alarm. Erdogan’s uncompromising attitude worries him most. On June 7, he said:

“I am concerned for my country, and I am following the events with sorrow. There is no signal (for) a peaceful solution (on) the future between the government and demonstrators.”

“Everyone who lives in Istanbul has certainly an unforgettable anecdote (re Taksim Square). I understand and embrace people (protesting).”

“Taksim has a huge political past. I saw conservatives, nationalists, socialists, social democrats and the military pass from there. So I hope that this will be solved with peace.”

“The government is making a mistake trying to build a shopping center in such a sensitive place.”

It’s historically important. It’s Istanbul’s last green space. Artists, intellectuals, students, workers, activists and others want it preserved.  They’re outraged about police brutality. They support peaceful demonstrations. Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas expressed readiness to cancel development plans.

“We are definitely not thinking of building a shopping mall there, no hotel or residence either,” he said. “It can be…a city museum or an exhibition center.” Erecting an Ottoman era military barracks replica will proceed as planned.

Protests continue nationwide. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) announced June 15 and 16 counter demonstrations. Doing so throws fuel on the fire. They may incite more violence.

Hell, it’s said, hath no fury like a woman’s scorn. Perhaps its greater fury erupts against contemptuous disregard for popular concerns. The longer it continues, the harder it is for Erdogan to continue supporting Washington’s war most Turks oppose.

It remains to be seen what effect it has on what unfolds. Qusair and other Syrian victories compromised US plans. Western leaders expressed concern. On June 9, UK Foreign Minister William Hague said Assad’s gains make Geneva II “harder to bring about and to make a success.”

In other words, it’s unlikely he’ll capitulate to Western demands. It’s harder when most Syrians oppose them.  Assad’s in a position of strength. Syrian forces fought hard to achieve it. They’re solidifying control over most areas. Supplying more arms to insurgents won’t change things.

Direct US-led NATO intervention remains possible. Perhaps it’s likely. It’s hard imagining America abandoning longstanding regime change plans. The fullness of time will explain what’s coming.

If Obama forgoes direct intervention, Assad will emerge victorious. At the same time, conflict may continue longterm. Tens of thousands more may die. Millions will suffer.  Obama bears full responsibility. He’s a war criminal multiple times over. He’s waging war at home and abroad.

It bears repeating. He belongs in prison, not high office. Impeachment is essential. Crimes too grave to ignore can’t be tolerated. They persist globally. Popular resistance more than ever is needed. Nothing else will stop America’s rampage. Hegemons don’t quit unless forced to. It’s high time Americans said no more.

A Final Comment

Syria’s conflict remains unresolved. Salfist violence in Lebanon continues. Israel’s a wild card. Netanyahu actively supports extremist Islamist fighters. He launched early May air attacks on Syrian soil. Previous articles discussed them.

Netanyahu goaded Syria to respond. Several times, Israeli forces shelled cross-border. In late May, an Israeli military vehicle provocatively crossed the ceasefire line.

It was captured and displayed. Israeli rocket fire targeted Al-Zubaydiah village. Repeated provocations goad Syria to respond. Doing so would provide pretext for greater intervention.

Events perhaps head toward doing so. Maybe Israel will replace Erdogan as Washington’s lead attack dog. On June 7, UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous addressed a closed emergency Security Council session. He said Israel threatened to launch cross border attacks.

According to Ladsous, Israeli and Syrian clashes nearly erupted. It would have been the first time since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. After insurgents briefly controlled Quneitra demilitarized border areas, Syria deployed tanks and armored personnel carriers in response.

An Israeli Defense Ministry statement followed. It told UNDOF (UN Disengagement Observer Force) that if Syrian tanks continued, “the IDF would take action.”

UNDOF’s commander informed Syrian authorities. They said Syrian tanks were there to fight insurgents. Being there breached the 1974 disengagement agreement.  Syrian forces regained control hours after insurgents did so. These type of  incidents are potential flashpoints. Provocations start wars. Key is whether Washington wants full-scale intervention. If so, all bets are off.

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.  His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.  

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour 




US and Israel Lobby Reels from Hezbollah al-Qusayr Victory

Special—
By Franklin Lamb

••••

Army in Al-Qusayr

••••

Beirut — Although al-Qusayr may not be the decisive battle for Syria, it is irrefutably an important turning point in the crisis which has given the regime much sought military momentum. Plenty of adjectives and some clichés are being bandied about from Washington to Beirut to describe the al-Qusayr battle results and significance.  Among them are “game-changer,” “mother of all battles,” “altered balance of power,” critical “turning point in the civil war,” and so on.It does appear that the victory of the Syrian government forces at al-Qusayr is a strategic achievement, if also a humanitarian disaster for the civilian population still waiting for the ICRC and SARCS, (Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society) emergency help. Al Qusayr is located in Homs province, an area central to the success of the Syrian government’s military strategy. It is situated just west of the shortest route from Damascus to the coast, at a juncture where regime forces have struggled to maintain control. Rebel control of al-Qusayr had disrupted the regime’s supply lines from the port of Tartus and was open for the cross-border movement of Gulf arms to rebels via Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.Government control of al-Qusayr also provides a ground base for the Assad government to move to retake control of the north and east of Syria. This cross-roads city just 6 miles from the Lebanese border has many strategic ramifications: breaking the opposition’s 18 month control of much of Homs province, facilitating government forces momentum generally across Syria, and psychological, by raising the morale of exhausted Syrian forces while energizing the Assad government and its allies to finish the conflict and focus on long-promised reforms and try to relieve Syria from the nearly 27 months of hell for its people.Perhaps less appreciated here in Beirut are al-Qusayr’s effects on the Zionist occupiers of Palestine and their currently traumatized US lobby.

From conversations and emails with former colleagues at the Democratic National Committee (on which this observer served during the Carter administration) as well as with Congressional insiders, a picture emerges of nearly debilitating angst among those committed to propping up the apartheid state in the face of truly historic changes in this region that have only just begun to re-shape the region.

The reactions from various elements of the pro-Israel lobby range from the Arabphobic Daniel Pipes’ fantasy essay in the Washington Times this week entitled “Happy Israel” to Netanyahu’s increased threats issued from Tel Aviv about what Israel might do if his three cartoon “red lines” are breached, to more pressure on the White House by Israel’s agents in Congress who are demanding that Obama act immediately to undo “the major damage done at Qusayr”.

Several aspects of “the Qusayr rules and results” are being discussed at the HQ of the racist anti-Defamation League (ADL) which has summoned an emergency gathering of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to craft a solution to the problem. The tentative agenda reportedly includes for discussion and action the following:

The twin defeats at al-Qusayr and at Burgas, Bulgaria — the latter should not be underestimated, according to one AIPAC activist who works on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, given that it substantially knocks out the props from the lobby’s project to get the European Union to list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, thus interfering with the Islamic party’s fundraising. The lobby is reacting angrily to Austria’s Chancellor Werner Faymann and Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger’s statement about that country’s decision to withdraw its 380 peacekeeping troops, more than one-third of the 1000 United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, (UNDOF) contingent, from the Golan Heights.

The lobby is claiming that Austrian move constituents an existential threat to Israel because it opens the Quneitra crossing, the door to the Golan, for the Syrian civil war to spill over the border into Israel. At the same time it is being argued that al Qusayr lifts pressure off Hezbollah, Iran and Syria as well as the Palestinian resistance and gain all more fighters who sense victory for the current regime and major gains for all in the political dynamics of the region.

The Israel embassy in Washington has chimed in with a statement that the Austrian withdrawal threatened the role of the UN Security Council in any future negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, while at the same time encouraging Hezbollah to move into the Golan.

Israel stalwart, Eric Cantor (R-Va) told a “brown bag” lunch gathering in the House Rayburn Building cafeteria late this week that the “fall of al Qusayr, will facilitate the Assad regimes advance on areas north of Homs province and will likely return to Damascus control of important rebel-held areas in the north and the east. Cantor claims that the Assad regime victory effectively cuts off an important supply route to the rebels which will leave the armed opposition even more weakened and scattered. Israel is demanding an immediate US supported counter-offensive consistent with the demands made by US Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham.

The apartheid state also is demanding that the White House scrap Geneva II, claiming that Assad is now too strong for the US/Israel to benefit from such a dialogue. “If the international community is serious about seeking to enforce a negotiated settlement, they will first have to do something to decisively change the balance of power on the ground ahead of any serious negotiations,” he added.

When asked about giving US aid to Lebanon, Cantor reportedly sneered, as he expressed his shock that Hezbollah had so many troops and, without US boots on the ground, would be very difficult for Israel to defeat, he reportedly replied, “Forget about Lebanon, it never was a real country anyway, just call the whole place over there Hezbollah and let’s send in the marines to finish the job.”

One congressional staffer who attended the meeting winced at the thought of US marines again being sent to Lebanon given their previous experience there nearly 30 years ago.

The Lobby is also concerned about the fact that the Arab League and the Gulf countries might be softening in their ardor to confront Syria and Hezbollah, who they view as now being full partners in this crisis. A media source at the Saudi Embassy in Washington has complained that the six member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has spent more than a billion dollars on the opposition and have, to date, little to show for their “investment.” Nor does Israel have much to show to date for its deepening role in the crisis given that its air strikes are widely viewed in Washington and internationally as being counterproductive and helping to unite Muslims and Arabs in the face of their common global enemy.

The ADL reportedly wants the White House to act fast “to do something” in light of a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released on Wednesday, the day of the Syrian government’s victory at al Qusayr, showing that only 15% of Americans polled advocated taking military action, and only 11% supported providing the rebels with arms. A quarter of respondents, 24%, favored taking no action, similar to the White House current position.

Abe Foxman, ADL’s President for Life, and inveterate anti-Semite tracker, myopically sees anti-Semitism, and surely not Israel’s decades of crimes against humanity as the cause for other “anti-Semitic” polls released this week. Those included the recent one commissioned by the BBC which confirmed that Israel is not only ranked second from the bottom of 197 favorably viewed countries, including as a danger to world peace, and just about the world’s most negatively viewed country, but its support globally continues to evaporate. Views of Israel in Canada and in Australia remain very negative with 57 and 69 per cent of their citizens holding unfavorable views. In the EU countries surveyed, views of Israeli influence are all strongly negative with the UK topping the list with 72 per cent of the population viewing Israel negatively.

As Ali Abunimah noted this week, “The persistent association of Israel with the world’s most negatively viewed countries will come as a disappointment to Israeli government and other hasbara officials who have invested millions of dollars in recent years to greenwash and pinkwash Israel as an enlightened, democratic and technological ‘Western’ country.”*

With Wednesday’s National Lebanese Resistance (Hezbollah) victory at al-Qusayr, coming as it does 97 years to the month after the Triple Entente’s (UK, France & Russia) May 1916 secret Asia Minor Agreement, generally known as Sykes-Picot, the scheme to control the Middle East following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire has furthered crumbled. Its “Rosemary’s Baby” progeny, the colonial Zionist occupation of Palestine, is increasingly being condemned by history to an identical fate.

According to a growing number of US and European officials and Middle East analysts as well as public opinion polls, it is solely a matter of time until, like al-Qusayr, Palestine is returned to her rightful, indigenous inhabitants.

*
“Israel one of world’s most unpopular countries and it’s getting worse: BBC survey,” Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada, June 6, 2013

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-one-worlds-most-unpopular-countries-and-its-getting-worse-bbc-survey

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

Franklin Lamb, a former Assistant Counsel of the US House Judiciary Committee at the US Congress and Professor of International Law at Northwestern College of Law in Oregon, earned his Law Degree at Boston University and his LLM, M.Phil, and PhD degrees at the London School of Economics. Following three summers at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Lamb was a visiting fellow at the Harvard Law School’s East Asian Legal Studies Center where he specialized in Chinese Law. He was the first westerner allowed by the government of China to visit the notorious “Ward Street” Prison in Shanghai.

 

Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and works with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign-Lebanon and the Sabra-Shatila Foundation. His new book, The Case for Palestinian Civil Rights in Lebanon, is due out shortly.

Franklin Lamb can be reached c/ofplamb@gmail.com




Samantha Power for UN Envoy

by Stephen Lendman
Power: Perfectly in tune with our celebrity-obsessed times.

Samantha Power: Yes, she’s “cool.” But she’s also evil, and perfectly in tune with our mediated culture.

Obama’s cabinet, national security team, and other close advisors reflect a virtual rogues gallery of scoundrels. Susan Rice as National Security Advisor and Samantha Power as UN envoy are on board in new capacities. Rice shifts from UN ambassador to the White House. A previous article quoted the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity saying “she belongs in the big house, not in the White House.”

Given her notion of humanitarian intervention, Power belongs there with her. On June 5, Obama announced both appointments.  He was right calling Power “a relentless advocate for American interests and values.” He was wrong saying doing so reflects “building partnerships on behalf of democracy and human rights.”

 

He called Power “an indispensable member of my national security team.” He stopped short of explaining her imperial role. Senate confirmation is required.  Expect it to be rubber-stamp. Democrats control the body. Based on John McCain’s comment, Republicans aren’t likely to object. He called her “well-qualified for this important position.” He urged swift confirmation.

[pullquote] Straight from the aristo corridors of Harvard, she’s the perfect sociopath for the job, a classic example of large-scale criminality at one remove. [/pullquote]

Other notable neocons praised her nomination. Former Senator Joe Lieberman said he’s “very encouraged by the president’s appointment.”  Alan Dershowitz called her “a perfect choice.” Uberhawk Max Boot said she’s “a very capable and principled advocate of humanitarian intervention.” He stopped short of explaining the mass death and destruction it causes.

The Islamophobic Anti-Defamation League said “(W)e are heartened that the US will be represented by an individual whose moral resolve and fierce pragmatism will serve our country well.”

In accepting the nomination, Power called it “the honor of a lifetime to fight for American values and interests at the United Nations.” She stopped short of explaining her interventionist advocacy. Howard Zinn in part addressed it. He did so in an August 2007 New York Times letter. He challenged Power responsibly. “(S)he claims a moral distinction between ‘inadvertent’ killing of civilians in bombings and ‘deliberate’ targeting of civilians in suicide attacks,” he said.

“Her position is not only illogical, but makes it easier to justify such bombings.” Her principles are reprehensible.

“The terrorism of the suicide bomber and the terrorism of aerial bombardment are indeed morally equivalent,” Zinn added.  “To say otherwise is to give one moral superiority over the other, and thus serve to perpetuate the horrors of our time.”

In May 2004, Edward Herman‘s article headlined “The Cruise Missile Left: Samantha Power and the Genocide Gambits.”  The term genocide is “politicized,” said Herman. Attaching it to an enemy justifies bombing, invading, and assassinating its leaders.  Genocide is what they do, not us. Power and likeminded ideologues think this way. She’s a prominent “cruise missile left” adherent.  Francis Boyle calls her husband Cass Sunstein a “lethal neo-con.” From 2009 – 2012, he was Obama’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs administrator.

For 27 years, he taught constitutional, administrative and environmental law at the University of Chicago Law School. He’s now at Harvard Law School. Boyle calls it “the school for torturers.”  Sunstein deplores First Amendment and other democratic freedoms. He believes rule of law principles are best observed by subverting them. Perhaps Power shares his extremist views. Faux liberals pretend otherwise.

Her book titled “A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide” gained her prominence. She “never departs from the selectivity dictated by the establishment party line,” said Herman.  In other words, horrendous US genocides are ignored. They’re longstanding. They’ve been ongoing since the republic’s inception.  Historian Gabriel Kolko studied the nature and purpose of US power. He calls it “violen(t), racis(t), repressi(ve) at home and abroad (and) cultural(ly) mendaci(ous).”

Howard Zinn said US leaders try portraying America as as a benevolent nation. It never was. It isn’t now.  For centuries, the US waged genocidal war on Native Americans, African Americans, and targeted countries worldwide.

According to Ward Churchill, native peoples were “hacked apart with axes and swords, burned alive and trampled under horses, hunted as game and fed to dogs, shot, beaten, stabbed, scalped for bounty, hanged on meathooks and thrown over the sides of ships at sea, worked to death as slave laborers, intentionally starved and frozen to death during a multitude of forced marches and internments, and, in an unknown number of instances, deliberately infected with epidemic diseases.”

Black Africans were captured, branded, chained, force-marched to ports, beaten, kept in cages, and stripped of their humanity. Around 100 million or more were sold like cattle. Millions perished during the Middle Passage.

Zinn called US slavery “the most cruel form in history: the frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalistic agriculture; the reduction of the slave to less than human status by the use of racial hatred, with that relentless clarity based on color, where white was master, black was slave.” Are things any different today?   US history reflects genocide. What began from inception persists. It does so globally. Ideologues like Power pretend not to notice. She looks the other way. America is the solution, not the problem, she claims.

“A Problem from Hell” won a Pulitzer prize. Herman called it a “masterpiece of evasion and apologetics for ‘our’ genocides and call for a more aggressive pursuit of ‘theirs.’ ”  Ideologues think that way. So-called liberal and more hawkish ones represent two sides of the same coin. Imperial interests alone matter.  If confirmed, Power will be Washington’s 28th UN envoy. Earlier she covered the Balkan wars, East Timor, Rwanda, Sudan and Zimbabwe as a journalist. She did so one-way.

In 1996, she joined the International Crisis Group (ICG). She served as a political analyst.

In 1995, ICG was founded by former World Bank vice president/UN deputy secretary-general Mark Mallock Brown and former US diplomat Morton Abramowitz. It supports power, not populist interests.  From 1998 – 2002, Power served as executive director of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.

She was Anna Lindh Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy. Until March 2008, she was one of Senator Obama’s senior political advisors.  She stepped down early in his presidential campaign. She did so after calling Hillary Clinton a “monster she is stooping to anything,” she said. She called her tactics “deceit(ful).”

She was hard on John Kerry during his 2004 presidential campaign. Referring to his Vietnam service, she said:

“He must have thought that having got shrapnel in his ass out there bought him some credibility. It didn’t.”

In November 2008, she joined Obama’s State Department transition team. From January 2009 – March 2013, she was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the National Security Council.

In April 2013, Obama appointed her head of a new Atrocities Prevention Board. She consistently turns a blind eye to the worst ones America commits.

She calls US foreign policy “a toolbox.” It includes a whole range of options, she says. “There is always something you can do.” Her notion of humanitarian intervention is take no prisoners. She and Susan Rice played leading roles in urging “humanitarian war” on Libya. A previous article said genocidal slaughter followed.  So-called responsibility to protect is code language for show no mercy. When America intervenes, with or without NATO partners, death, destruction, resource theft, exploitation and human misery follow.  Civil rights lawyer Chase Madar called her career “a richly instructive example of the weaponization of human rights.” She came to prominence urging belligerent intervention. She did so calling it humanitarian.

In Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur, she asked: “Why does the US stand so idly by?” America “has made modest progress in its response to genocide,” she said.  It’s not good enough, she stresses. She urges bolder interventionism. So-called responsibility to protect (R2P) shows no mercy. At issue is protecting US imperial interests.  She called NATO’s Yugoslav war a stunning success. It “likely saved hundreds of thousands of lives” in Kosovo, she claimed. She turned truth on its head saying so.

From March 24 – June 10, 1999, US-led NATO waged lawless aggression. Serbia and Kosovo were ravaged. Doing so was called humanitarian intervention.  For 78 days, around 600 aircraft flew about 3,000 sorties. They dropped and launched unprecedented amounts of ordinance. Nearly everything was struck. Massive destruction and disruption followed.

Targets included known or suspected military sites, power plants, factories, transportation, telecommunications facilities, vital infrastructure, rail lines, fuel depots, schools, a TV station, China’s Belgrade Embassy, hospitals, government offices, churches, historic landmarks, and more.

An estimated $100 billion dollars in damage resulted. So did a humanitarian disaster. Environmental contamination was extensive.  Large numbers were killed, injured or displaced. Two million people lost their livelihoods. Many lost homes, communities, and futures.

Balkanizing Yugoslavia opened an avenue to Eurasia. Multiple direct and proxy wars followed. They continue with more planned.  American-led genocide slaughtered millions. Many more die daily. Power calls imperial interventions stunning successes.

If confirmed as new UN envoy, her mandate is to assure many more like them. Advancing America’s imperium for sure reflects “a problem from hell.”

________________
The Media Angle—

New York Times Editors Defend the Indefensible

by Stephen Lendman

Rice and husband: enjoying the fruits of bourgeois privilege.

Rice and husband: impudently enjoying the rewards for serving the plutocracy.

It’s standard Times practice. It’s longstanding. On June 6, Times editors praised Obama’s selection of Susan Rice and Samantha Power. They’re deplorable choices. They’ll move from current capacities to new national security positions. More on that below.

Times editors endorsed what demands condemnation. What they say matters. Times articles, commentaries and editorials have impact. What’s reported attracts global attention.  Longstanding Times policy is consistent. It operates as a quasi-official ministry of managed news misinformation. It masquerades as the real thing.

[pullquote]

Rice is morally depraved. South African journalist Getahune Bekele was right calling her a “consummate ally of grubby despots.”  Banality of evil best describes her. Death and destruction don’t bother her. Imperial priorities alone matter. Her style matches Hillary Clinton. She deplores peace, nonviolence, diplomacy and social justice. Her outbursts reflect bullying, bluster and arrogance.

[/pullquote]

Doing so violates fundamental journalistic ethics. The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics Preamble states:

“….public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy.”

“The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues.”

“Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty.”

“Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility.”

The Times violates its own “Company Policy on Ethics in Journalism.” It does so without apology or explanation.

It states in part:

“In keeping with its solemn responsibilities under the First Amendment, our company strives to maintain the highest standard of journalistic ethics.”

“(W)e tell our audiences the complete, unvarnished truth as best we can learn it.”

“(I)t is essential that we preserve professional detachment, free from any hint of bias.”

The longstanding record of “the newspaper of record” belies its high-minded rhetoric. It’s deplorable. Times management and editors support wealth, power and privilege. Populist interests are spurned. Pretense claims otherwise.

When America goes to war or plans one, Times editors march in lockstep. Rule of law principles and other democratic values don’t matter. Powerful privileged interests alone are served. Public trust, credibility, honor, integrity, impartiality, fairness and truth are sacrificed in the process. Doing so is longstanding Times policy.

This writer’s open letter challenged Times editors. It asked:

Do imperial wars bother you? Does human suffering matter? Is business as usual OK? Are sham elections? Is democracy for the few alone?

Do corporate interests count more than populist ones? Do wealth, power, privilege, and unchallenged dominance alone matter? What about an unconscionable growing wealth gap?

How about corporate and political lawlessness? What about a private banking cartel controlling America’s money? Is looting the federal Treasury OK? What about reckless money printing to serve them?  Do growing poverty, homelessness, hunger and despair concern you? What about deepening social decay symptomatic of national decline?

How about growing millions worldwide calling America a pariah state for good reason? Waging political, economic, social, and hot wars put it in a class by itself.

Are you concerned? Is this the America you support? Dare you call it beautiful?

You have global clout. You could use it responsibly. You could expose what’s wrong and help reverse it. You’d be heroic for trying. Doing the right thing is its own reward. So is good journalism. Try it sometime and see.

Try publishing “All the News That’s Fit to Print” for real. Perhaps you’ll never look back and go another way. It’s wishful thinking to expect America’s establishment broadsheet to change longstanding practices. Serving wealth, power, and privilege are too engrained.

On June 6, Times editors headlined “The New Security Team,” saying:

As National Security Advisor, Rice’s “task will be to help Mr. Obama go beyond (his) first-term goals explain to Americans and the world how he intends to wield American leadership and fulfill his stalled promises, including reducing nuclear weapons, curbing climate change and using foreign aid and other economic tools to help the nations that were changed by the Arab Spring uprisings achieve economic and political stability.”

Fact check

Obama’s promises aren’t stalled. They’re systematically spurned. He broke every major one made. His word falls short of his bond. He’s a serial liar. He’s a moral coward. He’s a war criminal multiple times over. His national security and other key officials share culpability.

His nuclear policy asserts the right to use these weapons preemptively. His 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) reflects old wine in new bottles.

Rhetoric changed, not policy. NPR 2010 said America “reserves the right” to use nuclear weapons “that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of the biological weapons threat and US capacities to counter that threat.”

No threat whatever exists. New more advanced weapons replace older ones. US nuclear policy prioritizes greater deterrent capability. It unilaterally asserts the right to strike preemptively. It does without cause, justification or consequences of doing so.

So-called foreign aid serves US interests alone. So-called Arab Spring terminology is doublespeak duplicity. It’s a Western term, not a Middle East one.

America deplores peace and stability. It prioritizes conflict, violence and destabilization. Doing so serves longstanding imperial interests. Don’t expect Times editors to explain.

In choosing Power as UN envoy, Obama named “a strong human rights advocate and former White House aide,” said Times editors.  She and Rice “are seen as liberal interventionists who favor using American power on behalf of humanitarian causes overseas. Both will bring fresh energy to their positions.”

Previous articles discussed both nominations. Rice is morally depraved. South African journalist Getahune Bekele was right calling her a “consummate ally of grubby despots.”

Banality of evil best describes her. Death and destruction don’t bother her. Imperial priorities alone matter. Her style matches Hillary Clinton. She deplores peace, nonviolence, diplomacy and social justice. Her outbursts reflect bullying, bluster and arrogance.

 

Her support for US lawlessness makes her complicit. She’s indifferent to human suffering. She’s a monument to wrong over right. She’s a disgrace and embarrassment to her country, position and humanity.

 

She’s criminally unqualified to serve. Her rap sheet includes complicity in major crimes. As Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, she was involved in proxy genocidal wars on Congo.

 

She has close ties to Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni. Both men are two of many African “grubby despot” US allies. As Obama’s UN envoy, Rice was instrumental in supporting them. She did so earlier under Clinton.

 

As National Security Advisor, she’ll add to her rap sheet. It’s already bloodstained. She’s morally unqualified for any public or private office.

 

Samantha Power has her own cross to bear. Edward Herman once called her a prominent “cruise missile left” adherent.

 

Her book titled “A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide” gained her prominence. She “never departs from the selectivity dictated by the establishment party line,” said Herman.

 

Genocides are what they do, not us, she believes. America bears full responsibility for centuries of genocidal slaughter. Airbrushing them from history doesn’t wash.

 

Ideologues like Power try reinventing history their way. So-called liberal and more hawkish ones represent two sides of the same coin. Imperial interests alone matter.

 

Power calls US foreign policy “a toolbox.” It includes a whole range of options, she says. “There is always something you can do.” Her notion of humanitarian intervention is show no mercy.

 

She and Rice played leading roles in urging “humanitarian war” on Libya. Genocidal slaughter followed. Africa’s most developed country was ravaged and destroyed.

 

Violence, instability, poverty, unemployment and human misery reflect current conditions. It’s true wherever America intervenes. Dark side realpolitik alone matters.

 

In their new national security capacities, expect Rice and Power to urge more of the same. Don’t expect Times editors to explain.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached atlendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.  His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html /// Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.  It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

http://www.dailycensored.com/samantha-power-for-un-envoy/




Blum’s Anti-Empire Report #117

By William Blum 

What our presidents tell our young people

George-W-Bush_2234660b

Bush: ignorant just about everything, but chiefly about hardships. But good at badmouthing Cuba.

In this season of college graduations, let us pause to remember the stirring words of America’s beloved scholar, George W. Bush, speaking in Florida in 2007 at the commencement exercises of Miami Dade College: “In Havana and other Cuban cities, there are people just like you who are attending school, and dreaming of a better life. Unfortunately those dreams are stifled by a cruel dictatorship that denies all freedom in the name of a dark and discredited ideology.” 1

 

How I wish I had been in the audience. I would have stood up and shouted: “In Cuba all education is completely free. But most of the young people sitting here today will be chained to a large, crippling debt for much of the rest of their life!”

As the security guards came for me I’d yell: “And no one in Cuba is forced to join the military to qualify for college financial aid, like Bradley Manning was forced!”

As they grabbed me I’d manage to add: “And Congress has even passed a law prohibiting students from declaring bankruptcy to get rid of their debt!”

And as I was being dragged away, with an arm around my neck, I’d squeeze out my last words: “Do you know that $36 billion in student debt belongs to Americans who are 60 or older? … (choke, gasp) … and that students have committed suicide because of their debt?”

I don’t know if Professor Bush would have found any words within his intellect to respond with, but the last words I’d hear from the students, as the handcuffs were being tightened, would be: “If you don’t like it here, why dontya move to Cuba?”

Bad enough they have to pay highway-robbery tuition, but they wind up brainwashed anyhow.

Let us now turn to the current president. Here he is at the May 19 graduation ceremony at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Martin Luther King’s alma mater:

I know that when I am on my deathbed someday, I will not be thinking about any particular legislation I passed; I will not be thinking about a policy I promoted; I will not be thinking about the speech I gave, I will not be thinking the Nobel Prize I received. I will be thinking about that walk I took with my daughters. I’ll be thinking about a lazy afternoon with my wife. I’ll be thinking about sitting around the dinner table and seeing them happy and healthy and knowing that they were loved. And I’ll be thinking about whether I did right by all of them.

And I, like Woody Allen’s Zelig, would have shown up at this graduation as well, and I would have shouted out: “What about the family sitting happy and healthy around the dinner table in Pakistan or Afghanistan, and a missile – your missile – comes screaming through the roof, reducing the precious family to bones and blood and dust. What about the nice happy and healthy families in Yemen and Iraq and Somalia and Libya whom you’ve droned and missled to death? Why haven’t you returned the Nobel Prize? In case you’ve forgotten, it was a PEACE prize!”

Oh, that taser does hurt! Please contribute to my bail fund.

Pipelineistan

I have written on more than one occasion about the value of preaching and repeating to the choir on a regular basis. One of my readers agreed with this, saying: “How else has Christianity survived 2,000 years except by weekly reinforcement?”

Well, dear choir, beloved parishioners, for this week’s sermon we once again turn to Afghanistan. As US officials often make statements giving the impression that the American military presence in that sad land is definitely winding down – soon to be all gone except for the standard few thousand American servicemen which almost every country in the world needs stationed on their territory – one regularly sees articles in the mainstream media and government releases trying to explain what it was all about. For what good reason did thousands of young Americans breathe their last breath in that backward country and why were tens of thousands of Afghans dispatched by the United States to go meet Allah (amidst widespread American torture and other violations of human rights)?

The Washington Post recently cited a Defense Department report that states: The United States “has wound up with a reasonable ‘Plan B’ for achieving its core objective of preventing Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda and its affiliates.”

“Preventing a safe haven for terrorists” – that was the original reason given back in 2001 for the invasion of Afghanistan, a consistency in sharp contrast to the ever-changing explanations for Iraq. However, it appears that the best and the brightest in our government and media do not remember, if they ever knew, that Afghanistan was not really about 9-11 or fighting terrorists (except the many the US has created by its invasion and occupation), but was about pipelines.

President Obama declared in August 2009: “But we must never forget this is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans.” 2

Never mind that out of the tens of thousands of people the United States and its NATO front have killed in Afghanistan not one has been identified as having had anything to do with the events of September 11, 2001.

Never mind – even accepting the official version of 9/11 – that the “plotting to attack America” in 2001 was devised in Germany and Spain and the United States more than in Afghanistan. Why didn’t the United States bomb those countries?

Indeed, what actually was needed to plot to buy airline tickets and take flying lessons in the United States? A room with a table and some chairs? What does “an even larger safe haven” mean? A larger room with more chairs? Perhaps a blackboard? Terrorists intent upon attacking the United States can meet almost anywhere. At the present time there are anti-American terrorist types meeting in Libya, Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, London, Paris, and many other places. And the Taliban of Afghanistan would not be particularly anti-American if the United States had not invaded and occupied their country. The Taliban are a diverse grouping of Afghan insurgents whom the US military has come to label with a single name; they are not primarily international jihadists like al-Qaeda and in fact have had an up-and-down relationship with the latter.

The only “necessity” that drew the United States to Afghanistan was the desire to establish a military presence in this land that is next door to the Caspian Sea region of Central Asia – reportedly containing the second largest proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas in the world – and build oil and gas pipelines from that region running through Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is well situated for such pipelines to serve much of South Asia and even parts of Europe, pipelines that – crucially – can bypass Washington’s bêtes noire, Iran and Russia. If only the Taliban would not attack the lines. Here’s Richard Boucher, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, in 2007: “One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan, so it can become a conduit and a hub between South and Central Asia so that energy can flow to the south.” 3

Since the 1980s all kinds of pipelines have been planned for the area, only to be delayed or canceled by one military, financial or political problem or another. For example, the so-called TAPI pipeline (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) had strong support from Washington, which was eager to block a competing pipeline that would bring gas to Pakistan and India from Iran. TAPI goes back to the late 1990s, when the Taliban government held talks with the California-based oil company Unocal Corporation. These talks were conducted with the full knowledge of the Clinton administration, and were undeterred by the extreme repression of Taliban society. Taliban officials even made trips to the United States for discussions. 4

Testifying before the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific on February 12, 1998, Unocal representative John Maresca discussed the importance of the pipeline project and the increasing difficulties in dealing with the Taliban:

The region’s total oil reserves may well reach more than 60 billion barrels of oil. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels … From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, leaders, and our company.

When those talks with the Taliban stalled in 2001, the Bush administration reportedly threatened the Taliban with military reprisals if the Afghan government did not go along with American demands. On August 2 in Islamabad, US State Department negotiator Christine Rocca reiterated to the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef: “Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold [oil], or we bury you under a carpet of bombs.” 5 The talks finally broke down for good a month before 9-11.

The United States has been serious indeed about the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf oil and gas areas. Through one war or another beginning with the Gulf War of 1990-1, the US has managed to establish military bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.

The war against the Taliban can’t be “won” short of killing everyone in Afghanistan. The United States may well try again to negotiate some form of pipeline security with the Taliban, then get out, and declare “victory”. Barack Obama can surely deliver an eloquent victory speech from his teleprompter. It might even include the words “freedom” and “democracy”, but certainly not “pipeline”.

“We are literally backing the same people in Syria that we are fighting in Afghanistan and that have just killed our ambassador in Libya! We must finally abandon the interventionist impulse before it is too late.” – Congressman Ron Paul, September 16, 2012 6

How it all began: “To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love freedom. Their courage teaches us a great lesson – that there are things in this world worth defending. To the Afghan people, I say on behalf of all Americans that we admire your heroism, your devotion to freedom, and your relentless struggle against your oppressors.” – President Ronald Reagan, March 21, 1983

A Modest Proposal

Washington’s sanctions against Iran are a wonder to behold, seriously hampering Tehran’s ability to conduct international commerce, make payments, receive money, import, export, invest, travel … you name the hardship and the United States is trying to impose it on the government and the people of Iran. In early May a bipartisan bill was introduced in Congress aimed at stopping Iran from gaining access to its billions of dollars in euros kept in overseas banks – money that represents up to a third of Tehran’s total hard-currency holdings. In addition, Congress is looking to crack down on a weakness in current sanctions law that allows Iran to replenish its hard-currency accounts by acquiring gold through overseas markets.

Washington has as well closed down Iran’s media operations in the United States, is putting great pressure on Pakistan to cancel their project to build a pipeline to import natural gas from Iran, and punished countless international companies for doing business with Iran.

After a plane crash in Iran in 2011, the Washington Post reported: “Plane crashes are common in Iran, which for decades has been prevented from buying spare parts for its aging fleet by sanctions imposed by the United States.” 7

There are many more examples of the sanctions of mass destruction.

All this to force Iran to abandon any program that might conceivably lead someday to a nuclear weapon, thus depriving Israel of being the only nuclear power in the Middle East. The United States doesn’t actually say this. It instead says, explicitly or implicitly, that a nuclear Iran would be a danger to attack the US or Israel, without giving any reason why Iran would act so suicidal; at the same time Washington ignores repeated statements from various Israeli and American officials that they have no such fear.

Now, a group of US lawmakers is proposing a more drastic remedy: cutting off Iran entirely from world oil markets. Oil sales provide Iran with the bulk of its foreign-currency earnings. The plan would require all countries to stop buying oil from Iran or risk losing access to the US banking system. 8

And Iran ignores it all, refusing to bend. Islamic fanatics they are.

I have a much simpler solution. Why not cut off all exports of food to Iran? Worldwide. And anything that goes into producing food – seed, fertilizer, farm equipment, etc. Let’s see how good they are at ignoring it when their children’s bellies start to balloon. And medicines and medical equipment as well! Let’s see how good they are at producing whatever they need themselves.

Officials at The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated that as many as 6,000 Iraqi children died each month in the early 1990s primarily due to the sanctions imposed by the US, the UK and others. As proof of the lasting effectiveness and goodness of that policy, today blessed peace reigns in Iraq among its citizens.

And if all else fails with Iran … Nuke the bastards! That may be the only way they’ll learn what a horrible weapon a nuclear bomb is, a weapon they shouldn’t be playing around with.

In recent times Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran have been the prime forces standing in the way of USraeli Middle East domination. Thus it was that Iraq was made into a psychotic basket case. Libya’s welfare state was wiped out and fundamentalists have imposed Islamic law on much of the country. The basketizing of Syria is currently in process. Iran’s basketizing has begun with draconian sanctions, the way the basketizing of Iraq began.

It’s worth noting that Iraq, Syria, and Libya were the leading secular states of the Middle East. History may not treat kindly the impoverishment and loss of freedoms that the US-NATO-European Union Triumvirate has brought down upon the heads of the people of these lands.

What are we going to do about our sociopathic corporations?

Scarcely a day goes by in the United States without a news story about serious ethical/criminal misbehavior by a bank or stock brokerage or credit-rating agency or insurance agency or derivatives firm or some other parasitic financial institution. Most of these firms produce no goods or services useful to human beings, but spend their days engaged in the manipulation of money, credit and markets, employing dozens of kinds of speculation.

Consider the jail time served for civil disobedience by environmental, justice and anti-war activists, in contrast to the lifestyle enjoyed by the wicked ones who crashed the financial system and continue to fund the wounding of our bleeding planet.

The federal and state governments threaten to sue the financial institutions. Sometimes they actually do sue them. And a penalty is paid. And then the next scandal pops up. And another penalty is paid. And so it goes.

Picture this: A fleet of police cars pulls up in front of Bank of America’s Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. A dozen police officers get out, enter the building, and take the elevator to the offices of the bank’s top executives. Minutes later the president and two vice-presidents – their arms tightly bound in handcuffs behind their back – are paraded through the building in full view of their employees who stare wide-eyed and open-mouthed. The sidewalk is of course fully occupied by the media as the police encircle the building with tape saying “No tresspassing. Crime scene.”.

But remember, just because America has been taken over by mendacious mass-murdering madmen doesn’t mean we can’t have a good time.

Notes
  1. Washington Post, April 29, 2007 
  2. Talk given by the president at Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, August 17, 2009 
  3. Talk at the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies, Washington, DC, September 20, 2007 
  4. See, for example, the December 17, 1997 article in the British newspaper, The Telegraph, “Oil barons court Taliban in Texas”. 
  5. Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, September 12, 2012 (Information Clearing House
  6. The Hill, daily congressional newspaper, Washington, DC 
  7. Washington Post, January 10, 2011 
  8. Washington Post, May 13, 2013 

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.




Turkish Media Slammed For Ignoring Massive Protests (VIDEO)

How much better do you think the American media would be under similar circumstances?

AP  |  By By ELENA BECATOROS and EZGI AKIN –Posted: 06/04/2013 3:03 pm EDT  |  Updated: 06/04/2013 5:45 pm EDT
HUFFPO

Turkish demonstrators, duly protected. The people are rising everywhere.

Turkish demonstrators, duly protected. The people are rising everywhere.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Dense clouds of acrid, choking tear gas may have been blanketing the central square of Turkey’s largest city, but it was penguins that dominated the evening on one of the country’s largest private television stations. Its nature documentary ran uninterrupted, while another channel opted for a cooking show and a documentary on Adolf Hitler.

As Istanbul was convulsed by some of the most severe anti-government protests Turkey has seen in decades, the country’s broadcast media looked away. Regular newscasts briefly mentioned the protest, before moving on to other topics. There was no word of the violence, of the riot police clashing with protesters for hours, or of the many injured in what even Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan later said might have been unnecessarily heavy-handed tactics.

Turks were outraged. They turned to social media in droves; Twitter and Facebook updates were virtually the only means of finding out what was going on in Istanbul, where tens of thousands of protesters were facing off against riot police.

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A furious Erdogan lashed out. “There is now a menace which is called Twitter,” he said Sunday, dismissing the protests as demonstrations organized by an extremist fringe. “The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society.”

But to many in Istanbul, it was a lifeline. As word spread through cyberspace, more and more people crowded onto Taksim Square, where protests began last Friday over government plans to rip up trees in neighboring Gezi Park to make way for reconstructed Ottoman-era barracks and a shopping mall. Eventually, the outcry was too loud to ignore. Television stations gradually began showing snippets of the protests during the weekend, until many had near-blanket coverage by Monday night.

But the damage had been done. In the days of protest that have ensued, demonstrators held up placards lambasting the media, criticizing them for keeping the public in this country of about 75 million uninformed and turning a blind eye to events that quickly spread from Istanbul to the capital, Ankara, and other cities.

On Sunday and Monday, protesters converged outside the offices of the private NTV and HaberTurk television stations. Some held placards depicting the country’s three main private television stations as the three wise monkeys, who see no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil. In Taksim, protesters overturned an NTV satellite van, smashing its equipment and ripping the doors almost off their hinges. The battered, graffiti-covered shell still stood on the square on Tuesday morning.

In a country where authorities have few qualms about jailing outspoken journalists, many have accused the media — particularly TV — of self-censorship, shying away from anything that could anger the establishment and Erdogan’s government.

Some television personalities turned to more subtle ways of making their views known. A popular quiz show on the Bloomberg-HT channel, Word Game, made the protests the theme of Monday night’s competition. Host Ihsan Varol asked competitors what “must be done to decrease tension?” The correct answer was one of the protesters’ main demands of the heavy-handed police in Istanbul and other cities: “Withdrawal.”

The Hurriyet newspaper ran a sly cartoon on its front page featuring penguins holding up a banner with a main protest theme, “Everywhere is Taksim, the Struggle is Everywhere.”

The lack of coverage wasn’t lost abroad either. Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland issued a statement calling for the investigation of allegations of excessive force by the police, and urging “all media outlets to provide full and accurate coverage of the situation.”

Turksih media and business executives got the message from the public. Dogus, one of Turkey’s most prominent business conglomerates, which owns NTV, as well as banking, insurance and marina construction interests, apologized for the lack of coverage on the first night of riots.

“Our audience feels like they were betrayed,” NTV quoted Dogus CEO Cem Aydin as saying Tuesday after meeting with the channel’s staff, adding that the criticism against the station was “fair to a large extent.”

“Our professional responsibility is to report everything as in the way it happens. The pursuit of balance within the imbalanced environment affected us as it did the other media outlets,” Aydin said, adding that was now “an opportunity to refresh our relationship with our audience.”

Customers made their displeasure known in more concrete ways, too. Garanti Bank, which also belongs to Dogus, has seen some 1,500 debit and credit card holders closing their accounts in protest, the bank’s general director said.

“They are saying ‘I am a Granati customer for 20 years, I don’t have any problem with the bank, yet I am closing my account due to these incidents’,” Ergun Ozen told the Associated Press.

“In sum, there have been some 40 million (Turkish lira, about $16 million) cash outflow and some 1,500 credit cards have been cancelled due this. Yet, apart from these incidents, in general the bank’s deposit is increasing.”

Ozen said that while he believed this reaction was unfair to Garanti Bank, “I met people’s reaction with understanding.”

Akin reported from Ankara. Suzan Fraser in Ankara also contributed to this report.