Iraq Invasion  – Anniversary of The Biggest Terrorist Attack in Modern History?


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Blair and Bush: Perhaps the two biggest criminals of our age, although Obama, Cameron and others are quickly disputing this dubious distinction.

Tony Blair and Bush: Perhaps the two biggest criminals of our age, although Obama, Cameron and others are quickly disputing this dubious distinction. They are still at large, of course.


Since terrorism’s tragedy is again in the news, it is timely to revisit perhaps one of the biggest acts of terrorism in modern history – the illegal invasion and destruction – ongoing – of Iraq.  March 20th marked the thirteenth anniversary of an action resulting in the equivalent of a Paris, Brussels, London 7th July 2005, often multiple times daily in Iraq ever since. As for 11th September 2001, there has frequently been that death toll and heart break every several weeks, also ongoing.

America and Britain have arguably engaged in and generated the legacy of one of the longest recorded attacks of terrorism since World War Two.

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Axis troops pouring into Iraq as part of their phony liberation mission.

There are no minutes silences or Eiffel Tower bathed in the colours of the Iraqi flag – or indeed those of the other ongoing Western engineered catastrophes, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, or for the US-UK complicity in the human carnage in Yemen, or for the forty three dead and two hundred and thirty nine injured in Beirut in November, reportedly by ISIS, the day before the Paris attack.

The Eiffel Tower did not display the Russian colours after ISIS claimed the October 2015 crash of a Russian airliner after leaving from Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh airport, the result they stated of a bomb they placed, killing all two hundred and twenty four passengers. ISIS mass murders in Africa are mostly ignored.

epa04329143 Iraqis inspect the wreckage of the grave of the Nebi Yunus, or prophet Jonah, in Mosul, northern Iraq, 24 July 2014. Allegedly, members of jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which now goes by the name the Islamic State (IS), have demolished the historic grave of the Nebi Yunus, the biblical prohet Jonah in the east of Mosul. EPA/STR

The anglo-zionist intervention created a monster whose barbaric acts still extract suffering in the entire Middle East. Iraqis inspect the wreckage of the grave of the Nebi Yunus, or prophet Jonah, in Mosul, northern Iraq, 24 July 2014.

030527-N-5362A-001 Al Hillah, Iraq (May, 27th 2003) Ð Engineering Aide 1st Class Scott Lyerla, assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion One Five (NMCB-15) maintains security for his convoy with an M-60 machine gun while driving through Al Hillah, Iraq. Operation Iraqi Freedom is the multi-national coalition effort to liberate the Iraqi people, eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and end the regime of Saddam Hussein. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 1st Class Arlo K. Abrahamson. (RELEASED)

Americans entering Al Hillah, Iraq, in 2003, as part of the their victory in their ridiculously named campaign, Operation Iraqi Freedom. (USA photo). Every act of barbarism and plunder by the anglo-American empire is carefully wrapped in euphemisms to assure the passivity of the home populations.

Since ISIS was spawned by the Iraq “liberation” (“Operation Iraqi Liberation” – OIL) it is worth revisiting Tony Blair’s speech to Parliament on 20th March 2003, the day of the invasion. (1)

“On Tuesday night I gave the order for British forces to take part in military action in Iraq. Tonight British servicemen and women are engaged from air, land and sea.

“Their mission: to remove Saddam Hussein from power and disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction”, said Blair.

epa01031620 British Prime Minister Tony Blair (L) and U.S. President George W. Bush speak together on June 7, 2007 in Heiligendamm, Germany, where G8 world leaders are holding their first full day of talks. EPA/Peter Macdiarmid/POOL

Tony Blair (L) and George W. Bush on June 7, 2007 in Heiligendamm, Germany. Proud and unrepentant. Bush is a certifiable ignoramus and imbecile, but in Blair’s case there is no excuse for his deliberate criminality.

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]reathtaking. Little Britain’s “mission” was to remove from power the President of a country whose “sovereignty and territorial integrity” was guaranteed by the UN. As for “weapons of mass destruction”, probably millions of words have given the lie to their existence and to both the US and Britain’s near certainty that there were none after near ten years of exhaustive work by the UN weapons inspectors.

“ … this new world faces a new threat of disorder and chaos born either of brutal states like Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction or of extreme terrorist groups”, stated the would be Butcher of Baghdad.

“Both hate our way of life, our freedom, our democracy.

“My fear, deeply held, based in part on the intelligence that I see is that these threats come together and deliver catastrophe to our country and our world.

Bathed in sanctimonious hypocrisy, and always operating behind a vast machinery of lies, the imperial Anglo-American axis is without a doubt the most heinous instrument for global terrorism in the 21st century.

As for hating “our way of life, our freedom, our democracy”, until the embargo was imposed on Iraq in August 1990, Iraq contributed millions to the British and US economies sending post-graduate university students to gain further degrees in the West, ensuring an educational broadness in the advantage of studying in both academic spheres.

Iraq_War_Protesters_in_Parliament_Square-2

Visiting homes of those with the money to travel it was usually just minutes before the photo albums were produced showing joyful holidays in the UK, US and across Europe.

There were of course, near no Middle East allied “terrorists … destroying” entertainment venues, metro stations, commercial centres until the Iraq invasion. Attacks in Europe were near always home grown separatist groups usually feeling victims of historical injustices. Lessons are clearly never learned.

Blair in a candid moment taking a selfie.

Blair in a candid moment, taking a selfie.

There is, however, the darkest irony in Blair’s fears that: “ threats come together and deliver catastrophe to our country and our world.” His and Bush’s actions have delivered just that.

Saddam Hussein and fundamentalism were two different planets and any inkling of a threat was instantly dealt with – yes, sometimes brutally, but Iraq and the region remained secular and apart from domestic criminalities common to near all nations, the streets safe and life normal. In Baghdad, until the deprivation and desperation wrought by the 1990 embargo and the 1991 bombing people did not even lock their doors.

“Should terrorists obtain these weapons now being manufactured and traded around the world the carnage they could inflict to our economies, to our security, to world peace would be beyond our most vivid imagination”, Blair continued. Indeed. The US-UK spawned ISIS who obtained arms from the US disbanded Iraqi army, arms from the US provided and trained new Iraqi army as they fled multiple conflicts in  multiple areas, leaving all armaments behind and indeed ISIS have “obtained these weapons” dropped from the air to them on multiple occasions – by the US.

Blair is also clearly clairvoyant:

“My judgment as Prime Minister is that this threat is real, growing and of an entirely different nature to any conventional threat to our security that Britain has faced before.” His infatuation with George W. Bush and the “dodgy dossiers” produced under his premiership to attempt to justify the legally unjustifiable, delivered exactly that of which he warned.


 

blair-bush-terrorists-poster

Even the best efforts of the prostituted media propagandists could not keep some people from realizing the truth about their leaders.

And here is a whopper of staggering scale:

“Removing Saddam will be a blessing to the Iraqi people”. Yet four million Iraqis are in exile, 60% of the population dependent on food aid, thousands of children die every year through malnutrition and disease, hundreds of thousands have been driven from their homes or murdered.

The result of “removing Saddam” (read: lynching Saddam) has been a blood soaked daily litany for thirteen years. The majority of Iraqis in exile under Saddam fled to send money back home to keep their families and extended families during the decimating embargo which had resulted in basic food stuffs increasing in price often over eleven thousand fold.

blair-bush_blair_0

The “thousands of children” were indeed dying “every year” – from “embargo related causes” according to the UN. The government set up a ration distribution system to try and counter the food crisis (Iraq had imported 70% of near everything.) The UN called the efficiency of the system exemplary, but the embargo prevented imports of food and other essentials. Even soap, toothpaste, shampoo and sanitary requirements had become luxury items. Prior to the embargo, the country had free health service, food was inexpensive and plentiful and water borne diseases mostly eradicated. Between the embargo and the bombing all was destroyed.

The Kurdish complexities indeed led to displacement – but Iraq too felt threatened with the CIA and Mossad ensconced in Kurdistan, which had been given near autonomy. As for “murdered”, the “Iraq mass graves” became a catch-all mantra. The tragic majority found were from the Iran-Iraq war, the 1991 war and subsequent US encouraged uprising. Even Iraq’s part in the monstrous deaths at Halabja are thrown in to question by a 1990 Report from the US Army War College. (2)

Blair blathered on to Parliament:

“I hope the Iraqi people hear this message. We are with you. Our enemy is not you but your barbarous rulers.

“Our commitment to the post-Saddam humanitarian effort will be total.

“We shall help Iraq move towards democracy and put the money from Iraqi oil in a UN trust fund so it benefits Iraq and no-one else.” Never in the field of human conflict have so many lies been told to so many by so few – to misquote Churchill.

Now to the nub of the statement: “Neither should Iraq be our only concern.

“As so often before on the courage and determination of British men and women serving our country the fate of many nations rest.” Usually, when the British and US get involved “the fate of” the people of nations are dispatched to mass graves.

The “fate” of Iraq of course, was to be threatened, distorted and their people hung in the balance, as so many warned, including the then head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa: “If Iraq is invaded, the Gates of Hell will open.”

“President Bush and I have committed ourselves to peace in the Middle East based on a secure state of Israel and a viable Palestinian state.” Ah, as ever about Israel. Saddam sent aid to Palestinians, displaced, bereaved, desperate and to families of those enough so to even relinquish their lives. The demonized, also secular, President Assad, of course, also supports the Palestinians.

“Dictators like Saddam. Terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, threaten the very existence of such a world.”

Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda again linked together. The former never threatened the world, al-Qaeda’s offshoot ISIS, non-existent in Iraq under Saddam, now threatens the Middle East, Europe, the US, and Africa.

Blair concluded: “That is why I’ve asked our troops to go into action tonight.”

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]lair was not alone making it up as he went along, singing to his pal Bush’s hymn sheet, he was also singing to that of Benjamin Netanyahu, who six months earlier (September 2002) had assured the US Congress: “If you take out Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region… The task and the great opportunity and challenge is not merely to effect the ouster of the regime, but also to transform the region.” (3) It has certainly done that. The Cradle of Civilization is now a valley of tears, widows, widowers and orphans.

President Nobel Obama has commemorated the 20th March anniversary by sending more troops to Iraq and by the US bombing of Mosul University, killing around ninety people and injuring up to one hundred and fifty including Professor Dhafer al Badrani, Dean of Computer Sciences and his wife.

According to an academic from the city: “The whole faculty residential buildings were destroyed, university headquarter, girl’s dormitory, science college, central publishing center of the university, and womens’ education college. The university is built on very close to the Nimrud archeological entrances to the Assyrian empires (2500 B.C.) I am sure using bunker buster bombs destroyed most of these historical sites.”

In Fallujah, besieged by militias and according to another contact: “ … bombed since 1 January 2014 by the government (armed by the USA and with US military advisers this whole time) and since August 2014 by the US Coalition”, the people are starving: “ On 17th March a husband threw himself his wife with their three children in to the river (Euphrates) from a bridge and drowned. They were desperate from hunger …” And the bodies of: “Nearly four thousand killed civilians have been taken to the hospital since January 2014.”

On 26th March 26th March forty one people were killed and one hundred and five injured at a soccer match by a suicide bomber at a stadium thirty kilometres from Baghdad.

A few days ago an Iraqi in Baghdad commented: “We only had two bombs today, people went out.”

On 27th March Tony Blair was back giving his views. (4) They broadly include invading Iraq, Syria and Libya to save Europe from ISIS, remarking of ISIS: “… This ideology is not interested in coexistence. It does not seek dialogue but dominance”, said the man who was interested in neither and enjoined a “Crusade” – an equally thousand year outdated fundamentalism.

Anyone who listens to the advise of the author who did so much to spawn the horror, genocide, destruction, insanity, barbarism and should be facing a war crimes Tribunal for his part in bringing the all about, is arguably certifiably insane.

Talking of insanity, the UN has designated 20th March as International Day of Happiness, a day founded to recognize happiness as a “fundamental human goal.” Tell that to the people of Iraq.


About the author
Felicity Arbuthnot, London-based and correspondent for Middle Eastern affairs, has visited Iraq numerous times. She remains one of the most outspoken critics of the Anglo-American-led imperialist policy in the region.  


REFS. 

  1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2870581.stm
  2. https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/168/37420.html
  3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHmhf_wrcrM
  4. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/27/tony-blair-west-must-be-ready-to-deploy-ground-troops-against-isis#img-1

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At last Big Media looks at Wounded Warrior Scam


Screen Shot 2016-01-27 at 7.46.24 AMCBS exposé a surprise, albeit a welcome one. It does not denounce of course the biggest scam of all (of which it is an important part) the selling of imperialist wars to a bamboozled population.

We did our own exposé back in June (2015), see this:

Maudlin sentimentality and lies covering up the tragedy of American soldiers


WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT

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Marketing wars, indirectly, on the backs of the wounded——and getting rich in the process. Click here to read it. 


Incidentally, the proliferation of these goody-two-shoes “charities” is one more manifestation of the sickness at the heart of American society, its “privatism syndrome”, whereby the government, an entity that should discharge these tasks, doesn’t, opening the field to crooks happy to exploit the pervasive ignorance and jingoism afflicting this nation.

Former Wounded Warrior employees accuse charity of wasting millions

CBS News investigation: How is Wounded Warrior Project spending donations? 

Published on Jan 26, 2016

In a CBS News investigation, more than 40 former employees of the Wounded Warrior Project accuse the charity of wasting millions of donated dollars on luxury hotels, lavish conferences and expensive meals for staff. The charity has defended its spending. Chip Reid reports.


Another version of the report.




The Saudi Prince and Two Tons of Narcotics

horiz grey lineBreaking News…

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saudi-prince-drug-bust

Saudi Prince Abdulmohsen bin Walid bin Abdulmohsen bin Abdulaziz Al Saud was obviously not fully satisfied with his life. A private jet, several luxury cars and a mansion were not enough to make him feel a truly fulfilled and respected member of the Gulf ruling “elites”. Others had more, like those double-decker Airbus 380’s, or tremendous duplexes overlooking Karbala.

Perhaps that was the reason why he tried so hard to catch up, by smuggling from Beirut, Lebanon to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (KSA), some 40 suitcases and boxes neatly packed with Captagon pills, with some cocaine thrown in for good measure.

I say “perhaps”, because there are, of course, some other options and possibilities…

In fact there are many different first-hand takes on every aspect and detail of the story.

According to various reports, a simple and honest security guard at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport stopped the Prince and asked him to open his suitcases.

“I have a diplomatic passport!” protested the Prince.

“You do, but your luggage doesn’t”, explained the guard, phlegmatically.

What followed was described by several mainstream media outlets.

On November 2, Reuters reported:

“Lebanese authorities detained five Saudi citizens at the airport last week after finding two tonnes of Captagon amphetamine pills bound for Saudi Arabia on a private jet, security sources and the NNA said, the biggest smuggling operation ever discovered at the airport. On Monday the prince and four other people in custody were accused of the crime, the NNA cited Claude Karam, public prosecutor for the Mount Lebanon area, as saying. The charges were also leveled at five other people in absentia, he added…. Consumption of Captagon outside the Middle East is negligible, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said last year, but it is a significant drug in the Gulf. Lebanon and neighboring Syria are conduit routes for the drug.”

The Guardian (UK) captioned this photo rather matter-of-factly: "Free Syrian Army fighters in Aleppo … many in the conflict are using the drug to keep going...The drug, widely used in the Middle East but unknown elsewhere, is keeping fighters on their feet during grueling battles and generating money for more weapons." Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The Guardian (UK) captioned this photo rather matter-of-factly: “Free Syrian Army fighters in Aleppo … many in the conflict are using the drug to keep going…The drug [Captagon], widely used in the Middle East but unknown elsewhere, is keeping fighters on their feet during grueling battles and generating money for more weapons.” Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

According to other sources, the interception was prepared well in advance and the security officers at the checkpoint that had been set up for the passengers coming and leaving Beirut on their private jets, knew well in advance about the content of the cargo, which was covered with Saudi Arabian official emblems. An x-ray machine that was hardly used at that particular section, suddenly and miraculously became operational.

The prince and his cohorts were thoroughly checked, and then detained.

This was the biggest contraband ever discovered at this already notorious airport. Just to put things into some visual perspective: imagine a full-sized hippopotamus, weighing around 2 tons. This is how heavy the narco-contraband was in possession of His Highness, and his 4 chums. What an appetite! All that stuff has a value of around US$280 million at the “market price”.


[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he prince could not be truly so daring, could he? Princes are usually not… 2 tons of drugs leaving Beirut, and the same 2 tons arriving at Riyadh airport! In his country, some poor Philippine maid or a Bangladeshi guest worker would be chopped to pieces for just a few grams of cocaine. And in some Saudi ideological, Wahhabi colonies, like Indonesia, any foreigner or non-elite citizen would be shot like a stray dog for trafficking almost any amount of drugs. 2 tons would put anyone in the KSA or Indonesia into a giant, slowly rotating blender!A prince of one of the closest allies of the West would surely not break the law in such an outrageously extreme manner. Unless…

Unless he knew something, was told something, or was on a mission!

“Yes, they will let him go”, lamented a prominent Lebanese political analyst who did not want to be identified (out of fear that Saudis would retaliate). “They have a license to kill, rape, smuggle with complete impunity, and yet still couldn’t manage to let women get a drivers license because of ‘norm-wise’ and religion-wise it is not advisable, yet raping and killing innocent people and dealing with and smuggling drugs is fair and square in their own interpretation of religion. Their royalty is acting very un-regally. And what is happening here: This is Lebanon and everything here is a matter of ‘give and take’.

It means: Saudis give. They give to the local Sunni “elites”. And then they take…

There has been no comment from Saudi authorities on the case. Several of my colleagues in Lebanon tried to extract at least some comment, some explanation, but found nobody who would be willing to speak at the Saudi embassy in Beirut.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Saudi Royal Family has a truly ‘colorful’ history, from ancient to modern times. Let’s forget, for now, how they and their British allies and handlers, infested the entire region with the Wahhabi teaching.

Earlier this year, while his country was bombing and murdering thousands of innocent people in Yemen, another Saudi prince was arrested in Los Angeles for allegedly trying to force a woman to perform oral sex on him at a Beverly Hills mansion. A news agency, Sputnik, reported:

“Last month, another Saudi prince was arrested in Los Angeles accused of taking cocaine, sexually assaulting a maid, threatening to kill women who refused his sexual advances and having sex with his male aide.”

But the US authorities decided not to pursue the charge, citing a lack of evidence. Perhaps the same reason why the UN decided not to pursue the charges against Saudi acts of terror against Yemen.

In 2013, a Saudi princess was accused in Los Angeles of enslaving a Kenyan woman as a housemaid, but the charges were also eventually dropped.

After all, the Saudi Royal family is one of the closest allies of the West. A Saudi prince can definitely count on a very different treatment than Julian Assange, when it comes to some sexual allegations.

***

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hile several Western mass media outlets commented abstractly that Captagon pills are mainly used in the Gulf and in Syria, local sources concretely confirmed that it is a drug of choice for so-called “Syrian rebels”, including the ISIS. The India Times ran a story with the title: “Saudi Prince Caught With 2 Tons Of ISIS’s Favorite Drugs In Lebanon”.

Not surprisingly, most European and US mainstream newspapers and television channels decided not to investigate any further, most of the latest reports date back to 2 November 2015. It was all getting “just too risqué”.

Perhaps the most colorful report went to print on October 28, written by Robert Fisk and published by The Independent:

“…The Lebanese who grabbed them must regret that their customs scanner ever picked up the cargo… The eloquent Lebanese Minister of the Interior Nouhad Machnouk has already denied knowledge of any details of the affair – a likely story – saying that it is “in the hands of the justice [ministry]… ”.

Fisk concludes in the most appropriately sarcastic manner:

“But let’s rely on Lebanese justice. Innocent until proved guilty. Lebanon’s large Sunni Muslim community loves Sunni Saudi Arabia. Indeed, two of its prime ministers (Hariri, father and son, both good men) have been Saudi as well as Lebanese citizens. All just one big mistake, surely. Wrongly labeled boxes. Or perhaps a fiendish conspiracy by Saudi’s Hezbollah enemies in Beirut to embarrass the most respected royal family in the Middle East.”

The diplomatic community in Lebanon is entertaining several theories, but all of them are presented on “off the record” bases. One is linking the arrest of the Prince to a prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who is facing a death sentence in Saudi Arabia, for political dissent.

As Press TV reported on October 28:

“On October 25, Mohammed said in a message on social media that the Saudi Supreme Court and an appellate court had approved the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, and authorized the Saudi Interior Ministry to carry out the sentence previously handed down to the eminent cleric.”

Mohammed al-Nimr is a brother of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

And pay attention to the dates!

Several influential Shia politicians in Lebanon, the theory says, are behind the arrest. The prince arrested in Beirut could be, hypothetically, swapped for the cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

***

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is all a very big game. And captagon is not just some recreational drug, intended for underground nightclubs in the Gulf, and for notorious private orgies in Saudi Arabia. It is, as I was told by local experts, a “drug that makes one extremely brutal; a drug, which destroys all fear”. It is a “combat narcotic”, which has been given mainly to the ISIS fighters.

“It could have been destined for Iraq and the ISIS cells there, but most likely the Saudi Prince was bringing it for the Saudi allies in Yemen” I was told on the basis of anonymity. “Or both… Most likely: both.”

It was explained that those countless pills of captagon were produced and purchased in or around the town of Aarsal, in northern Lebanon on the Syrian border, an area controlled by ISIS, only around 15 kilometers from the major archeological site of Baalbek.

This still does not explain the origin or destination of the cocaine which was also found in possessions of the Saudi prince. But perhaps the cocaine was just a personal affair and booty of a member of Royal Family. That we may never find out.

***

[dropcap]L[/dropcap]ebanon is a collapsed country, which, apart from narcotics, food and some construction materials, produces hardly anything. Most of the funds come from remittances, and drug trade. There is some blood money pouring in from “investments” in West Africa. Almost everything very ugly, if not outrightly horrifying! For some time now, Lebanon has no truly functional government. It recently experienced unrest over the meltdown of basic infrastructure, corruption and the horrid state of all basic services. It is an extreme capitalist country.

It is also an extremely divided country; divided along religious lines, and social classes, recently inundated by more than 2 million, mainly Syrian, refugees. Syria is destabilized, totally ruined, by the Western imperialist policies. While Lebanon lacking ideology, plays with anyone who pays: be it the West, or all sorts of Christian sects, as well as Sunni and Shi’a Islam.

Saudi Arabian citizens have been using Lebanon as their playground, for decades. This is where they have been historically coming for shopping, “entertainment”, easy sex and yes, narcotics – not unlike Egypt and Indonesia. But big smuggling of narcotics, drug orgies and big political and military games (sometimes all are inter-connected) in which hard drugs play an important role, are reserved exclusively for the “elites”.

Saudi Arabia is playing an extremely important role here, economically and “ideologically”. It fuels the wars and conflicts, from Yemen to Syria and beyond. It pays blood money for secrecy and silence. It pays a lot. Therefore, the recent arrest of the Saudi prince is something absolutely unexpected and extraordinary.

***

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]efore this essay went to print, several deadly explosions devastated a southern Shi’a suburb of Beirut, Burj al-Barajneh, one of the strongholds of Hezbollah on November 12. Dozens of people were killed and around 200 wounded. Most likely ISIS or the al-Nusra Front performed this carnage. Both terrorist groups are backed by Saudi Arabia and are fighting against the government of al-Assad in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Further investigation will show to what extend are these two stories directly or indirectly related.


 

andreVltchekAndre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”.Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western TerrorismPoint of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.


 

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Greece Rejects the Troika

OpEds |  MICHAEL HUDSON



Where  Do  We  Go  From  Here?

EU's asshole president: Jean-Claude Juncker.  A perfect fit.

Taisez-vous! EU’s asshole president: Jean-Claude Juncker. A perfect fit.

 

[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ust after 7 PM Greek time on Sunday, I was told that the “No” vote (Gk. Oxi) was winning approximately 60/40. The “opinion polls” showing a dead heat evidently were wrong. Bookies across Europe are reported to be losing their shirts for betting that the financial right wing could fool most Greeks into voting against their self-interest. The margin of victory shows that Greek voters were immune to media misrepresentation during the week-long run-up as to whether to accept the troika’s demand for austerity to be conducted on anti-labor lines.*

It should not have been so great a surprise. Voting age for the referendum was lowered to 18 years, and included army members. Faced with an unemployment rate of over 50 percent, Greek youth understandably wanted no more euro-austerity.

The Troika’s demand was for austerity to be deepened solely by taxing labor and reducing pensions. Its policy makers had vetoed Syriza’s proposed taxes on the wealthy and steps to stop their tax avoidance. The IMF for its part vetoed cutbacks in Greek military spending (far above the 2% of GDP demanded by NATO), despite even the European Central Bank (ECB) and German Chancellor Merkel agreeing to this.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker threatened to expel Greece from Europe, despite no law permitting this to occur. Let us see now whether he still tries to carry out his bluff, which has been echoed by right-wing leaders throughout Europe.

His retaliatory actions from an ostensibly non-political, non-elected office are not alone. The eurozone class war in support of finance against labor and industry is now open and in earnest. Instead of doing what a central bank is supposed to do – provide liquidity (and paper currency) to banks, ECB head Mario “Whatever it takes” Draghi forced them to shut down even their ATM machines for lack of cash. Evidently this was intended to frighten Greek voters to think that this would be their country’s future if they voted No.

It is an old strategy. Andrew Jackson expressed his vindictiveness toward the Second Bank of the United States by shutting it down. When it refused to appoint his corrupt political cronies, he deposited the U.S. Treasury’s money in his “pet banks.” The drain of money plunged the economy into depression. The Southern slave states welcomed deflation, because they sought low prices for their cotton exports, and also opposed northern industry with its protectionist policies and anti-slave politics.

What Greece needs is a domestic central bank – or failing that, a national Treasury – empowered to create the money to monetize government spending on economic recovery. Mr. Draghi has shown the ECB not to be “technocratic,” but a cabal of right-wing operatives working to bring down the Syriza government, in a way quite willing to empower the far-right Golden Dawn party in its stead. In light of his refusal to carry out the duties of a central bank and act as lender of last resort when Greek banks run out of cash, Mr. Varoufakis has said that: “If necessary, we will issue parallel liquidity and California-style IOU’s, in an electronic form. We should have done it a week ago.”**

This prospect was at the center of a meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels on July 2.*** There was of course unanimous support for a “No” vote to the anti-labor, pro-creditor demands by the IMF, European Central Bank and European Council. But there also was concern that the Syriza leaders did not begin immediately upon their January election victory to educate voters on what actually is at issue: why remaining subject to the junk-economics dictates by the IMF and ECB, will make the economy subject to chronic debt deflation. Instead of spending the past six months educating the public over what is at issue with the Troika, Syriza focused on playing political rope-a-dope to demonstrate how firmly the ECB and EC were committed to austerity.

The left-wing Syriza members with whom I met during the last two weeks in Athens, Delphi and Brussels felt that more should have been done to educate the Greek public as to how impossible it is for Greece to pay the debts with which the Troika had loaded it down, with abject surrender by its pro-bank Pasok/New Democracy coalition that had ruled Greece for a generation. (New Democracy leader Samaras resigned after the vote was in last night.)

IMF'S Madame Lagarde: Just as much a corporate enforcer as the rest of the suits.

IMF’S Madame Lagarde: Just as much a corporate enforcer as the rest of her bankster class.

One factor that may have incensed Greeks to vote “No” was the revelation that an internal IMF Debt Sustainability Analysis – which Lagarde had sought to suppress – had endorsed what Syriza’s leader Alexis Tsipras has been saying all along: Greece needs a debt writedown. Its official debt is unpayable, and never should have been forced upon it in the first place – under conditions where the Troika removed the elected prime minister from office to put in their own technocrat (Lucas Papademos, who had worked with Goldman Sachs to falsify the government’s 2001 balance sheet to enable it to meet the eurozone’s entry conditions).

It was revealed last week that IMF head Christine Lagarde has overruled her staff and board to defend specifically French interests. As in 2010-11 under Dominique Strauss-Kahn, French banks are major holders of Greek bonds (including via their ownership of Greek banks). Strauss-Kahn notoriously overrode his staff when they urged the IMF not to capitulate to ECB demands to pay French, German and other private bondholders with Troika bailout loans for which they made Greek taxpayers liable.

Two weeks ago the Greek Parliament released a report by its Debt Truth Commission explaining why Greece’s debt to the IMF, ECB and European Council was legally “odious.” It was imposed Greece by the demand by Ms. Merkel and other pro-bank leaders that Greece not hold the referendum that Pasok Prime Minister Papandreou had proposed on the bailout of French and German banks at Greek expense.

That was the root of today’s problems. It also was the occasion on which European finance and democracy become antithetical, prompting the late Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung editor Frank Schirrmacher to write his famous editorial, “Democracy is Junk.”****

The Troika have refused to write down a single euro of unpayably high debt. They pretended that debt relief is an issue for later. That is what enabled Tsipras to depict his nation as being victimized by the eurozone’s vicious class war. The Syriza position has been “We’d like to pay. But there simply is no money – as the IMF’s own calculations have clearly and explicitly shown.”

Last Tuesday, Tsipras explained to Greek voters that the Troika had put nothing in writing about debt writedowns. This pierced the haze of media-induced panic. His seeming willingness to surrender simply dared the Troika to back up their promises in writing. He certainly was not going to make the tragic mistake that Russian leader Gorbachev made when he believed the verbal NATO promises that it would not move into the post-Soviet countries of Central Europe and the Baltics.

The Troika’s position was and is: “Impose austerity now. We’ll talk about debt writedowns later. But first, you must sell off what remains of your public domain. You must lower wages by another 20%, and force another 20% of your population to emigrate. Only then, when we’re sure that we can’t get another euro out of you anyway, then we may be willing to talk about writing down some of your debt. But not until we have stripped you of anything left to pay in any case!”

Tsipras and finance minister Varoufakis have been widely criticized in the U.S. media for seeming to capitulate to Troika demands. The reality is that they have been civil and polite, even taking conciliatory stance if only to show how totalitarian and unyielding the Troika has been.

That contrast between reason and totalitarian “free market” austerity is what convinced the Greeks to vote No.


Michael Hudson’s book summarizing his economic theories, “The Bubble and Beyond,” is now available in a new edition with two bonus chapters on Amazon. His latest book is Finance Capitalism and Its Discontents.  He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press. He can be reached via his website, mh@michael-hudson.com


Notes.

*James Galbraith summarizes the misrepresentation in “9 Myths About the Greek Crisis,” Politico

** Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, “Defiant Greeks reject demands as Syriza readies IOU currency,” The Telegraph, July 5, 2015. He should be viewed as what used to be called a “certified leak” from the Syriza negotiators.

***“Peripheral debts: Causes, consequences and solutions,” sponsored by by the Eurpean United Left/Nordic Green Left, GUE/NGL (www.guengl.eu). The video can be found here: http://www.guengl.eu/news/article/press-conferences/peripheral-debts-causes-consequences-and-solutions.-2-july. (My speech begins at about 27 minutes.)

**** http://www.voxeurop.eu/en/content/article/1128541-democracy-has-junk-status

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The Congress Imbecility Awards: Quien es más tonto?

So far he is the first winner. And he wins, too, for sheer, unalloyed mean-spiritedness, something we often see in wing nut politicians. 


Here Are 10 Reasons Why

Tom Cotton is the Worst Bully in the Senate—and a certifiable idiot to boot.

tomCotton.donkey

Tom Cotton: Idiot with a cause.  (DonkeyHotey, via flickr)


 

by MEDEA BENJAMIN and NALINI RAMACHANDRAN

[dropcap]1.[/dropcap] He penned an underhanded letter to the leaders of Iran that sparked the trending hashtag #47Traitors. On March 9th, Cotton and 46 of his Republican colleagues went behind President Obama’s back by signing an “informative” letter to Iran, saying that a nuclear deal would not last because the next president could reverse it.



Secretary John Kerry, one of the lead negotiators in the talks, called the letter “utterly disgusting” and “irresponsible.” Two dozen editorial boards slammed the letter and over 200,000 people signed a petition asking the senators to be charged for violating the Logan Act, a law which forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments.

2. Senator Cotton said the only problem he has with Guantanamo Bay prison is that “there are too many empty beds.” Ignoring waterboarding, indefinite detention, forced feeding and other torturous acts, Tom Cotton insists that the US should be “proud” of how it treats the “savages” detained in Gitmo. As far as Cotton is concerned, “[the prisoners] can rot in hell. But as long as they don’t do that, then they can rot in Guantanamo Bay.” This is counter to the position of many other Senators and President Obama, who has promised time and time again to close the prison. There are still dozens of men held at Gitmo who have been cleared for release, but that doesn’t seem to bother Senator They-Can-Rot-in-Hell.

3. He has compared the negotiations of the UN Security Council (P5+1) with Iran to the “appeasement of Nazi Germany.” This accusation is ridiculous. Rouhani’s Iran is not Hitler’s Germany. Despite Cotton’s claims that “there are nothing but hardliners in Tehran,” Rouhani is a reformist, someone we need to work with to defeat ISIL. And the ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran are a far better ––and safer–– approach than pushing Iran to the brink of war with the US (and Israel). For once, there is actually hope for a peaceful solution, something that certainly was not an option with Nazi Germany.

4. He thinks the use of killer drones should be expanded. Killer drones have resulted in thousands of civilian deaths in countries we’re not even at war with, like Pakistan and Yemen, and have led to an expansion of extremist groups. Senator Cotton makes the argument of many other pro-droners: that drone pilots are safer than air pilots, and casualties are reduced. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Drone pilots still suffer the psychological trauma associated with attacks, and the “collateral damage” of drone strikes means that families and children lose their lives along with the targeted terrorists. (Note: only 2% of all people killed by drone strikes have been confirmed “high-value” targets.) The last thing we need is the expansion of drone warfare, Tom.

5. He claims that “bombing makes us safer.” While in some masochistic, twisted logic that might make sense in the short term, historically speaking US military intervention has led to more extremism–– as with the formation of ISIS after the invasion of Iraq ––and turned local populations against the United States. Ultimately, bombing other countries just fosters more hate and anti-American sentiment. Bombing might not make us safer, but it certainly makes Tom Cotton’s friends in the defense industry a whole lot richer. Just 24 hours after his notorious letter to Iran became public, Cotton was the guest of honor at an event hosted by the National Defense Industrial Association, a lobbying and professional group for defense contractors.

6. He uses fear-mongering to call for a crackdown on immigrants and a clampdown on the Mexican border. Senator Cotton says drug cartels in Mexico are ready to expand into human trafficking and even terrorism, and could infiltrate our southern border and “attack it right here in places like Arkansas.” He’s made the wild accusation that Hezbollah is collaborating with locals in Mexico to “cross our borders and attack us here.” Ignoring the fences, drones, cameras and patrols that constantly survey the border, he maintains that the border is wide open. “As long as our border is open and it’s defenseless, then it’s not just an immigration issue, it’s a national security issue.” Be afraid, says Cotton, very afraid–so I can keep feeding the national security state!

7. He received $700,000 for his senate campaign from the Emergency Committee for Israel. That’s correct — $700,000! Such an exorbitant amount of money ensures that Cotton is one of the most pro-Israel senators in Congress. During the 2014 Israeli invasion of Gaza, when over 500 Palestinian were killed, Cotton called the Israeli defense force “the most moral, humanitarian fighting force in the world.” In December he said Congress should consider supplying Israel with B-52s and so-called “bunker-buster” bombs for a possible strike against Iran.

8. As an Army Lieutenant in 2006, Cotton called for the prosecution of two New York Times journalists for espionage. From his early days, Cotton has not been a fan of expository journalism. When the New York Times published an article about how the government was tracking terrorist financing, Cotton called for the journalists to be imprisoned. This news story got a lot of heat from various conservative outlets, but before he was even running for office, Cotton took it upon himself to publicize his grievances in a sarcastic letter to journalists Eric Lichtblau and James Risen. It seems that Cotton’s letter to Iran a few days ago was not the first of its kind.

9. He thinks food-stamp recipients are “addicts.” Senator Cotton hates food stamps. In his own words, he thinks the system is “riddled with fraud and abuse” and “has resulted in long-term dependency.” This is coming from the senator of Arkansas, which ranked number onein the number of residents who suffer from food insecurity. If Cotton had his way, there would be much harsher restrictions on food stamps, and the overall budget for welfare would be cut severely. Considering the high level of poverty in Arkansas, Cotton is actually voting against the interests of the people he is supposed to represent. If he’s concerned that the system is “riddled with fraud and abuse,” an audit of the Pentagon should be at the top of his to-do list.

10.  He has opposed legislation to expand women’s rights. Senator Cotton voted against equal pay legislation and the Violence Against Women Act. While Senator Cotton’s website will say that the vote was taken out of context, and that the Senator supports harsh punishment for sexual assault, a vote is a vote. If that’s the case, then why would he vote against an act that would give women more resources in the case of abuse or assault? And why would he vote against legislation that would push for equivalent pay? No matter what defense Cotton’s team comes up with, there’s really no logic or excuse to vote against women’s rights.

****

[dropcap]R[/dropcap]ep. Alan Grayson says Sen. Cotton is “already on his way to marking himself as the premiere warmonger of the 114th Congress.” Heather Digby Parton from Salon called him “Ted Cruz with a war record, Sarah Palin with a Harvard degree, Chris Christie with a Southern accent.” Whatever your characterization, this much is clear: this freshman senator is an arrogant bully.and needs a time out.


ABOUT THE AUTHORS
[box] Medea Benjamin
is the co-founder of the peace group CODEPINKand the human rights organization Global Exchange.

Nalini Ramachandran is a student at Northeastern University studying International Affairs and Middle East Studies. She’s currently working in the CODEPINK Washington, DC office. [/box]

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