Miko Peled: Israeli Authorities Should be Taken to Int’l Court for War Crimes


One year after a Palestinian teenager was set on fire and burned to death following the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teens, the situation in the region remains dire in the wake of 2014’s military conflict that left more than 2,000 Palestinians dead. Anya Parampil speaks with Israeli peace activist Miko Peled about how the Gaza Strip conflict has settled down since then, and what Palestinian relations with the rest of the world may look like.

Related: Miko Peled: Israel is a Racist, Apartheid State

Posted in Videos & Documentaries, War & Terror | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Ultranationalist Settler Movement


Following recent election success, Israel’s ultranationalist right held a zealous march on Jerusalem Day; a day of celebration for them, but a day of sorrow for Palestinians and the secular left.

Bringing together pro-nationalist zeal and religious fervour in a show of force, supporters of the Jewish Home Party, whose success in recent elections heralds the entry into the mainstream of the pro-settler hardcore, recently marched in the holy city. They claim their right to the land from Judaism’s holy texts; but not everyone in Israel agrees with their views. “People from Tel Aviv think all settlers throw stones at Arabs,” says a settler from Susya. Support for the Jewish Home Party is strong on the West Bank, where settlements are continuing to expand. The mayor of Wadi-Fukim says every day yellow signs declaring ‘State Land’ go up on new areas of the Palestinian village. What’s more, Beta-Elit, the neighbouring settler housing development, dumps its sewage on their agricultural land, he claims. “Our produce from the village is famous in Palestine,” says the mayor, but that reputation has now been tarnished. Only 450 of the 3000 acres that once constituted Wadi-Fukim now remain. Too much, some Israelis who attended the Jerusalem Day march would say. One young nationalist put it plainly for the cameras: “Every single spot belongs to us – not a single piece for other people.”

Racist Jewish squatters harassing and humiliating a Palestinian woman in the West Bank.

Posted in Culture & Society, Human Rights & Justice, Imperialism & Colonialism, Religion & Philosophy, Videos & Documentaries | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Interview with Detained ISIS Fighters in Iraq


RT has managed to talk to two members of the Islamic State terrorist organization imprisoned in Baghdad in an exclusive attempt to gain a glimpse into their motivation. They claim to act out of faith and to have no regard for civilian casualties.

The two men led out to Eisa Ali for the interview in a police station’s courtyard were both outwardly calm. Clad in yellow prison robes and handcuffs, both are Baghdad native Sunni Muslims, who now face life imprisonment for their actions as part of ISIS.

Source: RT News

Posted in Videos & Documentaries, War & Terror | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

There’s No Business Like War Business

It’s almost like war is a business. The Pentagon announced on Thursday that the United States would be sending 2,000 AT-4 anti-tank rockets to Iraq. While the Department of Defense emphasized that the rockets were being sent to help combat suicide car bombs, there is another target anti-tank rockets might be needed for in Iraq these days – US tanks and other vehicles in the hands of ISIS.

That’s right, while ISIS is mostly made up by local reactionaries living out a fantasy from the 7th century the weapons they now have in their possession are cutting edge tech. After the Iraqi army first collapsed ISIS gained control of numerous US weapons and vehicles sent to the Iraqi army including modern US tanks. The kind you might need anti-tank rockets for.

Now with the recent fall of Ramadi to ISIS forces the militants have a new cache of US weapons:

“The ISIS fleet of captured U.S. military vehicles, including M1A1 tanks, grew by more than 100 when Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) fled the provincial capital of Ramadi 60 miles west of Baghdad and abandoned their equipment, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.

In addition, “there were some artillery pieces left behind,” said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, but he could not say how many.

About 100 wheeled vehicles and “in the neighborhood of dozens of tracked vehicles” were lost to ISIS when the last remaining Iraqi defenders abandoned the city of about 500,000, Warren said.

The tracked vehicles were mostly armored personnel carriers but “maybe half a dozen tanks” were in the mix, Warren said. He did not say what type of tanks they were. Photos posted by ISIS on social media purported to show about 10 M1A1 Abrams tanks in their possession and large amounts of captured ammunition.”

Well this is an interesting game – send weapons to Iraqi army which loses US weapons retreating from ISIS, then send more weapons to Iraqi army to fight now better-armed ISIS only to retreat again and lose more US weapons to ISIS. Rinse, repeat, and consider buying defense stocks.

Source: Firedoglake

Also see: Isis captured 2,300 Humvee armoured vehicles from Iraqi forces in Mosul

Posted in War & Terror | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Putin’s 15 Years in Power

The Russian president on “Direct Line With Vladimir Putin,” April 17, 2014 (via Hoffington Post).

The film PRESIDENT contains never-seen-before footage from some of the biggest highlights of Putin’s career, and of Russia’s history for the last decade and a half: the war in Chechnya, the battle with the oligarchs, the Kursk submarine tragedy, Beslan, the 2008 crisis. Among the revelations Putin makes in his interview sections is the admission of direct involvement of Western intelligence agencies in supporting Islamic terrorism in Chechnya. While it’s no surprise to the alternative media, it’s the first time Putin has officially confirmed such involvement. Nothing has changed since the CIA created the mujaheddin to battle the Soviets in Afghanistan. (Note: if the embedded videos do not play correctly, follow the link to the original LiveLeak page by clicking on the episode title.)

Watch the film at Sott.net

Related: What if Putin is Telling the Truth?

Posted in Culture & Society, Videos & Documentaries | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Why Israel Should Not Exist

By Garry Leech

By suggesting that the state of Israel should not exist, I am not being anti-Semitic. I am, however, being anti-Zionist. There is a distinct difference. An anti-Semite is someone who is prejudiced against Jews. An anti-Zionist, on the other hand, is opposed to that sector of the Jewish population who see it as their God-given right to establish a Jewish state in the Holy Land at the expense of the Palestinian people who have lived there for two thousand years.

The creation of a Jewish state in the middle of the Arab world not only represents the continuation of European colonialism in Palestine, it has also consisted of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the establishment of an apartheid system by a rogue nation that has repeatedly violated international law. Given this reality, and the fact that Palestine is the Holy Land of three religions, the only just solution to the Zionist project of the Israeli state and its Western backers is the establishment of a single country: a democratic secular state of Palestine in which Jews, Arabs and Christians all have equal rights.

[…]

The establishment of a Zionist state in the middle of the Arab world for Jewish migrants from Europe was only possible due to the support of Western imperialist powers including the United States, Britain and Canada. And Israel’s existence and ongoing expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem constitutes the continuation of European colonialism into the 21st century at the expense of the Palestinian people who have lived there for two thousand years.

Given this reality, the Jewish state of Israel should be viewed as both illegitimate and yet another catastrophic consequence of Western imperialism. The only just solution to this entrenched conflict is to finally allow Palestinians to establish the independent state they should have attained following World War Two and to allow for the return of all refugees. In other words, a single, secular Palestinian state in which Jews, Christians and Muslims all share equal rights. Such a one-state solution is not anti-Semitic, it is sensible.

Full article at CounterPunch

Related: Israeli Deputy FM Claims the Holy Land is Jewish: ‘It’s All Ours’

Posted in Democracy & Liberty, Human Rights & Justice, Imperialism & Colonialism | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Bitter Lake (2015)


BBC documentary film by filmmaker Adam Curtis

Politicians used to have the confidence to tell us stories that made sense of the chaos of world events. But now there are no big stories and politicians react randomly to every new crisis – leaving us bewildered and disorientated.

Bitter Lake is a new, adventurous and epic film by Adam Curtis that explains why the big stories that politicians tell us have become so simplified that we can’t really see the world any longer.

The narrative takes in events in America, Britain, Russia and Saudi Arabia – but the country at the heart of it is Afghanistan. Because Afghanistan is the place that has confronted our politicians with the terrible truth – that they can no longer understand what is going on.

The film reveals the forces that over the past 30 years rose up and undermined the confidence of politics to understand the world. And it shows the strange, dark role that Saudi Arabia has played in this.

But Bitter Lake is also experimental. Curtis has taken the unedited rushes of almost everything that the BBC has ever shot in Afghanistan – and used them in new and radical ways.

In so doing, he builds a different and more emotional way of depicting what has happened in Afghanistan – a counterpoint to what he sees as the narrow and increasingly destructive stories told by those in power.

Watch the full documentary here or here.

Posted in Culture & Society, Imperialism & Colonialism, NWO & Global Governance, Religion & Philosophy, Videos & Documentaries | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Chaos – Not Victory – is Empire’s Name of the Game

By Peter Koenig

This is precisely the point: The Washington/NATO strategy is not to ‘win’ a war or conflict, but to create ongoing – endless chaos. That’s the way (i) to control people, nations and their resources; (ii) to assure the west is in continuous need for military – troops and equipment – remember more than 50% of the US GDP depends on the military industrial complex, related industries and services; and (iii) finally, a country in disarray or chaos, is broke and needs money – money with hardship conditions, ‘austerity’ money from the notorious IMF, World Bank and other associated nefarious ‘development institutions’ and money lenders; money that equals enslavement, especially with corrupt leaders that do not care for their people.

That’s the name of the game – in Yemen, in Ukraine, in Syria, in Iraq, in Sudan, in Central Africa, in Libya…. you name it. Who fights against whom is unimportant. ISIS/ISIL/IS/DAISH/DAESH/Al-Qaeda and whatever other names for the mercenary killer organizations you want to add to the list – are just tags to confuse.

You might as well add Blackwater, Xe, Academi and all its other successive names chosen to escape easy recognition. They are prostitutes for the Zionist-Anglo-Saxon Empire, prostitutes of the lowest level. Then come elite prostitutes, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and other Gulf States, plus the UK and France, of course.

The west has invented a vocabulary so sick, it’s like a virus ingrained in our brains – or what’s left of it – that we don’t even know anymore what the words really mean. We repeat them and believe them. After all, the MSM drills them into our intestines day-in and day-out. People who fight for their freedom, for survival against oppressive regimes, are ‘terrorists’, ‘rebels’. The refugees from Africa, from the Washington inflicted conflict-stricken countries, the refugees of whom more than 4,000 have already perished this year trying to cross the Mediterranean for a ‘better life’ – they have been conveniently renamed ‘immigrants’. Often the term ‘illegal’ is added.

Spreading unrest, chaos, misery – that is what Washington and its vassals do best. They do not want to ‘win’ wars; they want eternal chaos, misery; people who can be subdued easily – full spectrum dominance, they call it.

And since the US army and its big brother (or sister) NATO cannot be everywhere, doesn’t want to be seen everywhere, they hire to kill. Washington invents and creates, then funds with its endless money stream, the ISILs, Daesh’s, Al-Qaedas – and the repertoire grows as the masters please – to fight for them, to kill for them, to produce chaos and false flags – so that eventually they – NATO and the Pentagon bulldozer – can come in and make believe ‘destroying’ those mercenaries that they generated in the first place. But the mainstream media won’t tell you the truth.

They have you believe that the Houtis, a secular humanitarian left-leaning group of Shias, and the Sunnis are fighting each other in Yemen for power; that the Saudis and their GCC cronies are just freeing Yemen from a bunch of terrorists; that the Houtis are supported by Iran (a predominant Shia country) – recently vehemently denied by a UN official – so, the Houtis have to be subdued. At the same time there is more reason for Washington to put yet another blame on Iran. Once the Houtis are dominated and killed off in sufficient numbers, a puppet president will be put in place, like the ex-President Saleh, or his successor Hadi, so that Washington can keep calling the shots – oppressing the country’s population to maintain unlimited access to the strategic port of Aden – and to the Gulf.

Ukraine is the same: Are ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, Al-Qaeda, or whatever their names may be, in the Ukraine? – You bet they are, under the command of CIA and some 6,000 US troops, trainers of course. They train the Kiev troops how best and fastest to kill their brothers in the Donbass; they train them how to create lasting chaos. And if the soldiers refuse to be trained to kill their brothers, the Kiev Nazi regime will shoot them as traitors. Point blanc. So easy. So that nobody will resist.

Not least, the US military ‘advisors’ and CIA with the help of their hired killers, the Kiev Nazis, the ISIS/Daesh/Al-Qaeda, are attempting to provoke President Putin into war – possibly a third World War. Yes, the third in less than hundred years, potentially devastating Europe, and possible the world. So far, the world has been spared this disaster, largely thanks to Mr. Putin’s wise strategy of non-confrontation.

So – no question whether the ISIS/Daesh/Al-Qaeda are in the Ukraine. They are everywhere the empire orders them to be. That’s what they are paid for. That’s what prostitutes do. Especially created prostitutes; well-paid prostitutes. Ideology is just a fig leaf, conveniently used by the western media – so we all may believe that the Muslims are evil, some even more than others. The west must fight them, because they are a serious and present danger for our freedom, our liberty our democracies – and especially our neoliberal everything-goes free market values.

Because that is the ultimate goal: humans as a market commodity, dispensable, reducible to cannon fodder, to be killed off in masses by (poisoned) genetically modified food, by drones, by bombs, by artificially created famine, so that at the end the survivors are serfs to a small elite which controls the four corners of the globe and ALL its resources, to maintain a lifestyle of exceptional people – yes, the exceptional nation, will be reduced to a bunch of exceptional people living in grand splendor.

Remember Henry Kissinger’s infamous words, the vision of one of the most atrocious war criminals still alive today – another Nobel Laureate (sic) – spoken some fifty years ago:

“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”

These words ring truer every day. But only as long as we allow it; as long as We, the People, We the 99.999% of the globe’s inhabitants, allow it.

Extracted from: Veterans News Now

Posted in Espionage & Secret Agencies, False Flag Operations, Imperialism & Colonialism, NWO & Global Governance, War & Terror | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Chris Hedges: Make the Rich Panic

Many will call me an adventurer – and that I am, only one of a different sort – one of those who risks his skin to prove his truths… I have loved you very much, only I haven’t known how to express my affection. I am extremely rigid in my actions, and I think that sometimes you didn’t understand me. It hasn’t been easy to understand me. Nevertheless, please take me at my word today… An abrazo (hug) from your obstinate and prodigal son. — Che Guevara, March 31,1965

It does not matter to the corporate rich who wins the presidential election. It does not matter who is elected to Congress. The rich have the power. They throw money at their favorites the way a gambler puts cash on his favorite horse. Money has replaced the vote. The wealthy can crush anyone who does not play by their rules. And the political elites—slobbering over the spoils provided by their corporate masters for selling us out—understand the game. Barack and Michelle Obama, as did the Clintons, will acquire many millions of dollars once they leave the White House. And your elected representative in the House or Senate, if not a multimillionaire already, will be one as soon as he or she retires from government and is handed seats on corporate boards or positions in lobbying firms. We do not live in a democracy. We live in a political system that has legalized bribery, exclusively serves corporate power and is awash in propaganda and lies.

If you want change you can believe in, destroy the system. And changing the system does not mean collaborating with it as Bernie Sanders is doing by playing by the cooked rules of the Democratic Party. Profound social and political transformation is acknowledged in legislatures and courts but never initiated there. Radical change always comes from below. As long as our gaze is turned upward to the powerful, as long as we invest hope in reforming the system of corporate power, we will remain enslaved. There may be good people within the system—Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are examples—but that is not the point. It is the system that is rotten. It must be replaced.

We must build mass movements that are allied with independent political parties—a tactic used in Greece by Syriza and in Spain by Podemos. Political action without the support of radical mass movements inevitably becomes hollow, and that, I think, will be the fate of the Sanders presidential campaign. Only by building militant mass movements that are unrelentingly hostile to the system of corporate capitalism, imperialism, militarism and globalization can we wrest back our democracy.

Full article at Truthdig

Posted in Culture & Society, Democracy & Liberty, Human Rights & Justice | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Saudi-Israeli Alliance: Syria’s Nightmarish Narrative

Israel and Saudi Arabia secret dealings behind the Arab and Muslim World

With military and political help from Saudi Arabia and Israel, the nightmare scenario of an Al-Qaeda and/or Islamic State victory in Syria may be coming true, as the army of the more secular Syrian government retreats and as President Obama seems frozen by indecision, reports Robert Parry.

The Saudi-Israeli alliance, in league with other hard-line Sunni countries, is helping Al-Qaeda affiliates advance toward gaining either victory or at least safe havens in Syria and Yemen, highlighting unresolved contradictions in President Barack Obama’s policies in the Middle East.

Fueled by a surge of support from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey – and with Israel striking at Syrian government allies – Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front and Al-Qaeda’s hyper-brutal spinoff, the Islamic State, are making major advances in Syria with some analysts now predicting the likely collapse of the relatively secular government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Saudi Arabia and Israel have made clear over the past few years that they regard the overthrow of the Iranian-backed Assad government as a geopolitical priority even if it results in a victory by Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State. But Obama, who has been unwilling or unable to rein in the Saudi-Israeli alliance, would then have to decide what to do with Islamic terrorists dominating a major Mideast nation.

Some of these Sunni radicals have shown that they will move aggressively toward slaughtering minority groups that they consider infidels, including Christians, Alawites and Shiites. The terrorists could leave the streets of major Syrian cities running red with blood – and give Al-Qaeda a solid platform from which to launch terrorist attacks against the West.

[…]

During Netanyahu’s March 3 speech to a joint session of Congress, he further indicated Israel’s preference for the Saudi-backed jihadists over Iranian allies in the Syrian government. He urged the U.S. government to shift its focus from fighting Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State to fighting Iran.

Netanyahu depicted the danger from the Islamic State as relatively minor – with its “butcher knives, captured weapons and YouTube” – compared to Iran, which he accused of “gobbling up the nations” of the Middle East.

To the applause of Congress, he claimed “Iran now dominates four Arab capitals, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa. And if Iran’s aggression is left unchecked, more will surely follow.” His choice of capitals was peculiar, however, because Iran took none of those capitals by force and, indeed, was simply supporting the embattled government of Syria and was allied with Shiite elements of the government of Lebanon.

As for Iraq, Iran’s allies were installed not by Iran but by President George W. Bush via the U.S. invasion. And, in Yemen, a long-festering sectarian conflict has led to the capture of Sanaa by Houthi rebels who are Zaydi Shiites, an offshoot of Shia Islam that is actually closer to some Sunni sects. The Houthis deny they are agents of Iran, and Western intelligence services believe Iran’s support has consisted mostly of some funding.

Full article at Consortiumnews

Posted in War & Terror | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment