Miko Peled: This is NOT Recognition

Artwork by AutaAutistik.

As the recognition by European countries of a so called “State of Palestine” continues, it is becoming obvious that this is nothing but an old colonial trick dusted and reused. The fact that liberal Zionist hypocrites the likes of the Israeli writers Amoz Oz and David Grossman are all over it says it all. In the triangular relations between the Europeans, the colonial regime in Palestine – Israel, and the Palestinians, all remains the same.

As usual, the Europeans profit, Israel is permitted to continue its brutal colonial regime over Palestine, and the Palestinians remain alone. The recognition of the “State of Palestine” is nothing more than what Franz Fanon calls “the farce of national independence” (Franz Fanon, “The Wretched of the Earth”). It provides for a select group of Palestinians the illusion of power with titles like “President” “Minister” “Ambassador,” the all time favorite “Head of Security” and it absolves Europeans of their complicity with Israel.

There is now, according to some European countries, a Palestinian state. Look, there must be one for even Britain and Sweden and a few others have recognized it, and they even have a “President!” Never mind the fact that nothing has changed. Gaza is still under siege with no end in sight, Palestinian prisoners are wasting away in the colonizers jails, armed Israeli mobs and the terrorist organization known as the IDF are terrorizing Palestinians, in the Israeli Knesset racist laws are being passed and not one refugee is allowed to return. We would all be wise to remember that the recognition of a “State” that does not exist in order to numb the resistance to a racist, colonialist regime is not new, it has been used by Europeans in Africa and former colonies in other parts of the world and it is always welcomed by liberals among the colonialists.

Read the full article at Miko Peled’s website

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Why the Senate Torture Report Doesn’t Matter


Abby Martin speaks with human rights lawyer, David Remes, about the contents of the newly released Senate torture report summary and how it will impact the future of the “war on terror”.


The U.S. Torture Program: A Blueprint for Accountability

Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, three of the worst war criminals of our time (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

With the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s several-hundred-page summary of its landmark investigation into the CIA’s use of torture, the United States has a critical opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to the rule of law and provide long-overdue accountability for the Bush administration’s illegal torture program.

During the Bush administration, many hundreds of people were tortured and abused by the CIA and Department of Defense, primarily in Afghanistan, Guantánamo, and Iraq, but also in other countries after unlawful rendition. Our government’s embrace of torture as official state policy shattered lives, shredded our nation’s reputation in the world, and compromised our national security as well as our diplomatic efforts to promote human rights. These conclusions are once again borne out by the Intelligence Committee’s report. Yet, to date, there has been little accountability for these wrongs.

In January 2009, shortly after entering office, President Obama took important steps to dismantle the torture program. But in the following years, the Obama administration undermined that early promise by thwarting accountability for torture. It succeeded in extinguishing lawsuits brought by survivors of U.S. torture and secret imprisonment. It fought to keep secret many documents that would allow the public to understand the extent of the abuse. And it failed to conduct a robust investigation of torture architects and perpetrators.

The long-awaited release of the summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report brings our nation—and the Obama administration—to a crossroads. As the United States has repeatedly told other nations that commit human rights violations, a nation cannot move forward without reckoning with the abuses of the past. Whether President Obama is willing to pursue justice and accountability for torture will help determine the human rights legacy he leaves for the United States and the world.

By taking steps in the five key areas described below, the Obama administration can begin to redress the abuses perpetrated in our names, comply with U.S. obligations under international law, and rebuild American moral authority and credibility when holding other nations to account for human rights abuses. Most importantly, by pursuing accountability for torture, President Obama and his administration can help ensure that the United States never tortures again.

Accountability for torture is a moral, legal, and national security imperative.

Full article at ACLU

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Grandmaster Putin’s Golden Trap

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin adjusts his sunglasses as he watches an air show during MAKS-2011, the International Aviation and Space Show, in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow, on August 17, 2011. (Dmitry Kostyukov/AFP/Getty Images)

Accusations of the West towards Putin traditionally are based on the fact that he worked in the KGB. And therefore he is a cruel and immoral person. Putin is blamed for everything. But nobody ever accused Putin of lack of intelligence.

Any accusations against this man only emphasize his ability for quick analytical thinking and making clear and balanced political and economic decisions.

Often Western media compares this ability with the ability of a grandmaster, conducting a public chess simul. Recent developments in US economy and the West in general allow us to conclude that in this part of the assessment of Putin’s personality Western media is absolutely right.

Despite numerous success reports in the style of Fox News and CNN, today, Western economy, led by the United States is in Putin’s trap, the way out of which no one in the West can see or find. And the more the West is trying to escape from this trap, the more stuck it becomes.

What is the truly tragic predicament of the West and the United States, in which they find themselves? And why all the Western media and leading Western economists are silent about this, as a well guarded military secret? Let’s try to understand the essence of current economic events, in the context of the economy, setting aside the factors of morality, ethics and geopolitics.

After realizing its failure in Ukraine, the West, led by the US set out to destroy Russian economy by lowering oil prices, and accordingly gas prices as the main budget sources of export revenue in Russia and the main sources of replenishment of Russian gold reserves.

It should be noted that the main failure of the West in Ukraine is not military or political. But in the actual refusal of Putin to fund the Western project of Ukraine at the expense of the budget of Russian Federation. What makes this Western project not viable in the near and inevitable future.

Last time under president Reagan, such actions of the West’s lowering of oil prices led to ‘success’ and the collapse of USSR. But history does not repeat itself all the time. This time things are different for the West. Putin’s response to the West resembles both chess and judo, when the strength used by the enemy is used against him, but with minimal costs to the strength and resources of the defender. Putin’s real policies are not public. Therefore, Putin’s policy largely has always focused not so much on effect, but on efficiency.

Very few people understand what Putin is doing at the moment. And almost no one understands what he will do in the future.

No matter how strange it may seem, but right now, Putin is selling Russian oil and gas only for physical gold.

Putin is not shouting about it all over the world. And of course, he still accepts US dollars as an intermediate means of payment. But he immediately exchanges all these dollars obtained from the sale of oil and gas for physical gold!

To understand this, it is enough to look at the dynamics of growth of gold reserves of Russia and to compare this data with foreign exchange earnings of the RF coming from the sale of oil and gas over the same period.

Moreover, in the third quarter the purchases by Russia of physical gold are at an all-time high, record levels. In the third quarter of this year, Russia had purchased an incredible amount of gold in the amount of 55 tons. It’s more than all the central banks of all countries of the world combined (according to official data)!

In total, the central banks of all countries of the world have purchased 93 tons of the precious metal in the third quarter of 2014. It was the 15th consecutive quarter of net purchases of gold by Central banks. Of the 93 tonnes of gold purchases by central banks around the world during this period, the staggering volume of purchases – of 55 tons – belongs to Russia.

Read the full article at Investcafe (translated by Dmitry Kalinichenko)

Related: How Russia Outmaneuvered the West Financially in Ukraine

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Black Friday – Fill Up Your Empty Spaces

Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, often regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. In recent years, most major retailers have opened very early and offered promotional sales to kick off the holiday shopping season, similar to Boxing Day sales in many Commonwealth nations. Black Friday is not a holiday, but California and some other states observe “The Day After Thanksgiving” as a holiday for state government employees, sometimes in lieu of another federal holiday such as Columbus Day. Many non-retail employees and schools have both Thanksgiving and the day after off, followed by a weekend, thereby increasing the number of potential shoppers.

The day’s name originated in Philadelphia, where it originally was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving. Use of the term started before 1961 and began to see broader use outside Philadelphia around 1975. Later an alternative explanation was made: that retailers traditionally operated at a financial loss (“in the red”) from January through November, and “Black Friday” indicates the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or “in the black”.

Source: Wikipedia


Empty Spaces/What Shall We Do Now?

Roger Waters and Bryan Adams live in Berlin, 1990

What shall we use to fill the empty spaces
Where waves of hunger roar?
Shall we set out across the sea of faces
In search of more and more applause?
Shall we buy a new guitar?
Shall we drive a more powerful car?
Shall we work straight through the night?
Shall we get into fights?
Leave the lights on?
Drop bombs?
Do tours of the east?
contract diseases?
Bury bones?
Break up homes?
Send flowers by phone?
Take to drink?
Go to shrinks?
Give up meat?
Rarely sleep?
Keep people as pets?
Train dogs?
Race rats?
Fill the attic with cash?
Bury treasure?
Store up leisure?
But never relax at all
With our backs to the wall.

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US, Canada and Ukraine Whitewashing Fascism at UNGA


UN General Assembly’s Third Committee passed a Russia-proposed resolution condemning attempts to glorify Nazism ideology and denial of German Nazi war crimes. The US, Canada and Ukraine were the only countries to vote against it.

The resolution was passed on Friday by the committee, which is tasked with tackling social and humanitarian issues and human rights abuses, by 115 votes against three, with 55 nations abstaining, Tass news agency reported.

Russia, which submitted the draft resolution, said it regretted that it could not be adopted anonymously.

“The fact that the US, Canada and Ukraine voted against, while delegations from EU member states abstained in the vote on this draft resolution, which was supported by an overwhelming majority of the UN member states, is extremely regrettable,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“Ukraine’s position is particularly dispiriting and alarming. One can hardly understand how a country, the people of which suffered their full share of the horrors of Nazism and contributed significantly to our common victory against it, can vote against a resolution condemning its glorification,” the ministry said.

Source: RT News

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The Next Generation of Jihadi Fighters

Kazakh children in the Islamic State’s training camp for boys.

The latest video released by the Al-Hayat Media Centre, the propaganda arm of the Islamic State, shows in shocking detail the brainwashing of children and their inculcation into the ideology of jihad.

Entitled ‘Race Towards Good,’ it introduces Islamic State fighters who have migrated to Syria from Kazakhstan. It is filmed in the Kazakh language with subtitles in Arabic and English. It is clearly intended to encourage other Muslims around the world to come and join the Islamic State by painting a picture of a growing throng of supporters.

The group of fighters from Kazakhstan brought their children with them to be raised in the Islamic State. After showing the men undergoing basic training, followed by advanced training in sniper rifles, the focus shifts to the children.

Aged 8-10 and dressed in identical military uniforms, the Kazakh boys learn firearms, hand-to-hand combat and military drills. It is openly stated by the smiling instructor that he hopes these boys will be the next generation of jihadi soldiers. Once they graduate from the training camp they will be placed into units in the Islamic State’s army.

Watch the video at the Clarion Project or download from the Al-Hayat Media Centre.

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George Bernard Shaw Quotes

⦁ All great truths begin as blasphemies

⦁ The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong

⦁ Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds, cannot change anything

⦁ Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think

⦁ Soldiering is the coward’s art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong, and keeping out of harm’s way when you are weak

From Arms and the Man (1894)

Have a great day 🙂

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The Cult of ISIS

Isis, the ancient Egyptian goddess of natural law as well as magic and healing.

By Adrian Salbuchi

No, we’re not talking about any ancient Egyptian religious lore, even though geographically, we’re in the same general area.

We’re talking about the latest boogeyman trump card drawn by the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” – US / UK / EU / Israel – bent on instilling fear, terror and panic amongst Western nations.

Today, “ISIS” allegedly stands for “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,” a demented terror organization that suddenly sprouted out of nowhere filling Western media headlines with gory decapitation scenes carrying many of the trappings of a Hollywood super-thriller where reality and fiction merge to distract, confuse and fool the gullible masses.

ISIS is one of the names – or should we say trademark – under which this very scary terror group is known. Uncannily, “ISIS” seems to be the name of the “prototype” – so-to-speak – coming straight out of CIA / MI6 / Mossad PsyWar arsenals or, more likely, from PsyWar think-tanks backing them from afar: the London-based Tavistock Institute? the US-based Council on Foreign Relations? Even the more globalized Trilateral Commission?

For “ISIS” underwent several rather odd name-changes occurring almost as fast as its surprisingly sudden appearance almost out of nowhere. The names under which it trades often overlap in the mainstream media, which variously refers not only to ISIS, but also to ISIL – Islamic State In Levant – which is more ambitious in its territorial scope, spanning the whole of the Middle East and not just Iraq and Syria.

After a spate of “identity crises,” the organization now seems to have settled on something shorter, catchier and very straight to the point: “Islamic State.” How convenient for the Western Powers’ “Global War on Terrorism,” since “Islamic State” aptly demonizes the whole of Islam.

But let’s take a closer look at Islamic State’s little war. Who are its enemies? Who do they most hate? Who do they so viciously attack? And, just as important: Who do they not attack? Who do they ignore and leave alone?

– First and foremost, IS focuses its attacks on parts of Iraq and Syria not under US-puppet control; notoriously, it targets Bashar al-Assad’s Syria where they have wrenched from government control several governorates including Aleppo;

– IS calls for “Holy War” against Shiite Iran, and also against Russia which stands firmly behind both Iran and Syria;

– IS attacks Kurds and Christians of many denominations throughout the region, mainly targeting civilians, monks and priests.

– IS has also allegedly beheaded a dozen Westerners filming their strange orange-suit “executions” in a “desert somewhere”: US correspondent Jim Foley, former RAF officer David Hume, American-Israeli journalist Steven Sotloff, UK-aide Alan Henning, French mountaineer Herve Goudel; more recently, Peter Kassig. IS also allegedly filmed the execution of 18 uniformed Syrian soldiers. All these videos show how these victims are strangely calm down to very last blood-dripping moment, some even making strong anti-American speeches to the very end. It sets one thinking.

– If this sounds strange; the following is even stranger: for some “unexplained” reason Islamic State does not attack US allies in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar or Bahrain. Even more oddly, IS does not attack Israel whom Arabs are supposed to consider their greatest regional enemy;

– IS did not even take advantage of the fact that during July and August Israeli forces were busy, busy bombing and leveling Gaza to the ground whilst its global prestige sank to new sub-zero depths! Now, wouldn’t that have been the IDEAL time for IS to use all its new-grown military punch to hit Israel really hard, even if only out of solidarity with the martyred Palestinians? But no, some unfathomable stroke of political absentmindedness had IS looking the other way.

So: Here we have ISIS/ISIL/IS murdering untold thousands of Iraqis, Syrians, Kurds, Christians, Shiites of all nationalities, but never touching Israel nor European and US homeland and foreign interests save for a handful of allegedly beheaded hostages.

But, wait a minute. What a coincidence! Those are pretty much the very same foes and friends of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” presently waging their “Global Mega-War on Terror!”

I have a question: is Islamic State’s geopolitical strategy being drafted by some team inside the Pentagon? Or the State Department?

I mean, after Russia drew a red line in Syria in September 2013, which lame-duck President Obama dared not cross, Neocons – who always have the last word in that Mud-Footed Colossus known as The United States of America – were not able to get away with bombing Syria to smithereens as they did in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan.

Then in comes “Islamic State” giving the US the PERFECT excuse to bomb Syria, re-bomb Iraq and ready itself for “years of war on terror.”

Naturally, Islamic State cannot do this on its own. This is why it counts with “a little help from its friends” in the Western media, whipping up “fear, terror, trembling, panic, shock and awe…” in the old Randolph Hearst “yellow” journalism style.

Full article at RT Op-Edge

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Although the Disbelievers Dislike It

Screen shot from the Islamic State’s latest promotion/propaganda video “Although the disbelievers dislike it”

On November 16, 2014 the Islamic State released a 16-minute video that displayed the severed head of 26-year-old former U.S. Army Ranger Peter Kassig. The video was characteristically different than the four previous Islamic State beheading videos of American and British hostages by the man known as Jihadi John. Although there have been many previous videos of mass beheadings by various al Qaeda-linked groups and Islamic State militants, this film is unique in content and quality. The Islamic State is the first terrorist group to film and stage a formalized ritual mass beheading. Shot in high definition, slickly produced and edited with Hollywood precision, 19 jihadists simultaneously behead 19 Syrian air force pilots and military officers in a ceremonial ritual execution.

The jihadists hold their knives in their right hand and their victims in their left. The ritual execution begins with a reading of offenses by Jihad John who also has a Syrian soldier in front of him. Jihad John begins the ritual execution by insulting and threatening President Obama:

    To Obama, the dog of Rome. Today we are slaughtering the soldiers of Bashar and tomorrow we will be slaughtering your soldiers. And with Allah’s permission we will break this final and last crusade. And the Islamic State will soon, like your puppet David Cameron said, begin to slaughter your people in your streets.

He points the knife at the camera during the threats to America. Then there is silence as the camera pans over the faces of the men who know they are about to suffer a horrible death and the faces of the executioners who are about to pledge their allegiance in sacrificial blood. Dramatic images and sound effects portray the moment as a sacred solemn rite. The camera fades to black and appears with Jihad John signaling with one word for the ritual killing to commence.

The next segment, also titled “Although the believers dislike it,” demonstrates how many individuals and groups from around the world have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. The final segment at the 14:30 mark opens with the disarticulated head of American Peter Kassig at the feet of Jihadi John. The camera pans up Jihad John’s body and he makes the following statement in English:

    This is Peter Edward Kassig, a U.S. citizen of your country. Peter, who fought against the Muslims in Iraq while serving as a soldier under the American army, doesn’t have much to say. His previous cell mates have already spoken on his behalf. But we say to you Obama … you claim to have withdrawn from Iraq four years ago. We said to you then that you are liars, that you have not withdrawn and that if you had withdrawn that you would return, even if after some time. You would return. Here you are. You have not withdrawn. Rather, you hid some of your forces behind your proxies and withdrawn the rest. Your forces will return, greater in number than they were before. You will return and your proxies will not benefit you. And we also remind you of the haunting words that our Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi told you. The spark has been lit here in Iraq and its heat will continue to intensify by Allah’s permission until it burns the crusader army in Dabiq. And here we are, burying the first American crusader in Dabiq. Eagerly awaiting for the remainder of your armies to arrive.

The video ends with the classic image of the jihadist carrying a large Islamic State flag across the land. Dabiq is a highly symbolic location which has historical and religious significance for Islam. The Islamic State has designated the place for the “Final Hour” where Armageddon will begin in an Islamic apocalyptic tradition that designates the West as modern-day Romans. That is why Jihadi John referred to president Obama as the dog of Rome.

Excerpt from an article by Dawn Perlmutter.

The video has been removed from YouTube, but can be watched here, or downloaded from this back-up site. Beware: Contains extremely graphic footage!

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Writing History: “The Pen is Dipped in Palestinian Blood”


The Norwegian medical doctor Mads Gilbert was there at Al-Shifa hospital. In this 10-minute interview/essay by Truls Lie from Le Monde Diplomatique (Scandinavia), Dr. Gilbert contemplates the attacks, what it means to be defined “a terrorist”, the united Palestinians, and why peace for all has to begin with Israel ending the suppression of the Palestinian people – and now lift the siege of Gaza.

Warning: The film contains graphic images.

See also: Israel Bans Norwegian Doctor from Gaza

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