Seymour Hersh: White House Lied About Syrian Gas Attack

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Keld Bach

By Seymour M. Hersh

Barack Obama did not tell the whole story this autumn when he tried to make the case that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August. In some instances, he omitted important intelligence, and in others he presented assumptions as facts. Most significant, he failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin, the nerve agent that a UN study concluded – without assessing responsibility – had been used in the rocket attack. In the months before the attack, the American intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports, culminating in a formal Operations Order – a planning document that precedes a ground invasion – citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity. When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad.

In his nationally televised speech about Syria on 10 September, Obama laid the blame for the nerve gas attack on the rebel-held suburb of Eastern Ghouta firmly on Assad’s government, and made it clear he was prepared to back up his earlier public warnings that any use of chemical weapons would cross a ‘red line’: ‘Assad’s government gassed to death over a thousand people,’ he said. ‘We know the Assad regime was responsible … And that is why, after careful deliberation, I determined that it is in the national security interests of the United States to respond to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons through a targeted military strike.’ Obama was going to war to back up a public threat, but he was doing so without knowing for sure who did what in the early morning of 21 August.

He cited a list of what appeared to be hard-won evidence of Assad’s culpability: ‘In the days leading up to August 21st, we know that Assad’s chemical weapons personnel prepared for an attack near an area where they mix sarin gas. They distributed gas masks to their troops. Then they fired rockets from a regime-controlled area into 11 neighbourhoods that the regime has been trying to wipe clear of opposition forces.’ Obama’s certainty was echoed at the time by Denis McDonough, his chief of staff, who told the New York Times: ‘No one with whom I’ve spoken doubts the intelligence’ directly linking Assad and his regime to the sarin attacks.

But in recent interviews with intelligence and military officers and consultants past and present, I found intense concern, and on occasion anger, over what was repeatedly seen as the deliberate manipulation of intelligence. One high-level intelligence officer, in an email to a colleague, called the administration’s assurances of Assad’s responsibility a ‘ruse’. The attack ‘was not the result of the current regime’, he wrote. A former senior intelligence official told me that the Obama administration had altered the available information – in terms of its timing and sequence – to enable the president and his advisers to make intelligence retrieved days after the attack look as if it had been picked up and analysed in real time, as the attack was happening. The distortion, he said, reminded him of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, when the Johnson administration reversed the sequence of National Security Agency intercepts to justify one of the early bombings of North Vietnam. The same official said there was immense frustration inside the military and intelligence bureaucracy: ‘The guys are throwing their hands in the air and saying, “How can we help this guy” – Obama – “when he and his cronies in the White House make up the intelligence as they go along?”’

Read full article at: LRB (London Review of Books)

Related: A Nun Puts US Intel to Shame over Syria Chemical Weapons Footage

Posted in Espionage & Secret Agencies, False Flag Operations, Human Rights & Justice, Media & Journalism, Public Perception Management, War & Terror | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

War Crimes Tribunal Issues Landmark Verdict against Israel for Genocide

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Keld Bach

A Palestinian man carries a sign reading “Peace in Palestine, Not Palestine in Pieces” during a nonviolent demonstration commemorating Naksa Day, the anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967.

To a crowded courtroom on the late afternoon of November 25, presiding Judge Lamin Mohd Yunus announced the verdict by an international panel of seven jurists:

“The Tribunal is satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that the first defendant, (General) Amos Yaron, is guilty of crimes against humanity and genocide, and the second defendant, the State of Israel, is guilty of genocide.”

The landmark ruling against Israel for its genocide against the Palestinian people rendered by the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal is significant for several reasons:

– In contrast to other non-official courts of conscience on Palestinian rights, for example, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (New York 2012), the prosecution in Kuala Lumpur took a step beyond war crimes and crimes against humanity to the higher and broader charge of genocide.

– The decision was rendered during the ongoing commission of the alleged crime by the defendant, rather than after the fact as in earlier genocide cases.

– Instead of limiting its ruling to individuals who ordered genocidal actions, the jurists also charged the state as a defendant.

– As a consequence, this case breaks the tradition of immunity of nation-states from criminal prosecution under international law.

– The decision introduces a legal basis for international action to protect minorities from genocide as a lawful alternative to the current response of so-called humanitarian intervention, invasion, occupation and regime change, which have often been as illegitimate and more destructive, and in some cases as genocidal as the original violation being punished.

The Kuala Lumpur Tribunal based its momentous decision on the 1948 Genocide Convention, which prohibits and punishes the killing, causing of harm and deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a group of people, targeted for their ethnicity, religion or race. In instances of genocide, these criminal acts are done with the specific intent of destroying as a part or in whole of the targeted group, as in this plight the Palestinian people.

The defendants, Gen. Yaron and the Israeli State , through its representatives, refused to accept the Tribunal summons and appear in court.

Prominent Israeli legal scholars also refused invitations to serve as defense counsel. The Tribunal therefore appointed an Amicus Curae (defense counsel, referred to by the Latin term for “friends of the court”), including attorneys Jason Kay Kit Leon, Larissa Cadd, Dr. Rohimi Shapiee and Matthew Witbrodt, to defend the accused. Even absent Israeli participation, the defense proved to be forceful and often made heated remarks in Israel’s defense, especially during the cross-examinations of expert witnesses.

One point to note is that the sponsoring Kuala Lumpur Commission on War Crimes and its associated international Tribunal is unrelated to Malaysia and its legal system, aside from the participation of some Malaysian jurists and citizens in its proceedings. Malaysian laws are in many areas quite different from and sometimes in diametric opposition to the legal opinions of the international Tribunal. The independence of this “court of conscience” allows an approach to international law unconstrained by local norms, but this also means that the Tribunal lacks an enforcement capability.

That the first-ever Tribunal to prosecute Israel for genocide was initiated in Southeast Asia offers some indication of the continuing sensitivity within the traditional “center” of international law, Western Europe and North America, toward the circumstances behind Israel’s creation.

The Kuala Lumpur proceedings are bound to raise controversy and discomfort, especially among a reluctant West, since the historical motive behind creating a modern Jewish state in 1948 was largely a response to the abandonment of European Jewry to the pogroms and extermination program of the Third Reich, which in its early stages went unopposed by Western governments and prominent opinion leaders in the Atlantic community.

The courage to finally confront Israel after nearly seven decades of eviction and merciless brutality against the Palestinian people was summoned not by the Atlantic community but in faraway Southeast Asia, where a law case could be pursued with critical distance, logical dispassion and an absence of historical complicity. In short, an evidence-based fair trial found Israel to be guilty of genocide.

Full story at: Global Research

War Crimes Tribunal Finds Israel Guilty of Genocide Against the Palestinian People


Also see: Israel Charged with War Crimes and Genocide

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John Pilger: Apartheid Did Not Die

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Keld Bach


“Apartheid Did Not Die” is a 1998 Carlton Television documentary, written and presented by John Pilger, which provides analysis of South Africa’s then new, democratic government.

African National Congress (ANC): The Freedom Charter

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‘Nothing is Beyond Our Reach’: Evil Octopus Strangling the World Becomes Latest US Intelligence Seal

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Keld Bach

This is the real mission patch for a rocket
carrying spy satellites heading into space.

 
Billions of dollars annually are being used to fund operations conducted by the United States intelligence community, the likes of which allow the government to eavesdrop on emails, listen to world leaders’ phone calls and about everything in-between.

One thing that budget hasn’t bought, however, is subtlety. The US National Reconnaissance Office launched a top-secret surveillance satellite into space Thursday evening, and the official emblem for the spy agency’s latest mission is, well, certainly accurate, to say the least.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence live-tweeted Thursday’s launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and throughout the course of the ordeal made no effort to ignore the logo for the NROL-39 mission.

The latest spy satellite to be sent into orbit by the NRO can be recognized by its seal: a malevolent octopus with furrowed brows that also happens to be wrapping its tentacles around all corners of the Earth.

“Nothing is beyond our reach,” the NRO boasts on the bottom half of the emblem just below the most sinister-looking cephalopod likely ever to be sent into space.

Source: RT USA

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Helen Thomas on Her One Question for Obama

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Keld Bach

White House Press Corps longest-serving member says Obama lost credibility when he dodged her question on Israeli nukes.

Helen Thomas: “Jews are NOT semites, most of them came from Europe”

Posted in Human Rights & Justice, Media & Journalism, Videos & Documentaries, War & Terror | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Mandela in 2002: ‘America is a Threat to World Peace’

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Keld Bach

Nelson Mandela and George W. Bush together in 2001. (Photo: REUTERS)

Nelson Mandela, 84, may be the world’s most respected statesman. Sentenced to life in prison on desolate Robben Island in 1964 for advocating armed resistance to apartheid in South Africa, the African National Congress leader emerged in 1990 to lead his country in a transition to non-racial elections. As president, his priority was racial reconciliation; today South Africans of all races refer to him by his Xhosa clan honorific, Madiba. Mandela stepped down in 1999 after a single five-year term. He now heads two foundations focused on children. He met with Newsweek’s Tom Masland early Monday morning in his office in Houghton, a Johannesburg suburb, before flying to Limpopo Province to address traditional leaders on the country’s AIDS crisis. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Why are you speaking out on Iraq? Do you want to mediate, as you tried to on the Mideast a couple of years ago? It seems you are reentering the fray now.

Nelson Mandela: If I am asked, by credible organizations, to mediate, I will consider that very seriously. But a situation of this nature does not need an individual, it needs an organization like the United Nations to mediate. We must understand the seriousness of this situation. The United States has made serious mistakes in the conduct of its foreign affairs, which have had unfortunate repercussions long after the decisions were taken.

Unqualified support of the Shah of Iran led directly to the Islamic revolution of 1979. Then the United States chose to arm and finance the [Islamic] mujahedin in Afghanistan instead of supporting and encouraging the moderate wing of the government of Afghanistan. That is what led to the Taliban in Afghanistan. But the most catastrophic action of the United States was to sabotage the decision that was painstakingly stitched together by the United Nations regarding the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan.

If you look at those matters, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace. Because what [America] is saying is that if you are afraid of a veto in the Security Council, you can go outside and take action and violate the sovereignty of other countries. That is the message they are sending to the world.

That must be condemned in the strongest terms. And you will notice that France, Germany Russia, China are against this decision. It is clearly a decision that is motivated by George W. Bush’s desire to please the arms and oil industries in the United States of America. If you look at those factors, you’ll see that an individual like myself, a man who has lost power and influence, can never be a suitable mediator.

Full story at: Newsweek

Mandela’s sharp statements rarely cited in mainstream media

As the world remembers Nelson Mandela’s legacy as South Africa’s first black president and anti-apartheid icon, he was also deeply skeptical of American power, the Iraq invasion, and was a key supporter of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Here are seven quotes from the leader that are less likely to be published as his life is honored and his death commemorated in the mainstream media.

Prior to the US invasion of Iraq, Mandela slammed the actions of the US at a speech made at the International Women’s Forum in Johannesburg, declaring that former President George W. Bush’s primary motive was ‘oil’, while adding that Bush was undermining the UN.

“If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care for human beings,” Mandela said.

Mandela did not hold back from making hard-hitting statements against the US, and repeatedly spoke out against the prospect of the country invading Iraq. As the US prepared its mass-action in 2002, Mandela told Newsweek:

“If you look at those matters, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace.”

Mandela was a long-time supporter of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and made a speech to reporters in 1999, in which he agreed to be a political mediator between Israel and its neighbors.

“Israel should withdraw from all the areas which it won from the Arabs in 1967, and in particular Israel should withdraw completely from the Golan Heights, from south Lebanon and from the West Bank,” Mandela stated, according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency’s Suzanne Belling.

Mandela met with Fidel Castro in 1991, giving a speech alongside him entitled “How Far We Slaves Have Come.” The country was commemorating the 38th anniversary of the storming of the Moncada, and Mandela hailed Cuba’s ‘special place’ in the heart of the people of Africa, its revolution, and how far the country had come.

“From its earliest days, the Cuban Revolution has also been a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people. We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of the vicious imperialist-orchestrated campaign to destroy the impressive gain made in the Cuban Revolution….Long live the Cuban Revolution. Long live comrade Fidel Castro.”

Mandela urged for the end to harsh UN sanctions imposed upon Libya in 1997, and pledged his support for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was a longtime supporter of his.

“It is our duty to give support to the brother leader…especially in regards to the sanctions which are not hitting just him, they are hitting the ordinary masses of the people … our African brothers and sisters,” Mandela said.

On the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, December 4. 1997, Mandela assembled a group “as South Africans, our Palestinian guests and as humanists to express our solidarity with the people of Palestine.” At the speech, he called for the metaphorical flames of solidarity, justice, and freedom to be kept burning.

“The UN took a strong stand against apartheid; and over the years, an international consensus was built, which helped to bring an end to this iniquitous system. But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

Source: RT News

Posted in Anti-War & Non-Violence, Culture & Society, Human Rights & Justice, War & Terror | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Garden of Eden and the Original Sin

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Keld Bach

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (1701-1704) by Antonio Molinari, Venice, Italy. In silent communication, Adam and Eve point out to one another the agents of the approaching downfall: the apple and the serpent.

In the previous chapter of the Holy Scriptures we saw that there were actually two conflicting accounts of the Creation, both believed to have been written by an ancient Hebrew god named Yahveh. Why it is so, is a bit of a mystery, but as we carry on with the legend, we shall see that there are many other inconsistencies in those scriptures that later became part of the Christian Bible. Now, let’s go back to the Garden of Eden where a woman had just been created from the rib of the very first man on Earth. In the next scene the woman stands in front of the Tree of Knowledge while having a conversation with a serpent. Yeah, that’s right, a talking snake:

    Genesis 3:1: Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
    Genesis 3:2-3: The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
    Genesis 3:4-5: “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Aha, so God didn’t like any competition in there! But were they really created to live all of their lives in complete ignorance without being allowed to gain wisdom, but with the sole purpose of working as gardeners for the good Lord? Well perhaps, but if so, why then did he plant that tree there in the first place? I remember asking Jehovah’s Witnesses that question a while back and they explained that God needed to ‘test’ his followers from time to time to see how strong their faith was. So, ignorance and faith go hand in hand, I concluded, but didn’t say it aloud as to not offend them.

    Genesis 3:6-7: When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

From this, I can only conclude that it’s considered ‘evil’ to be naked, but why then didn’t God dress them right from the beginning?

It doesn’t say in the text, but in the painting above, and in many other presentations of the so-called Fall of Man, the fruit is depicted as an apple. But apple trees were (and still are) very rare in the Middle East due to the hot and dry climate, so it’s more likely it was an orange or a lemon tree. It’s also interesting to note that the Greek word for apple is the same as for (the female) breast, which opens up for a different interpretation of the event – also known as the Original Sin – suggesting that Eve actually invited Adam to take a ‘bite’ of her breast rather than of some fruit. After all, they were only humans, weren’t they? Moreover, the serpent is regarded one of the oldest phallic symbols in the world, so would it be too far-fetched to imagine that they were actually engaged in a love-making affair here? Makes sense to me, at least.

But even if they had had sex, it couldn’t be regarded ‘evil’ since God clearly had said (Genesis 1:28): “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”

    Genesis 3:8-9: Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
    Genesis 3:10: He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
    Genesis 3:11: And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
    Genesis 3:12: The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
    Genesis 3:13: Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
    Genesis 3:14-15: So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
    Genesis 3:16: To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
    Genesis 3:17-19: To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Now, this is quite a harsh punishment that shows the good Lord demanded total obedience from the people he created. No room for mercy or forgiveness. You are either with me or you are against me. And this is the same God that the Christian Church praises for his compassion and love for his people. To me it shows the exact opposite: only those who unconditionally subject themselves to his will are worth his kindness. I’m aware that Jesus had very different views on many topics, but the Old Testament is nonetheless a fundamental part of the Christian faith. Now back to the story:

    Genesis 3:20: Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
    Genesis 3:21-24: The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

How kind of God to finally make some clothes for them, but what did he mean by saying: “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” Were there other gods in the good Lord’s company that we don’t get to hear about, or did he have a multiple personality?

Apparently only Adam was expelled from the Garden of Eden for his disobedience, but the next chapter tells us that Eve went too – perhaps voluntarily, since she was now his wife and Adam had been granted the right to rule over her.

I’ll have to admit that I stopped reading the Holy Scriptures after the next few chapters, as the story contained so many inconsistencies and contradictions that it didn’t make much sense to me. For instance, Adam and Eve got three sons, named Cain, Abel and Seth, plus a couple of daughters without names. At some point Cain killed his brother Abel with a knife, and the two remaining brothers later married and got plenty of children. But whom did they marry to since they were the only existing people on Earth at the time? They could only have married their own sisters (which would be an act of incest), but we don’t get to know for sure. Sorry about this abrupt ending to my Bible reading, but I had expected to get a little better understanding of what Christianity is all about. Well, I did actually learn something, but all this confusion eventually put me off. Take care folks and thanks for reading.

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Second Version of the Biblical Tale of Creation

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Keld Bach

The Creation of Adam (ca. 1510) by Michelangelo. God seems to be surrounded by his wife and kids in this image.

In a previous post we learned about how an ancient Hebrew god by the name Yahveh created the whole universe in only six days some 6,000 years ago. That also included all life on planet Earth, land, seas, plants, trees, animals, and lastly a pair of humans, both male and female. Not sure what happened thereafter, but on page 2 in my New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, God creates it all over again, this time with focus on a man called Adam, whom he crafted from dust even before the Earth became habitable. The story goes like this:

    Genesis 2:4: This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

I suppose by “heavens” he meant the sky or atmosphere surrounding the Earth. It’s not clear if he recreated the entire universe or only the Earth. I suppose the latter, and if so, what happened to the first version with all its living creatures, including humans?

    Genesis 2:5-7: Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
    Genesis 2:8-9: Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
    Genesis 2:10-14: A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

Now, this is interesting. While Eden is nowhere to be found on a map, we can certainly locate the two rivers Tigris and Euphrates in the southeastern part of Iraq (formerly known as Babylonia and Mesopotamia) and from the description roughly place the Garden of Eden a little north of the city of Basra. That’s also relatively close to the area where the two oldest cities in the world, Babylon and Ur, are located. Back to the story:

    Genesis 2:15-17: The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
    Genesis 2:18: The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
    Genesis 2:19-20: Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
    Genesis 2:21-22: But for Adam [apparently he gave himself a name too] no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
    Genesis 2:23: The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”
    Genesis 2:24: That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
    Genesis 2:25: Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

So, here we have the very first naturists on Earth, but not for long, as we shall see in the next chapter. Which of the two versions of creation is the most reliable (if any), is impossible for me to say, but I think the second is regarded the de facto one by most religious people. Or perhaps a combination of the two. I won’t spend more time on this narrative, but will return soon with chapter 3 where things get a little more exiting to say the least. See you then.

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Mother Agnes Mariam: In Her Own Words

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Keld Bach

Mother Agnes Mariam el-Salib

By Sharmine Narwani

American national security journalist Jeremy Scahill and leftist British columnist Owen Jones announced recently that they would not share a platform with a Palestinian-Lebanese nun at the Stop The War Coalition’s November 30 UK conference.

Neither Scahill nor Jones provided any reason for their harsh “indictment” of Mother Agnes Mariam, who has worked tirelessly for the past few years on reconciliation in war-torn Syria, where she has lived for two decades.

The journalists – neither of whom have produced any notable body of work on Syria – appear to have followed the lead of a breed of Syria “activists” who have given us doozies like “Assad is about to fall,” “Assad has no support,” “the opposition is peaceful,” “the opposition is unarmed,” “this is a popular revolution,” “the revolution is not foreign-backed,” “there is no Al Qaeda in Syria,” “the dead are mostly civilians,” and other such gems.

For some of these activists, anything short of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s departure is no solution of any kind. Mother Agnes Mariam, whose Mussalaha (Reconciliation) movement inside Syria works specifically on mediation, dialogue and the promotion of non-violence, is unmoved by black-and-white solutions: Reconciliation, after all, is a series of political settlements forged on both local and national levels. There are only compromises there, not absolute gain. She doesn’t actually care who leads Syria and who wins or loses, providing the choice comes from a Syrian majority.

Yet the smear “Assad apologist” persists in following Mother Agnes on her visits to foreign capitals to gain support for Massalaha and its methods. It puts her at risk on the ground in Syria and inhibits her ability to open communications with those who would otherwise welcome the relief she brings.

When Scahill and Jones announced they would not share a platform with Mother Agnes at the STWC conference, she withdrew so as not to undermine the event’s anti-war unity objective. But instead of bringing this incident to a close, a maelstrom has erupted around the actions of the two journalists: “Who are they to pass judgement? Why would reporters seek to censor any voice?”

Time to give her that platform back – no need for others to filter your information, you can judge for yourself below. And because so much of this debate has taken place on Twitter and the blogosphere, I invited “tweeps” from all sides of the Syrian divide to pose some questions too:

So without further ado, here is Mother Agnes Mariam, in her own words:

Did the Stop The War Coalition ask you to withdraw from their anti-war conference or did you choose to do so of your own volition?

I was invited to this conference, then I was informed about people that were against my coming and threatening to blow it up because of me. I preferred to immediately withdraw for the sake of this conference. Now, to tell you the truth I also have fear that this conference will not be useful, because these people attending are not applying non-violence principles. Non-violence principles means to be open to all adversaries. We can deal with people who don’t think like us. A non-violent approach is to dialogue precisely with people who are different. For a peace conference to begin like this, I felt like it is not a peace conference.

Have you ever heard of Jeremy Scahill and Owen Jones before this?

No, not at all. Who are they? Didn’t even notice who the people were. I heard about this from my organizer – that some people opposed even my presence. I understand everybody – I have been in dialogue with precisely the kind of people who opposed my presence. But it is the first time I hear their names, so no, I don’t know them. I’m not a person in the “scene.” (laughs)

What do you think of the attempt to censor views on Syria – and does your own experience this week have any correlation with how the mainstream media has covered Syria for almost three years?

You know, before working in reconciliation, I thought the so-called “democratic world” was really protecting freedom of expression and political choices. I am not involved with politics but they are ‘framing’ me; politicizing me. Am very shocked to learn that in this democratic world it is forbidden to think differently, talk differently and act differently from people who proclaim themselves as the ‘absolute reference’ for public opinion. This is a campaign of defamation. I am threatened by them: not by Jabhat al-Nusra, with whom I sometimes have good relations, or Al Qaeda – but by French media, by prominent leaders and CEOs of catholic NGOs, and by reporters. Am really astonished at how a reporter can become a prosecutor and a judge and can issue the sentence, and I am afraid that he can apply this sentence because today I see he works in total impunity.

Some media outlets and activists have accused you of brokering a civilian evacuation in rebel-held Moadamiya, only to hand them over to the Syrian authorities. What actually happened?

It was a purely humanitarian endeavor. Our (Mussalaha) team receives calls from all over Syria asking us to investigate people who have disappeared, to find out conditions for their release, to mediate on prisoner exchanges, to get food supplies to populations in need, how to transport humanitarian aid to hot areas, how to bring medical equipment to dangerous areas, how to arrange ceasefires, how to help violent opponents to shift to non-violence. We help to implement a non-violent spirit – we work with everybody, all sides, to do this.

The other major attack against you stems from a report you wrote about the aftermath of an alleged chemical weapons (CW) attack in Ghouta. You are accused of whitewashing the incident, blaming rebels for it and even charging children of “faking death.” How do you respond to these charges?

I have been accused of denying CW attacks, of protecting the Syrian regime and of accusing the rebels of launching those attacks. I have never said this. In the foreward of a study I did on this, I affirm: I am not an expert. I am not talking on a military basis, or a forensic or medical basis. I just questioned some videos. It started because I was asked by the parents – survivors of a terrible massacre in the Latakia mountains – to help find some children abducted with women after the massacre. Some had recognized their children in the pictures of the chemical attacks. They delegated me to look into this for them. I was tracking those children in the videos – without this task I would not have had any incentive to look at the videos. My work at the monastery was in iconography and restoration (preservation) – I am very used to using my eyes to look for tiny details. I noticed discrepancies in the videos. I came to look at them for one thing (the abducted children) and in the process I discovered these videos were fake. When I went to Geneva to the commissioners in the Human Rights Council, I told them about my findings in relation to the missing children and the videos, and they said they would be interested to have something written. I do not incriminate anybody in this study. I do not pretend to decide if there was a CW attack or not. There were discrepancies and I am simply asking questions. The study was done in a hurry – we even said it was a beta version. Now I am finalizing the study that will introduce even more evidence. Those videos – numbers 1, 6, 11, 13 among the 13 videos claimed by the US intelligence community as authenticated and verified to be presented to Congress as genuine evidence of CW attacks – are fake, staged and pre-fabricated. Nobody thus far is answering my charges – they are incriminating me without answering. My goal in this is to find the children; that’s my only goal. If they were used for staging, are they alive? Where are they now? If they are alive they must be returned to their families. If they are dead, we want to see their bodies to bury them so their parents can mourn them and we want to know how they were put to death and where. I am asking to see the graves where 1,466 alleged corpses are buried in Ghouta and to take from the pit samples to conduct an honest inquiry. Because I doubt that there is such a pit.

Full story at: nsnbc international

Related: George Galloway Talks to Syrian Nun, Mother Agnes

Posted in Anti-War & Non-Violence, Human Rights & Justice, Media & Journalism, Public Perception Management, War & Terror | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

George Galloway Talks to Syrian Nun, Mother Agnes

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Keld Bach


Mother Agnes Mariam el-Salib was invited to speak at a Stop the War conference in London on November 30. However after hearing that two other speakers scheduled to speak at the event – Owen Jones and Jeremy Scahill – were threatening to withdraw unless her invitation was rescinded by the organisers, Mother Agnes took the decision to withdraw from the conference of her own volition.

She has been demonized by her detractors as a ‘pro regime stooge.’

Also see: A Nun Puts US Intel to Shame over Syria Chemical Weapons Footage

Posted in Anti-War & Non-Violence, Culture & Society, Democracy & Liberty, Human Rights & Justice, Videos & Documentaries, War & Terror | Tagged , , | Leave a comment