[Majorityrights News] KP interview with James Gilmore, former diplomat and insider from first Trump administration Posted by Guessedworker on Sunday, 05 January 2025 00:35.
[Majorityrights News] Trump will ‘arm Ukraine to the teeth’ if Putin won’t negotiate ceasefire Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 12 November 2024 16:20.
[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
Netanyahu brings his case for war against Iran to the public which the Alt-Lite/Right has prepared.
On national television, Netanyahu drops ‘bombshell revelation’ about Iran’s ‘non-compliance’ with nuclear deal in order to overwhelm talks by those heads of state (notably Macron to Trump) trying to save the deal. In this public address, Netanyahu is trying to bypass discussion with signatories to the agreement and instead affect a groundswell from the already prepared ground of American public opinion.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has revealed what he says are “secret nuclear files” proving Iran once covertly pursued nuclear weapons.
He said thousands of pages of material obtained by Israel showed Iran had deceived the world by denying it had ever sought nuclear weapons.
Iran agreed in 2015 to curb its nuclear energy programme in return for the lifting of sanctions.
It maintained that it had only been pursuing nuclear energy.
But Mr Netanyahu accused Iran of conducting a secret weapons programme until 2003 codenamed “Project Amad”. He claimed Iran continued to pursue nuclear weapons knowledge after Project Amad was shuttered.
Iran pushed back against the claims. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted to say the evidence was a “rehash of old allegations” which had already been dealt with by the United Nations nuclear watchdog.
Iran’s foreign minister accused Mr Netanyahu of a “childish” stunt to influence President Donald Trump’s decision on whether to remain in a nuclear deal with Iran.
The US along with five other international powers struck a deal with Iran in 2015 to curb the country’s nuclear programme.
Mr Trump, who has long threatened to scrap the Obama-era deal, said he had viewed part of Mr Netanyahu’s presentation and said the situation was “not acceptable”.
He said he would make a decision on whether to retain the deal on or before 12 May.
A White House statement said there were “new and compelling details” in Mr Netanyahu’s material.
“These facts are consistent with what the United States has long known: Iran has a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons programme that it has tried and failed to hide from the world and from its own people,” the statement went on.
However, European powers have said they are committed to upholding the accord.
“We have never been naive about Iran and its nuclear intentions,” said a UK government spokesperson late on Monday.
Until he was sold on the Alt-Right quid pro quo, David Duke’s major point against any candidate concerned their being a hawk against Iran on behalf of Israel.
“That is why the IAEA inspection regime agreed as part of the Iran nuclear deal is one of the most extensive and robust in the history of international nuclear accords.”
Mr Netanyahu said he had spoken to the leaders of France and Germany about Israel’s intelligence and planned to send representatives to the two countries to discuss it.
A German government spokesman said the country would carry out a detailed analysis of Israel’s intelligence, Reuters reported.
John Hughes, a former deputy director for sanctions at the US State Department who worked on the Iran deal, said he had not seen anything in the Israeli presentation that would change the deal.
“I think, frankly, this was a political statement meant to try to influence President Trump’s decision on whether to pull out of the deal,” Mr Hughes said. “I think it’s mostly recycled material.”
Guess which group of people the Americans got played by this time? The usual. Israel. Yet again!
Buzzfeed, “Here’s How Breitbart And Milo Smuggled Nazi and White Nationalist Ideas Into The Mainstream”, 5 Oct 2017: Milo Yiannopoulos at the One Nostalgia Tavern in Dallas, belting out a karaoke rendition of “America the Beautiful” in front of a crowd of “sieg heil”-ing admirers, including Richard Spencer.
A cache of documents obtained by BuzzFeed News reveals the truth about Steve Bannon’s alt-right “killing machine.”
In August, after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville ended in murder, Steve Bannon insisted that “there’s no room in American society” for neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, and the KKK.
But an explosive cache of documents obtained by BuzzFeed News proves that there was plenty of room for those voices on his website.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, under Bannon’s leadership, Breitbart courted the alt-right — the insurgent, racist right-wing movement that helped sweep Donald Trump to power. The former White House chief strategist famously remarked that he wanted Breitbart to be “the platform for the alt-right.”
Ibid: Like all the new media success stories, Breitbart’s alt-right platform depends on the participation of its audience. It combusts the often secret fury of those who reject liberal norms into news, and it doesn’t burn clean.
Now Bannon is back at the controls of the machine, which he has said he is “revving up.” The Mercers have funded Yiannopoulos’s post-Breitbart venture. And these documents present the clearest look at what these people may have in store for America.
A year and a half ago, Milo Yiannopoulos set himself a difficult task: to define the alt-right. It was five months before Hillary Clinton named the alt-right in a campaign speech, 10 months before the alt-right’s great hope became president, and 17 months before Charlottesville clinched the alt-right as a stalking horse for violent white nationalism. The movement had just begun its explosive emergence into the country’s politics and culture.
At the time, Yiannopoulos, who would later describe himself as a “fellow traveler” of the alt-right, was the tech editor of Breitbart. In summer 2015, after spending a year gathering momentum through GamerGate — the opening salvo of the new culture wars — he convinced Breitbart upper management to give him his own section. And for four months, he helped Bannon wage what the Breitbart boss called in emails to staff “#war.” It was a war, fought story by story, against the perceived forces of liberal activism on every conceivable battleground in American life.
Yiannopoulos was a useful soldier whose very public identity as a gay man (one who has now married a black man) helped defend him, his anti-political correctness crusade, and his employer from charges of bigotry.
But now Yiannopoulos had a more complicated fight on his hands. The left — and worse, some on the right — had started to condemn the new conservative energy as reactionary and racist. Yiannopoulos had to take back “alt-right,” to redefine for Breitbart’s audience a poorly understood, leaderless movement, parts of which had already started to resist the term itself.
So he reached out to key constituents, who included a neo-Nazi and a white nationalist.
“Finally doing my big feature on the alt right,” Yiannopoulos wrote in a March 9, 2016, email to Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer, a hacker who is the system administrator of the neo-Nazi hub the Daily Stormer, and who would later ask his followers to disrupt the funeral of Charlottesville victim Heather Heyer. “Fancy braindumping some thoughts for me.”
“It’s time for me to do my big definitive guide to the alt right,” Yiannopoulos wrote four hours later to Curtis Yarvin, a software engineer who under the nom de plume Mencius Moldbug helped create the “neoreactionary” movement, which holds that Enlightenment democracy has failed and that a return to feudalism and authoritarian rule is in order. “Which is my whorish way of asking if you have anything you’d like to make sure I include.”
“Alt r feature, figured you’d have some thoughts,” Yiannopoulos wrote the same day to Devin Saucier, who helps edit the online white nationalist magazine American Renaissance under the pseudonym Henry Wolff, and who wrote a story in June 2017 called “Why I Am (Among Other Things) a White Nationalist.”
The three responded at length: Weev about the Daily Stormer and a podcast called The Daily Shoah, Yarvin in characteristically sweeping world-historical assertions (“It’s no secret that North America contains many distinct cultural/ethnic communities. This is not optimal, but with a competent king it’s not a huge problem either”), and Saucier with a list of thinkers, politicians, journalists, films (Dune, Mad Max, The Dark Knight), and musical genres (folk metal, martial industrial, ’80s synthpop) important to the movement. Yiannopoulos forwarded it all, along with the Wikipedia entries for “Alternative Right” and the esoteric far-right Italian philosopher Julius Evola — a major influence on 20th-century Italian fascists and Richard Spencer alike — to Allum Bokhari, his deputy and frequent ghostwriter, whom he had met during GamerGate. “Include a bit of everything,” he instructed Bokhari.
“Bannon, as you probably know, is sympathetic to much of it.”
“I think you’ll like what I’m cooking up,” Yiannopoulos wrote to Saucier, the American Renaissance editor.
“I look forward to it,” Saucier replied. “Bannon, as you probably know, is sympathetic to much of it.”
Five days later Bokhari returned a 3,000-word draft, a taxonomy of the movement titled “ALT-RIGHT BEHEMOTH.” It included a little bit of everything: the brains and their influences (Yarvin and Evola, etc.), the “natural conservatives” (people who think different ethnic groups should stay separate for scientific reasons), the “Meme team” (4chan and 8chan), and the actual hatemongers. Of the last group, Bokhari wrote: “There’s just not very many of them, no-one really likes them, and they’re unlikely to achieve anything significant in the alt-right.”
With cheerful taken-for-grantedness of the ‘unassailable’ virtue of their motives, this panel at CFR discusses the prospect of “democratization” of “illiberal democracies” by having them accept non-White migrants and integration; i.e., cheerful acceptance of the destruction of our European genome. Primarily with the targeted “problem” of Eastern European countries Not accepting immigrants.
Published on Apr 23, 2018 by Council on Foreign Relations -
Speakers discuss the growing trend toward populism around the world and the current global state of democracy.
Speakers
Michael Abramowitz
President, Freedom House; Former White House Correspondent, Washington Post
Nicole M. Bibbins Sedaca
Chair, Global Politics and Security Concentration and Professor in the Practice of International Affairs, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown U; Former Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, US Department of State
Timothy Snyder
Richard C. Levin Professor of History, Yale University; Author, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America
Presider
Kati I. Marton
Author and Human Rights Activist
Kati I. Marton (15:56): We haven’t yet mentioned one of the most powerful motives for the rise of populism, which is the fear of refugees - migrants. Most graphically on display in Hungary where you can’t go a block without seeing a billboard showing George Soros’s smiling face, and the headline over that face is, ‘don’t let him have the last laugh.’
Six months ago George Soros was known to a very small handful of Budapest literati. Now he is probably the second best known person in Hungary after Victor Orban. And this manipulation of the fear of migrants, of which by the way, there are virtually none in Hungary and very few in Poland, as opposed to over a million in Germany, where this problem doesn’t exist…is something that uh, that we haven’t really dealt with sufficiently.
We seem to step-by-step, accept that his is the way of the world now. I frequently ask myself what didn’t my Hungarian grandparents, whose lives didn’t end well, what didn’t they do in the 30’s? that we should be doing today? Rather than sleepwalking thought this rather dangerous passage.
So, the migration problem and how it relates to the rise of populism - AdF (eg) is entirely about fear of outsiders.
When an audience member suggest the problem of Eastern European countries having a bad track record with regard to democracy, Snyder draws comparisons -
Snyder: (36:00): When the Supreme Court decides in 2013 that racism is no longer a problem, twenty two states then pass voter suppression laws - that’s not democratization, whatever you think of the legality of it.
...its been very hard for the West European countries to extend democracy over second class citizens (empire/subject relation)...asking about the things that make democracy possible….which for me precisely have to do with integration - the European Union, whatever its chances are, is the hope for democracy.
Kati I. Marton (38:00) ...these countries are not destined to be undemocratic, there are a whole bunch of other factors and one of them, frankly, is the luck of leaders (Merkel!)
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 21 April 2018 12:40.
Scooter Libby with Paul Wolfowitz in 2008
- Observes Majorityrights correspondent, Kumiko.
It waves a giant red flag as to how much Trump is down with the Zionist agenda.
Who even needed 9-11 when you had Scooter Libby!
When you have insiders like that to manipulate the evidence to create false warrant on behalf of Zionist Operation Clean Break, you don’t need massive false flag events.
In fact, if you look at the PBS piece titled “A Secret History of ISIS”, they actually reveal the precise moment at which Israel injected itself into the decision-making process in the lead up to the Iraq War in 2003, and thus shaped the outcome to their advantage.
From 11min 40sec onward in that video, the transcript:
COLIN POWELL: The speech, supposedly, had been prepared in the White House and in the NSC. But when we were given what had been prepared, it was totally inadequate and we couldn’t track anything in it. And when I asked Condi Rice, the National Security Advisor, “Where did this come from?”, it turns out the Vice-President’s office had written it.
NARRATOR: Powell would turn to the CIA to vet the speech.
NADA BAKOS: We [the CIA] had a copy of the speech that was sent over from the White House that Powell was preparing, and one of our senior analysts was working on it, editing, working on the language to ensure that it reflected our analysis.
NARRATOR: Just days later, Powell arrived at the United Nations.
POWELL: Walking into that room is always a daunting experience, but I had been there before. And we had projectors and all sorts of technology to help us make the case.
KAREN DEYOUNG: Powell was very nervous. Powell doesn’t like to read speeches; he likes to have a few note cards and then do his Powell thing. But this one he read from the text, every word.
NARRATOR: At the Counterterrorism Centre, Bakos was watching carefully to see what Powell would say about Zarqawi, bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein.
BAKOS: We’re sitting in our room at CTC watching the television with a copy of the speech in our hand. When he got to our portion, it went off our script fairly quickly. And we were looking around at each other saying, “Where’s he at, where’s he at?” We’re flipping through pages. And so, you know, right away, we could tell that this wasn’t reflecting the language that we had used.
NARRATOR: Powell used Zarqawi to make the connection between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
BAKOS: It drew conclusions in language that we would not use. So we were very, very, very careful about describing the relationship as we saw it, and it seemed to overinflate and not reflect our analysis.
INTERVIEWER: How did that happen, Nada?
BAKOS: Within the process of how it went, you know, where it went back to the White House and who worked on it after that, I don’t know how it was changed, or by who.
If anyone should want to know what happened at that crucial point, and how, the place to look would be at the office of the Chief of the Staff to the Vice President of the United States, who at the time was Scooter Libby.
If you understand that Scooter Libby was to Dick Cheney as Dick Cheney was to George W. Bush, then suddenly you become capable of seeing how it could be possible for the changes that Bakos is referring to, to have been made in the Vice-President’s office by Scooter Libby and his network of very Zionist associates.
In summary
There is no need for any kind of 9/11 conspiracy theory to explain what happened in Iraq.
The explanation has been right in front of everyone’s face from day one. The office of the Chief of the Staff to the Vice President of the United States was compromised by Israel, and as such, all decision-making processes that flowed through there were subject to having Israeli policy preferences injected into them.
It is not the only node that was compromised, but it is the most pivotal and significant one in this situation. I hope that clears up all possible questions and that everyone can draw a line under that issue and call it a closed case now.
Now for the BBC article:
BBC, “Scooter Libby: Trump pardons Cheney aide who leaked”, 13 April 2018:
US President Donald Trump has pardoned former Vice-President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, who was convicted of lying about leaks to the media.
Lewis Libby, known as Scooter, was found guilty in 2007 following an investigation into the unauthorised disclosure of a CIA agent’s identity.
The White House said Libby was “fully worthy of this pardon”.
“I don’t know Mr Libby,” said Mr Trump, “but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly.
“Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life.”
What’s the background to the case?
Libby was found guilty of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements following an investigation into a leak that revealed the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame.
His trial heard that Bush administration officials wanted to get back at Ms Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Mr Wilson had written a 2003 New York Times op-ed accusing Mr Cheney of doctoring pre-war intelligence on Iraq.
Libby was charged with lying to investigators about his contacts with reporters, but he maintained he simply misremembered the sequence of events.
He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000 (£175,000).
But his sentence was commuted by then-President George W Bush.
What’s the reaction?
In an interview on Friday with MSNBC, Ms Plame condemned Mr Trump’s decision to pardon Libby.
“My personal sense is that I didn’t think my contempt for Donald Trump could go lower, but he surprises me each and every day,” she said.
“It’s very clear that this is a message he is sending, that you can commit crimes against national security and you will be pardoned,” she added.
Ms Plame has previously said her career as a CIA agent was finished “in an instant” once her identity was leaked.
She told the BBC in 2007 that “treason” had been committed in pursuit of political retribution.
Mr Cheney told the New York Times Mr Libby is “one of the most capable, principled and honourable men I have ever known.
“He is innocent and he and his family have suffered for years because of his wrongful conviction. I am gratedful that President Trump righted this wrong…”
On Friday, Democrats charged Mr Trump with hypocrisy for pardoning a man who leaked to the media, despite the president’s condemnation of such disclosures in his White House.
Mr Trump’s decision came on the same day that he savaged former FBI Director James Comey as a “proven LEAKER & LIAR”.
Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff tweeted: “This is the President’s way of sending a message to those implicated in the Russia investigation: You have my back and I’ll have yours.”
What was Libby case’s political fallout?
Mr Cheney had pressured Mr Bush to pardon Libby in the final days of his presidency.
But Mr Cheney’s badgering reached the point where Mr Bush reportedly told his aides his vice-president was beginning to annoy him.
After consulting White House lawyers, Mr Bush decided it was best not to issue a pardon.
When he finally told Mr Cheney about his decision, Mr Cheney snapped at him, saying: “You are leaving a good man wounded on the field of battle.”
“The comment stung,” Mr Bush would write in his memoirs.
“In eight years, I had never seen Dick like this, or even close to this.
“I worried that the friendship we had built was about to be severely strained, at best.”
Key players in the 2007 CIA leak probe
What is a presidential pardon?
Libby’s pardon amounts to official forgiveness for his crime, but does not equate to exoneration or finding that he was innocent.
Presidential pardons can overturn consequences of a conviction such as being denied the right to carry out jury service, vote or run for political office.
Since the conviction, Libby has already had his law license reinstated.
And former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell restored his voting rights in 2013.
This is the third time Mr Trump has issued a pardon.
In August last year, he did so for former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt over his crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
Last month he pardoned Kristian Saucier, a Navy sailor who took photos of classified areas inside a US submarine and served a year in federal prison.
Kumiko adds: Last night’s strike was not what they wanted.
John Bolton and some middle eastern leaders are laying the metapolitical backdrop for that - they wanted a broad and longer engagement. .
Instead, they got a limited strike because the US Defence Dept prevented anything bigger.
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 14 April 2018 18:16.
Trump took over Republican party on behalf of the Jewish Right in tandem with disingenuous, deracinating, oligarchic, objectivist, propositional Right…through its kosher, paleocon safety net/valve, false opposition, (((the Alt-Right))).
After Trump committed what was to Republican insiders the great sin of saying “there were good and bad on all sides” at the Unite the Right rally…
(((Corey Lewandowski))): “He has to fight back. So when you accuse him of being a racist he doesn’t want to back up, he wants to double down to prove to you that that’s not true, and that’s what the President is.”
Trump: “What about the ‘Alt-Left?” Not to be confused with what we define as White Left, nor the Jewy, fraud “Alt-Left” that also goes by that name; Trump was certainly not addressing that anyway, but rather a trendy way of addressing the motley “left” as it is commonly known - the pivotal move - to redirect attention and blame to “the Left” - in orchestration of the White Right through the “Unite the Right” rally.
In addition to Mnuchin using “Unite The Right” to offend Gary Cohn through it and Trump’s neutral response, to get Cohn out of the way, there were key Republican insiders that needed ingratiation for the Jewish Right to be able to take-over and join forces with the (deracinating) American right through front man Trump.
Following Trump’s first political victory on their behalf, the passing of the tax-cut bill:
Paul Ryan heaps saccharine, about face praise of Trump for making the rich, richer…
As Mitch McConnell has been kissing black ass since the days of “civil rights” when he marched with M.L. King, Trump had to be sure to burnish his pro-black credentials for him (note Uncle Tom/ Satchmo Step n’ Fetch-it type to Trump’s right).
Mitch McConnell: “You’ve made the case for the tax-bill (so that the rich could get richer and the poor, poorer - typical Repugs). We’ve cemented the Supreme Court to the right of center for a generation (pro-black women having babies). You’ve ended the over regulation of the American economy (pro-pollution). Thank you Mr. President, for all you’re doing.”
(((Corey Lewandowski))): “In essence this became Trump’s Republican party.
The testimony that people gave there is hard to take back”
- Oren Hatch, for example: “You’re one heck of a leader…and we’re going to make this the greatest Presidency that we’ve seen, not only in generations, but maybe ever.”
(((Corey Lewandowski))): “What the Republican establishment now know, is that Donald Trump is unequivocally the leader of the Republican party” (The Jewish Right-wing has taken over from Jewish liberals).
“He’ is the one who sets the tone of what takes place in Washington. He is the leader of our country - both politically and from a legislative side of things. I think they’ve learned that over the last year.”
Posted by DanielS on Wednesday, 11 April 2018 06:07.
Zuckerberg “concedes” by increasing ZOG’s global influence - viz. in Asia - by cracking down on use of social media - viz. Facebook - by opponents of its Abrahamic footsoldiers (Islam) in Myanmar
Reuters, “Facebook’s Zuckerberg vows to work harder to block hate speech in Myanmar”, 11 April 2018:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday his company would step up efforts to block hate messages in Myanmar as he faced questioning by the U.S. Congress about electoral interference and hate speech on the platform.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a joint Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees hearing regarding the company’s use and protection of user data, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 10, 2018. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein
Facebook has been accused by human rights advocates of not doing enough to weed out hate messages on its social-media network in Myanmar, where it is a dominant communications system.
“What’s happening in Myanmar is a terrible tragedy, and we need to do more,” Zuckerberg said during a 5-hour joint hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee.
More than 650,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state into Bangladesh since insurgent attacks sparked a security crackdown last August.
United Nations officials investigating a possible genocide in Myanmar said last month that Facebook had been a source of anti-Rohingya propaganda.
Marzuki Darusman, chairman of the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, said in March that social media had played a “determining role” in Myanmar.
“It has ... substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissension and conflict ... within the public. Hate speech is certainly of course a part of that. As far as the Myanmar situation is concerned, social media is Facebook, and Facebook is social media,” he said.
Zuckerberg said Facebook was hiring dozens more Burmese-language speakers to remove threatening content.
“It’s hard to do it without people who speak the local language, and we need to ramp up our effort there dramatically,” he said, adding that Facebook was also asking civil society groups to help it identify figures who should be banned from the network.
He said a Facebook team would also make undisclosed product changes in Myanmar and other countries where ethnic violence was a problem.
At least 14 fighters, including Iranians, were killed in the early morning strike, according to the monitoring organisation the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Syria also accused Israel of carrying out the strike.
A military spokeswoman for Israel, which has struck Syrian military positions several times in recent years, declined to comment on the strike.
A Syrian military source was quoted in local media as saying air defences shot down eight missiles fired at the base, where defence analysts say there are large deployments of Russian forces, and where jets fly regular sorties to strike rebel-held areas.
It came after Donald Trump on Sunday warned Russia’s Vladimir Putin that there would be a “big price to pay” for a suspected Syrian chemical weapons attack that killed 70 people, including children.
In his harshest criticism of the Russian leader since taking office, Mr Trump said Mr Putin was partly “responsible” for the attack on rebels in Douma, a town in Eastern Ghouta
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price…
3:00 PM - Apr 8, 2018
87.2K51.6K people are talking about this
“Syria conflict: Israel blamed for attack on airfield”
Monday’s attack hit the Tiyas airbase, known as T4, near the city of Homs. Observers say 14 people were killed.
Israel, which has previously hit Syrian targets, has not commented. Syria initially blamed the US for the strike.
Could Israel be involved?
Syrian state news agency Sana, quoting a military source, reported that air defences had repelled an Israeli missile attack on T4, saying the missiles were fired by Israeli F15 jets in Lebanese airspace.
Claim - Iran building base in Syria:
Israel has said it will not allow Iran, its arch-foe, to set up bases in Syria or operate from there, something Israel considers a major threat.
UK-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that fighters of various nationalities - meaning Iranians or members of Iranian-backed Shia militias - were among the 14 dead at the base.
Complicated equation
By Jonathan Marcus, BBC defence and diplomatic correspondent
This attack could be part of Israel’s growing effort to contain Iran’s military build-up in Syria and to interrupt the supply of advanced Iranian missiles to its Lebanese Shia ally, Hezbollah.
Any Israeli operation would have been closely monitored by Russian air defence radars in Syria. There is also a telephone hotline between the Israelis and the Russian headquarters in Syria.
So far Moscow has done nothing to interfere with Israel’s air operations.
But the presence of Russia’s air defences in Syria certainly complicates the strategic equation as Western governments ponder their response to the recent chemical attack.
“Trump tweets condemnation of Syria chemical attack, saying Putin shares the blame”
In a series of tweets on the morning of April 8, President Trump condemned an apparent chemical attack near Damascus on April 7.
The likelihood of a military strike against Syria after a suspected chemical weapons attack increased Sunday as President Trump said there would be a “big price to pay” and officials in France vowed the country would “do its duty” in responding.
France called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Monday to discuss the weekend attack, and eight other nations joined in the request, including the United States and Britain.
In reference to a warning by President Emmanuel Macron last month that France would strike unilaterally if Syria used chemical weapons again, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that the nation would assume its responsibilities.
[Dozens killed in apparent chemical attack on Syrian civilians]
Several prominent Republicans urged Trump to act — and to reconsider his plan to draw down the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) told ABC News’ “This Week” that this is a “defining moment” in Trump’s presidency that demands follow-through. Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) suggested that Trump change his mind about withdrawing troops from Syria, place more sanctions on Russia and consider targeted attacks on Syrian facilities, similar to one he ordered a year ago after a chemical attack on civilians.
Trump wants them home, but how long will U.S. troops really be in Syria?
President Trump said he wants to pull all U.S. troops out of Syria where they’re supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against the Islamic State.
Even before the lawmakers spoke, Trump himself hinted that a military strike might be at hand if the use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces is verified.
As grisly images emerged, showing bodies of babies in basements and bloodied survivors at hospitals in Eastern Ghouta, Trump made a rare direct criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said Putin shared blame for the deaths through Russia’s support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay,” Trump said in back-to-back tweets. “Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!”
Late Sunday, SANA, Syria’s state-run news agency, said that an air base in central Syria was hit by a missile attack and that the military shot down eight missiles. The report initially said the attack in Homs province was “likely to be an American aggression.” Later, however, Syrian officials and allies in Russia said the airstrike was carried out by Israel, which also struck the same airfield in February.
Israel did not immediately confirm the reports of the Sunday attack.
In a statement, the Pentagon denied the report: “At this time, the Department of Defense is not conducting airstrikes in Syria. However, we continue to closely watch the situation and support the ongoing diplomatic efforts to hold those who use chemical weapons, in Syria and otherwise, accountable.”
Injured victims of an alleged chemical attack rest Sunday in rebel-held Douma, Syria.
The crisis in Syria is escalating at a pivotal moment for the White House’s national security team. John Bolton, a noted hawk on Russia and Iran, begins work as Trump’s national security adviser on Monday. On Thursday, CIA Director Mike Pompeo has a confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on his nomination as secretary of state.
Trump also blamed his predecessor for not following through on his threat that Assad’s chemical weapons use was a red line that would not be tolerated, something that Trump suggested he would not repeat.
[Trump instructs military to begin planning for Syria withdrawal]
“If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!” he tweeted.
Echoing Trump, V.P. Pence tweeted that U.S. officials were monitoring the events. “The Assad regime & its backers MUST END their barbaric behavior,” he added. “As POTUS said, big price to pay for those responsible!”
Syrian, Russian denials
Syria and its main backers, Russia and Iran, are not only denying responsibility, they question whether there even was an attack. SANA said the reports originated with “terrorists” who are on the verge of collapse under an offensive by the Syrian army. “Such allegations and accusations by the Americans and certain Western countries signal a new conspiracy against the Syrian government and people, and a pretext for military action,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
And Russia’s Foreign Ministry released a statement claiming that information on the reported attack is a tactic being used to cover up for terrorists.
“The goal of these false conjectures, which are without basis, are designed to shield the terrorists and the implacable radical opposition, who reject a political settlement,” the statement said.
The crisis over Syria is likely to accelerate the downward spiral of the relationship between Russia and the United States, already at its lowest point in decades. On Friday, the administration placed economic sanctions on some Russian tycoons. The sanctions give the United States a potent weapon to pressure international financial institutions not to lend money or facilitate transactions by the well-connected Russians.
“Whatever was driving Trump to leave Putin alone, it’s over,” said Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, an analytical firm. “Over the course of 48 hours, Trump basically sanctioned the Russian system and fingered Putin for backing the ‘Animal Assad.’
“If the U.S. confirms chemical weapons were used, I think we get a strike on Syria. As harsh as Friday’s sanctions were, they also set the precedent for sanctioning anyone who benefits from the Russian system.”
Trump’s gradual shift
Trump has come reluctantly to this crucible over Syria.
Assad has never been a priority for Trump. Though he called him a “bad guy,” he repeatedly said on the campaign trail and in the White House that Assad is not a U.S. priority. He was willing to be involved in Syria as long as the fight against the Islamic State was going on, but not much more. His announcement that the U.S. military role in Syria was “coming to a rapid end” was a continuation of that belief.
New Observer, “Top ISIL Propaganda Chief and Other Nonwhite Terrorists Arrested in Italy”, 29 Mar 2018:
A Moroccan identified as one of ISIL’s top propaganda chiefs in Italy has been arrested in Turin, along with a number of other nonwhite invaders pretending to be refugees in a series of anti-terrorist raids conducted throughout that country, according to reports in the Italian media.
According to a report in the RAI news service, 23-year-old Moroccan-origin Elmahdi Halili stands accused of producing the first ISIS propaganda text in Italian and participating in the broader “terrorist association of the Islamic State.”
The investigation by the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office “expanded to the hubs of the Islamic State throughout northern Italy,” the report added, inadvertently revealing the full extent of the nonwhite invasion of that region.
At least 13 premises were searched, and, according to the report, at least 50 known ISIS militants are currently at large in Italy. A further five nonwhites were arrested along with Halili yesterday, the report continued.
Earlier, the Egyptian-origin president of the “Al Dawa” Islamic center in Foggia, Abdel Rahman, was also arrested after his propaganda texts called on Muslims to “slaughter the infidels.”
Another text issued by Rahman called on Muslims to “fight the unbelievers, with your swords cut off their heads, with your explosive belts you blow their heads up in the air. It is necessary to break the skulls of the unbelievers and drink their blood to get victory.”
There have already been four arrests and two expulsions in the province of Foggia during anti-terrorism investigations, a report added.
On May 19, 2017, Italian police arrested Kamel Sadraoui, a 34-year-old Tunisian on charges of promoting terrorism, while on July 8, a 38-year-old Chechen in Foggia, Eli Bombataliev, was arrested on similar charges.
On December 15, 2017, police arrested an Algerian national, Yacine Gasry, at the railway station of Foggia, on charges of providing logistical support to Algerian terrorist groups.
* Meanwhile, this past week in Britain saw the jailing of an Iraqi invader pretending to be an “asylum seeker” for bombing an London Underground train.
Ahmed Hassan, who claimed to be 18—but who was obviously far older, as the judge noted, was convicted of attempted murder after the device partially detonated at Parsons Green, west London, in September last year.
“Your desire and intention that morning was to kill as many members of the British public as possible,” Mr Justice Haddon-Cave told Hassan. “I am satisfied that you were determined to cause as much death and carnage as possible.”
More than 50 people were injured when a fireball swept through the carriage, burning passengers’ skin, hair and clothing, or suffered crush injuries as people fell over each other while trying to escape.
Hassan had made his way to Britain via Istanbul, Paris and Calais, entering the country in October 2015 as a stowaway in the back of a truck.
- My Lai Massacre. The GI Resistance Continues: Vietnam Vets Return to My Lai - Vet Activists Discuss the My Lai Massacre and the profound after effects of the war, bombing, agent orange.
Until he was sold on the Alt-Right quid pro quo, David Duke’s major point against any candidate concerned their being a hawk against Iran on behalf of Israel.
Scooter Libby with Paul Wolfowitz in 2008
“Fancy braindumping some thoughts for me.”
