Majorityrights News > Category: U.S. Politics

What stands logistically in the way is that the Kurds seek a homeland, and that would entail a piece of Syria, which Assad does not want to relinquish. However, the Kurds do seem prepared to negotiate with Assad for the right, somehow, to live alongside the Syrians, within what Assad would like to maintain or re-claim as greater Syria - parts of which Assad was forced to abandon in 2012. We should encourage their reconciliation and alliance; and for other ethnonations to ally with them despite the shit-hole nations of Turkey and Israel in opposition.

The Guardian,  23 Feb 2018: “Why are world leaders backing this brutal attack against Kurdish Afrin?”

Islamist militants – with Turkish army support – are wreaking havoc with a pocket of peace and sanity in the Syrian war.

‘Afrin’s population doubled during the conflict, as hundreds of thousands of mostly Arab refugees had come to shelter with its original, overwhelmingly Kurdish, population.’

Three years ago the world watched a ragtag band of men and women fighters in the Syrian town of Kobane, most armed only with Kalashnikovs, hold off a vast army of Islamist militants with tanks, artillery and overwhelming logistical superiority. The defenders insisted they were acting in the name of revolutionary feminist democracy. The Islamist fighters vowed to exterminate them for that very reason. When Kobane’s defenders won, it was widely hailed as the closest one can come, in the contemporary world, to a clear confrontation of good against evil.

Today, exactly same thing is happening again. Except this time, world powers are firmly on the side of the aggressors. In a bizarre twist, those aggressors seem to have convinced key world leaders and public opinion-makers that Kobane’s citizens are “terrorists” because they embrace a radical version of ecology, democracy and women’s rights.

Turkey’s attack on Syrian Kurds could overturn the entire region.

The region in question is Afrin, defended by the same YPG and YPJ (People’s Protection and Women’s Protection Units) who defended Kobane, and who afterwards were the only forces in Syria willing to take the battle to the heartland of Islamic State, losing thousands of combatants in the battle for its capital, Raqqa.

An isolated pocket of peace and sanity in the Syrian civil war, famous only for the beauty of its mountains and olive groves, Afrin’s population had almost doubled during the conflict as hundreds of thousands of mostly Arab refugees had come to shelter with its original, overwhelmingly Kurdish population.

At the same time its inhabitants had taken advantage of their peace and stability to develop the democratic principles embraced throughout the majority Kurdish regions of north Syria, known as Rojava. Local decisions were devolved to neighbourhood assemblies in which everyone could participate; other parts of Rojava insisted on strict gender parity, with every office having co-chairs, male and female, in Afrin, two-thirds of public offices are held by women.

Turkey’s attack on Syrian Kurds could overturn the entire region.

Today, this democratic experiment is the object of an entirely unprovoked attack by Islamist militias including Isis and al-Qaida veterans, and members of Turkish death squads such as the notorious Grey Wolves, backed by the Turkish army’s tanks, F16 fighters, and helicopter gunships. Like Isis before them, the new force seems determined to violate all standards of behaviour, launching napalm attacks on villagers, attacking dams – even, like Isis, blowing up irreplaceable archaeological monuments. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, has announced, “We aim to give Afrin back to its rightful owners”, in a thinly veiled warning to ethnically cleanse the region of its Kurdish inhabitants. And only today it emerged that a convoy heading to Afrin carrying food and medicine was shelled by Turkish forces.

Remarkably, the YPG and YPJ have so far held off the invaders. But they have done so without so much as the moral support of a single major world power. Even the US, the presence of whose forces prevents Turkey from invading those territories in the east, where the YPG and YPJ are still engaged in combat with Isis, has refused to lift a finger to defend Afrin. The British foreign secretary Boris Johnson has gone so far as to insist that “Turkey has the right to want to keep its borders secure” – by which logic he would have no objection if France were to seize control of Dover.

The result is bizarre. Western leaders who regularly excoriate Middle Eastern regimes for their lack of democratic and women’s rights – even, as George W Bush famously did with the Taliban, using it as justification for military invasion – appear to have decided that going too far in the other direction is justifiable grounds for attack.

To understand how this happened, one must go back to the 1990s, when Turkey was engaged in a civil war with the military arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ party, or PKK, then a Marxist-Leninist organisation calling for a separate Kurdish state. Whether the PKK was ever a terrorist organisation, in the sense of bombing marketplaces and the like, is very much a matter of contention, but there is no doubt that the guerrilla war was a bloody business, and terrible things happened on both sides. About the turn of the millennium, the PKK abandoned the demand for a separate state. It called a unilateral ceasefire, pressing for peace talks to negotiate both regional autonomy for Kurds and a broader democratisation of Turkish society.

This transformation affected the Kurdish freedom movement across the Middle East. Those inspired by the movement’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan, began calling for a radical decentralisation of power and opposition to ethnic nationalism of all sorts.

Turkey starts ground incursion into Kurdish-controlled Afrin in Syria - Read more

The Turkish government responded with an intense lobbying campaign to have the PKK designated a “terrorist organisation” (which it had not been before). By 2001 it had succeeded, and the PKK was placed on the EU, US, and UN “terror list”.

Never has such a decision so wreaked havoc with the prospect of peace. It allowed the Turkish government to arrest thousands of activists, journalists, elected Kurdish officials – even the leadership of the country’s second largest opposition party – all on claims of “terrorist” sympathies, and with barely a word of protest from Europe or America. Turkey now has more journalists in prison than any other country.

The designation has created a situation of Orwellian madness, allowing the Turkish government to pour millions into western PR firms to smear anyone who calls for greater civil rights as “terrorists”. Now, in the final absurdity, it has allowed world governments to sit idly by while Turkey launches an unprovoked assault on one of the few remaining peaceful corners of Syria – even though the only actual connection its people have to the PKK is an enthusiasm for the philosophy of its imprisoned leader Öcalan. It cannot be denied – as Turkish propagandists endlessly point out – that portraits of Öcalan, and his books, are common there. But ironically what that philosophy consists of is simply an embrace of direct democracy, ecology, and a radical version of women’s empowerment.

The religious extremists who surround the current Turkish government know perfectly well that Rojava doesn’t threaten them militarily. It threatens them by providing an alternative vision of what life in the region could be like. Above all, they feel it is critical to send the message to women across the Middle East that if they rise up for their rights, let alone rise up in arms, the likely result is that they will be maimed and killed, and none of the major powers will raise an objection. There is a word for such a strategy. It’s called “terrorism” – a calculated effort to cause terror. The question is, why is the rest of the world cooperating?

• David Graeber is professor of anthropology at the LSE and author of Debt: The First 5000 years; he was involved in the Global Justice Movement and Occupy Wall Street

Related Story: Watch for The PKK as a revolutionary group fighting for ethnonationalism

Occidental Dissent, 21 Feb 2018:

“Max Cuckoldry Reached: Trump Has Face Engraved Onto Israeli Half-Shekel.”

       

You know you’re probably stabbing your Isolationist base in the back if you see your mug covering the coin face of a foreign state – a rogue one, on top of it. Add in the fact that it was the resurrected Sanhedrin that granted the “honor,” and you should know that you’re likely waiting to join Judas, Brutus, and Cassius in the lowest circle of hell – reserved for the worst traitors imaginable.

       

WND, “Sanhedrin puts Trump image on half shekel coin”, 16 Feb 2018:

In honor of president’s decision recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

When President Trump in December recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, two decades after Congress authorized it, he drew the wrath of Arab nations and their allies.

Now Israel’s recently re-constituted Sanhedrin is honoring Trump for the move by putting his image on a privately minted half-shekel coin.

Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz reported at Breaking Israel News the nascent Sanhedrin and the Mikdash (Temple) Educational Center are creating a replica of the silver half-shekel coin that the Bible mandates be donated by every Jewish male in the Temple.

Trump’s’ accomplishments have prompted an online Thank Trump Card Campaign giving Americans a way to thank the president for his record of achievement during his first year in office.

Berkowitz quoted Exodus 30:15, which states, “The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when they give the offering of Hasehm, to make atonement for your souls.”

You’re getting up there in years, Donald.

I’d start to get a bit worried if I were you – God doesn’t take too kindly to those who literally grovel at the feet of those who murdered His Only Begotten Son.

And apparently the greatest sin of all would be to allow for the purveyors of Roman civilization to nail the Jew to a stick.

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Nick Fuentes vs. RC Maxwell | Civic Nationalism Debate.

Fuentes stakes-out some classic arguments against civic nationalism and specifically in this case, against those arguments for inclusion of blacks within the nation. While a full endorsement is not implied, he establishes a plateau from which to elaborate, differ and/or transform.

ContraPoints has done his/her homework as well, also enough to stake out a polemic - by contrast to Fuentes, ContraPoints argues in defense of blacks - giving explanations/excuses for what are taken by those who dislike them to be typical black behavior (bad) - again, providing a position for difference, elaboration and/or transformation.

A new PhD, “Mexie” the Vegan and anti-capitalist activist, considers that to be her favorite ContraPoints video, one that all “racists” (and anti-racists) should see.

Going Vegan: A Discussion with Mexie | ContraPointsLive

Taylor does some good work - bringing this lawsuit against Twitter is commendable - Twitter’s prohibition of free speech is a travesty given that it is functioning as a public utility; its having gotten its corporate start with US government help; its remaining dependent upon the US Government created and sponsored internet network; and public telecommunications lines. Taylor also handles with aplomb stigmatic issues of blacks and their hyper-assertive biopower, as he did in his debate with black nationalist Tariq Nasheed. Nevertheless, he yields to Jewish crypsis, infamously having said, “they look huWhite to me” ...and now that Jewish interests seek fusion with the White right, their media refers to Taylor as a “White Nationalist.”

BBC, “White nationalist Jared Taylor sues Twitter over ban”, 22 Feb 2018:

White nationalist Jared Taylor is suing Twitter after the social network banned his account as part of a crackdown on abusive content.

Mr Taylor’s lawyer says the suspension of his account is a form of censorship, accusing Twitter of discrimination.

Twitter declined to comment on the case but has previously said that its tools are “apolitical.”

Mr Taylor is head of American Renaissance, a website that champions “racial difference”.

He had his account suspended in December, with Twitter explaining that it prohibited accounts affiliated with the promotion of violence, something Mr Taylor denies applied to him.

Mr Taylor has filed his case in California, in the state Superior Court in San Francisco. He argued that Twitter violated Californian law protecting free speech in public spaces - a law that has not previously been applied to the internet.

His lawyer Noah Peters wrote online that everyone should be “terrified” about what he called Twitter censorship. “Our lawsuit is not about whether Taylor is right or wrong. It’s about whether Twitter and other technology companies have the right to ban individuals from using their services based on their perceived viewpoints and affiliations.

“Allowing Twitter to censor content is extremely troublesome given Twitter’s self-proclaimed mission to ‘give everyone the power to create and share ideas instantly, without barriers’.”

Washington Post, “4 things we learned from the indictment of 13 Russians in the Mueller investigation”, 16 Feb 2018:

This post has been updated.

We have the first indictment in the investigation by Robert S. Mueller III that actually has to do with Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The special counsel on Friday indicted 13 Russians in connection with a large-scale troll farm effort aimed at influencing the election in violation of U.S. law.

The indictment of the Internet Research Agency comes on top of two Trump advisers having pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI — Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos — and two more being indicted on charges of alleged financial crimes that predated the campaign — Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. Nobody is in custody and Russia does not extradite to the United States, but the document from the secretive Mueller investigation does shed plenty of light where there previously wasn’t any.

So what does the new indictment tell us? Here’s what we can say right away:

1. It doesn’t say the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, but doesn’t rule it out either.

Anybody looking for clues about the collusion investigation into the Trump campaign won’t find much to grab hold of. If anything, the indictment may hearten Trump allies in that it doesn’t draw a line to the campaign — which suggests there was a large-scale effort independent of any possible collusion. Perhaps that’s the real meddling effort, some folks in the White House may be telling themselves right now. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein even specified that Trump campaign officials who were contacted by the Russian nationals “did not know they were communicating with Russians.”

But that’s about as much insight as anyone can draw; we simply don’t know what else is coming down the pike, and any ties to Trump campaign officials may have been withheld from this indictment to avoid disclosing details of an ongoing investigation. The president hasn’t even been interviewed yet, so we wouldn’t expect any ties to the campaign at this juncture.

Asked whether campaign officials had knowledge of the scheme or were duped, Rosenstein chose his words carefully. “There is no allegation in this indictment that any American had any knowledge,” Rosenstein said.

The words “in this indictment” mean Rosenstein’s comments are pretty narrow.

Update:

In a statement, Trump and the White House suggested that the announcement “further indicates that there was NO COLLUSION between the Trump campaign and Russia.” Again, it doesn’t provide any direct indication.

2. It just got a lot harder for Trump to dismiss Mueller’s probe as a “witch hunt.”

At one point in the indictment, a price tag is put on the effort: $1.25 million in one month, as of September 2016. To put that in perspective, that’s as much as some entire presidential campaigns were spending monthly during the primaries. And that lends credence to the idea that this was a large-scale effort connected to the Russian government.

President Trump has often sought to downplay the idea that Russia interfered in the 2016 election — even suggesting he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assurances that it didn’t happen. This document lays it out in extensive detail.

The argument that this is a “witch hunt,” which Trump has argued and more than 8 in 10 Republicans believe, just became much more difficult to make. And the document would seem to make pretty clear that the Mueller investigation isn’t just targeted at taking down Trump, either.

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This Vox article concludes:

What we don’t know

  The shooter’s motive

A safe bet is that the shooter’s motive was rather an incoherent motive of broad revenge against societal incoherence and therefore lack of accountability, agency and warrant that socially delimited human ecologies would otherwise afford.

VOX, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida: what we know:

At least 17 people are dead. The 19-year-old suspect is in custody.

Parents wait for news after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Joel Auerbach

A shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, has left at least 17 people dead. Students and adults are among the victims.

A 19-year-old male suspect, Nikolas Cruz, has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder. Cruz, a former student at Stoneman Douglas, took an Uber to the school Wednesday afternoon. He was armed with an AR-15 rifle, law enforcement officials said, which he used to carry out his rampage. He fled the scene on foot, blending in with the rush of students pouring from the building. The massacre unfolded in less than 10 minutes, according to the timeline released by the Broward County Sheriff’s office.

“That should not happen in Parkland. It should not happen anywhere in this country,” Broward County Public Schools superintendent Robert Runcie said on Wednesday night. “We have got to find a way for this to stop.”

The investigation is still in its early stages. Details could change with more information. Here’s what we know — and don’t.

What we know

- Around 2:30 pm on Wednesday, just before class dismissal, the fire alarm went off, and shooting began. A law enforcement official told told CBS News it was believed the suspect pulled the fire alarm before the shooting rampage.

- At least 17 people were killed in the school shooting. At least 14 others were wounded, with five individuals sustaining life-threatening injuries. Teenagers and adults are among the victims, according to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.

- The victims we know of so far: Jaime Guttenberg, Martin Duque, Alyssa Alhadeff, Aaron Feis, Gina Montalto, Nicholas Dworet, Luke Hoyer, Carmen Schentrup, Meadow Pollack, Joaquin Oliver, Alaina Petty, Cara Loughran, Helena Ramsey, Alex Schachter, Chris Hixon, Scott Beigel, and Peter Wang. The Miami Herald has the full list with photos and more information.

- The lone suspect is 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, according to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. He was taken into custody off school property about an hour after the shooting, the sheriff said.

- Cruz confessed to the shooting, according to a sheriff’s report. He’s been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

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Judith and Holofernes, by Kehinde Wiley Credit: Twitter

“Obama portrait artist’s past work depicted black women decapitating white women”

Daily Telegraph, 13 Feb 2018:

Kehinde Wiley, the artist chosen to paint the official portrait of former US President Barack Obama, previously depicted black women decapitating white women.

Wiley, who is 39 and from New York, created the two paintings in 2012 and was inspired by the Biblical story of Judith beheading the Assyrian general Holoferne. At the time, Wiley told The New York Times that he was inspired by the classical European depictions of Bible stories by Caravaggio and Gentileschi, only he chose to depict Judith as a black woman and Holoferne as a white woman. He commented: “It’s sort of a play on the ‘kill whitey’ thing”.

The description for the work from the North Carolina Museum of Art foundation reads:

“Wiley translates this image of a courageous, powerful woman into a contemporary version that resonates with fury and righteousness.”

The portraits were part of an exhibition in which his paintings only depicted women he would scout on the street and depict in poses seen in classical European artwork. The sitter for Judith was Triesha Lowe, a stay-at-home mother whom Wiley discovered in a Brooklyn shopping centre.

       

Jon Levine@LevineJonathan

Barack Obama unveils his portrait alongside the portrait’s artist, Kehinde Wiley

That Obama artist, Kehinde Wiley, is also know for these fun paintings, which you can file under

“Imagine if this showed a TKTK “
8:54 PM - Feb 12, 2018
143 people are talking about this

Wiley’s portrait of Obama will hang in the US National Portrait Gallery. It has sparked conversation and criticism, but the sitter himself appeared pleased with his likeness, adding that Wiley’s work “challenged our conventional views of power and privilege.”

Daily Kos, “Bombshell: Devin Nunes’ Entire Net Worth Sunk In Company With Strong Ties To Russia: Updated”, 26 Mar 2017:

Oh those rascally republicans! Not only was Devin Nunes caught sharing evidence with the White House he is supposed to be investigating, now reports show that he has sunk almost his entire net worth (which ain’t a lot) into The Napa Valley’s Alpha Omega winery, which has, as it’s only European contract, a distributor in Russia with close ties to…you guessed it… Putin.

“Nunes has put almost his entire net worth into a winery with strong ties to Russia.How strong? Well, the Alpha Omega Winery has distributors all over the U.S., but just a few abroad. One of those overseas distributors is the Luding Trading Company in Russia. Luding is, in fact, Russia’s largest distributor for alcoholic beverages. But they don’t just operate in Russia – they also appear to have a relationship with Vladimir Putin.”

Here’s a copy of his financial dregs:

       

So, Nunes is worth $51,000 and a penny and has $50,000 tied up in Russian Red.

Nice.

But he’s taking care to protect his investment, huh?

  “It’s also odd that Alpha Omega Winery would have a relationship with Russia’s largest distributor when they only have a relationship with one Western nation (Switzerland). They don’t have any relationships with any other distributor in the EU, which means no relationships with NATO allies at all.

  Then there’s the fact that Nunes is one of the people Trump called upon to refute news about the whole Russia scandal. That right there compromised the House’s investigation into Trump and Russia because it blurs the lines between the intelligence community, the White House, and Congress.”

Sunday, Mar 26, 2017 · 9:04:59 PM · durrati

Several Comments have pointed out that the source of this story didn’t make a compelling case for the Nunes/Russia slant of this story and they may be right to do so. The link to the LA Times Financial information has value though, it seems to me, and it is strange that a major player in the Russian Liquor Distribution Industry lists as one of it’s suppliers a small California vintner Nunes is invested in. I’ll leave this up because some of our sleuths here might find it interesting to dig into.

Daily Sabah, “FM Çavuşoğlu meets Trump’s top national security advisor”, 18 Jan 2017:

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu met with designated U.S. National Security adviser Rt. Gen. Mike Flynn on Wednesday at Trump Hotel in Washington.

“Met with General Flynn, who will assume the position of National Security Advisor, and other officials at a working breakfast in Washington D.C.,” Çavuşoğlu tweeted.

The meeting marks a first direct reachout between the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan administration and the incoming Donald Trump administration, other than a phone call between two leaders last November.

House Intelligence Committee Congressman Devin Nunes, a Republican heavyweight, also attended the breakfast.

An aide of the foreign minister didn’t provide additional details on the meeting, but said that Çavuşoğlu was the only foreign leader at the breakfast and the topics on the U.S.-Turkish agenda were discussed by the attendees.

A invitation letter for the breakfast, obtained by Daily Sabah, said the breakfast would be a small event for about 50-60 guests. It also said White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus might join the meeting. It was not immediately clear whether he attended. An official at the Trump Organization, and two other fundraisers were presented as co-hosts, according to the letter.

Çavuşoğlu previously told Turkish media that he would attend the incoming Trump administration’s inauguration ceremony, which is due to be held on the West Front of the United States Capitol Building in Washington D.C. on Friday.

The official announcement comes as questions over whether the Trump administration will be able to normalize relations between Turkey and the U.S. are increasing.

Turkish officials have previously stated that Turkey can cooperate with the new U.S. administration since many of Turkey’s views overlap with the incoming president

Daily Sabbah, “Turkey confident on extradition of Gülen under Trump administration”, 23 Jan 2017:

Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş addressed the media after a Cabinet meeting Monday, reiterating the Turkish government’s two primary expectations of the newly sworn in Donald Trump administration, the extradition of U.S.-based Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) leader Fetullah Gülen and the halting of U.S. support for the PKK’s Syrian offshoot, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria.

The revelation comes on the heels of the inauguration of Donald Trump who took the Oval Office as the 45th president of the U.S. on Friday. Despite recent tensions with Washington, Turkish officials are confident that, compared to the Barack Obama administration, the new administration will usher in a new era of cooperation for the NATO-ally, especially in the counterterrorism fight against Daesh and FETÖ.

“Especially in efforts to revamp Turkish-U.S. relations, we expect the Trump administration to conduct a re-assessment of its position on Turkey and reconsider its position on two primary matters, the first of which is the extradition of the retired preacher Gülen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the U.S. as the purported leader of an outlawed Turkish gang which conducted crimes against the nation during the failed July 15 coup attempt. The second fundamental matter is halting U.S. support for the PYD,” the deputy prime minister asserted.

Emphasizing Turkey’s hopes that the new U.S. administration will not repeat the mistakes of the previous administration, Kurtulmuş also said that, “It is our aim to bring bilateral relations back to the level that is required between two, long-standing allies.”

Under the Obama administration, Turkish-U.S. relations deteriorated significantly due to Obama’s insistent claims that the PKK and the YPG are not one-in-the-same, regardless of mounting evidence and statements made by YPG terrorists.

Thus, Turkey’s deputy prime minister said that he is confident Turkey will see results under the Trump administration, further referring to the PYD as, “An armed group with a few militants who are accountable for the instability of the region.”

“The PYD, an armed group with few militants, is clearly a contributing factor to the region’s instability. Turkey urges the U.S. to stop supporting the group on the grounds that it is affiliated with the PKK and engages in terror activities. We are hopeful that we will yield results regarding this matter, as well. If these two expectations are met, Turkish-U.S. bilateral relations will be restored and strengthened once again. I do hope that this new administration moves forward by making decisions that contribute not only to Turkish-American relations but also to world peace and stability in the Middle East,” Kurtulmuş added.