Amal Hanano

[This is the twelfth and last installment of Amal Hanano's diary of her trip back to Aleppo. You can read previous posts here.]

There is always a certain acclimation period needed when moving from east to west or west to east, a few days to re-situate yourself. It disguises itself as jet lag, but it is more of a re-calibration of your inner compass. This time, my resetting lasted for weeks not days. The phone kept ringing, from family and friends in the U.S. making sure I was okay and asking endless details. I had to say, ma fi shi, so many times it irritated me. Even non-Arabs were shocked when they found out I had gone back, and my response was like a broken record, “Where I was, in Aleppo, there was nothing happening.” “Oh,” was their relieved but slightly disappointed reply. Tell me about it.

My few short weeks in Syria had felt like months, yet I returned to an America unchanged. Everything around me felt tired: tired tastes, tired radio, tired news about corrupt media moguls and dead pop stars, tired politics and an exhausted economy, a tired, mad world occupied with vampires and wizards. I was tired, living in black and white, any color existed only in this journal, and it was quickly fading. I lived through my words, extending my trip line by line, fighting, as always, against letting go.

I was disconnected from the Syrian-American community around me, the ones who could not go back this summer, the ones from Homs, Hama, Latakia, and Daraa. The ones who flew to D.C. for protests, drafted petitions, and posted videos on Facebook every five minutes. There was a split between us, they labeled me as the girl from Aleppo, the land of greedy merchants and silent masses. I expected the sentiment, but felt resentful and defensive at their hypocrisy. In their eyes, I was much closer to the silent Aleppo elite than I would like to admit. But in mine, they were acting like victims while living in their posh suburban bubbles. They demand Syrian ambassador, Imad Moustafa’s resignation now, but conveniently forget that they were honored to rub shoulders with him a few short years ago. And so, I came back to be treated as an outsider once more. In Aleppo I was a mundasseh, an infiltrator, and in America, I was apathetic.

I wondered if this confusion I felt about home and belonging, was not exclusively my own, as I had always believed. Have we all lost the sense of what home is, or what it should be? Are we searching for an elusive, utopian place that didn’t exist? Anthony Shadid wrote in my favorite article about the Arab Spring: “Across the region, the Arab revolution has inspired a rethinking of identity, even as older notions of self hang like a specter over the revolts’ success. In its most pristine, the revolution feels transnational, as demands of justice, freedom and dignity are expressed in a technology-driven globalism.” He believes a driving factor of the regional uprisings is what he calls a search for “a new sense of self.” Why are we searching for a new sense of self? When did we lose our selves? How did we let our selves slip away? It is sad, but the reality is for decades, all Syrians, there or here, by the sheer force of our brutal history, were robbed of our true selves.

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Stephen Lendman

NATO is a killing machine, a destructive US-led evil force everyone needs to understand, condemn, and struggle to abolish.

NATO intends to get the bloodbath it wants through intensified terror bombing and low-level strafing of civilians and nonmilitary sites. No matter that it grossly violates international and constitutional law, what Washington-led member states long ago trashed.

Through August 22, air operations included 19,877 sorties and 7,505 strike ones, with no elaboration of their intensity or deadliness. What is known is that powerful, high-explosive munitions are used, able to cause deadly force casualties and destruction.

In recent days, strikes intensified. Without them, rebels would disintegrate and collapse. Most of them are little more than ragtag mercenary hooligans, imperial tools, used for what won't benefit them.

It's largely true of all wars, especially America's waged for conquest, dominance, plunder and exploitation, never for democracy or humanitarian reasons Washington doesn't give a damn about and never did.

NATO is no different. Established in April 1949, a previous article said it calls itself a "political and military alliance for peace and security."

In fact, it was more for offense than defense. Cold War hysteria was contrived to incite fear and assure an arms race for corporate enrichment. Napoleon once said, "Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self-interest."

Until the Soviet Union dissolved, communism was the alleged enemy. Today it's terrorism, as bogus now as then. Both, however, were used for hugely profitable imperial wars from Korea to Libya to numerous proxy ones, as well as trillions of dollars for military readiness - in fact, scandalous amounts in America without enemies for justification since WW II.

Strategically intervening under US control, NATO, in fact, threatens world peace and human survival.

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Bill Van Auken

Major European oil companies saw their stock prices rise precipitously on expectations that they would reap bonanzas from renegotiated deals with a NATO-installed regime in Libya.

The so-called “revolution” has in fact been a coup sponsored by the major imperialist powers working with the big energy conglomerates and executed by US, British and French military and intelligence. Using the upheavals in neighboring Egypt and Tunisia as cover, and a “humanitarian” mission as pretext, these powers launched a colonial-style war with the aim of toppling the Gaddafi regime and installing a more pliant client regime in Tripoli.

Fierce fighting raged into the night in Tripoli Monday, even as leaders of the major Western powers proclaimed the end of the 42-year-old regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and maneuvered for position in the scramble for Libya’s oil wealth.

After their surprisingly rapid advance into the Libyan capital, the armed groups backed by NATO have encountered stiff resistance from forces loyal to the Gaddafi regime. The crowds that initially greeted the so-called “rebels” melted away and streets remained largely deserted as the two sides exchanged automatic weapons fire as well as mortar and anti-aircraft rounds.

Heavy fighting continued around Gaddafi’s fortified Bab al-Aziziya presidential compound, while smoke billowed over sections of the city. A spokesman for the NATO-backed National Transitional Council (NTC) based in Benghazi predicted that the fortified compound would not fall easily and fighting there would be “fierce.” The huge Tripoli compound has been subjected to heavy bombardment by NATO warplanes.

While the NTC has claimed to control between 80 and 90 percent of the Libyan capital, reporters in the city have described the situation as “fluid,” and few checkpoints have been set up to secure the streets.

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Stephen Lendman

Note: A follow-up article will continue the narrative below. Currently, events in Tripoli are fluid.

Progressive Radio News Hour contributor Mahdi Nazemroaya's overnight email said:

"NATO landed insurgents in (Tripoli) harbor. They are attacking my hotel. I almost got shot. They're still lying a lot (about claims of controlling the capital), but we are in real danger."

He's saying that armed guerrilla gangs, mercenaries, indistinguishable from (also armed) Tripoli residents, are waging street warfare.

Russia Today reported about 1,300 deaths. No one knows for sure. However, events are fast-moving and chaotic.

On Russia Today, Nazemroaya also said heavy looting occurred, including insurgents breaking into hotel rooms and ransacking them. In addition, he said NATO WANTS A BLOODBATH. In fact, they're getting one, exacerbated by intense terror bombing, deliberately targeting civilians.

"Myself, the Press TV journalist (Lizzie Phelan), three French nationals, the Cuban and Telesur journalists are in danger."

"One of my French colleagues was told: 'You are going to suffer the consequences of your actions for opposing the NATO war."

Sunday, on Russia Today, Nazemroaya said he was told that CNN said he personally would pay for opposing the war.

REPEAT: CNN THREATENED MADHI NAZEMROAYA FOR REPORTING TRUTHFULLY ABOUT EVENTS ON THE GROUND, NOT THE PRO-NATO PROPAGANDA CNN (THE NEW YORK TIMES, AND OTHER MAJOR MEDIA) REPORT DAILY.

What's ongoing in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Palestine, as well as throughout North Africa/the Middle East/Central Asia is part of A COUP D'ETAT AGAINST FREEDOM - PLANNED, ORCHESTRATED AND DIRECTED FROM WASHINGTON.

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Julia Churley

We all knew it was coming. We knew we'd be hit hard tonight. As soon as the news from Israel broke....the first attack on the bus....I KNEW Gaza was in for it. Whether or not anyone from here had actually even carried out the attack, we were going to feel Israel's wrath. We're an easy scapegoat. Seal up the borders, keep the media quiet, and have some fun...

Rafah, in the south, was hit first, before sundown and 7 were killed, including a child and the leader of the Popular Resistance Committee. Then we got reports of tanks on the border, and by the time iftar (the breaking of the fast at sundown during Ramadan) came around, we were all braced for more. F16s and drones were overhead all evening, but that was it. Nothing more. I spent most of the night staring at my screen between conversations with friends....tweeting and Facebooking trying to make sure someone....anyone....was paying attention when all hell broke loose. I was fighting off rumors about an UNRWA evacuation and then trying to confirm whether or not the US embassy in Tel Aviv had told Americans to leave Gaza....the former not being true and the latter being true.

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Stephen Lendman

Repeatedly, Israel preemptively bombs, shells, and inflicts other forms of lawless violence on Gazans, bogusly claiming self-defense.

When they respond, Israel calls it terrorism, claiming justification for greater attacks in "self-defense," what international law prohibits.

In fact, UN Charter Article 2(4) says:

"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."

Only two exceptions apply. Under Chapter VII, the Security Council may authorize force to restore peace. Individual states must abide by Chapter VII, Article 51 stating:

"Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security."

In addition, individual states may use defensive force against armed attacks until the Security Council acts. No other exceptions apply, including armed reprisals. Calling them unlawful, the General Assembly said all states must refrain from using them. The right of self-defense is limited solely to deterring armed attacks, preventing future ones after initial assaults, or reversing the consequences of enemy aggression, such as ending an illegal occupation.

Even then, however, force must conform to the principles of necessity, distinction, and proportionality. Necessity permits only attacking military targets. Distinction pertains to distinguishing between civilian and military ones. Proportionality prohibits disproportionate force likely to damage nonmilitary sites and/or harm civilian lives. Moreover, a fourth consideration requires preventing unnecessary suffering, especially affecting noncombatant civilians. If these objective aren't possible, attacks are prohibited.

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Vera Macht

As we speak, Gaza is being bombed. As we speak, innocent people are dying. Fifteen people have been killed so far, and no end in sight.

Tomorrow the foreigners will be evacuated, Israel threatens with a "massive military attack", a "ground invasion" is not ruled out. Fifteen killed people, including two children. I can give their names, Malek, two years old, and Mahmoud, thirteen years. I can tell how Mahmoud's teacher has described him as an intelligent, bright student, or I can show photos of the two.

As if that would create an outcry , as if the Western media would care enough for the lives of Palestinian children. No, [it's] "Israel was attacked" and "Israel must defend itself."

Neither the circumstances, let alone the actual perpetrators of the attack on Israel have been identified so far, every Palestinian military faction has denied any involvement in it. But Gaza is blamed, as Gaza is always to be blamed for, Gaza must be punished, Gazan blood must flow so that the murder on Israelis will be avenged.

How much blood must still flow, you Israeli generals? How many Mahmouds and Maleks will have to die, how many women and children will have to be injured and killed? The signs suggest that it will still be many. And the signs suggest that the world is going to accept it. That it will accept that innocent people are being killed who had nothing but nothing to do with the attack on Israel.

But of course Palestinians must be "punished", simply because they are Palestinians.

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Stephen Lendman

[Israeli medics evacuate a person wounded in one of several attacks in the Arava desert, to the Soroka hospitan in Beersheba, southern Israel, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2011. Assailants armed with heavy weapons, guns and explosives crossed into southern Israel from the neighboring Egyptian Sinai peninsula on Thursday, killing six Israelis and wounding at least a dozen more in an audacious string of attacks. AP Photo/Ilan Assayag]

Mossad and Shin Bet (Israel's Security Agency) have long, odious histories of committing them. More on that below.

At issue now is whether the August 18 bus and other attacks inside Israel were committed by external elements or Israel, and if so, why?

Also at issue always is cui bono? In fact, Hamas and various Palestinian resistance groups have nothing to gain. Clearly Israel benefits greatly at least two ways:

(1) The upcoming September UN General Assembly vote on Palestinian self-determination Israel very much wants to derail.
(2) Weeks of nationwide internal social justice protests Netanyahu also wants to diffuse and end.

Both are compelling reasons for employing tried and true tactics - change the subject by diverting public attention.

In this case, scaring people enough to put safety above pocket book issues, as well as getting UN member states perhaps to rethink the wisdom of supporting Palestinian sovereignty at this time, with Israel allegedly under attack.

Whether it works will be known when the UN General Assembly meets in September. What's clear is that last March, Israel informed all Security Council members and prominent EU countries that if Palestinian self-determination efforts within 1967 borders persisted, unilateral Israeli steps would follow, implying harsh ones.

In addition, diffusing social justice protests temporarily worked based on an August 18 Reuters report, saying campaigners

"called off planned weekend demonstrations against the high cost of living after a series of terror attacks in the south left seven people dead."

Of concern is how to reignite protest energy after it wanes, even for a short time. Resumption often lacks initial levels of passion, mass support, and commitment to stay the course, especially when people have other daily priorities, besides worrying whether their country is under attack.

Add it up and it suggests classic false flag reasons, perhaps with planned follow-up attacks for reinforcement. They're likely if Israel also has another objective in mind - using the attacks as pretext for Cast Lead II.

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Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem

No one is against the principle of Jews living peacefully in Palestine. However, Jews or any other people have no right to lord it over the truly native people of the land or worse, enslave, torment, oppress, and murder them as Israel has been doing ever since its misbegotten birth sixty-three years ago.

Israeli leaders have nearly lost their composure, reacting to a rare resistance attack originating from the Sinai Peninsula near the southernmost town of Um al Rushrash, renamed by the Zionists as Elat.

Appearing existentially anxious and morbidly hypochondriac, Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu was behaving in a conspicuously convulsive manner.

He vowed to murder Palestinians, saying "we must kill those trying to hurt Jews." Netanyahu, an inherently dishonest and racist politician, thought that the only way Israel could prove her military might was by ganging up on nearly helpless and virtually undefended Gazans who are languishing under a lingering blockade that has made the coastal enclave very much a modern-day version of the Warsaw Ghetto.

But like the rest of the Zionist establishment, Netanyahu is living in a state of denial. He easily forgets or ignores the fact that Israel itself is a gigantic crime against humanity if only because that state happens to be the effect of the grandest land theft in history.

In fact, Israel not only occupies the ancestral homeland of another people, the Palestinians, but is also trying rather incessantly to ethnically cleanse the native Palestinians and obliterate the Arab-Islamic identity of their patrimonial homeland from time immemorial.

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Stephen Lendman

They appear daily like weeds on all topics. As a result, Times reports aren't fit to read, let alone print. August 18 was no exception, publishing lies about Libyan insurgent victories.

On August 18, headlining, "Libyan Rebels Gain Control of Oil Refinery as Qaddafi Forces Flee," Kareem Fahim's article was pure Pentagon propaganda, duplicitously lying to readers. Yet he said

"(r)ebel fighters claimed complete control of a sprawling (Zawiyah) oil refinery, seizing one of (Gaddafi's) most important assets after just three days of fighting and delivering the latest in a string of small victories that have suddenly put the rebels at Tripoli's door."

Reporting from Tripoli, independent Middle East/Central Asian analyst, Mahdi Nazemroaya refuted him, telling Progressive Radio News Hour listeners that:

• Gaddafi forces are winning;
• rebels are in disarray;
• the so-called National Transitional Council (NTC) is falling apart;
• Misrata was liberated from rebels;
• Tripoli is peaceful and calm, despite daily NATO bombing, willfully targeting civilians and nonmilitary sites;
• scattered fighting continues along routes to Tunisia and elsewhere;
• arteries between the two countries remain open;
• Intense Western propaganda wants to intimidate Gaddafi supporters to give up hope of prevailing;
• it's had the opposite effect, in fact, galvanizing Libyans overwhelmingly behind Gaddafi, making him by far the most popular African/Middle East leader; and
• his forces control Gheryan, Sorman, Sabratha, and Zawiyah, its oil refinery and others; reports saying otherwise are lies; rebels are south of the city, not in it.

In an August 18 morning email, he added:

"Nothing has changed thus far. There is fighting in the area, but (rebels) do not have control. Bombings over Tripoli are very bad though."

As part of NATO's intimidation campaign, they continue daily, inflicting pain and suffering on Libyans unrelated to military necessity. As a result, they're war crimes, what Times and other major media sources won't explain.

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Bryan Dyne

The Obama administration has approved Shell Oil’s plan to begin drilling for oil in the Beaufort Sea, off the Arctic Ocean coast of Alaska. This will be the first offshore drilling operation authorized in the region since the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe in April 2010. It only the latest example of the Obama administration’s prostration before major oil interests.

Approval for drilling came from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE). The agency adopted the plan given to it by Shell Oil without even a cursory examination. Instead, it adopted an uncritical attitude towards the company, entrusting it not to violate safety regulations and risking a similar disaster to that which occurred last year.

The BOEMRE is also ignoring the ecological impact of the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. When the oil tanker struck the Bligh Reef, it spilled somewhere between 42,000 and 120,000 cubic meters of crude into the Prince William Sound. This resulted in the deaths of as many as 250,000 seabirds and hundreds of sea otters, harbor seals and bald eagles, as well as four humans poisoned during the cleanup. The immediate economic impact was the loss of 26,000 jobs and $2.4 billion.

In addition, the clean up efforts were not sufficient to completely eliminate oil. An NOAA report issued in 2007 revealed that, despite cleanup efforts, 26,000 gallons of oil still remain in the soil of the contaminated shoreline, impeding the repopulation of wildlife in the area. The amount of oil left in the ocean is unknown. Moreover, residents of the area who used to rely on fishing for subsistence are still wary of consuming local catches for fear of leftover oil.

The more recent explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon, which killed eleven workers, has left a much deeper scar. From April to June of 2010, the oil rig leaked 780,000 cubic meters of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, contaminating almost 800 kilometers of coastline in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. Hundreds of thousands of fish, birds and other animals were affected, with thousands turning up dead. One estimate, given by Earth Economics, values the damage done at approximately $1 trillion to the Mississippi River delta alone.

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Stephen Lendman

For years, America and Israel followed similar paths toward full-blown tyranny, threatening all their citizens. Believing either is democratic and egalitarian is ludicrous and nonsensical, especially now under right-wing neoliberal governments, cracking down hard against challenges to their authority.

In Israel, moreover, Arabs have no rights. In fact, they're treated more like fifth-column threats than citizens with equal rights as Jews. They never had them or do now.

Three articles, among others, discussed Israeli governance under Netanyahu and Israel's most extremist ever Knesset, accessed through the following links, here, here and here.

Since becoming prime minister on March 31, 2009 for the second time (earlier serving from June 1996 - July 1999), Netanyahu's hardline coalition government enacted measures repressive enough to make some right-of-center politicians blush. At the same time, left-of-center ones worry where Israel is heading, a direction they very much oppose.

Already, Netanyahu's gone a long way toward wrecking Israeli society, similar to what Obama's done to America, handing it more than ever to wealth and power interests, especially bankers, war profiteers and militarists.

Moreover, Congress and Israel's Knesset enacted numerous hardline measures. This article discusses a new one MKs will now consider called, "Basic Act: Israel - the State of the Jewish Nation," not one for all its people.

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Stephen Lendman

Israeli Palestinian "suspect" publicly assaulted by police

What do you call a country that persecutes occupied people and one-fifth of its own population for not being Jewish? An illegal occupier for over 44 years, suffocating over 1.6 million Gazans under siege! A nation practicing torture, persecution, and racism as official policies! A modern day Sparta, glorifying wars and violence!

A country spurning rule of law principles! An unparalleled regional state terrorist! A nuclear armed global threat! A society of extreme social inequality! A nation with no legitimacy for all of the above reasons, besides having stolen another people's nation violently!

It's called Eretz Yisrael - Israel, a nation where thousands of fed up Jews vote with their feet and leave regularly. Like America, Israel isn't fit to live in. One day perhaps that will be its epitaph.

Many Jews and analysts believe Zionism is destroying Judaism. In his book "Overcoming Zionism," Joel Kovel explained how it fosters

"imperialist expansion and militarism (with) signs of the fascist malignancy," adding that it turned Israel "into a machine for the manufacture of human rights abuses."

Author Alan Hart calls Zionism "the real enemy of the Jews," an ideology contemptuous of moral and ethical principles. Others call it corrosive, destructive, racist, extremist, undemocratic and hateful, espousing violence, not peaceful coexistence.

Nations living by the sword in the end die by it. Israel and America aren't exceptions. They've, in fact, partnered on a self-destructive mission, perhaps taking planet earth with them before they're through.

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Ellen Brown

A message from Ben Bernanke to the cattle of the globe...

What just happened in the stock market? Last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose or fell by at least 400 points for four straight days, a stock market first.

The worst drop was on Monday, 8-8-11, when the Dow plunged 624 points. Monday was the first day of trading after US Treasury bonds were downgraded from AAA to AA+ by Standard and Poor’s.

But the roller coaster actually began on Tuesday, 8-2-11, the day after the last-minute deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling -- a deal that was supposed to avoid the downgrade that happened anyway five days later. The Dow changed directions for eight consecutive trading sessions after that, another first.

The volatility was unprecedented, leaving analysts at a loss to explain it. High frequency program trading no doubt added to the wild swings, but why the daily reversals? Why didn’t the market head down and just keep going, as it did in September 2008?

The plunge on 8-8-11 was the worst since 2008 and the sixth largest stock market crash ever. According to Der Spiegel, one of the most widely read periodicals in Europe:

Many economists have been pointing out that last week's panic resembled the fear that swept financial markets after the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

Then as now, banks stopped lending each other money. Then as now, banks' cash deposits at the central bank doubled within days.

On Tuesday, August 9, however, the market gained more points from its low than it lost on Monday. Why? A tug of war seemed to be going on between two titanic forces, one bent on crashing the market, the other on propping it up.

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William Bowles

At 9.22 the Brixton shopping centre appeared almost calm by comparison to Railton Road. Rubbish was strewn across the main A23 Brixton Road; burglar alarms rang vainly from looted shops; and knots of youths, black and white, drifted along in the almost complete absence of police.” – ‘Eyewitness: Looters moved in as the flames spread’

No, not Brixton in August 2011 but Brixton on 13 April 1981 as reported by the The Times. “Absence of police” eh? Now we’ve all heard this somewhere else quite recently, so what’s changed that made it such an issue this time round?

Ah, I see, it’s the ‘law and order’ posse calling for tougher policing, even importing a NYC cop to bash some heads.

What a depressing state of affairs. The media, like some slavering pack of wolves, eager for blood has descended on our dispossessed and demonized them some more. It’s like something out of the worst of the Victorian period, where to be poor was literally regarded as a crime and treated as such.

It is not for communists to condemn the riots. They are a sign of capitalism’s crisis and decay. [...] So long as capitalism continues on its downward spiral of crisis with the rich getting richer and the poorest more and more excluded there will be more and more explosions like these. The race is on for the revival of a really liberating movement of the working class to present an alternative to capitalist barbarism. –’Driving People into Rebellion‘, Stephen Harper, Dissident Voice

Two thousand people arrested and all just to make a point. Courts working around the clock to make an example of anybody who dares challenge the status quo, no matter how chaotic and self-destructive such cries of rage are. History is littered with such spontaneous rebellions, all of which are symptoms of a much deeper malaise but clearly it’s a malaise that the political class do not want to confront, dare not confront, else they would be forced to deal with the conditions that they themselves have created.

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