Stephen Lendman

It's no secret. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov affirmed what he said many times before. Russia has clear evidence. It proves Western-enlisted death squads have CWs. It proves they use them.

The Syrian Arab Army seized more than 200 barrels with
chemicals from insurgents at a farm in Banias, Tartus.

On Saturday, Russia's Channel One interviewed Lavrov. He said Moscow intercepted a phone call between two insurgents. They discussed using chemical weapons. Russia informed Washington and other anti-Assad governments. It called on them "to make sure that their 'charges' kept their hands off any chemical weapons or their components, to say nothing of using them." According to Lavrov:

"We are certain that militants have more than once attempted such provocations. Therefore, the direct sponsors of opposition forces who offer them support must also see to it that they give up on further provocations."

Syria must play the lead role in its own security.

"The main idea is to let OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) experts play the first fiddle, while the UN plays a supporting role by providing additional personnel if needed and, first and foremost, by protecting watchdogs that are to inspect Syrian chemical arms depots as listed by the country's government. Of course, we are still to agree on the details of this plan. In this sense, the UN Security Council's resolution will entitle the UN secretary general to come forth with his recommendations during consultations with the OPCW's chief."

Assad and opposition forces are obligated to observe Security Council provisions to eliminate all chemical weapons in Syria. UN member states must not let insurgents with chemical weapons use their territories. Security Council Resolution 2118 "stresses chemical weapons must not fall into the hands of non-governmental entities, which the opposition is," said Lavrov. "It also emphasizes that all UN member states, primarily Syria's neighbors, must take comprehensive measures to prevent the use of their territories for the provision of the opposition with chemical weapons and their components," he added.

More »

William T. Hathaway

WELLSPRINGS: A Fable of Consciousness
Selections from the Novel by William T. Hathaway

In 2026 as the earth is withering, an old woman and a young man heal nature through higher consciousness.

2026. The earth's ecosystem has broken down under human abuse. Water supplies are shrinking. Rain is rare, and North America is gripped in the Great Drought with crops withering and forests dying. In the midst of ecological and social collapse, an old woman and a young man set out to heal nature and reactivate the cycle of flow by using techniques of higher consciousness. But the corporations that control the remaining water lash out to stop them. A blend of adventure and mystic wisdom, Wellsprings: A Fable of Consciousness is a frightening but hopeful look into a future that is looming closer every day.

Long Beach

Pack my rucksack and get out of this place. Like the song says, "I'm leavin' LA, baby. Don't you know this smog has got me down." Taj Mahal. I found his album — one of those old black discs — in a box with a bunch of others in granddad's garage. Old record player with it, kind that goes around and 'round. Been listening to them ever since — all gramp's favorites from the sixties and seventies when he was a kid. Great songs ... despite the scratches.

More »

Pepe Escobar

A photo of an Islamic Al Qaeda leader fighting inside Syria
against Syrian armed forces. It shows a terrorist leader in
Syria, "Commander" Muhajireen Kavkaz wa Sham, a leader
of an Al-Qaeda linked group, inside a USAID tent.

If any extra evidence was needed to shatter the myth of a "revolution" struggling for a future "democratic" Syria, the big news of the week cleared any remaining doubts.

Eleven, 13 or 14 "rebel" brigades (depending on the source) have ditched the "moderate", US-propped Syrian National Council (SNC) and the not-exactly Free Syrian Army (FSA). The leaders of the bunch are the demented jihadis of Jabhat al-Nusra - but it includes other nasties such as the Tawhid brigades and the Tajammu Fastaqim Kama Ummirat in Aleppo, some of them until recently part of the collapsing FSA.

The jihadis practically ordered the myriad "moderates" to submit, "unify in a clear Islamic frame", and pledge allegiance to a future Syria with Sharia law as "the sole source of legislation".

One Ayman al-Zawahiri must be having a ball in his comfortable, drone-proof hideout somewhere in the Waziristans. Not only because his call for a multinational jihad - a la Afghanistan in the 1980s - is working; but also because the US-run SNC has been exposed for the toothless rodent that it really is.

And facts on the ground keep corroborating it. The al-Qaeda-propped Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant took over a town near the Bab al-Salam border crossing with Turkey that was held by the FSA because the FSA was accused of fighting for "democracy" and close ties with the West. Wrong; the FSA wants those ties but under a Muslim Brotherhood-controlled regime. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - of which Jabhat al-Nusra is the main Syrian component - wants a Talibanized Syriastan.

More »

Gilad Atzmon/Roy Bard

Roy Bard and Gilad Atzmon - London 25/9/13

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon

Roy Bard is a known figure within Britain’s far left, anti-war and the Palestinian Solidarity Movement. He is a member of the Indymedia UK collective, a leading British anti-capitalist media outlet.

I first encountered Bard five years ago. At the time the site was subjected to an international Jewish ‘anti’-Zionist campaign: a cabal of ethnic activists demanded that Indymedia deleted my articles. Being a principled man, Bard didn’t bow to their pressure. Bard has been subjected to a malicious slanderous campaign ever since.

The article below is about sadness – if the personal is political, as some progressives insist, this article is an intimate insight into the medium in which such a transition takes place. It reveals the measures of brutality and intolerance that are unfortunately intrinsic to the Jewish Left. I was really moved when I read this article.

More »

Paul Craig Roberts/Takashi Hirose

Readers have asked that I write about Fukushima. About all I can tell you with confidence is that we are getting no more truth about Fukushima from the presstitute media than we are about any other subject.

As I understand it, which I hope is incorrectly, Fukushima has the prospect, if the wrong events occur, of essentially eliminating Japan as a country.

Why Japan, the only country to suffer attack by nuclear weapons, made the decision to rely on nuclear plants for its electricity is a mystery. Perhaps the Japanese government was pressured by Washington to accept US nuclear energy technology as a form of tribute payment.

Whether or not Japan under Washington's thumb was a coerced market for Westinghouse, Fukushima is sending radiation into the Pacific Ocean and, apparently, into the groundwater that supplies Tokyo. If the fuel rods that must be removed from a damaged building ignite, calamity will result.

Consider how was it possible for the Japanese, an intelligent people, to locate the Fukushima nuclear energy plants in a tsunami coastal area. This decision shows a lack of any thought whatsoever. Elsewhere nuclear energy plants are located on earthquake faults. Ongoing climate change subjects others to forest fires.

Nuclear energy plants are now sprinkled all over the developed world. Each and every one is subject to accident. An accident, and sustainable life ends for that area of the world. Has human greed for cheap energy destroyed the earth?

Nuclear energy is said to be "clean." But, of course, radiation is not clean, and its death dealing power lasts a very long time. Will shortsighted greed, at the expense of the future, exterminate all life on earth?

No one in the western orbit should expect any answer from the bought-and-paid-for-government.

More »

John Robles

An Interview With Edward Herman. PART I here

The United States is behaving like an insane power, like the threat of the Nazis back in the 1930s and 40s. It’s out of control, and it’s engaging in war after war, violating international law and considers itself to be above the law. It is also the richest country in the world but it’s having trouble feeding its own citizens while preparing for yet another war. Dr. Edward Herman spoke to the Voice of Russia stating that and more, he also said it is time that the international community rose up and brought the US under control and has to take much more vigorous, hostile actions against the US war threats. He also called the Secretary General of NATO and NATO a menace and part of a US program for global domination. The world has to wake up and stop it!

Hello! This is John Robles, I’m speaking with Dr. Edward Herman. He is Professor Emeritus at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the author of several books, namely “Manufacturing Consent”, which he wrote with Noam Chomsky, and the “Srebrenica Massacre: Evidence, Context, Politics”.

Robles: My next question is: isn’t the US financially “stressed out” maybe if you would put it… to engage in yet another war? Is this financially viable for the US or maybe a move to actually save the economy?

Herman: For those of us that are critical of US policy, of the situation with respect to the use of resources, it’s amazing! The United States is in a financial crisis. It’s cutting back on all kinds of public expenditures, on Food Stamps, it’s cutting back on its schools and it’s really stripped for resources, and here it’s about to go into another war which is going to be extremely costly.

So we’re dealing with a country that is kind of a little “crazy”. It has unlimited resources for its military policies and its wars abroad but it’s struggling to provide for its own citizens. It’s amazing! This may be a good part why the public is against this war. The public is troubled, it’s getting very poor support from its government. And yet this government is preparing for another war of choice! It’s really quite amazing.

More »

Charles E. Carlson

Wars are deadly adventures orchestrated to keep the domestic economy churning, but the public is not suppose to suspect it. The seemingly spontaneous, overwhelming negative public response to President Obama’s campaign to bomb Syria is as encouraging sign that some are catching on. America’s grass roots war resistance has been slow in coming, long after many European politicians, goaded by their own constituencies, refused to play the U.S. Administration’s war-game in Syria.

It is significant that few if any of the hundreds of diverse groups resisting war are doing so in support of the Assad dynasty; at best, President Bashar al-Assad is looked upon as the better dictator; at worst, as a naked tyrant. My most unique source, Karriem Shabazz, was, for the safety of his young family, recently forced to leave his adopted Syria and a satisfying life he had built there as an English teacher for 15 years. Dr. Shabazz recently stated in an interview, “Why doesn’t America know this and mind its own business? Don’t we have enough expensive problems? Are we going over there with drones and increase the collateral damage that may kill as many or more women and children as Bashaar al-Assad has done?” (1)

President Obama billed the attack that did not happen as a punishment for Bashar al-Assad. We will teach him a lesson he will not forget, is the twisted rationale for starting another killing war-game. It is not unlike an imprecation practiced by some branches of Talmudic Judaism that loads all of a group’s sins on a scapegoat or chicken, and then slaughters the sacrifice to get rid of the sins. Mr Obama would blame the sins of the Middle East on Bashar al-Assad and bomb the Syrian people to punish Assad. What can his real reason be? Why are we always in the process of going to war with a country C that seems totally insignificant, while we are still bombing and droning country B, and while our 10 year old war with Country A is only now winding down?

More »

TeleSUR TV/Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA)

President Bashar al-Assad gave an interview to Latin America TeleSUR TV channel. Following is the full text of the interview:

TeleSUR: Welcome TeleSUR viewers to this special program covering the events in Syria. Our distinguished guest has managed to capture the attention of the whole world – President Bashar al-Assad. Mr. President, thank you for giving this interview to TeleSUR, which we hope will provide an opportunity for our viewers in Latin America to understand your perspective and your views. Welcome to the program.

President Assad: I would like to welcome you and TeleSUR in Syria and to extend my good wishes to you on your recovery from your leg injury. I believe that my interview with a journalist who has witnessed terrorism first hand will be pragmatic and rich. Once again, I welcome you as a journalist whose blood has been mixed with the blood of soldiers from the Syrian Arab Army.

TeleSUR: Thank you. Indeed, there are many common factors between us, including this blood. You mentioned terrorism - a car bomb exploded in Damascus yesterday, killing and injuring many civilians. What is the terrorist’s message particularly in these circumstances facing Syria and the world? And how do you see the current efforts to confront terrorism in Syria?

President Assad: These terrorists have only one message, which is the dark ideology they carry in their minds; for them, all those who do not think like them do not deserve to live. Every so often, they carry out these acts of terror to either attract people to their cause or to frustrate them. In other words, they want people to lose hope - and when you lose hope, life has no meaning. So in one way or another you become closer to them. From another perspective, these terrorist operations are financed, planned and instigated by people outside Syria with the aim of pushing Syrians towards complete despair, making them believe that there is no hope in their homeland and that the Syria which has existed for centuries no longer exists. Loss of hope pushes people towards defeat, which in turn makes them stop defending their country. What you saw yesterday was only one of hundreds of attempts in that direction; in fact they have all had the opposite effect - Syrians today are more committed than ever before to defending their country.

More »

Pepe Escobar

He came. He listened. And he surfed.

"I listened carefully to the statement made by President Obama today at the General Assembly... [I'm] hoping that they will refrain from following the short-sighted interests of warmongering pressure groups and we can arrive at a framework to managing our differences."

Then he outlined what has always been the official Iranian position: "Talks can happen; equal footing and mutual respect should govern the talks." Then he addressed the expectation (actually, the world's):

"Of course, we expect to hear a consistent voice from Washington. The dominant voice in recent years has been for a military option."

But now he had another idea. So he sets the stage for the punch line: It's WAVE time. WAVE as in World Against Violence and Extremism. Not in Farsi, lost in translation; in English.

"I propose as a starting step... I invite all states... to undertake a new effort to guide the world in this direction ... we should start thinking about a coalition for peace all across the globe instead of the ineffective coalitions for war."

So the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, has just invited the whole planet to join the WAVE. How come no "coalition of the willing" leader ever thought about that?

More »

Paul Craig Roberts

'Superbia' - arrogance, pride, haughtiness (latin-dictionary.org)

The war criminal barack obama has declared his “outrage” over the 62 deaths associated with the takeover of a Nairobi, Kenya, shopping mall by al-Shabaab fighters. But the attack on the shopping mall was obama’s fault. Al Shabaab spokesmen said that the attack on the Nairobi mall was a retaliatory response to the Kenyan troops sent to fight against them in Somalia. The Kenyan troops, of course, were sent to Somalia as a result of pressure from Washington.

Just as the outbreak of violence in Mali resulted from the fighters that obama used against Gaddafi moving into Mali, Washington’s violence against Somalia has resulted in the terrorist attack on the Nairobi mall.

This fact again raises the never asked question: What is the real agenda of Washington’s “war on terror”? The western presstitutes never ask this question, nor do western legislative bodies.

Washington has offered a variety of justifications for its twelve years of wars. One is that Washington is rooting out terrorism in order to protect Americans from 9/11 type events. Another is that “dictators” must be overthrown and replaced with “freedom and democracy.” Still another is false claims of the possession of “weapons of mass destruction” (Iraq) and the use of “weapons of mass destruction” (Syria).

None of Washington’s claims can withstand the barest scrutiny. None of the governments that Washington has overthrown and seeks to overthrow are terrorist states. Indeed, some are not even Islamist governments. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had a secular government, as does Assad’s Syria.

Washington’s explanations for murdering Pakistanis and Yemenis with drones are even more nebulous. Moreover, using military means to kill citizens of countries with which the US is not at war lacks all legality.

More »

Bill Van Auken

Captain America: The First Avenger. Working for Israel.

US militarist policy stands naked before the world.

US President Barack Obama delivered his fifth address to an opening session of the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, mixing sanctimonious rhetoric about democracy and humanitarianism with naked threats of US military aggression.

While the media obsessed over whether the US president would stage a handshake with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani—a meaningless gesture that the Iranians reportedly rejected—the real content of Obama’s 50-minute address was the elaboration of a foreign policy doctrine under which Washington arrogates to itself the right to militarily intervene in the Middle East as it sees fit to protect its “core interests.”

The speech made clear that the “turn to diplomacy” in relation to both Syria and Iran represents not some fundamental turn away from the predatory policy pursued by US imperialism in the region through the wars of the last decade, but rather a tactical shift imposed upon the Obama administration by the emergence of overwhelming and unanticipated popular hostility to yet another war of aggression in the Middle East.

More »

Stephen Lendman

His address didn't surprise. It was beginning-to-end demagogic boilerplate. It featured imperial mumbo jumbo. He turned truth on its head like he always does.

A year ago he claimed intervening in Libya was to "cope with violent conflict, care for the wounded, and craft a vision for the future in which the rights of all Libyans would be respected."

"And after the revolution, (he) supported the birth of a new democracy, as Libyans held elections, and built new institutions, and began to move forward after decades of dictatorship."

Fact check: Libya was Africa's most developed country. Most Libyans supported Gaddafi. They did so for good reasons. He provided free healthcare, education and much more. His Libya no longer exists. Obama turned it into a charnel house. Tens of thousands were slaughtered. Multiples more were injured. Many more were displaced. Mostly civilians were harmed. NATO willfully targeted them. At issue was replacing another independent government with a puppet one. Violence persists daily. So do human need, suffering and misery. Now Libya's a failed state. Divergent factions run things. No legitimate government exists. For sure no democracy. Obama lied claiming otherwise. He bears full responsibility for what happened.

More »

Chris Floyd

Shoppers sprint through a department store on Saturday
as gunmen open fire in a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya.

This article is originally from 24 November 2008.

The idea that a democratic government would deliberately create fake "extremist groups" then send them out to foment violence and terrorism -- in order to discredit legitimate opposition to elite rule and to "justify" authoritarian powers -- has long been derided in "serious" circles as that worst of modern heresies: "conspiracy theory." Anyone advancing such a preposterous notion is instantly relegated to the ranks of the "lunatic fringe," and dismissed with varying degrees of contempt and condescension.

And the woeful fact that millions of the ruminants out there in the vast public herd swallow these wild tales and believe that their betters are up to no good is also widely deplored in the higher circles of public discourse. As any fully-accredited, perk-laden, sinecured think-tanker can tell you, democratic governments are led by men and women devoted to public service. Sure, there can be fierce disputes over policies and approaches and outcomes and ideologies and competence. Sure, some people may step over a line here and there in their pursuit of what they believe is the nation's best interests. But just as western democracies do not torture, do not launch aggressive wars, do not spy upon their own people or imprison them by the millions, they most assuredly do not create and support extremist groups and instigate acts of terror and chaos to advance authoritarian agendas.

More »

Stephen Lendman

(Surveillance Chancellor...)

On September 23, Der Spiegel headlined "Word From Berlin: Triumph Confirms 'Era of Merkelism."

She "won a stunning victory. Conservatives (achieved) the best result in two decades. Merkel is at the zenith of her power."

Financial Times contributor Wolfgang Munchau headlined "Merkel's almost total political triumph," saying:

"Just a few votes shy of an absolute majority was the best conceivable result Angela Merkel could have had. It was an electoral triumph of the kind that are extremely rare in German politics. She has achieved all her electoral goals. She will stay in power - of that there was really never any doubt. But she also secured her other goal - to make it impossible for the three parties of the left to form a coalition against her during the next parliamentary term."

Germany's so called left is as pro-business/anti-populist as right of center parties. Munchau didn't explain.

"The CDU will always have a choice of coalition partners," (he said.) "While (he) disagree(s) with almost all her economic policies, (he) cannot hide (his) admiration for her political ruthlessness."

German newspaper Die Tageszeitung calls her "the worst chancellor in the country's post-war history." She's that and then some. Retaining her "is bad news for Europe." According to Berliner Zeitung, major domestic issues have been neglected. "Things can't stay as they are for another four years." Expect worse ahead, not better.

More »

Ulrich Rippert

The German elections last Sunday had many special features. The Free Democratic Party (FDP), which has consistently sat in the Bundestag (parliament), has been involved in government since 1949, longer than any other party, and which most blatantly represents the interests of finance capital, failed to clear the five percent hurdle required to enter parliament.

The new anti-euro party “Alternative for Germany” (AFD), founded just a few months ago, secured almost as many votes as the FDP and narrowly missed a place in the Bundestag.

But most striking was the victory of Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The party whose brutal austerity measures have triggered violent protests and mass demonstrations in many European countries, was able, together with its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), to get nearly forty-eight percent of the vote.

In contrast, the parties which acted as a supposedly left-wing opposition were punished by the voters. The Greens and the Left Party lost significantly, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) received 25.7 percent of the vote, which despite a minimal gain was its second-worst election result of the Postwar period. The reason is not hard to understand: the SPD, Greens and Left Party are neither left-wing nor an opposition.

More »