tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-291826202024-03-05T00:28:52.364-08:00Metro GaelSed assiduitate quotidiana et consuetudine occulorum assuescunt animi, neque admirantur, neque requirunt rationes earum rerum, quas semper vident.
For as we are acustomed to seeing certain things on a daily basis, our minds acquiesce therein and no longer seek the causes of that which we see before our very eyes.
Cicero. De Natura DeorumGearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.comBlogger130125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-86741079635098550302013-07-28T04:26:00.002-07:002013-07-28T04:26:56.913-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The Mali Election Scam:
Legitimizing France’s “Total Re-conquest”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: '', serif, '', serif; font-size: 14pt;">“The objective is the total
reconquest of Mali” -French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, (20 January, 2013)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Presidential elections are due to take place in Mali on Sunday,
July 28<sup>th</sup>. The latest polls indicate a victory for Ibrahim Boubecar
Keïta, with Soumaila Cissé coming in second place. There are 27 candidates
running in the election. The holding of the election just months after the
French military intervention in January 2013 has been widely criticized due to the
chaotic state of the country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> UN Secretary General Ban Ki
Moon admitted that the elections would not be ‘perfect’ but indicated that they
would have to be accepted by the Malian people.<o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">There have already been reports of widespread fraud and
irregularities, with thousands of NINA (Numero d’identité nationale) voter
cards not being delivered to voters. There have also been reports of dollars
being handed out to bribe voters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> There is a very low
distribution of NINA cards in the refugee camps both inside and outside Mali.
Only 300 voter cards have been distributed among 730,000 refugees in camps in
Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Algeria and Niger while Burkina Faso’s 50,000 Malian
refugees have only received 30 NINA cards.<o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The electoral lists are the same as 2009, thereby excluding
300,000 eligible voters who have come of age since then. The NINA cards were
only distributed in April in spite of the fact that it would take at least 6 to
12 months for their adequate distribution in a war torn country of Mali’s size.<o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The regions of the North of the country, formally occupied by
jihadists and separatist forces will hardly vote at all. The MNLA, Azawad
National Liberation Movement, who waged a war against the central government in
Bamako since 2012, want to declare independence from the Malian state. The
region of Kidal in the North is still occupied by the rebel forces, with French
troops also stationed there.<o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The hastily organized elections will not help the cause of
national reconciliation due to the fact that so many people have been excluded
from voting.<o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: '', serif, '', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The Malian war and its consequences<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">In March 21, 2012, generals of Mali’s military (green berets)
overthrew the country’s president Amadou Toumani Toure, inaugurating the
National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State. The coup was led
by Captain Amadou Aya Sanogo and was supported the next day by a mass, popular
movement called the March 22<sup>nd</sup><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Movement
led by left-wing deputy Dr. Oumar Mariko.<o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The generals were unhappy with the half-hearted efforts of their
government to crack down on the terrorists invading the country from the north.
Soldiers had been badly equipped, with many going hungry. Amadou Toumani Toure
had ruled Mali as a French puppet since 2002 and previously been accused of
drug dealing with war lords. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Toure had served Western corporations well, while the Malian
people languished in dire poverty.<u1:p></u1:p> Many of the supporters of the
coup had demonstrated in support of Muammar Kaddafi during the Libyan war of
2011 and wanted to see a strong state defeat what they considered to be a French
conspiracy to destabilize and subsequently re-colonize the mineral rich
country, by using jihadist terrorism as a pretext for intervention.<o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The reaction of the ‘international community’ to the military coup
was swift. The coup was condemned and sanctions were imposed on Mali, with
ECOWAS, the Community of West African States threatening to invade and occupy
the country to restore ‘democracy’.<o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">These measures impeded the efforts of the Malian military to
regain control of the Northern territories. The sanctions also helped
precipitate a humanitarian crisis as Malian goods could not be transported from
ports in the Ivory Coast and Guinea. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">All of this weakened the country’s defenses enabling the
terrorists to capture village after village. In spite of the fact that the
‘international community’ was fully aware of the advances of the terrorists, it
was more concerned with the ‘rule of law’ and ‘democracy’ than in helping the
Malian military defeat the barbarians. The generals finally ceded to the
international pressure and agreed to nominate Dioncounda Traore,( a NATO asset)
as interim president.<o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> Meanwhile, the MNLA was joined by extremist Wahhabi
terrorists groups funded by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, France’s allies. The
terrorist groups, ACMI, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb and Mujao (Movement for
Unity and Jihad in West Africa), overran some of the country’s most
important cities such as Timbuktu, where they destroyed thousands of ancient
scientific manuscripts and holy shrines, as well as occupying the cities of
Tessalit, Gao and Kidal.<o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">In January 11<sup>th</sup><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>2013
after the occupation of the town of Konna by islamists, France launched
Operation Serval, a military invasion of Mali aimed at ‘liberating’ the country
from the terrorists. The pretext for the intervention was a letter sent
by French puppet president Dioncounda Traore to the UN.<o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">By March most of the terrorist groups had been driven out of
Northern cities, which were now under the control of French and Chadian
military. Most of the fighting was done by Chadian soldiers with the French
playing a supporting role.<o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">An article published by Le Nouvel Observateur in June 2013
revealed that the MNLA had been working closely with the DGSE(<em>Direction
générale de la Sécurité extérieure</em>) the French secret service since 2003,
confirming the suspicions of Malian patriots that the French had deliberately
used the terrorists to destablise the country.[1]<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> On April 18<sup>th</sup><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>the Oauagadougou Accords were signed
in the Burkina Faso capital between the interim government and the MNLA rebels.
As the MNLA rebels are puppets of France and do not have any legitimacy, while
the interim government is unelected, the accords are a violation of the Mali’s
1992 constitution. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The Oauagadougou Accords effectively hand over sovereignty of
Kidal and the Northern regions to the MNLA rebels. Under international law,
states are not required to recognize sovereignty over national territories by
armed gangs. This is precisely what the Qauagdougou Accords require.<o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Mali is going to be partitioned. This has been the French plan
since the 1990s; the country will be divided and conquered, with an unstable
independent republic of Azawad in the north and a truncated, impoverished Mali
in the South, with French military bases ‘keeping the peace’. To compound the
country’s problems, there are three potential ‘azawads’: the Moor Azawad
of the North west, the Toureg Azawad of the North East and a mixture of
Songhay, Peul and Toureg on the banks of the Niger river.<u1:p></u1:p> It is
therefore possible that the armed gangs will continue to fight among themselves
if independence is achieved under the UN occupation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: '', serif, '', serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Oumar Mariko- The people’s
candidate</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">If there is any ‘terrorist’ feared by the French occupation forces
in Mali, Oumar Mariko is certainly one of them. Dr. Mariko is the secretary
general of Parti Sadi,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Solidarité
africaine pour la démocratie et l'indépendance,<span class="apple-converted-space"><b> </b></span>African Solidarity for
Democracy and Independence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Mariko comes from a generation of African intellectuals inspired
by Thomas Sankara, the Marxist revolutionary of Burkina Faso, and the African
socialism of Mali’s first president Modibo Keïta. Mariko was one of the
organizers of the March 22 movement, a popular mass movement which initially
supported the military coup, hoping to use the seizure of power to mobilize the
masses in favour of genuine democracy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Mariko was prevented from travelling to France last year for a
conference to discuss French imperialism
in Mali. One of the reasons for the celerity with which elections have been
organized in Mali is to prevent the masses from voting for Parti Sadi’s
candidate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Mariko is the only presidential candidate, who has genuine mass
support and has not relied on corporate funding for his election campaign.
Mariko is an admirer of Hugo Chavez and wants to reestablish the role of
the social state through nationalizing national resources, re-establishing
national sovereignty and instituting popular democracy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Mariko is the man the French government wants out of the picture.<u1:p></u1:p>
However, given the fact that so many have been excluded from the election and
there has been so little time to organize mass meetings, and the allegations of
fraud, Mariko is unlikely to win. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Legitimizing neo-colonialism</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The French ruling class wants to create an image of legitimacy for
its invasion and “total re-conquest” of Mali. The Malian elections are a total
sham. They have been imposed on a people traumatized by a war planned and
foisted upon them by imperialism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The partition of the country corresponds to the plan elaborated by
French politician Alain Peyrefitte during the De Gaulle era, which involves
creating the conditions for French control over the Sahara/Sahel region. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The French are attempting to resurrect the 1957 </span><span style="background: white; color: #444444;">L'</span><em><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Organisation commune</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> des<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><em><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">régions
sahariennes</span></em><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> (OCRS)
in co-operation with the 2004 US Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative, a
plan to control the Sahara which could see the eventual destabilization of
Niger, Algeria, Tchad, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, Senegal and Ghana. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">This is part of the US initiative Africom, which aims to
militarize all of Africa in accordance with US/NATO strategic interests,
thereby weakening Chinese influence in the continent and ensuring access to
cheap resources for Western multi-national corporations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The purpose of the electoral charade is to legitimize the break up
of the country and the occupation by French and UN forces, thus preventing the
Malian people from ever having a claim over their own lands and resources.
As a consequence, the country will be partitioned and Mali will become
the new Somalia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[1]</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> <a href="http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/monde/20130607.OBS2446/mali-les-secrets-d-une-guerre-eclair.html">http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/monde/20130607.OBS2446/mali-les-secrets-d-une-guerre-eclair.html</a><o:p></o:p></span><u1:p></u1:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
<u1:p></u1:p>
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Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-75193849314814540922013-07-19T20:20:00.001-07:002013-07-19T20:20:59.509-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br /></div>
Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-48579111335692288062013-05-31T06:48:00.002-07:002013-05-31T06:48:27.656-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="message content" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_1980" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; position: relative;">
<div aria-label="Message Body" class="msg-body inner undoreset" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2084" role="main" style="margin: 25px 24px 22px 23px; overflow-x: auto; overflow-y: hidden; word-wrap: break-word;">
<div id="yiv7768970947">
<div id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2083">
<div id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2082" style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;">
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2081">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 27.1875px;"><b>article published in Global Research.</b></span></span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2081">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 27.1875px;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2081" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<b id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2080"><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2079" style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 27.200000762939453px;">Turkish Police find Chemical Weapons in the possession of Al Nosra terrorists heading for Syria</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;">.</span></b></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2157" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<em><b><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 16pt; font-style: normal; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;">By </span></b></em><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2156" style="color: #444444; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px;">Gearóid O Colmáin</span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2159" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2158" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;">According to a report in Turkey’s state media agency Zaman, agents from the Turkish General Directorate of Security (<i>Emniyet Genel Müdürlüğü) </i>seized 2 kg of sarin gas in the city of Adana in the early hours of yesterday morning. The chemical weapons were in the possession of Al Nosra terrorists believed to have been heading for Syria.</span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2164" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2163" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;">Sarin gas is a colourless, odorless substance which is extremely difficult to detect. The gas is banned under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.</span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947msonormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2165" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2166" style="font-size: 16pt;">The EGM identified 12 members of the AL Nosra terrorist cell and also ceased fire arms and digital equipment. This is the second major official confirmation of the use of chemical weapons by Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria after UN inspector Carla Del Ponte’s recent statement confirming the use of chemical weapons by the Western-backed terrorists in Syria.</span><span style="color: #454545; font-size: 9pt;"></span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;"> </span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947msonormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The Turkish police are currently conducting further investigations into the operations of Al-Qaeda linked groups in Turkey.[1]</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 14.5pt;"></span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947msonormal" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #454545; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;">This further confirmation that the Syrian ‘rebels’ are using chemical weapons while also using Turkey as a base of terrorist operations against Syria, could cause further domestic problems for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom Turkish opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has called the ‘chief of the terrorists’.[2]</span><b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span></b></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;"> </span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;"> </span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;">The Syrian National Coalition abroad has persisted in accusing the Syrian government of using chemical weapons. The Syrian National Coalition Head of Media Khaled Saleh told Al Jazeera on May 26th that Turkish authorities were certain about the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government. </span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;">Saleh also claimed that he was in contact with several ‘brigades’ fighting in Syria. Perhaps, Mr. Saleh should be advised to consult the Turkish police now that one of his ‘brigades’ has been arrested in possession of chemical weapons.[3]</span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;">Unsurprisingly, this Turkish report failed to make international headlines. From the beginning of the Syrian war, the international press agencies have attempted to portray the Al-Qaeda invasion of Syria as a ‘popular revolution’, which started out as a ‘peaceful protest’ against a ‘brutal regime’. The fact that there was never a modicum of evidence to support such claims has not hindered the avalanche of vituperation and demonization of Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad and the Syrian Arab Republic.</span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;">France’s daily <i>Le Monde</i> published an ‘exclusive’ report on the 27<sup>th</sup>of May 2013 which claimed to have ‘proof’ that the Syrian government was using chemical weapons ‘against its own people’. However, the report simply relied on statements by ‘activists’ and ‘rebels’, who most serious commentators have described as unreliable sources of information.</span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;"> <i>Le Monde’s</i> report came just in time as the French government was pushing the European Union to lift the embargo on arms to the terrorists in Syria. The confirmation by previous articles in <i>Le Monde</i>that the opposition in Syria is in fact Al Qaeda [4],</span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;">together with the reluctance of EU partners Germany, Austria, and other countries to openly back the terrorists, has isolated Paris and London, exposing the British and French governments as state sponsors of terrorism.</span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;">In January 2013, Russian television station RT published leaked documents from British corporation Britam Defense, which revealed a plan by Qatar to deliver chemical weapons to Homs in Syria, with the aid of Britam Defense. The British company was to provide Ukrainian personnel to act as Russian military advisors in order to implicate the Russian government in the crime. The email suggested that the Qataris were providing ‘enormous’ amounts of money for the plan and that it was approved by Washington.</span> <span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">[5]</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;"></span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;">The Japhat Al-Nosra terrorist organization has not hidden its desire to gas the Alawite minority in Syria. A video was posted on U Tube on December 4<sup>th</sup> 2012 showing terrorists testing chemical weapons on rabbits, while vowing to exterminate Alawite Syrians in a similar fashion.[6]</span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;">Iran’s Press TV also published a report which showed terrorists using chemical weapons.[7]</span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2171" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2170" style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.799999237060547px;">As the Western-backed terrorists lose ground to government forces in Syria, the likelihood of further massacres committed by the terrorists and blamed on the Syrian government grows. However, as more and more reports contradict the official media narrative on the Syrian war, the voices of truth are acquiring critical mass, threatening to bring down once and for all NATO’s oppressive media empire.</span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947msonormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2167" style="font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2169" style="font-size: 14pt;">[1] <a href="http://www.zaman.com.tr/gundem_adanada-el-kaide-operasyonu-12-gozalti_2094730.html" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2168" rel="nofollow" style="color: #2862c5; outline: 0px;" target="_blank">http://www.zaman.com.tr/gundem_adanada-el-kaide-operasyonu-12-gozalti_2094730.html</a></span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2174" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2173" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">[2]<a href="http://www.todayszaman.com/blogNewsDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=316623&columnistId=142" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2172" rel="nofollow" style="color: #2862c5; outline: 0px;" target="_blank">http://www.todayszaman.com/blogNewsDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=316623&columnistId=142</a></span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2184" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2186" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">[3] <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2013/05/27/armes-chimiques-en-syrie-le-debat-escamote_3417923_3210.html" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2185" rel="nofollow" style="color: #2862c5; outline: 0px;" target="_blank">http://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2013/05/27/armes-chimiques-en-syrie-le-debat-escamote_3417923_3210.html</a></span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2183" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2182" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">[4]<a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/frances-media-admits-that-the-syrian-opposition-is-al-qaida-then-justifies-french-government-support-to-the-terrorists/5331289" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2181" rel="nofollow" style="color: #2862c5; outline: 0px;" target="_blank">http://www.globalresearch.ca/frances-media-admits-that-the-syrian-opposition-is-al-qaida-then-justifies-french-government-support-to-the-terrorists/5331289</a></span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2180" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2179" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">[5]<a href="http://libyanfreepress.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/8345/" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2178" rel="nofollow" style="color: #2862c5; outline: 0px;" target="_blank">http://libyanfreepress.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/8345/</a></span></div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">[6]<a href="http://libyanfreepress.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/8345/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #2862c5; outline: 0px;" target="_blank">http://libyanfreepress.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/8345/</a></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="yiv7768970947MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2177" style="font-size: 12pt;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2176" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">[7] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-6O-gApVrU" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1369840954891_2175" rel="nofollow" style="color: #2862c5; outline: 0px;" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-6O-gApVrU</a></span></div>
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Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-55265524900165435772013-05-04T06:24:00.002-07:002013-05-04T06:24:34.054-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Stealing
Syria’s Oil: The EU/Al-Qaeda oil consortium<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The decision of the European Union to lift the
embargo on Syrian government’s energy exports by importing oil from the ‘armed
opposition’ is another flagrant violation of international law. It violates the
UN General Assembly declaration of 1962 on Permanent Sovereignty over Natural
Resources and is yet another violation of the 1981 UN declaration on the
Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Internal Affairs of
States. But it is much more than a technical violation of the law. It marks the
decent of civilization into barbarism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">London and Paris, have more than Washington, been at
the forefront of aggression against Syria. In spite of the fact that it has now
been confirmed by most media sources that the Syrian ‘opposition’ is Al-Qaeda,
London and Paris persist in their insane
drive to arm the terrorists, using the spurious argument that if they don’t arm
the ‘moderates’ the ‘extremists’ will take over the country. However, in the
words of the <i>New York Times</i>, ‘nowhere
in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of’. [1]
The fact that the Syrian ‘rebels’ are in fact Al- Qaeda has even been admitted by the war-mongering French
daily <i>Le Monde</i>.[2]So, Paris and London are pushing for further arming of
Al-Qaeda and the legalization of oil trading with the jihadi terrorists. In
plain language this means that the loose, terrorist network known to the world
as Al-Qaeda will soon become one of the EU’s partners in the oil business. A
new absurd chapter in the Era of Terror is about to be enacted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">International
law and its violators.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The 1962 UN Resolution 1803 on the Permanent
Sovereignty Over Natural Resources states:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt; line-height: 115%;">‘Violation of the rights
of peoples and nations to sovereignty over their natural wealth and resources
is contrary to the spirit and principles of the Charter of the United Nations
and hinders the development of international co-operation and the maintenance
of peace’[3]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Japhat Al-Nostra and other
Al-Qaeda affiliated groups do not in any way represent the Syrian people, nor
do they constitute a sovereign state according to the categories of
international law. The ‘armed
opposition’ IS Al-Qaeda. Therefore, the European Union’s decision to officially
buy oil from terrorist gangs currently occupying territories in the Syrian Arab
Republic constitutes a heinous crime and makes a further mockery of the basic
principles governing the relations between states. </span> <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The 1981 UN resolution on the Inadmissibility of
Intervention and Interference in the Internal Affairs of States explicitly condemns:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘the
increasing threat to international peace and security owing to frequent
recourse to the threat or use of force, aggression ,intimidation, military
intervention and occupation, escalation of military presence and all other
forms of intervention or interference, direct or indirect, overt or covert,
threatening the sovereignty and political independence of other States, with
the aim of overthrowing their Governments’,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The declaration goes on to categorically condemn
the deployment of ‘armed bands’ and ‘mercenaries’ by states for the use of
overthrowing the governments of other sovereign states:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘Conscious
of the fact that such policies endanger the political independence of States,
freedom of peoples and permanent sovereignty over their natural resources,
adversely affecting thereby the maintenance of international peace and
security,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Conscious
also of the imperative need for any threat of aggression, any recruitment, any
use of armed bands, in particular mercenaries, against sovereign States to be
completely ended, so as to enable the peoples of all States to determine their
own political, economic and social systems without external interference or
control’ </span></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">[4]<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Western governments, who for many years have
been openly and shamelessly violating all known and agreed principles of
international law, arming terrorist gangs who murder and maim civilians, funding
common criminals who traffic drugs and recruit child-soldiers, have now
descended to a new low by purchasing oil and gas from these same terrorist
gangs, natural resources which are legally the property of the Syrian Arab
Republic and its citizens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">EU
governments colluding with terrorists</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Europe’s descent into absolute moral turpitude
and lawlessness is further reflected in the fact that EU authorities are doing
nothing to prevent brainwashed Muslim youths from traveling to Syria in order
to fight NATO’s war. Yet, the officials of EU states readily admit that hundreds
if not thousands of jihadis from Britain, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Belgium, the
Netherlands and other states are now joining the ranks of the so-called ‘Syrian
rebels’. But they also admit that their only
concern is that these terrorists might be a threat to European security if they
ever return. The fact that these terrorists are putting bombs in busy market
squares; cars; universities; schools; hospitals and mosques throughout Syria,
and that US State Department’s own reports confirm this, doesn’t seem to bother
the EU’s governments. [5]Their only concern is that they might eventually bite
the hand that feeds.</span> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The EU ‘anti-terror’
chief Gilles de Kerchove tells the BBC:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">"Not
all of them are radical when they leave, but most likely many of them will be radicalized
there, will be trained <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">"And
as we've seen this might lead to a serious threat when they get back."[6]</span>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
We know from Israeli intelligence
sources that most of the terrorists are being trained in US/NATO military bases
in Turkey and Jordon.[7]<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
So, why doesn’t the EU’s ‘anti-terror’
chief seem to know about this? This is the man responsible for protecting
Europe from terrorism? As I reported
before, France’s ‘anti-terror’ magistrate actually admitted on French state
radio in January 11<sup>th</sup> that the French government was on the same
side as Al-Qaeda in Syria:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">“</span><i><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; font-size: 11.5pt;">There are many young jihadists who have gone to the Turkish
border in order to enter Syria to fight Bachar’s regime, but the only
difference is that there France is not the enemy. Therefore we don’t look on
that in the same way. To see young men who are at the moment fighting Bachar
Al-Assad, they will be perhaps dangerous in the future but for the moment they
are fighting Bachar Al-Assad and France is on their side; they will not attack
us’’</span></i><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">.[8]</span> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">The
cynical double standard which states that all territories outside the EU are
barbaric and therefore outside the realm of international law has now become a
policy that goes unnoticed by Europe’s brainwashed masses. Euro-Atlantic powers are not only behaving
like criminals but are now openly displaying their criminality. One should also note that the French
government has now decided to call the Syrian president by his first name.
Calling a state official by his first name is a sign of deep disrespect in
French etiquette. Since the Sarkozy regime, French diplomacy has been dragged
through the mud, with France’s diplomatic corps now behaving like a cross
between spoilt brats and fascist thugs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: #333333;">Syria’s Oil Geopolitics<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">The quest
for sources of cheap energy is one of the geopolitical contexts driving the war
in Syria. Christof Lehmann has written that the discovery of the Iranian Pars
gas field in 2007 and Teheran’s plan to pipe the gas to the Eastern
Mediterranean by constructing a pipeline through Iraq and Syria holds the
potential of turning Iran into a global economic power, giving Teheran enormous
leverage over the EU’s Middle East policy. This development would pose a threat
to the Zionist entity. It would pose an existential threat to the despotic
emirates of the Gulf, who depend on the power of the petro-dollar for their
survival.[9]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">That is one
of the reasons why NATO and the Gulf Cooperation Council are using Al-Qaeda
terrorists to break the Shite-led alliance of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon’s
Hezbollah. As Italian geographer Manlio Dinucci has reported, contrary to received
opinion, Syria actually has massive energy reserves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">Dinucci
writes:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">‘</span><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #362f2d;">The U.S. / NATO strategy focuses on
helping rebels to seize the oil fields with a twofold purpose: to deprive the
Syrian state of revenue from exports, already strongly decreased as a result of
the EU embargo, and to ensure that the largest deposits pass in the future,
through the “rebels” under the control of the big Western oil companies.</span>
[10]<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
The first implementation of the
‘humanitarian intervention’ ideology was during the NATO<span class="MsoHyperlink"> bombing of Serbia in 1999. Since then, the truncated entity
called Kosovo has become Europe’s number one criminal state, run by a convicted
organ and drug trafficking mass murderer called Hacim Al Thaci, a protégé of Brussels and Washington. This is the kind
of narco-mafia anti-state NATO has installed in Libya since the Blitzkrieg
against that country in 2011 and it is the type of criminal regime that will
rule over Syrians if NATO succeeds in bombing that country. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink"> One can read hundreds of articles in the
mainstream press about the criminality of the Kosovar regime and articles
describing the chaos in post-Gaddafi Libya have not been rare. But the same
media outlets will systematically ignore the fact that they were the ones
cheering on the CIA’s Kossovo Liberation Army during the destruction of
Yugoslavia. The same prestitutes are now pushing for more arming of the
terrorists in Syria and for military intervention by NATO. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink"><b>The closing of the European mind<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink">The
pontificators of European integration and Europe’s role in the world like to pepper
their speeches with pompous references to the ‘rule of law’ and the
universality of ‘European values’. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink">This specious
rhetoric is unceasingly drummed into European students throughout our
universities and institutions of higher learning and it is repeated ad nauseum
by the mass media. The people now using Al-Qaeda terrorism to further their
interests in the Middle East teach courses in prestigious European universities
on ‘international relations’. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink">It is no
wonder ordinary people are incapable of seeing and understanding what is
happening before their very eyes. The sheer scale and complexity of the global
institutional networks built upon an empire of lies, self-righteousness and
deceit is simply too overwhelming for the unschooled intellect to comprehend.
Something in our order-seeking minds rejects reality when its horror surpasses
our horizons of tolerance and intelligibility. As a result, the mind recoils,
filters out the real, preferring instead to see in our masters the expression
of complex, contradictory and arcane policies, whose moral content is consigned
to the studies of ‘experts’ and ‘specialists’, who are themselves the products
and propagandists of the same corrupt institutions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink">There are now
so many academic institutions, conferences; foundations; think tanks; policy
institutes and university courses proclaiming the virtues of ‘humanitarian
intervention’ that it has acquired the status of a dogma. The repetition and
reproduction of this dogma by the scholastics of neo-liberal academia has
turned that which critical reason would normally scoff at into an apriori principle
of ‘global governance’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink">In chapter 22
of his seminal work on international law De Juri Belli ac Pacis, (On the Law of
War and Peace), the great 17<sup>th</sup> century Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius
wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i>‘Some wars were founded upon real motives and others only
upon colorful pretexts. This distinction was first noticed by Polybius, who
calls the pretexts,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="" name="Gr01"></a>profaseis<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and the real causes,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>aitias. Thus Alexander made war upon
Darius, under the pretense of avenging the former wrongs done by the Persians
to the Greeks. But the real motive of that bold and enterprising hero was the
easy acquisition of wealth and dominion, which the expeditions of Xenophon and
Agesilaus had opened to his view.’ </i>[11]
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
Little has
changed since the days of Alexander the Great. Wars are still fought for
pillage and plunder and the furtherance of empire. Polybius’s vocabulary of ‘<i>profaseis</i>’ and ‘<i>aitias</i>’ will be useful here. Since the start of the Syrian
nightmare in 2011, the ‘<i>profaseis</i>’ propagated
by corporate media agencies calling for military intervention in Syria has been
the desire to ‘protect civilians’ from a ‘brutal regime’. Only the naïve and ignorant could now defend
such nonsense as the same media agencies have finally admitted that the
‘opposition’ is in fact Al-Qaeda, a fact the alternative media have been
pointing out since the beginning of the violence in Deraa in March 2011. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
NATO’s ‘<i>aitias</i>’ in this conflict is clear: break
up and destroy an independent sovereign state; rob and pillage all of its
resources; rape and terrorize its citizens into submission by unleashing
drugged and brain-washed death squads on the population; constantly blame all
of this on the ‘regime’, then finish the country off with an intensive aerial
bombing campaign before installing a crime syndicate to run the country.
Finally, call that holocaust freedom. Call that holocaust democracy. It’s a
tried and trusted formula which is now being deployed all over the world in
NATO’s megalomaniacal drive for global supremacy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
Grotius
again:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
‘<i>Others make -use of pretexts, which though
plausible at first sight, will not bear the examination and test of moral
rectitude, and, when stripped of their disguise, such pretexts will be found
fraught with injustice. In such hostilities, says Livy, it is not a trial of
right, but some object of secret and unruly ambition, which acts as the chief
spring. Most powers, it is said by Plutarch, employ the relative situations of
peace and war, as a current specie, for the purchase of whatever they deem
expedient.’</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
In the war-ravaged
17<sup>th</sup> century Europe of Hugo Grotius, to establish the distinction
between <i>profaseis</i> and <i>aitias</i> or the pretexts and real reasons
for war was not considered heretical in the domain of rigorous juridical
discourse. Today, those who make such distinctions are dismissed as ‘paranoid
conspiracy theorists’. In an interview
entitled <i><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 10pt;">LA PENSÉE
CRITIQUE COMME DISSOLVANT DE LA DOXA</span></i><b><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">,</span></b><b><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;"> </span></b><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">(Critical Thought as a solvent of Doxa)</span><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">French sociologist Loic Wacquant argues that ‘never
before have false thought and false science been so prolix and ubiquitous.’[12]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">In this age of technological lawlessness, the
basic precepts of international and domestic law have been dismantled. With the
promulgation of the Patriot Act and now the National Defense Authorization Act,
the United States has regressed to the kind of juridical tyranny that preceded
the drafting of the Petition of Right in the England of 1628, a document denouncing
imprisonment without trial, torture and martial law and providing the legal and
moral groundwork for the English Revolution of 1641.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b>Conclusion<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink">It behooves
us all to reflect upon the current war in the Levant. What we are witnessing is the destruction of
the Westphalian state system and a return to the kind of chaos of the 17<sup>th</sup>
century’s Thirty Years War, except this time it is festering on the borders of
Europe where the principle of bellum se ipsum alet, war will feed itself, is
being acted out by private military corporations, drug gangs, terrorist
networks and international crime syndicates linked directly and indirectly to
the ideological state apparatuses of the Atlantic powers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink">And so, the
KLA have been training the ‘Syrian Free Army’, while Libya’s Islamic Fighting
Group has also joined the ‘holy war’ in Syria. Like the Thirty Years War, the
armed gangs and mercenaries are funding themselves by pillaging the local
economies and selling their booty as contraband. Whole factories in Syria have
been dismantled and stolen by mercenaries in the service of Turkey and Qatar,
while the drug trade is now booming like never before. When one country is
destroyed and reduced to despotic fiefdoms and emirates, Western corporations
move in with their private military companies and proceed to pillage the
country’s resources, unhindered by the rules and regulations of the Sovereign
State. The terrorist hordes then move on to the next country on NATO’s hit
list. This is NATO’s strategy of chaos and it is spreading all over the
Southern Hemisphere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink">Given the
criminality of Western oil companies in the past, it is perhaps not entirely
surprising that they would now, in the form of the EU, be openly buying oil
from terrorist organizations. What is surprising, however, is the morbid
insouciance of Europe’s populations. How
could there be so many ‘respectable’ people in our media and academic
institutions prepared to collaborate with these mobsters? Why have there been
few if any significant demonstrations against NATO? How is it possible that the
powers that be should be allowed to get away with such unmitigated criminality?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink">The Roman
poet Horace wrote- neglecta solent incendia sumere vires -a neglected fire
always gathers in strength. Since the destruction of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan by the
Western-backed Mujahedeen terrorists in the 1979, sovereign states have fallen
prey to mercenaries and terrorist gangs backed by Western imperialism, while
civil liberties have been curtailed in America and Europe in the name of the
‘War on Terrorism’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink">The fire has
since spread to the former Yugoslavia; Rwanda; </span><em><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #444444;">Côte d'Ivoire;
Sudan; Somalia; Iraq; DRC; Chechnya, </span></em><span class="MsoHyperlink">Libya
and now Syria. If people don’t wake up and mobilize against the criminals
planning these wars, the flames of destruction will eventually come home in the
form of martial law, and a fascist, panopticon police state which will be deemed
necessary during the prosecution of a Third World War against Iran, Russia and
China. If this fire of terrorism is not put out in Syria, it will continue into
the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Russian Federation and Eastern China until all
possible resistance to NATO’s drive for ‘full spectrum dominance’ is eliminated
and a tyrannical, corporate hyper-state rules over the planet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink">World wars
have happened in the past and given the scelerate Will-to-Power of our current
rulers, there is no reason to believe that a world war will not happen again. Many
in the West, inured to televised violence and indifferent to distant wars, have
a tendency to believe that politics is a domain that does not affect them. But
in the words of the French politician Charles de Montalambert ‘</span><i>Vous avez beau ne pas vous occuper de politique, la politique
s'occupe de vous tout de même.’</i><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[It is easy for you not to be concerned about
politics, but politics, however, is concerned about you]<i> </i>In the light of
current events the statement merits reflection<i>.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
[1]<a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/time-to-end-western-support-for-terrorists-in-syria-opposition-is-entirely-run-by-al-qaeda/5333204">http://www.globalresearch.ca/time-to-end-western-support-for-terrorists-in-syria-opposition-is-entirely-run-by-al-qaeda/5333204</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">[2]</span> <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/frances-media-admits-that-the-syrian-opposition-is-al-qaida-then-justifies-french-government-support-to-the-terrorists/5331289">http://www.globalresearch.ca/frances-media-admits-that-the-syrian-opposition-is-al-qaida-then-justifies-french-government-support-to-the-terrorists/5331289</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">[3]</span> <a href="http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/9D85892AC6D7287E8525636800596092">http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/9D85892AC6D7287E8525636800596092</a><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">[4]</span><a href="http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/36/a36r103.htm">http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/36/a36r103.htm</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">[5]</span> <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/12/201759.htm">http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/12/201759.htm</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">[6]</span>
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22275456">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22275456</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
[7] <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-nato-s-next-humanitarian-war/?print=1">http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-nato-s-next-humanitarian-war/?print=1</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="MsoHyperlink">[8]</span> <a href="http://www.franceinter.fr/emission-le-79-marc-trevidic-et-jean-pierre-filiu" target="_blank"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #1b1464; padding: 0in;">http://www.franceinter.fr/emission-le-79-marc-trevidic-et-jean-pierre-filiu</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">[9] </span><a href="http://nsnbc.me/2012/12/28/the-dynamics-of-the-crisis-in-syria-conflict-versus-conflict-resolution-part-5/">http://nsnbc.me/2012/12/28/the-dynamics-of-the-crisis-in-syria-conflict-versus-conflict-resolution-part-5/</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
[10]<a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/oil-and-pipeline-geopolitics-the-us-nato-race-for-syrias-black-gold/5330216">http://www.globalresearch.ca/oil-and-pipeline-geopolitics-the-us-nato-race-for-syrias-black-gold/5330216</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #333333;">[11] </span><a href="http://www.constitution.org/gro/djbp_222.htm">http://www.constitution.org/gro/djbp_222.htm</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[12][</span><a href="http://www.homme-moderne.org/societe/socio/wacquant/pensecri.html">http://www.homme-moderne.org/societe/socio/wacquant/pensecri.html</a><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
Article first published on Global Research and Dissident Voice.</div>
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Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-107455524067835812012-08-28T13:46:00.003-07:002012-08-28T14:47:53.051-07:00Amnesty International: A criminal organisation in the service of Western Imperialism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last year the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation launched a brutal war of aggression on Libya killing thousands of civilians and replacing an independent, responsible government with gangs of hooligans, Wahabite terrorists and outright criminals. What was once Africa's richest and most successful state was bombed into oblivion, its impressive infrastructure destroyed, its thousands of people's committees and people's assemblies closed.<br />
<br />
Universities, schools, and hospitals were bombed by French, British and American jets.
Thousands of Libyans were blown to bits. Libya's revolutionary leader, Muammar Al Gaffafi, was presented to the ignorant readers of the Western press as a brutal dictator, in spite of the fact that he had held no official position in Libya since the mid 1970s.<br />
<br />
Every crime committed by the NATO "rebels" was falsely attributed to Muammar Al Gaddafi and the legitimate Libyan government; a government that had previously been praised by the UN Human Rights Council for its humane treatment and rehabilitation of Islamist terrorists was now being systematically demonised by the Western corporate press with the Qatari monarchy's mouthpiece Al Jazeera playing a leading role in the disinformation war.<br />
<br />
<br />
NATO's murderous 7 month Blitzkrieg on Libya was presented to the world as a "humanitarian intervention" which, they claimed, was intended to save civilians from a brutal crackdown by "Gaddafi's African mercenaries". In reality, the Libyan government had been attacked by gangs of armed mercenaries in the service of NATO.<br />
<br />
No evidence of any crimes attributed to Gaddafi and the Libyan government were ever proven. Most, if not all, of the crimes committed in NATO's "humanitarian war'' were, in fact, committed by NATO's proxy terrorists. The "humanitarian war" on Libya would never have been possible were it not for the overwhelming sophistication and callous fanaticism of pseudo humanitarian organisations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, inter alia.
Last year, as the humanitarian bombs rained down on Tripoli and other Libyan cities blowing innocent men, women and children to bits, I called Amnesty International the public relations whores of fascism. One year on, my assessment of Amnesty International has not changed.<br />
<br />
<br />
Since the destruction of the Libyan state, Amnesty International have been at the forefront of the war on the people of Syria spearheaded by NATO's corporate media agencies. Amnesty International have only published reports and claims made by so-called Syrian oppositionists and human rights activists, many of whom have been shown over and over again to be consummate liars.<br />
<br />
In spite of the lack of evidence to support the accusations of the so-called Syrian opposition against the Assad regime, Amnesty has published their claims as though they were the incontrovertible truth. This has helped create a consensus in the West which has resulted in the white-washing of Syrian rebel crimes and the demonisation of the Syrian government in a concerted effort to drum up support for a war of aggression on a sovereign state with a view to replacing the anti-imperialist regime of that state with a weak government under the control of Washington, London and Paris.<br />
<br />
Without the active role of Amnesty International such an ambitious operation would not be possible.
In a panel discussion in Weseley College in 2012 Amnesty International director scolded former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright for hesitating to bomb Syria.<br />
<br />
""Now as the head of Amnesty International-USA, one point of great frustration and consternation for human rights organizations and civil society organizations over the last eight or nine months has been the failure of the UN Security Council to address, in any way, the deaths of now five thousand civilians in Syria at the hands of President Assad and his military.<br />
<br />
<br />
Last spring the Security Council managed to forge a majority for forceful action in Libya and it was initially very controversial, [causing] many misgivings among key Security Council members. But Gaddafi fell, there's been a transition there and I think one would have thought those misgivings would have died down. And yet we've seen just a continued impasse over Syria and a real, almost return to cold war days and paralysis in the Security Council. How do you explain that and what do you think is the missing ingredient to break that logjam and get the Security Council to live up to its responsibilities on Syria?"<br />
<br />
<br />
Muammar Gaddafi was sodomised with a knife before being murdered by armed gangs backed by NATO. This was a crime against humanity, according to international human rights law. Here is the head of Amnesty International PRAISING such action. Such are the fascist thugs running Amnesty International. But the Geneva Convention, the Nuremberg Principals and many other human rights laws still exist. The day will come when war criminals such as Suzanne Nossel will be arraigned before an international criminal court and prosecuted for complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity. It behoves the thirty governments-representing half the population of the earth, who gathered in Teheran a couple of weeks ago, in an attempt to find a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis- it behooves these nations to bring criminals such as Suzanne Nossel and her ilk before an accountable international criminal court so that the world may be spared the unspeakable horrors of the fascism of our time, this insidiously evil policy called "humanitarian intervention".</div>
Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-14080647514414167122012-03-10T11:48:00.007-08:002012-03-10T13:00:15.306-08:00Syrie - Un chercheur belge censuré par le lobby du Conseil national syrien (La Nouvelle République, 10 mars 2012)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRuFXzosNuQ3jIc75zcwirtBGgd9h38UHQD4UWgU97s4gxmB-aGYj9nd1n2-_QZNsGghqlUrIGWW3KBirPPUpVB-Red9muxc6az4y42Am1J_lX01Xl5VnnhcyvNQopl0xo1mOv2A/s1600/pierre+piccinin.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 299px; height: 198px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRuFXzosNuQ3jIc75zcwirtBGgd9h38UHQD4UWgU97s4gxmB-aGYj9nd1n2-_QZNsGghqlUrIGWW3KBirPPUpVB-Red9muxc6az4y42Am1J_lX01Xl5VnnhcyvNQopl0xo1mOv2A/s320/pierre+piccinin.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718359898607329202" /></a><br />[photo : Pierre Piccinin, avec Fadwa Suleiman, porte-parole des rebelles, dans une cache à Homs - décembre 2011]<br /><br /><br />SOURCE http://www.pierrepiccinin.eu/<br /><br /><br />Pierre Piccinin a été l’un des tout premiers observateurs étrangers à entrer en Syrie. Par son travail de terrain, depuis le début des événements, il propose une vision très à contre-courant, véritable source d’information alternative face aux médias français. Or, le politologue belge vient d’être radié du Cercle des Chercheurs sur le Moyen-Orient (CCMO).<br /> <br />Les motifs invoqués par le service de communication du CCMO sont graves ; nous l’avons contacté ; voici la réponse qui nous a été faite :<br /> <br />« En décembre dernier, le bureau du CCMO a lancé une procédure disciplinaire à l'encontre de Monsieur Piccinin, suite à la polémique créée par nombre de ses papiers. Monsieur Piccinin a été invité, à trois reprises, à se présenter devant le bureau pour défendre ses travaux. N'ayant jamais donné suite à nos convocations, menaçant le CCMO d'un recours en justice et ayant tenu des propos injurieux à l'égard de l'association, le Conseil d'administration du CCMO a voté son exclusion à la majorité. »<br /> <br />Pierre Piccinin évoque quant à lui d’autres motivations, à l’origine de sa radiation : entre autres, l’influence de deux membres du Conseil national syrien (CNS), aussi membres d’honneur du CCMO. Ces derniers n’auraient que peu apprécié le franc-parler de Pierre Piccinin sur la réalité du terrain en Syrie.<br /> <br />Un cas de censure, donc…<br /> <br />Aucun média français n’en parlera, ni le Canard enchaîné, ni non plus Médiapart, que nous avons pourtant sollicités.<br /> <br />Dans un entretien accordé en exclusivité pour La Nouvelle République, Pierre Piccinin revient sur un épisode qui remet en cause quelques paradigmes d’universitaires aux ordres du politiquement correct, et questionne en profondeur le travail de la presse française dans le dossier syrien.<br /> <br /> <br /><br />propos recueillis par Jonathan MOADAB<br /> <br /> <br />Pierre Piccinin, qu'est-ce que c’est, le CCMO, exactement ? Et qu'attendiez-vous d'un tel cercle de chercheurs ?<br /> <br />Le Cercle des Chercheurs sur le Moyen-Orient a été mis sur pied à l’initiative de son président, Sébastien Boussois, jeune docteur en sciences politiques. Son but était de constituer un outil performant, pour, dans un premier temps, permettre d’aider les jeunes chercheurs à trouver leur marques ; mais, à terme, le but était de créer un think tank sur le monde arabe, un centre de recherche indépendant et sans tabou. C’est du moins ainsi qu’il m’avait été présenté.<br /> <br />Ces deux aspects m’intéressaient : l’idéal de la jeunesse, avec l’espoir d’y trouver un franc-parler et une réelle indépendance, et cette ambition d’en faire « le » think tank sur le Moyen-Orient, comme me l’avait confié son président. Donc, lorsque l’on m’a proposé d’y adhérer, puis demandé d’entrer dans le conseil d’administration, j’ai répondu présent.<br /> <br />Je constate, hélas, que, en matière de tabou et d’indépendance, ma crainte s’est rapidement confirmée : la plupart des membres du CCMO, à commencer par le bureau directeur, se comportent en arrivistes rompus aux compromissions et utilisent cette structure pour promouvoir leur carrière. C’est de bonne guerre : la plupart des jeunes membres de ce cercle ont une carrière à faire et doivent donner des gages; mais c’est dommage. Ce qui a d’ailleurs entraîné la démission de plusieurs chercheurs déjà, assez déçus par cette attitude.<br /> <br />Et, en matière de compétence, de think tank, le CCMO, à peine créé, rejoint le troupeau des organisations de ce genre qui, comme me le disait tout récemment Moncef Marzouki, n’ont jamais rien compris au monde arabe et n’y comprendront jamais rien, car elles s’enferment dans des grilles de lecture préfabriquées par l’Occident, politiquement correctes surtout, et refusent toute remise en question.<br /> <br />Le CCMO est une structure assez récente. Elle n’est pas très connue et, en fin de compte, ma radiation par ce groupe n’a en soi que peu d’importance. Ce qui est proprement effarant, par contre, c’est la manière dont les choses se sont passées et, surtout, les motivations des membres administrateurs de ce cercle.<br /><br /><br />Quelles sont ces motivations et quel est le conflit qui vous oppose au CCMO (et à quels membres) ?<br /> <br />Personnellement, je n’ai jamais eu de conflit avec le CCMO, jusqu’à ce que je me rende une première fois en Syrie, en juillet 2011, et que je témoigne de la réalité du terrain : une opposition minoritaire, fragmentée, aux objectifs différents, parfois violente et armée ; et un pays pas du tout à feu et à sang, généralement très calme, dans les grandes villes notamment, où une large partie de la population soutient le gouvernement, fût-ce par défaut.<br /> <br />J’ai aussi rapporté le fait que j’avais pu me déplacer tout à fait librement et me rendre partout où je l’avais voulu.<br /> <br />C’est alors que le vice-président du CCMO, Jean-Baptiste Beauchard, jeune doctorant, attaché à l’Institut de recherche stratégique de l'École militaire (ceci permettant peut-être de comprendre cela, en France particulièrement), s’est déchaîné à mon encontre, m’accusant à mi-mots d’être un suppôt du régime. Sa réaction, épidermique, est due –je suppose- aux faits que, d’une part, mes observations contredisaient tout ce que lui et son père, le professeur Jacques Beauchard, professeur émérite de l'Université Paris XII, écrivaient et racontaient sur la Syrie, et, d’autre part, que, moi, je l’ai fait : j’y étais ; pas eux (c’est triste à dire, mais le fait que j’ai couvert tous les terrains du « Printemps arabe », exception faite du Bahreïn, a suscité assez bien de jalousie de la part de plusieurs collègues).<br /> <br />Les articles que j’ai publiés à la suite de mes séjours en Syrie on continué de m’attirer des inimitiés, et celle, notamment, du journaliste belge Baudouin Loos, qui fait la pluie et le beau temps au quotidien Le Soir, concernant tout ce qui a trait au Moyen-Orient, et a choisi une ligne éditoriale des plus simplistes concernant la Syrie. Au CCMO, on m’a expliqué que Baudouin Loos avait menacé de mettre un terme à la collaboration entre le CCMO et Le Soir, dans le cadre de l’organisation d’une conférence, vu que j’étais membre de ce cercle. On m’a fait comprendre que je devenais un problème et qu’il me fallait rentrer dans le rang ou quitter le cercle. A tout le moins me mettre un peu à l’écart du Conseil d’Administration, ce que j’ai accepté en donnant ma démission (et ce qui a ensuite été utilisé contre moi : on a justifié la procédure disciplinaire, notamment, au motif que je savais que mes écrits nuisaient au CCMO, puisque j’avais accepté de me mettre en retrait du CA - sic).<br /> <br />Ensuite, il y a eu les pressions de Salam Kawakibi, chercheur à l’université d’Amsterdam et sympathisant déclaré du Conseil national syrien. Je ne le connaissais pas et l’ai rencontré pour la première fois à Bruxelles, à l’Institut royal pour les Relations internationales (l’Institut Egmont), lors d’un séminaire : lorsque j’ai fait part de mon expérience en Syrie, il a éclaté, est devenu proprement odieux, et aucun débat scientifique n’a plus été possible ; l’esclandre a mis tous les participants mal à l’aise. J’ignorais qu’il était membre d’honneur du CCMO, qui m’en a informé, en m’apprenant aussi que Kawakibi avait menacé de démissionner du cercle si je n’en étais pas éjecté, imité en cela par Bassma Kodmani, directrice de l’Arab Reform Initiative et porte-parole du CNS en France, également membre d’honneur du CCMO.<br /> <br />Et, à ma connaissance, il y a encore eu la réaction d’un autre membre du bureau directeur du CCMO, Julien Salingue, doctorant à l’Université de Paris VIII. Pour moi, il est devenu le parfait exemple de cette bienpensance bobo : d’un côté, il s’insurge –et avec raison- contre les sionistes qui font déprogrammer un colloque sur l’apartheid israélien en Palestine, qu’il avait tenté d’organiser dans son université, et crie à l’atteinte à la liberté d’expression et de recherche ; et, d’un autre côté, cela ne le gêne absolument pas de m’exclure et de me censurer sur le dossier Syrien. Salingue m’a écrit pour justifier sa position : il trouve intolérable qu’un de mes articles sur la Syrie ait été reproduit sur le site pro-Assad InfoSyrie et estime que « cela donne à réfléchir »; mais qu’y puis-je et en quoi suis-je responsable ? Je n’ai fait que décrire ce que j’avais observé sur le terrain et tirer les conclusions qui s’imposaient. Si le Ministère de l’Information syrien reprend le papier, ce n’est pas de mon ressort.<br /> <br />Mais, des entretiens que j’ai eus au sein du CCMO, je retiens que ce sont surtout les menaces de Kawakibi et Kodmani qui auraient pesé dans la balance.<br /> <br />Je n’ai par ailleurs eu aucun contact avec les autres membres du CA, et je ne connais pas certains d’entre eux ; qui ne me connaissent pas non plus et avec lesquels je n’ai jamais eu l’occasion de débattre de mes observations en Syrie. Je suppose donc qu’ils ont gentiment voté mon exclusion pour, eux aussi, montrer patte blanche et ménager leurs arrières…<br /> <br />Le plus effarant, dans cette histoire, en effet, c’est qu’il n’y a jamais eu débat. Je n’ai même pas été entendu : le bureau m’a convoqué à trois reprises, mais chaque fois à une date où le président et le vice-président savaient fort bien que j’étais en Libye et en Tunisie (pour revoir Moncef Marzouki, après son élection), puis en Syrie et, enfin, au Yémen, à l’occasion des élections. Et, là, le bureau a décidé de m’exclure, tout d’un coup, ajoutant aux motifs précédemment mentionnés le fait que je refusais de me présenter pour m’expliquer, et ce alors que je leur avais annoncé que je serais à Paris début avril et que nous avions convenu de nous y rencontrer.<br /> <br />Ils ont été jusqu’à retirer du site du CCMO mes articles, qu’ils y avaient publiés après aval du comité de lecture pourtant. Je n’existe plus : mon nom a été martelé, effacé ; mes écrits sont censurés, c’est la mise à l’index.<br /> <br />Bref, concernant la Syrie, ils donnent les gages qu’on attend d’eux… Surtout dans la France sarkozienne, dont le gouvernement soutient les rebelles, y compris des mouvements salafistes pas très sympathiques et sûrement pas démocratiques. Car, en fin de compte, le CCMO, qui se voulait international, demeure très franco-français et, vu le climat de terreur qui règne dans les universités sur certains thèmes, on peut les comprendre…<br /> <br />Mais c’est en cela que cette affaire devient sérieuse, car symptomatique d’une réalité oppressante qui grève la recherche et empêche la bonne compréhension, en l’occurrence, du conflit syrien.<br /> <br /><br />Quelle est la « version officielle » ?<br /> <br />Elle ne diffère pas de ce que je viens de dire ; et c’est précisément ce qui est interpellant.<br /> <br />Le courrier que j’ai reçu me signifiant mon exclusion, à ma grande surprise (alors que je pensais rencontrer le bureau en avril, comme je l’ai dit), est très clair : « la polémique suscitée par vos écrits et le discrédit qu’ils jettent sur la renommée de notre cercle (…) sont constitutifs d’un motif grave en faveur de votre exclusion ».<br /> <br />Comme je le disais, il n’y a même pas débat ; on ne cherche même pas à savoir si mon travail de recherche est honorable ou non et si mes conclusions sont fondées ou non. Aucun débat scientifique. Je suis exclu parce que les observations de terrain que j’ai publiées ne correspondent pas à la pensée dominante et sont désapprouvées de facto ; et ils le disent sans s’en cacher.<br /> <br />Si j’avais menti et travesti les faits, dans je ne sais quel but, et que, au terme d’une controverse scientifique, j’eusse été confondu, je n’aurais rien à redire. Mais il ne s’agit pas de cela : les faits que j’ai rapportés sont bien établis et, d’ailleurs, mes adversaires refusent le débat pour cette raison ; non, je suis radié car mes observations dérangent ; la question de leur qualité et de la pertinence de mes conclusions ne se pose même pas !<br /> <br />J’ai été invité à participer à une conférence sur la situation en Syrie, à l’Université Libre de Bruxelles. A l’annonce de ma présence à la table, Baudouin Loos et Salam Kawakibi ont refusé d’y participer. Et Kawakibi a répondu aux organisateurs qu’il refusait de se confronter à « des théories négationnistes » (sic). Cela dit, ni l’un ni l’autre n’ont été sur le terrain. En outre, ils connaissent mes arguments et les éléments factuels que j’ai rassemblés lors de mes séjours d’observation en Syrie. Que pourraient-ils leur opposer ? Ils le savent et préfèrent donc éviter le débat. Il en a été de même de la part de Thomas Pierret, un chercheur d’Edimbourg qui m’avait attaqué dans la presse suite aux articles que j’avais publiés en juillet 2011, au retour de ma première incursion en Syrie : invité à confronter sa position avec la mienne à Paris, il a aussi refusé le débat.<br /> <br />C’est effrayant qu’on en soit là : on n’est même plus dans le « politiquement correct » ; on est passé à la « pensée unique ». On n’en est plus seulement à dire « ce qu’il faut penser » ; on en est venu à dire aussi « ce qu’il ne faut pas penser ».<br /> <br />Et, le plus grave à mon sens (car, des censeurs et des pressions, on en a toujours connu), c’est que tout cela ne semble plus déranger personne et que tout ce petit monde journalistique et universitaire, à quelques rares exceptions près, joue parfaitement le jeu et sait s’indigner quand c’est utile à la bonne conduite d’une carrière et se taire à d’autres occasions, voire, même, a appris à anticiper et à faire montre de sa soumission en s’attaquant d’emblée à ceux qui ne disent pas comme il faut.<br /> <br />Outre cela, le bureau me reproche également d’avoir formulé des « critiques, voire des insultes, à l’égard du CCMO ».<br /> <br />D’une part, répondant à un courrier qui m’avertissait d’une procédure disciplinaire à mon encontre, je ne m’adressais pas « au CCMO », mais aux seuls membres du Conseil d’Administration, et ce, de manière très informelle, puisque je connaissais personnellement certains d’entre eux. Mais, surtout, en matière « d’insultes », voici ce dont il s’agissait : j’ai comparé à celles de l’Inquisition les méthodes mises en œuvre à mon égard. C’est tout. Aujourd’hui le bureau me le reproche en m’expliquant, avec le plus grand sérieux du monde, que l’Inquisition est une institution qui a tué des milliers de personnes et qu’il est donc intolérable que j’aie osé commettre cette comparaison. Quant aux « critiques » : j’ai supplié le CA de ne pas faire du CCMO, jeune structure porteuse d’espoir, un club de carriéristes prêts à donner tous les gages qu’on lui demanderait.<br /><br /><br />Comment vos collègues réagissent-ils ?<br /> <br />Pour l’instant, personne n’est encore réellement au courant. Si votre article sort dans la presse, je suppose que ça jettera un froid. Mais, connaissant les milieux académiques, chacun viendra certainement me taper sur l’épaule dans mon bureau et me faire part de son indignation, mais aucun ne prendra la plume pour dénoncer la méthode et, en public, tous feront semblant de ne pas me connaître.<br /><br /><br />Votre point de vue sur la Syrie est bien isolé. Comment expliquez-vous cela ? A part le réseau Voltaire et vous-même, qui critique le regard des médias sur la Syrie ?<br /> <br />Il n’est pas si « isolé » que cela… Et il n’est pas nécessaire d’aller chercher le Réseau Voltaire (à propos duquel j’aurais quelques réserves à émettre) pour trouver des témoins du terrain syrien. Plusieurs chercheurs et journalistes se sont rendus sur place et on confirmé, de manière générale, le tableau que j’avais dressé en juillet 2011 déjà : Alain Gresh (Monde diplomatique), Gaëtan Vannay (RSR), François Janne d’Othée (Le Soir), Françoise Wallemaq (RTBF), Christophe Lamfalussy (La Libre Belgique), George Malbrunot (Le Figaro), etc.<br /> <br />Je ne crois pas qu’il y ait « complot » des médias contre le régime de Damas. Le problème, c’est que le régime a fermé les frontières à la presse dès le début des événements ; vieux réflexe stalinien propre au fonctionnement du baathisme syrien. Dès lors, il a livré les médias pieds et poings liés à l’Observatoire syrien des Droit de l’Homme, pour qui le champ était libre, leur source quasiment unique, qui travaille main dans la main avec les opposants, le CNS notamment. Et les médias ont promu cette vision artificielle du conflit : « un peuple uni contre une féroce dictature ».<br /> <br />Mais, en fin de compte, il n’a pas été très difficile, pour ceux qui le voulaient, d’entrer en Syrie et de constater la réalité des événements. C’est ce que j’ai fait. Et ce que beaucoup d’autres ont fait depuis, mais, le plus souvent, en passant par les canaux de l’opposition, de l’Armée syrienne libre, qui ne montre que ce qui lui est favorable (d’où le reportage complètement parti-pris de Manon Loizeau, par exemple), comme le gouvernement, de son côté, ne montre également que ce qui l’arrange. Il faut lire les presses russe et chinoise, qui donnent une version tout à fait différente de ce que l’on peut lire et entendre en Europe : leurs journalistes entrent en Syrie avec l’accord du régime et se font tout autant trimballer, mais par le gouvernement dans ce cas-là, qui ne leur montre que l’autre côté du conflit. J’ai eu l’opportunité –et c’est probablement ce qui fait l’originalité de mon travail ; et qui dérange mes détracteurs- de rencontrer les deux parties, à plusieurs reprises, dans l’objectif de produire un tableau complet et une analyse dès lors plus réaliste de ce qui se passe aujourd’hui en Syrie.<br /> <br />Le problème, pour la presse, c’est maintenant de se dédire : le conflit dure et dure ; et il devient évident que la vision manichéenne développée ne tient plus la route. En outre, les journalistes qui se succèdent sur le terrain se rendent bien compte qu’elle ne correspond pas à la réalité. Il va donc bien falloir que les rédactions revoient leur ligne en ce qui concerne la Syrie, car la distorsion entre ce qui se passe et ce qu’ils disent est devenue flagrante.<br /><br /><br /><br /> <br />Pensez-vous être victime de ce que Chomsky appelle « la Fabrique du consentement » ?<br /> <br />Cela, c’est à vous de me le dire.<br /> <br />Pour ma part, je me contenterai de vous rapporter ce que m’a répondu un jour le rédacteur-en-chef d’une revue très connue, mais dont, par charité, je tairai le nom. Je lui avais proposé un article. Il m’a dit : « tout ce que vous dites est vrai et très intéressant ; mais nous ne pourrons pas le publier, car cela risquerait de désorienter nos lecteurs » (sic)…<br /> <br /><br />Quels conseils donneriez-vous aux Français pour s'informer correctement sur la Syrie ?<br /> <br />Je n’ai pas de conseil à donner en la matière.<br /> <br />S’informer n’a rien de très compliqué, en fin de compte, surtout avec l’outil internet qui a depuis longtemps enlevé le monopole de l’information aux grands journaux « politiquement prudents » ; mais rechercher l’information peut prendre beaucoup de temps.<br /> <br />Ainsi, ceux qui veulent s’informer le font déjà et trouvent sur la toile des faits, des analyses étayées, et, avec un peu de méthode et d’esprit critique, ils peuvent comprendre assez bien ce qui se passe réellement en Syrie.<br /> <br />Quant aux autres, on peut leur donner tous les conseils que l’on veut : ça ne les intéresse pas.<br /><br /><br />Votre proverbe, maxime favorite...<br /> <br />Je n’ai généralement pas peur de dire ce que pense, y compris sur des sujets délicats, comme la question israélo-palestinienne ou, en ce moment, les « révolutions » arabes.<br /> <br />Ce sont des sujets à propos desquels règne un politiquement correct convenu, auquel il est difficile de déroger sans s’attirer le courroux de certains cercles de pouvoir, sans prendre le risque de se faire des ennemis, à commencer de ceux-là mêmes qui pratiquent l’équilibre rassurant de l’homme couché et, d’une part, saisissent l’occasion de s’attaquer à un discours à contre-courant pour donner de cette manière un maximum de gages et, d’autre part, haïssent ceux qui, par ce discours politiquement incorrect, mais bien souvent très juste, leur renvoie l’image de leur lâcheté et de leur compromission intellectuelle.<br /> <br />Aussi, je cite volontiers ces quelques vers du Cyrano de Bergerac d’Edmond Rostand : « Oui, c'est mon vice. Déplaire est mon plaisir. J'aime qu'on me haïsse. »<br /> <br />Mais il est rare que mes interlocuteurs en saisissent le sens exact.<br /> <br />Dès lors, je reprendrai plutôt à mon compte cet extrait d’un célèbre discours de Jean Jaurès : « Le courage, c'est de chercher la vérité et de la dire. C'est de ne pas subir la loi du mensonge triomphant qui passe et de ne pas faire écho aux applaudissements imbéciles et aux huées fanatiques. »<br /> <br />Ou cette très belle pensée de Jean Guéhenno, que j’ai placée en tête de mon blog : « La vraie trahison est de suivre le monde comme il va et d'employer l'esprit à le justifier. » Je trouve qu’elle est parfaite, en la circonstance.<br /> <br />C’est à cela que j’essaie de me tenir, en tant qu’être humain et en tant que chercheur. C’est certes difficile et ce n’est pas en pratiquant cette philosophie qu’on peut arriver à « faire carrière ».<br /> <br />Mais à quoi bon faire carrière, si c’est pour devoir déguiser sa pensée en permanence, renoncer à dire la vérité et à défendre le juste ?<br /> <br />Pour récolter en échange quelques piètres honneurs, une place dans un institut ou telle distinction académique sans la moindre valeur éthique ? De mon point de vue, c’est sans aucun intérêt. A fortiori dans mon métier : la recherche et l’enseignement.<br /> <br />Et, si j’avais eu cette « ambition », cet objectif-là, j’aurais choisi la banque, pas l’histoire et les sciences politiques.Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-54341333691676408632011-08-27T16:12:00.000-07:002011-08-27T16:19:30.292-07:00Amnesty International: The filthy public relations whores of fascismDeath squads have been released upon the people of Tripoli. We can even see them on the screens of their friends in the corporate media. We can see them firing their guns in the air and at everything that moves. We can see them looting houses, rampaging through the city; these hoards, these bandits, cheered on by ruthless intelligence agents posing as journalists.
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<br />Hospitals are over flowing with dead bodies, people are being beheaded in the streets, black people are being lynched, tortured, beheaded, eviscerated. The mainstream press even admits that thousands of Gaddafi supporters have been massacred. They call it ‘settling of accounts’ as though it is perfectly normal, perfectly acceptable. After all, these people supported Gaddafi, so they deserve to be raped, tortured, burned alive, beheaded.
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<br />We have reports of patients being taken out of hospitals and murdered. Yet Amnesty International, in order to deflect from the atrocities of the NATO death squads, suggest that some of the patients in the hospitals could have been murdered by ‘Gaddafi’s forces’.
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<br />Now where did you get those rumours Amnesty International? Why do you suspect that a government currently under siege from the combined forces of the richest and most powerful nations on earth would have the time or malevolent will to go into hospitals and murder the patients there, murder doctors who they so desperately need? Why haven’t you investigated the PROOF of rebels going into hospitals in Benghazi, dragging Libyan soldiers out by the ears and hanging them over the entrances?
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<br />They even filmed it for you and posted it on the internet. Do you have any other sources of information other than NATO and their death squads? Why haven’t you investigated it? Is it okay now Amnesty International, is it okay now to behead black people? Or is this all part of Gaddafi’s ‘propaganda’ plan? Were the beheadings carried out under ‘Gaddafi’s orders’?
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<br />Muammar Gaddafi who so hates the black race that he set up the African Union, Muammar Gaddafi who so hates the black race that he wears the portraits of all the African heroes on his robes, the African heroes murdered by the CIA and their cronies since Black African countries achieved independence, thanks to training and funding from Tripoli? Are you afraid Amnesty International? Afraid of losing your credibility by criticizing the powers who fund and promote you?
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<br />Why didn’t you investigate the outrageous racist allegations that the Libyan forces were using ‘black mercenaries’, allegations which lead to the massacres of hundreds of black Libyan families right throughout this war? Why didn’t you condemn the disgusting use of the term ‘African mercenaries’? Did you not know that Libya is in Africa? Did you not know that there are thousands of black Libyans serving in the Libyan Armed Forces and police, just like America, Britain, France and other countries?
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<br />Why are you continuing to cover for NATO’s crimes? Why haven’t you condemned NATO’s arming of the rebels, in violation of international law? Why haven’t you condemned NATO’s deployment of mercenaries, in violation of international law?
<br />NATO have carpet bombed Sirte yesterday.
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<br />Did you hear about that Amnesty International? So far more than 400 civilians dead. NATO’s hoards are systematically terrorizing the people of Tripoli, all of whom support Gaddafi. We know this because they all demonstrated that support throughout the war. We saw them on the streets of Tripoli on July 1st, all 1.7 million of them, waving green flags and holding up portraits of their leader.
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<br />We know this because you cannot bomb a country for six months, day and night, bombing and bombing and bombing and killing and killing , just like Vietnam, just like Laos, Just like Cambodia, just like the bombing of over 30 countries by US imperialism in the last century, you cannot bomb a country and expect its inhabitants to like you. It did not take long to oust Ben Ali of Tunisia nor Mubarak of Egypt, because neither of those leaders had the overwhelming popular support of Muammar Gaddafi. That’s why the target of NATO bombings is not ‘Gaddafi’s forces’, the target is the Libyan population.
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<br />Why have you not published more information about your directors, Amnesty International? We know, for example, that the mastermind of Al Qaeda, former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Bzrezinski, was one of your directors when his Al Qaeda thugs were raping and mutilating men and women in socialist Afghanistan during the 1980s, while you only concentrated on harassing the legitimate government of the country which was trying to stop them!
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<br />What a disgusting and discredited cabal of liars you all are! We will expose you Amnesty International, we will expose you for the scoundrels that you are, the scoundrels that you have always been, the whores of Western imperialism that you have always been.
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<br />When humanity needed independent humanitarian observers most, you were always on the side of the North Atlantic Terrorist Organisation, the US/EU rapists of the planet. You, who thrive on ‘humanitarian intervention’ in the form of depleted uranium bombs, cluster bombs, death squads and mass murder, which you pathetically attempt to attribute to the victims in order to protect the perpetrators.
<br />In order to maintain your credibility among the uncritical, you sometimes make concessions to truth, you sometimes admit that the ‘good guys’ nominated by the Western military-industrial-media complex, have committed some crimes.
<br />Yet, you know what is happening on the ground; you know this is a colonial war of conquest; you know that the rebels are deranged psychopaths; you know that many of them are not even Libyan; you know that they are raping women en masse; you know that they are lynching and torturing black people and you know that the Libyan government had one of the best human rights records in the world ; you know that it was the Gaddafi Charity Foundation that revealed and condemned abuses of prisoners in Libyan prisons; you’ve read the UN report on human rights in Gaddafi’s Libya; you know that political prisoners in Libya were Al Qaeda, the same people who are now slaughtering the civilian population, lead by NATO special forces, Apache helicopters and ceaseless bombardment from the air. You know this is imperialism; you know that it is NATO and not the Libyan Armed Forces who are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity . You know all of this because you are part of it. You are an essential part of it all. You provide ‘humanitarian’ and ‘human rights’ cover for the crimes of imperialism.
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<br />The richest and most egalitarian country in Africa is being bombed into the stone age and ‘human rights’ groups are doing everything they can to make us love it. Amnesty International are nothing but the filthy public relations whores of fascism.
<br />Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-74374897558849541432011-08-23T01:03:00.000-07:002011-08-23T08:13:55.648-07:00From the makers of "Gaddafi is killing his own people" Doha studio presents" The Libyan Revolution"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcFiMnZXze6FY5NxvP1ae6wYU1ESN55gNHL4G-xU6w4niPXkSYdQNZ0mgIdHWme4RdgW-U2J5aYR1IfeCfqd89pF_z1oBiev5YWxK3hzZuUj3m6XdDOTYYm7Q24dolZqL69cuuUQ/s1600/small_fakelibyasquare.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcFiMnZXze6FY5NxvP1ae6wYU1ESN55gNHL4G-xU6w4niPXkSYdQNZ0mgIdHWme4RdgW-U2J5aYR1IfeCfqd89pF_z1oBiev5YWxK3hzZuUj3m6XdDOTYYm7Q24dolZqL69cuuUQ/s320/small_fakelibyasquare.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5643969126064186258" /></a>
<br />picture source:http://cyaegha-c.livejournal.com/460657.html
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<br />Surpassing previous mass media fabrications, both in scale and boldness, yesterday morning's Al Jazeera mise-en-scène will surely go down in history as one of the most cynical hoaxes committed by corporate media since the manipulated pictures of Iraqis topplying Saddam Hussein's statue after the US invasion in 2003.
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<br />On the morning of August 22nd 2011, Al Jazeera aired a 'live' report from Green Square in Tripoli,which claimed to show the capture of the Libyan capital by rebel forces. Scenes of jubilation and euphoria enveloped Al Jazeera's reporter Zeina Khodr as she declared: " Liya is in the hands of the opposition''
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<br />The images were immediately reproduced throughout the global media complex, with headlines trumpeting the 'end of the Gaddafi regime' and editorials throughout the corporate media world speculating about the post-Gaddafi future of Libya.
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<br />Gaddafi's sons were said to have been arrested, and more defections were announced. The Libyan capital was, we were told, now in the hands of the rebel forces. For many, it seemed a <span style="font-style:italic;">fait accompli<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span>.
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<br />In fact, the Al Jazeera pictures from Green Square were an elaborate and criminal hoax. The report had been prefabricated in a studio in Doha Qatar . This information had been passed onto Libyan intelligence and the Libyan people had already been warned about the qatari psyops a couple of days previously on Rayysse state television.
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<br />The Al Jazeera hoax was intended to create the impression that Tripoli had fallen so as:
<br />(1) to break the Libyan resistance by creating panic and chaos in the Libyan captial.
<br />(2) to provide cover for the massacres of civilians that would occur in the days following the declaration of rebel victory.
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<br />In other words, the media would provide cover for the war crimes and crimes against humanity that are necessary in order to subjugate the Libyan Jamhahirya to Western corporate interests.
<br /><iframe width="560" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_KMJCNh5ZwM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<br />Shortly after the Al Jazeera pictures were released, this author contacted independent reporter Lizzie Phelan in Tripoli. Miss Phelan was able to confirm from what she described as realiable sources that the Al Jazeera pictures were false.
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<br />By the end of the day, it emerged that all the twitter lies emanating from the criminals in the National Transitional Council were also, unsurprisingly, false. Gaddafi's sons had not been arrested, and the rebels were not in control of the city.
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<br />In the meantime, Lizzie Phelan, Mahdi Darius Nemenroaya and Thierry Meysan have receieved death threats from CNN producers staying in the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli. After the arrival of thousands of NATO/Al Qaeda terrorists, a brief period of chaos ensued in the city.
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<br />When many of the mainstream reporters abandoned the Rixos Hotel, Libyan authorities discovered that most of them were CIA and MI6 agents working undercover as journalists.
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<br />At present, Mahdi Darius Nezemroaya, Thierry Meysan and other real journalists remain trapped in the Rixos Hotel. Nezemroaya was fired upon by a NATO/rebel sniper when he attempted to place a press sign on top of the Rixos hotel to protect the building from NATO bombardement.
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<br />Reporter Lizzie Phelan contacted a friend yesterday to say that she had been threatened by CNN personnel and had been blocked from using facebook and email.
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<br />Below, you can see the warning given to the Libyan people by state media of Al Jazeera's coming psyops. The presenter tells the viewers that Al Jazeera have produced a simulation of Tripoli's Green Square, and that they are going to use this to produce a gigantic fiction of 'liberated' Libya.
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<br />The picture above proves that the producers of the Al Jazeera hoax are no Dutch masters, as the glaring discrepancies between the real Green Square in Tripoli and the Al Jazeera version are patently obvious. The differences between the architecture in Green Square in Tripoli and the pictures shown in Al Jazeera are well documented in the video below.
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<br />While the Al Jazeera mise-en-scène is entertaining, the leading actress Zeina Khodr is unlikey to receive awards for her rather slugish performance. She said her lines rather mechanically, as one who was not particularly enamoured of the script, or perhaps it was the far-fetched aspect of the entire screen play that bothered her.
<br />This media hoax is another poignant example of the desperation of NATO, who have ruthlessly bombed a sovereign nation for 6 months and have so far failed to effect regime change. It also proves yet again the role of the corporate media in disinformation and war-mongering.
<br /><iframe width="560" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/o1h0iKupwCU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-53516752625461971582011-08-22T05:52:00.000-07:002011-08-22T05:58:04.082-07:00From Operation Odyssey Dawn to Operation Siren: Colonel Gaddafi as Homeric Hero.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8SgP2oowVhHXTk4egDWvMmLjApAzZHwooY0eOHG0sW8V-PGAJSyvVjqH2QIcijO5CDkFJCnWZ_3czP-Kd0xjmIr4HkrN10P1X-7jC7vg7KiWg92f-49krXxQyYMnSQs41_O7ghA/s1600/siren.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 249px; height: 203px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8SgP2oowVhHXTk4egDWvMmLjApAzZHwooY0eOHG0sW8V-PGAJSyvVjqH2QIcijO5CDkFJCnWZ_3czP-Kd0xjmIr4HkrN10P1X-7jC7vg7KiWg92f-49krXxQyYMnSQs41_O7ghA/s320/siren.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5643663803575228434" /></a>
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<br />Since renaissance times, graduates of Greek and Latin literature in Britain, France and other imperial countries were often recruited by the secret service agencies. There were several reasons for this: graduates who could read the classics of Greek and Latin literature in the original languages tended to have good analytical and linguistic skills and a deep knowledge of history and culture.
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<br /> Attention to detail and the capacity to read complex codes and signs are essential for intelligence work. On October 29th 2010, the British newspaper Express quoted the head of Britain’s secret service MI6 Johnathon Evans, a classical scholar, saying that classics should be taught in state schools “on the grounds that learning Latin and Greek would help “develop the kinds of skills that would-be spies need”.[1]
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<br />Given the centrality of Greek and Latin in the education of the European aristocracy in the past, it comes as no surprise that the current war on Libya was baptized “Operation Odyssey Dawn”. Scholars of the centuries identified many of the locations that feature in Homer’s epic poem in Malta, Sicily and the Mediterranean Sea where NATO’s air and sea forces are currently based.
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<br /> European elites clearly see this current military adventure as akin to the trials and tribulations of Homer’s hero Odysseus who spent 10 long years attempting to return to his homeland of Ithaca after the Trojan War to liberate his palace from treacherous suitors who were attempting to woo his wife Penelope in his absence.
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<br />After many adventures and mishaps, the Homeric hero finally returns to Ithaca, joining up with his son Telemachus(the far-fighter), killing all the suitors occupying his palace.
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<br />But the question concerning Libya is: who is playing the role of Odysseus here?
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<br />The eponymous hero of Homer’s epic poem is described by the Greek bard as resourceful, wily, smart, fearless, charming, righteous and intelligent. Homer’s most frequently used epithets for Odysseus are‘polytropos’, of many twists and turns, ‘polymeros’,many-faceted and ‘metis’, cunning.
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<br />The most distinguishing aspect of this war has been the inversion of language to represent a false reality. So, the ‘protection of civilians’ means the bombardment of civilian targets; the Gaddafi regime means the majority of the population of Libya who support their government; ‘rebels’ and sometimes ‘revolutionaries’ are the euphemisms used to disguise jihadist terrorists’; the crimes of the rebels have been ascribed to the government forces and rebel retreats have been presented as advances.
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<br />It is hardly likely, therefore, that NATO considers their hated enemy, Muammar Gaddafi as an Odyssean hero fighting to free his country from greedy parasites. Yet, like Odysseus, Gaddafi has resisted NATO’s bombardment for 6 months.
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<br />Like Odysseus, part of Gaddafi’s country is currently being occupied by violent and treacherous parasites in the service of NATO. Like Odysseus, Gaddafi has managed to escape capture and death from the most gigantic and formidable forces on the planet.
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<br />Many classical etymologists derive the word Odysseus from the Greek ‘odyssomai’(ὀδύσσομαι ), meaning “to be wroth against, hated”[2]
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<br />Is there any other figure in the international media today more hated, more demonized than Muammar Gaddafi?
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<br />In Homer’s Odyssey, the suitors who occupy the eponymous hero’s palace attempt to persuade his wife Penelope that Odysseus is dead, that he will never return and that she should choose a new husband.
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<br />The international corporate media have been spreading the same lies and rumours about Gaddafi since the outbreak of the war in March this year.
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<br />When hostilities began in February, the British foreign minister William Hague declared that the Libyan leader had fled to Venezuela. The claim was false.
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<br />Claims were recently made that Gaddafi’s son Khamis had been killed. The claims were false. On Sunday August 21st International Criminal Court prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo-the man who told the astonishingly absurd lie about Gaddafi ordering Viagra for his troops so they could rape women-- told Reuters news agency that Gaddafi’s on Saif Al Islam had been captured by the rebels.[3]
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<br />Ocampo’s claim has been dismissed by Mathaba news agency. [4]
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<br /> Gaddafi has continued to survive. Whether one likes the guide of the Libyan Green Revolution or not, it is clear that the Libyan people love their leader and that he is a man of unquestionable ability.
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<br />Only a leader of Odyssean qualities would be capable of resisting the aggression of the most powerful nations on earth for the best part of 40 years; instituting a political system that has the support of the people; creating the wealthiest and most egalitarian country in Africa and finally, surviving continuous aerial bombardment, economic blockades and invasions of foreign mercenaries for 6 months.
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<br />Did the planners of Operation Odyssey Dawn unwittingly dramatise themselves as the vengeful god Poseidon , punishing a superhero protected by Athena, the goddess of wisdom?
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<br />Operation Siren: psychological warfare to break the Libyan resistance.
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<br />According to the French newspaper Le Parisien on Saturday August 20th, the spokesman for the National Transition Council in Benghazi , announced the commencement of Operation Siren. The operation is being carried out by NATO forces in conjunction with rebels on the ground and aims to take Tripoli by ousting Colonel Gaddafi and his regime, [5] according to the Libyan NCT spokesman,
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<br />In book 12 of Homer’s poem, Odysseus and his men confront the challenge posed by the enchanting sounds of the Siren’s song. In Greek and Homeric mythology the Sirens were bird-women and seductresses who lured unsuspecting sailors to shipwreck and destruction.
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<br />The songs of the sirens were said to be impossible to resist but Odysseus had previously been warned about the nefarious bird-women by the sorceress Circe;
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<br />‘To the Sirens first shalt thou come, who bewitch all men, whosoever shall come to them. Whoso draws nigh them unwittingly and hears the sound of the Sirens' voice, never doth he see wife or babes stand by him on his return, nor have they joy at his coming; but the Sirens enchant him with their clear song, sitting in the meadow, and all about is a great heap of bones of men, corrupt in death, and round the bones the skin is wasting. But do thou drive thy ship past, and knead honey-sweet wax, and anoint therewith the ears of thy company, lest any of the rest hear the song; but if thou myself art minded to hear, let them bind thee in the swift ship hand and foot, upright in the mast-stead, and from the mast let rope-ends be tied, that with delight thou mayest hear the voice of the Sirens. And if thou shalt beseech thy company and bid them to loose thee, then let them bind thee with yet more bonds’[6]
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<br />Odysseus survives by asking his men to bind him to the mast of the ship so he can hear the sirens. knead honey-sweet wax, and anoint therewith the ears of thy company, lest any of the rest hear the song / the sailors put wax in their ears so they won’t hear the song and be drawn into destruction.
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<br />The Parisien report goes on to claim that it is no longer possible to evacuate foreign nationals in Tripoli as a Maltese ship which was due to evacuate Polish citizens has come under fire. However, the report does not say who exactly fired on the ship. According to the Polish foreign ministry, negotiations are underway with the rebels in order to secure the evacuation of Polish citizens in the country. [7]
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<br />However, the Reuters version of the same report gives more information about Polish citizens attempting to flee the besieged city of Tripoli. According to the report, 250 Polish families are currently in Tripoli.
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<br />“The ministry was not immediately available to confirm the report.
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<br />Poland has evacuated most of its citizens from Libya and moved its ambassador from Tripoli to rebel-held Benghazi, but some 250 people from mixed Polish-Libyan families have stayed behind, the ministry official added.
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<br />One family had hoped to leave on the Maltese ship, the MV Triva 1”. [8]
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<br />The above-cited French newspaper did not mention that the report had NOT actually been confirmed by the Polish foreign ministry and the Reuters report states that out of 250 people of mixed Polish-Libyan families only one family hoped to leave on the Maltese ship.
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<br />Both the Reuters and Le Parisien reports also claim that ‘heavy fighting’ has broken out in Tripoli between “remnants” of the “Gaddafi regime” and “rebels”, who, it appears, are about to capture the Libyan capital.
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<br />Le Parisien quotes Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini saying that “the tragedy is coming to an end” as the rebels will soon capture Tripoli. Frattini also assures Italian companies that previous contracts signed with the Gaddafi government will be respected as soon as the NTC takes over. [9]
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<br /> What is the significance of the Maltese ship here? Why is NATO so concerned about getting a ship into Tripoli to evacuate foreign nationals when the unconfirmed reports cited only one Polish family hoping to flee the Libyan capital? To whom is the NTC president talking when he warns of a ‘catastrophic end’ for Gaddafi and his people?
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<br /> Is NATO attempting to use a ‘humanitarian’ vessel as a Trojan Horse to deliver terrorists to Libya? Is another humanitarian narrative being written to justify NATO troops on the ground to ‘liberate’ Tripoli? Why do the reports not confirm who exactly fired upon the Maltese ship? Why does the report state that officials are negotiating with rebels to bring the ship into Tripoli? The rebels are not in control of the city.
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<br />Independent reporter and political analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya has claimed that NATO is now embarking on a sophisticated psychological warfare operation to create panic and fear among the Libyan population in order to break their resistance to NATO’s terrorists. It is clear that Operation Siren is the name of NATO’s new terror campaign.
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<br />The same reporter told Russia Today that he had been fired upon by snipers. Nazemroaya also said that a CNN producer had issued death threats to CNN journalists in the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli.
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<br />The websites of Libyan state newspapers Al Jamahirya, Al Yosberides, Azzaf Alakhdar and Al Fair Aljadeed have been suspended.
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<br />NATO may now attempt to cut power and communication lines in Tripoli, create a state of chaos and fear in the streets, backed up with a mass rumour campaign in order to break the resistance of the Libyan people and prepare the conquest of Tripoli.
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<br />There have been reports in the Libyan television station Rayysse of an elaborate hoax prepared by Al Jazeera in which scenes of Tripoli being overrun by rebel forces are fabricated.
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<br /> Rayysse reported on Friday August 19th:
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<br />“an anonymous source reports that NATO will try its last card, it seems that they have reproduced the background of Tripoli in a studio in Doha, Bab Aziziya in particular, and that they are going to simulate a takeover of Tripoli, after they cause a general blackout, cutting electricity and transmissions. The aim is to break the morale of the brave Libyans and fool them, so as to lead the city and the country into a chaotic state.”[10]
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<br />This morning August 22th Al Jazeera broadcast a report from Tripoli’s Green Square which they claimed was now in control of the rebels. The reporter Zeina Khodr declared “ this city is now in the hands of the opposition”
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<br />In a message on facebook, independent journalist Lizzie Phelan, who has been reporting from Libya since the start of the war declared:
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<br />“I now have from reliable sources that the Libyan army is still in control of Tripoli. Al Jazeera footage of Green Square was fake. Gaddafi went to Green Square with his sons. Things are much calmer now”
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<br /> Al Jazeera, the television station owned by the Emir of Qatar, has been a driving force in the media war on Libya since the start of hostilities there. In February the Qatari station aired a video which they claimed showed peaceful protestors in Benghazi being fired upon by ‘Gaddafi’s forces’.
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<br />The video was subsequently located and published on the internet.
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<br />It clearly shows pro-Gaddafi demonstrators being fired upon by unknown snipers. The video was edited by Al Jazeera to suit their agenda of demonizing the Libyan government and creating the pretext for “humanitarian” intervention by NATO and the Gulf dictatorships.[11]
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<br />In a press release on August 21st, Libyan government spokesman Dr. Moussa Ibrahim, confirmed that over 1300 people had been killed and 900 injured in Tripoli within 12 hours of rebel attacks. Although dozens of rebels have been captured and they have not captured the city, the final phase of NATO’s brutal destruction of Libya is likely to end in a bloodbath. [12]
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<br /> In spite of media claims of ‘game over’ for Gaddafi, the Libyan armed forces have cleared the rebels from Misrata, Zawia, Garman, Sormon and Sabratha in the last few days[13] It is clear that the majority of the Libyan people still support Colonel Gaddafi.
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<br />Conclusion.
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<br />Though the mainstream media chant about “Gaddafi’s last stand”, Operation Siren is the last desperate attempt of the North Atlantic Terrorist Organisation to enslave the Libyan population. If this war is not stopped now, there will be a humanitarian catastrophe in Libya.An anonymous NGO report published on August 21st states on the 108morris108 channel on utube states:
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<br />"All the carnage was distant until night fell then the sea boiled over with small fast boats that dumped ten or more special forces and Al Qaida killers at hundreds of points along the beach in and around Tripoli. The slaughter began at that moment. The distraction of the small gangs inside the city proved successful and allowed the unfettered invasion from the sea. Killing hundreds of thousands of Libyans in the next few days may be the result of this full fledged attack on a sovereign nation by NATO" [14]
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<br />NATO's rebels are facing a population of over 2 million Tripolitan citizens who have been armed by the government. These brave people, ignored by the world, will fight for the rights and freedoms that are theirs, the cities and towns that are theirs, the future of their families and children.
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<br />NATO’s sirens may beam their evil songs but the people of Tripoli are singing back to them. “Alla, Muammar, Libya bas” The Libyan people have three muses, Allah, Muammar and the land of Libya.
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<br />Perhaps NATO thinks it is winning this media war. But they would do well to consider the fate of the Sirens before committing ground troops to crush the Libyan people. The medieval writer Stephanus of Byzantium tells the story of a competition between the sirens and the Greek muses. When the sirens won the singing competition, the muses plucked the feathers from their wings. The sirens turned white and fell into the sea.
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<br />[1] http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/208177
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<br />[2]http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Do%29du%2Fssomai
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<br />[3] http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/21/us-libya-rebels-tripoli-idUSTRE77K2EX20110821
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<br />[4] http://mathaba.net/news/?x=628171
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<br />[5]http://www.leparisien.fr/intervention-libye/libye-pour-isoler-kadhafi-les-rebelles-lancent-l-operation-sirene-21-08-2011-1573322.php
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<br />[6] http://www.literaturepage.com/read/theodyssey-177.html
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<br />[7] http://www.leparisien.fr/intervention-libye/libye-pour-isoler-kadhafi-les-rebelles-lancent-l-operation-sirene-21-08-2011-1573322.php
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<br />[8] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=maltese-ship-heading-for-tripoli-un
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<br />[9] http://www.leparisien.fr/intervention-libye/libye-pour-isoler-kadhafi-les-rebelles-lancent-l-operation-sirene-21-08-2011-1573322.php
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<br />[10] http://libyasos.blogspot.com/2011/08/al-jazeera-and-nato-planning-major-scam.html
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<br />[11] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb2qL9UOxuA
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<br />[12] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbjSPHOdZQ&feature=share
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<br />[13] http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1108/S00205/susan-lindauer-libya-gadhaffi-retakes-key-towns.htm
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<br />[14]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFGsmJMd_fo&feature=player_embedded
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<br />Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-26101012125835773902011-08-11T16:15:00.000-07:002011-08-17T05:36:59.184-07:00More NATO crimes against humanity in Libya: A letter to the "Irish Anti-War Movement"During the nights of the 8th and 9th of August, NATO jets bombed a refugee centre in the little village of Zliten, near the Libyan capital Tripoli. The NATO missiles blew 86 unarmed civilians to bits. 33 of them were children. Nato has denied the charges but the video below provides the dirty, incontrovertible proof of NATO's war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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<br />Since NATO began this war of aggression against Libya five months ago, under the fabricated pre-text of 'protecting civilians', they have failed to 'pacify' the North African nation. What is the reason for this failure? The reason is simple: Libya is one of the most democratic countries in the world and the Libyan people do not want to give up their hard-earned freedoms to be occupied by foreign powers and their corrupt domestic puppets of the so-called National Transitional Council.
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<br />The Great People's Socialist Libyan Arab Jamahirya is run by over 460 people's committees. There is no central government in Libya; rather,each resident of the country is a member of a local popular assembly. As Geoff Simons writes in his wonderful book 'Libya: the struggle for survival':
<br />"<span style="font-style:italic;"><span style="font-style:italic;">The aim has been to sustain the sovereignty of individual Libyan citizens through the creation of popular assemblies(mutamarat) and committees(lijan; in such a system that the committee is pervasive at every political level and in every social sector.Every resident belongs to a sovereign popular assembly at the district level; members meet for an annual week of evening sessions to receive reports on local matters and to agree an agenda of important issues(such issues can range widely; from the relation between law and Islam to foreign aid, from policies on expatriates to economic development). The chairman and other mandated delegates carry the findings and conclusions of the meetings to the annual National Assemby which in turn takes its majority decisions to the secretariats"</span> </span>
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<br />The entire Libyan population is armed and the overwhelming majority of Libyans support the guide of the Libyan Green revolution Muammar Gaddafi. Now, you may not like the eccentric looking Libyan leader, dear reader, but the Libyan people do. There are no examples in human history of unpopular autocrats arming the entire population. Unpopular regimes never arm their subjects, for obvious reasons.
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<br />The NATO-backed rebels have never had popular support among the Libyan people. They are comprised mainly of the Libyan Islamic Fighting group, a rebel army formed by the CIA in Sudan during the 1970s when the country was ruled by CIA operative Gaafar Nimeiry. There is also CIA group, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya and other motley factions who would like to see a restoration of the British puppet Sanusi monarchy, and there is, of course,the ever nebulous international conspiracy called Al Qaeda. The city of Darnah in Eastern Libya has always been major recruiting ground for Islamist terrorists. One of the Al Qaeda leaders currently fighint NATO's war is Abu Sufian Ibhramhim Ammed Amuda bin Qumu. Bin Qumu was a former detainee in Guantanimo Bay. He was trained in the CIA-funded terrorist camps of Afghanistan during America's covert war against the Soviet Union. He was moved to Guantanimo Bay after the American invasion of Afghanistan and has now been deployed to Libya to fight against the Libyan republic. Other CIA/AL Qaeda operatives are Al Hasidi and Khalifa Hifter.
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<br />The 'rebels' of Benghazi have received extensive military support from the Qatar dictatorship as well as media cover and propaganda from the television station owned by the Emir of Qatar, Al Jazeera.
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<br />Working in conjunction with Western intelligence, Al Jazeera/Arabic and Al Jazeera/English have marketed themselves as 'independent' television stations. This marketing involved mild criticism of Israel and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
<br />However, since the CIA-fomented war against the Libyan people and the covert war against Syria, Al Jazeera has been the most important asset of the Pentagon's information war.
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<br />Judging by the TOTAL silence of the so-called 'anti-war' groups, it would appear that Al Jazeera and the pentagon have won the war thus far. Although Al Jazeera have been caught lying over and over again about Libya and Syria, Trotskites and many other 'leftists' do not seem to have noticed.
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<br />The Irish trotskyites and their European counterparts are a good example of this unfathomable gullibility. These soi-disant'revolutionary socialist' and 'anti-capitalist' groups have backed the CIA contras in Benghazi against the popular democratic Jamahirya.
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<br />The utterly risible views of these groups emanate principally from such eminanet intellectual fraudsters as Gilbert Ashgar and Noam Chomsky. Both of these authors swallowed the lies of Al Jazeera, CNN and BBC hook, line and sinker and they've been joined by a chorus of prattling sycophants.
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<br />In an interview Noam Chomsky gave with the BBC on March 8th 2011 after the CIA-backed uprising, he called the Benghazi rebellion a 'popular revolution' and Al Jazeera was, he stessed, "one of the best news services in the world".
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<br />Unsurprisingly, that is also the view of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who recently praised the quality of debate on Al Jazeera and complained about news stations such as Russia Today that were winning the media war against U.S imperialism. So Chomsky and Hillary Clinton are in perfect agreement on the outstanding quality of Al Jazeera!
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<br />In the above-mentioned interview Chomsky gave to the BBC, the MIT professor and 'cognitive scientist' went on to call Muammar Gaddafi a 'brutal dictator'. Muammar Gaddafi left office in 1974. Since, then, he has held no official function in the country, other than a highly symbolic role as ideologue of the revolution; his high prestige and devotion to the green revolution have given Gaddafi enormous symbolic power, such that when he speaks for or to the nation, everyone listens. Have you read any of Gaddafi's speeches Mr. Chomsky? Or his Green Book? Obviously not.
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<br />Gaddafi is not a dictator. He does not have the powers to override decisions of the general congress. For example, many years ago, Gaddafi advocated abolishing the death penalty in Libya. He proposed the motion to the General Congress and it was unanimously rejected.
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<br />On 16th of February 2009, Gaddafi addressed the Libyan government, criticising them for corruption and demanding more direct redistribution of wealth. The Libyan guide proposed that the government be dismanted entirely and that all oil wealth be distributed evenly among the people.
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<br />That motion was rejected by the members of the General Congress who were the object of the Colonel's criticism and who are now trying to kill him, his family and everything that the country has achieved over the last 40 years. For example, Mahmoud Jabril, head of Libya's National Economic Development Board, which had recently been closed down due to corruption, and Abud Ajleil, the ex-justice minister, were staunchly opposed to Gaddafi's revolutionary plans.
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<br />To return to the BBC Paxman/Chomsky interview, when the BBC presenter asked "the greatest intellectual of our time" if he thought that a NATO intervention would 'bring democracy' to Libya, Chomsky replied " I don't think so".
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<br />Now, imagine that! Mr Chomsky, the guru of the left, doesn't THINK that a NATO intervention will bring 'democracy' to Libya; he's not SURE if a violent intervention by imperialism will 'protect' the Libyan people. Here's an except from the Paxman/Chomsky interview:
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<br />Paxman " we have an obligation, do we not, to behave responsibly"
<br />Chomsky: "yes"
<br />Paxman : "And you're saying that we should simply not get involved"
<br />Chomsky: "there may come a time when it would make sense for the West to become involved, in spite of its horrendous record of atrocities and crimes in that region too going way back, but the question is has that time come?"
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<br />Chomsky and his cohorts never once questioned the avalanche of lies diffussed by the corporate media against the Libyan government, the FACT that its rebels were armed from the start by Western intelligence agencies working from Egypt.
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<br />The fact that the rebels attacked police and army headquarters, buring officers alive and mutilating their bodies, invading people's houses, raping and mutilating women, beheading their victims, lynching black people, indulging in cannibalism. All of this has been well documented, yet Chomsky has nothing to say about it. He calls Benghazi 'liberated' and only trusts the pronouncements of the 'world's best television service' the afore-mentioned station owned by the pro-US dictator of Qatar.
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<br />That Chomsky has been able to present himself as a serious leftist for many decades is indeed a tribute to his skills as a 'cognitive scientist'
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<br />Shortly thereafter, the leader of the "Irish anti-war movement" Jim Roche, echoed his master's voice by telling the Irish times that the NATO intervention in Libya was 'unlikely' to bring democracy and freedom. Many of these Africa-hating, Gaddafi-hating, Trotskyites tend to justify their hostility to Gaddafi by citing his raprochement with the West after 911.
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<br />Gaddafi certainly tried to make friends wih the west after the bombings in New York, but that was because 1 he knew that if he didn't they would invade and occupy his country 2 Gaddafi had also been fighing Al Qaeda in Libya for many years( they had been supported by Britain and the USA). During the 1990s, M-I6 ,working through a London Al Qaeda cell, attempted to assasinate the Libyan leader. Gaddafi knew all along what the real meaning of "al qaeda" was and he did not flinch from speaking his mind after he had established friendly relations with the West.
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<br />In an interview with Larry King of CNN on 28/9/2009, Gaddafi reminded the American presenter that the 911 terrorists had been trained in the United States and not in the caves of Afghanistan and that the occupation of that country was therefore wrong.
<br />The notion, therefore, that Gaddafi was a puppet of the west is patently false.
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<br />Although 'friendship' with the west was costly for the Libyan people, it also enabled them to have the crippling sanctions lifted and Gaddafi was quick to use his new international 'friendship' with the West to criticise them all over the world. This was particularly evident in his speech to the UN on Sep 23th 2009. Have you read this speech "Irish anti-war movement"?
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<br />So, why did the west bomb Libya?
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<br />1 Libya was the richest, the most egalitarian and democratic society in Africa. They were setting a bad example to other African countries who serve Western interests.
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<br />2 Libya has the biggest oil reserves in Africa. Imperialism rather likes owning oil.
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<br />3 Gaddafi was resolutely opposed to Africom (you haven't heard of Africom "Irish Anti-War movement?" look it up!
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<br />4 Gaddafi opposed French president Nicholas Sarkozy's plan for the Union of the Mediterannean which would bring North Africa under the rule of the European Union.
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<br />5 Gaddafi wanted to create a counterweight in the world to NATO called the South Atlantic Treaty Organisation. He was working closely with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to achieve this so that poor countries would be able to protect their resources from Western pillage.
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<br />6 Gaddafi wanted to create the United States of Africa: one federal state with one powerful military to protect the continent from foreign domination.
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<br />7 Libya was investing heavily in education, health and telecommunications systems throughout Africa, financing Africa's first satelite system which became operational in 2007. It was thanks to Libya that Africa underwent a telecommunications revolution in recent years. Bad news for US and European corporations seeking to dominate the African market.
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<br />8 The Great Man Made River Project( have you ever heard of that my dear Trotksyites?). Bringing the water under the Sahara desert for thousands of kilometres to supply Libyan cities with fresh clean water, the Great Man Man River Project is, without question, the greatest humanitarian infrastructual project in the history of humanity.
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<br />The GMMRP was financed and built by Libyan money made from oil-sales after the West lifted the sanctions against them. But the ambitions of the Libyan government did not stop there;they hoped to become self-sufficient in agriculture by irrigating the desert, turning it into fertile arable land. Now there is nothing that irks Western GMO crop corporations than countries becoming self-sufficient in food. Not bad for a 'brutal dictator'eh Chomsky? One further point here: The CMMRP was built by Libyan engineers. When Gaddafi took power in 1969, there was not a single engineer in the illiterate land. Now, Libya has the higest literacy rate in Africa.
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<br />9 Gaddafi proposed a one-state solution for the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Gaddafi's reasoning was simple. Palestinian arabs already work in Israel and the West Bank is split off from Gaza. It is impossible to construct a viable Palestinian state. The logical conclusion is therefore for the Israelis and Palestinians to live together in a democratic republic. Whites and blacks did not form separate states in South Africa, so why should Apartheid Israel be any different? Gaddafi has some experience in the politics of apartheid. It was in Tripoli in 1981 that the first pan-African conference on apartheid was held. Did you know that my dear Trotskyite 'socialist revolutionaries'? Chomsky HATES all talk of unity between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Chomsky is, of course, on his own admission a Zionist of the 'left wing' variety.
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<br />10 Libya had put billions of dollars aside to create an African Monetary Union and African Central Bank to free the continent once and for all from foreign debt slavery.
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<br />11 Libya has lots and lots of gold. So much gold in fact that it accounts for as much as half the UK's holdings, and the UK robbed most of the gold they could find during the 19th century. Gaddafi was getting a little worried about the value of those paper notes printed by the privately-owned Federal Reserve in New York which it uses to control the world economy. Gaddafi wanted Libyan oil to be paid for by a gold-backed dinar. This would have turned Libya and Africa into a superpower. Bad news for the resource-robbing West.
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<br />12 NATO, the EU and the USA do not like Muammar Gaddafi's model of direct democracy as it allows ordinary people to participate in running the country. Western paliamentary democracies serve the interests of the banks, corporations and financial elite. Gaddafi's vision of popular democracy is a threat to the interests of that financial elite in Africa.
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<br />While the corporate media have done everything in their power to present the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt as 'revolutions', the real revolution began in 1969 in neighbouring Libya. The real revolutionaries of the 'Arab spring' are the millions of Libyans who have taken to the streets day after day to protect their freedoms; protect their free health care; free education; free housing; excellent childcare; modern infrastructure;their culture; their pride, their heroic history and the leader they love.
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<br />So did Gaddafi 'bomb his own people' Irish Anti-War movment? Did you read the report of the Russian military that proved this was a lie? Did you question any of the reports you heard? Were you not suspicious being as you are, 'revolutionary socialists' of the hysterical hatred Western imperialism has always had for Gaddafi even when they shook his hand? In France, the trotskyite Nouveau Parti Anticapitalite even had the gall to criticise Chavez and Castro for supporting Gaddafi.No wonder many people in france believe they were created by the French secret service!
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<br />So, "Irish Anti-War Movement" will you jump up and down calling for the overthrow of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela next when the Pentagon funds some pseudo-leftist outfit against him,( they already are, you know), when twitter, facebook and Al Jazeera start demonising him? Do you agree with your guru's estimation of Chavez that he is becoming a little 'authoritarian'? Your left-wing guru has already been working on softening your reaction to the coming attack on Venezuela, writing letters to Chavez pleading with him to release a corrupt judge and handing the anti-Chavez propaganda to mainstream newspapers.
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<br />Will we see the same response from you "Irish anti-war movement" next time your guru appears on the BBC as another 'popular' revolution in Venezuela is presented to you on your television screen followed by your guru's approuval? I suspect we will.
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<br />Finale
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<br />So, take a look at the pictures below from the television station of the 'GADDAFI REGIME', and tell me, did they make all this up? Can NATO bomb a country for 5 months every day, bombing and bombing and bombing and bombing, tell me can they do all of this and not kill a man, not kill a woman, not kill a child, not kill a baby, not kill many of them,not maim many of them, not terrorise many of them,not murder thousands of them, not diplace and terrorise thousands of them?
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<br />Can they do all this, tell me, without destroying the life and fabric of a country, you who jump up and down about Gaza, you who rant and rave about the West Bank, are the Libyan people different? Do they deserve to me massacred? you who shout about getting troops out of Shannon and "hands off Iran" and "free Palestine" and "fuck Israel" and 'revolutionary socialism', and "anti-captialism" and "anti-war" etc.etc. Why are you now BACKING the zionist thugs of Benghazi against a popular democratic regime?
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<br />You say 'fuck Israel' but you love the Israelite Bernard Henry Lévy and his rag-tag troop of terrorists and traitors, with their Israeli-made weapons. You say you want socialism then you denounce any country that actually attempts to implement it. So here you are now once again, you Monty Python leftists, singing in unision with imperialism as a sovereign nation is reduced to rubble, chaos and despair. Shame on all of you!
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<br />Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-53427135894449716342011-08-08T12:30:00.001-07:002012-02-24T05:15:13.925-08:00The Libyan resistance will win. No pasaran!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjddwTlPK-dh2f5zeKkZjJK6tmzKYesoedgUNcFIAgg_oRcJnoGnGQlboSHh-dR-1zERzG0hpCmio811hpl-S23zIQYpN-fHmPd6lmwT4rWbycqpJJc2ER2W4bMAEn7Nf9nh8sCgg/s1600/gaddafi+image+1.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 264px; height: 191px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjddwTlPK-dh2f5zeKkZjJK6tmzKYesoedgUNcFIAgg_oRcJnoGnGQlboSHh-dR-1zERzG0hpCmio811hpl-S23zIQYpN-fHmPd6lmwT4rWbycqpJJc2ER2W4bMAEn7Nf9nh8sCgg/s320/gaddafi+image+1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5638576716079994994" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />"How sweet will be the victory of the wretched, and how great! How sweet will the songs be on that golden day, and how brilliant the golden sun of the wretched as it blazes. How sweet this dangerous dream - that hopes will be realized, that wishes become true. That a dream will become reality, that the wretched of the earth will have their state." Muammar Gaddafi. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><iframe width="400" height="257" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6_jbV3Q2-_A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-61721349071747095672011-08-07T13:09:00.001-07:002011-08-09T20:28:05.627-07:00The ongoing Zionist destruction of Syria<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihJkzJ97OVUEQTsOuL-zdE0TtEkR2fHLrHGMcd_-1ORb6UqTiAouRnRribhs0O0C8uJp60ZdgiOr8ehhETlVOuL1Mv1L77tbu649k1SF9Xfd4WenQdJ1k5TpHPKifyJyCCM5zGNg/s1600/syrian+canibalism.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 218px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihJkzJ97OVUEQTsOuL-zdE0TtEkR2fHLrHGMcd_-1ORb6UqTiAouRnRribhs0O0C8uJp60ZdgiOr8ehhETlVOuL1Mv1L77tbu649k1SF9Xfd4WenQdJ1k5TpHPKifyJyCCM5zGNg/s320/syrian+canibalism.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5638532475194766802" /></a>
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<br />For the past five months, Syria has been the victim of armed gangs, emanating from Iraq, Lebanon,Jordon, Turkey and Israel. These islamist terrorists have been murdering protestors, army personnel and police. They have been committing heinous crimes against humanity, including rape, mutilation, canibalism and ritual human sacrifice. The terrorists are being coordinated by the notorious Muslim Brotherhood, who have had close links to British and American intelligence for many years.
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<br />The Wahabite terrorists are assets of Western intelligence agencies, who are providing logistic support, training, and an advanced disinformation campaign using social media in conjunction with global corporate television stations. Many of the psychopaths now terrorising the Syrian population have come from American military bases across the border in Iraq, where they have been trained.
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<br />All of this has been thoroughly documented by the Syrian authorities and independent journalists and researchers from various countries. Yet, the corporate media continues to publish lies and disinformation on a daily basis to prepare public opinion for 'humanitarian intervention' in Syria.
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<br />The French media is at the forefront of this information war with Zionist ideologues Bernard Henry Lévi and his minions pushing for more French military interventions in countries hostile to the interests of Tel Aviv.
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<br />Syria has been on the frontline of the resistance to U.S/Zionist imperialism for decades. Although it has many economic and governmental problems, Syria is a modern, secular democracy which provides its citizens with free health care, free education and strong protection and promotion of women's rights. In fact, Syria has been the home for thousands of refugees fleeing Zionist terror in Iraq and Palestine. Many Iraqis are treated free of charge in Syrian hospitals.
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<br />Syria does not recognise the state of Israel.It supports Palestinian liberation and is a strong advocate of a multi-polar world based on international law.
<br />Unlike its corrupt Arabic neighbours, who have been capitulating to Israeli demands since 1948, Syria insists on the right of return for Palestinian refugees and the evacuation of all occupied- Arab lands by the zionist entity.
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<br />That is why the U.S, France,Uk and Israel, that is to say, the Atlantic Zionist Alliance wants to turn Syria into Iraq and wipe it off the face of the earth under the false banner of 'human rights' 'democracy' 'freedom' etc. Progressive intellectuals the world over know this, yet the vast majority of working people who read print journalism and watch programmed radio and television remain under the sophisticated perceptual grip of Zionist propaganda.
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<br />But the censorship and disinformation is most extreme in the Atlantic alliance countries as it is they who are now leading the drive towards world war. Readers of Russian, Spanish or Arabic tend to be more informed about these matters. For example, in Syria one has access to all media outlets, BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, New York Times etc. Yet most Syrians trust their own national media channels.
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<br />However, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and other sateline stations linked to US and British intelligence have had a corrosive impact on the minds of many Syrian youth. Many of the Syrian protestors are young people who have grown up watching Al Jazeera, the news station of the British/US-backed Qatari dictatorship. It should be said that not all of those protesting are engaging in such wanton violence. The CIA strategy in Syria is to infiltrate terrorists into the crowds, professional snipers who fire on the police and protestors. This creates confusion and chaos and makes it particularly difficult for the regime to mangage the situation. This is classic CIA destabilisation.
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<br />In fact, similar methods were used in the past. In 1989 in Romania, the CIA sent groups of terrorists into Timisoara to shoot on unarmed protestors. Bodies were taken from morgues, photographed en mass and presented to the media as proof that the Romanian leader was 'killing his own people'. In the video below, you can see exactly how this was achieved and the French and American intelligence officers are surprisingly honest about their role in training and directing terrorism against the people of Romania.
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<br />The true story of the Romanian counter-revolution was covered in Le Monde Diplomatique many years ago. They did not doubt then the truth about the role of US and French intelligence in the mass murder of Romanian civilians.But they are dead silent today as a much larger, more savage operation is underway against Libya and Syria.
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<br />Although AL Jazeera/English initially gained credibility for allowing more criticism of Israel, the Qatari newstation has played a key role in the Zionist destabilisation of Syria and the ongoing crimes against humanity being committed by the NATO terrorists against the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahirya. They have actively encouraged the armed rebellion of the Sanusist, Salafist counter-revolutionaries of Benghazi against the Libyan government and have refused to air the views of the majority of the Libyan people who support Colonel Gaddafi.
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<br />In short, Al Jazeera represents the interests of the Qatari monarchy, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and their Western backers, Israel/UK/U.S.
<br />Although false leftists such as Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk and others are still clinging to Al Jazeera as a credible TV station, progressive humanity is resisting this final onslaught of Western imperialism, and there are less and less people reading the sophisticated disinformation of the above-mentioned fraudsters.
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<br />The video below is from Telesur, a Venezuelan television station. In Venezuela, the government supports independent media, while the corporate oligarchies control most of the mainstream press. The mainstream media in Venezuela is largely funded by US tax dollars taken from the American working class, in order to keep the interests of America's ruling class protected worldwide by shaping the opinions of millions of people. The mainstream media in Venezuela is violently anti-Chavez and pro-American. Such distain and open bias against the elected president of a nation would not be tolerated in any other country in the world.
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<br />The Venezuelan state-media is grass-roots and serves the interests of the general public. From my last trip to Venezuela, I can say that the working classes of that country are among the best informed in the world. One can have a far deeper conversation about international politics with a shopkeeper, or factory worker in Caracas than some of the most distinguished students and professors of our European universities. That is because they have a press which serves the public interest.
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<br />Since the start of the war against Libya and the covert war against Syria, Telesur have had reporters on the ground in both countries who have been reporting the truth on the atrocities committed by the NATO backed terrorists. In spite of over three months of war and horror in Libya and covert war against Syria, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that proves what these protests are about, the "Irish Anti-War movement" continues to support the NATO-backed contras in Libya and to denounce the government of Bashir-al-Assad in Syria.
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<br />These Monty-Python lefists are a credit to their historical lord and patron Leon Trotsky. As Lenin said of Trotsky "What a swine this Trotsky is — Left phrases and a bloc with the Right . . ! He ought to be exposed” (Lenin, CW #35 285)
<br />The Irish 'left' are nothing but a foolish circus of petit-bourgeois Trotskyites, who are true to the anti-intellectual, anti-revolutionary antics of their historical heroes. Their bumptiousness and inspissated stupidity have turned them into a serious obstacle to a genuine people's peace movement.
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<br /><iframe frameborder="0" width="480" height="270" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/xigudw"></iframe><br /><a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xigudw_analisis-de-la-situacion-en-siria_news" target="_blank">Análisis de la situación en Siria</a> <i>par <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/teleSUR_tv" target="_blank">teleSUR_tv</a></i>Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-54558011900024518942011-08-05T06:50:00.000-07:002011-08-05T06:51:44.877-07:00Muammar Gaddafi. Guide of the Libyan revolutionMASSIVELY IMPORTANT SPEECH BY GADAFI SPEECH ON NASSER, ARAB NATIONALISM, TUNISIA & EGYPT<br />Qaddafi Mentions Importance of People's Conferences in July 23rd Speech<br />Posted: 2011/07/29<br />From: Mathaba <br /> <br /> <br />On the occasion of the birthday of Arab African hero Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, the Libyan historic revolutionary leader gave a speech, the full text is translated here by Mathaba<br /><br /><br />Speech of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qaddafi on July 23rd, 2011, addressing the people of Egypt:<br /><br />In the name of The God [Arabic: Allah], on the occasion of July 23, the anniversary of the historic July revolution. You do not need me to remind you of the July Revolution, which has proven correct all of what Abdul Nasser said, namely that reactionism was always an agent of colonialism. Reactionism is linked to backwardness and is not linked to progressiveness.<br /><br />Reactionaries are always agents of colonialism, because the reactionary ruler cares for nothing but to stay in power. He knows that he has no links to the masses. He seeks help from foreigners, so he pursues policies that serve colonialism so that he stays in power. Thus the rulers of Libya before the revolution, the rulers of Egypt who were like rulers in the Gulf who seek help from foreign bases, the American and British forces, they placate Zionism to appease colonialism, they have no dignity.<br /><br />All what Abdul Nasser said was right, all he said about revolution was correct. All he said about socialism was correct. All he said about colonialism was correct. Regardless of the military aspect of July 23 Revolution, the charismatic Abdul Nasser was able to transform the revolution or the coup into a revolution that rid the country of feudalism, exploitation and capitalism and above all evicted the foreign bases.<br /><br />Then it took on a nationalist trend because Abdul Nasser realized that Egypt alone would not be able to liberate Palestine and even maintain its independence hence Abdul Nasser called for Arab Unity.<br /><br />If the [Arab] nation had reacted to the call of Abdul Nasser, the Arab nation would have been by now a powerful respected nation like Iran, Turkey, India or Russia. All nationalities were embodied in a state: the Toranic nationality embodied in the Turkish state, the Persian one in an Iranian state, the Hindu one in India. Except the Arabs, as the Arab nationality was not embodied in one state, thus the Arabs remained feeble entities [small states], subordinated and sometimes stricken like now in Libya, Iraq, Palestine and Somalia.<br /><br />[Political] parties in Egypt were the cause of the revolution. Read what Sadat had to write at the time about the Egyptian revolution and the [political] parties. Abdul Nasser was the one who said that he who becomes a member of a party was a traitor meaning that he entered in an alliance with a group of people who share the same regional or ethnic affiliation in which he compromises the interests of the whole society.<br /><br />Parties were there in Egypt, but what had they accomplished: corruption, compromising Palestine and engagement in exploitation. Backwardness prevailed and that was the reason for the strong revolt. The parties were annulled when they became irrelevant and outdated and were replaced by the Socialist Union, a coalition of the working people who have an interest in the revolution, in freedom and progress. All these powers were allied together to lead the society without right or left or centre right or center left [political positions].<br /><br />Then [along] came Sadat and to appease the West he abolished all what Abdul Nasser had done including and foremost the "Socialist Union", he brought back [political] parties, he talked a lot about parties though he earlier wrote about the Egyptian revolution criticizing political parties. The return of parties marked the end of the July 23 Revolution and from that time on Egypt returned to the situation that was before the revolution or even worse. Under Sadat and after him Egypt offered whatever the West asked to no avail, the subordination did not do Egypt any good, it did not solve Egypt's economic problems nor did it give it military power, it [even] ranked below Lebanon.<br /><br />What has the revolution given? Revolution means people seize power, but how can the masses govern? This is the historic question that followed Athens [ancient greek experiment in direct democracy]. The answer is in the Green Book, it is that the people organize themselves into People's Conferences [Arabic: مؤتمر ], including all adults, men and women, and power becomes in their hands, and they then appoint People's Committees.<br /><br />The People's Committees becomes responsible in front of the People's Conferences: the secretariats of the basic people's conferences and secretaries of the people's committees meet in an assembly called the "General People's Congress" [or National People's Congress], each person makes [his or her] decisions at the basic People's Conference and not his [or her mere] thoughts, and those decisions made by the masses of the basic People's Conferences from across the nation are brought [to the General People's Congress].<br /><br />They formulate decisions in all conferences, in a single formulation that determines the policy of the country and what the people want, and the people's committees, which were appointed by the people, execute those decisions, and everything becomes for the people: wealth belongs to the people, arms belongs to the people and power belongs to the people, media belongs to the people, and not to a certain individual.<br /><br />You have seen the problems in America now and in Britain, and you have those problems too and they are present in every country, everyone wants to have a big share in the media which is funded from abroad, foreign countries make a TV station in your country, a newspaper in your country and a political party in your country.<br /><br />That is not Democracy, demo-cracy means people sitting on the chairs, the word cracy was taken from the Arabic language or the Persian language, which we have taken from them, the chair was mentioned in the Quran, the word cracy (chairs) could be Persian, people on the cracy(chairs), when all the people sit on the chairs then it is called demo-cracy, and when people don't sit on the chairs then it is not democracy, then it is called political party cracy, government cracy, classcracy, but not democracy.<br /><br />Democracy means people on the cracy (chairs), so how can [all the] people sit on the chairs? People organize themselves into basicPeople's Conferences, all of them, as the political system passed [historically] through the following stages: the monarch stage - this is prior or after the rudimentary stage - the first stage being monarchy, the king emerged, a person emerges who could own the land and what's on it. This is monarchy. This ended, development ended it, it is no longer permissible for anyone to own the land and what's on it, only in the Persian Gulf, since it is not Arab.<br /><br />The second stage was the republic (Arabic: Jumhuriyah), Jumhur - plusiyah - means people appoint a king, a president of the republic, who is [in fact] a king appointed by the people for a short or a long period of time, the same thing.<br /><br />The important thing is that the second stage was the republic is when people began to select who governs them, and the republic continued. The republic has become dull and failed and the world is suffering [under this system] and the masses destroyed.<br /><br />The third stage was the Jamahiriya, Jamahir (masses) came, sinceJamahir - plus iya - becomes Jamahiriya, the first Jumhur that became Jumhuriyah, and the second Jamahir which leads to Jamahiriya, and this is the final stage and the end of the road for the problem of power, the power becomes for the people, how?<br /><br />It becomes the Jamahiri system with the basic people's conferences, the people's conferences appoint people's committees, the conferences decide and the committees execute [carry out the decisions], there is the popular security, there is the armed people, the people's control, and the inciting force we call it the revolutionary committees, or the movement of the revolutionary committees that incites the people to seize power until they practice authority.<br /><br />Why did you take action that toppled Hosni Mubarak? Why? We were expecting the establishment of the Jamahiriya [self-governing masses society] whether in Tunisia or in Egypt, these are the people just as The Green Book calls for to seize power without weapons and without violence, just as the explanations of The Green Book indicate, that the masses reject the political system and stage a sit-in until the political system is toppled and they replace it.<br /><br />This happened in Libya in the 1969 Revolution that was carried out by the army, and people heard that the monarchy political system was toppled, the government and representative council were cancelled and there was a void, people across Libya formed the people's conferences [ مؤتمر] on their own.<br /><br />We anticipated that when you toppled the people [earlier this year, that you would] replace them with a popular revolution, establishment of the Jamahiri [direct participatory democracy] system, following the disruption and destruction which you have carried out. But to put in place another president, you might have done better keeping the previous president [Mubarak] until he had finished his term then elected another president without demonstrations or sit-ins in the Tahrir square.<br />What does that mean? Do you want to bring a super-president? Will he be better than Mubarak? As for Mubarak, he does not deserve this maltreatment. We should not be an ungrateful nation. As Machiavelli said Rome was not an ungrateful nation. When Roman commanders lost a war they were honoured, rewarded and sent into retirement.<br /><br />Who will be loyal to Egypt after this end of Hosni Mubarak [of Egypt] or even Zine El Abidine [of Tunisia]? Who will be loyal to Egypt? Hosni Mubarak was exposing himself at risk to defend you, and to die for you. He was a pilot fighting Israeli forces that attacked Egypt. Instead of being honoured, he is insulted. Who will sacrifice more than Hosni Mubarak?<br /><br />Hosni Mubarak went to sacrifice himself for you and your country before you were born. He has got just two children because he was a pilot and may die at any time in battle in defense of Egypt, so he decided to have only two children to be raised by their mother, while other Egyptians have got ten or more. Every Egyptian family consists of ten, twenty or fifty. The wife is as a school followed by a queue of children. Is it reasonable?<br /><br />This is the end of who sacrifice for you. I know Hosni Mubarak. He is a poor man, modest and loves you. I know him. If he did not love you I would have attacked him and exposed him like other rulers. But I know him. He begged. He came to me and asked me for ferries, when the ferry sank. He went to Saudi Arabia to beg for other ferries. He also asked me and others for train locomotives.<br /><br />Who will travel on these locomotives? Will he travel in them? They are for you. Sometimes we have no morals, just as when we insult (Nasser). Abdel Nasser a hero of the Arab nation; leader of the Arab nation; a great man who struggled against colonialism and Zionism; who dared and removed the royal system, and cancelled a mistake of (Bakri) and the Egyptian people, who have brought the revolution and appointed an Ottoman officer from Albania to govern Egypt as if there was no men in Egypt to rule the country.<br /><br />They came with Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali's family ruled Egypt 150 years. The family owned the whole country till Egypt became a manor of Muhammad Ali because of this mistake. Then Nasser came and said ''this cannot be. It is nonsense. We, Egyptians, are we men to be ruled by an Albanian officer for 150-years generation after generation?!<br /><br />Now, without plenty of space, military, economic and security power which country can live. The 53 African countries can't live. No one of them can face the storms of this age only when the African Union becomes as the U.S, the European Union, or the Russian Federation. A European big nuclear state cannot live alone, not Germany nor France nor Britain nor Italy, but only in the European Union.<br /><br />For the United States of America, if it was independent states, it would have been as weak as South America.<br /><br />The Russian Federation is present, China is a giant, and India is a nuclear state and exists. A billion of ASEAN now is formed in a new country. Latin America may become a union. The Arab States will be divided between Africa, Asia and will disappear, only if the one Arab country or strong African Union is established [can they survive]. Now, whoever does not have the military, economic and security power in a large strong space [bloc], cannot live.<br /><br />It is not possible to live. Egypt's currency means nothing nor that of Libya, Tunisia or Malawi. What is the value of these currencies? Who knows them? You should have a power expressing a large space such as the euro, or dollar. You should have a military force to stand against big powers otherwise what has happened to Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan will happen to you.<br /><br />Who of you can defend Egypt? It is not possible. You cannot defend it. Have you got an intercontinental missile, an atomic bomb or an aircraft carrier? Without those, they will trample you as you are watching now.<br /><br />In Libya, the Libyan people from Benghazi, Tubruq, or in Tripoli or anywhere else, there is no struggle for power, absolutely not, yesterday in the first month we met, we had no problem, we have no problems, we're practicing authority.<br /><br />The Aggression is foreign, mercenaries made by France, the Arab Maghreb Al-Qaeda who escaped prison or who were expelled from the army. Each one took up arms and fought, not the Libyan people, here are the Libyans in the millions in the streets. In the end, I have 18 million Libyans, whom you call the Libyan tribes or the Arab tribes, who extend from Al-Minya to the desert to the west of Alexandria [in Egypt], forming a crescent until the Nile valley, we did not talk about these tribes during the Abdel Nasser era, they were third degree citizens, they had their own laws, they were Arab sheikhs and Arab tribes and they had their own system since Abdel Nasser, leader of the Arab world wanted to unite it and we did not speak.<br /><br />During and after the Sadat era and due to our good relations with Hosni Mubarak, in the end we were embarrassed and never talked about them, but now enough! Everything has ended and each one is expressing himself in Egypt, we look at the Tahreer square there are 160 in a coalition, the Muslim brotherhood, libertines, our brother Coptics, nationalists and Egyptians all of them have entered [the coalition], everyone with a religious background has entered, hence the Libyan tribes, which include 18 million until now want to enter the arena, I, naturally, am afraid of them being marginalized again, and we will not accept for them to be third class citizens in Egypt, they cannot even join the army, or join politics or the army, they are marginalized, if Egypt was liberated by the popular revolution, these tribes, who are continuously calling me, should be accounted for, they cannot live marginalized from now on.<br /><br />This is the era of the masses and each one wants to prove himself, naturally, we've Arab Bedouin tribes who are marginalized in Sinai and they are coherent with us in what's known as the grand Sahara tribes, naturally they tried to link themselves with us, however, I am talking about the Libyan tribes who are known by name, who part of them are in Libya and the other [part] are in Egypt, all of these tribes are an extension of the Libyan people. If Egypt is Egypt and Libya is Libya this matter should be clear, and if we're Arabs and want to be a single nation then this is another thing.<br /><br />What's before us is an obscure situation, we don't know where are we heading, heading for division, disappearance, failed small states, dying nations then die. I am inviting you to meet with me, you who made the revolution in Egypt and in Tunisia, if it is a popular revolution then the people should seize power through the people's conferences and people's committees, if it were a prey and everyone wants a piece, then it is not a popular revolution! The era of the political parties has ended.<br /><br />Now, it's the era of the masses, political parties should placed in museums as they are old tools, they are old moulds that cannot accommodate the facts of this era, the era of the masses, the era of the masses is the end of the road in the struggle for the people's authority, for democracy.<br /><br />Democracy is people sitting on chairs, a Jamahiri system and not governmental, when one says a government in Libya they will laugh at him, this means an "antique", what's the government? Government means one governs and another who is being governed, this has no place in the era of the masses, no masses accept to be governed, they govern themselves.<br /><br />No one can represent the masses, nor can anyone speak or think on behalf of another, they are there so let them think, talk, discuss and decide on their own in the people's conferences, the only mean to realizedirect popular democracy is the people's conferences [aka popular congresses] and people's committees. However, your people the Libyans are steadfast regardless of the ferocity of the attack, and you're watching, may God bless you.<br /><br />We know the ordinary Egyptian individual's heart is burning and they are with us, as well as the Tunisians, and the all of the Arab world, we distinguish between rulers and the Arab people, today, we're defending the honor and dignity of the Arab world, and if we surrender, this means an insult to the Arab world. For the sake of Arab dignity, we'll not surrender, we'll die standing.<br /><br />We're defending Africa, we're the gateway of Africa, we're the shield of Africa, all of Africa is behind us and with us, and the Islamic world is with us and defending Islam in front of the crusade declared by the French president, he said it, "I am leading a new crusade".<br /><br />This is the second crusade, and I think it's shameful to sit and watch, counting the raids, how many raids and how many died and how many bombs were dropped on Libya. All of this will end, it will end and glory will be with the martyrs and freedom fighters, and for those who defend the Arab world, we're defending the Arab and Islamic worlds and defending the African continent.<br /><br />I hope everyone would ponder these words, each one who listens and reads it one his own and not with a group, then a group comes and we will discuss it, each one should see whether these words are true or not, without any influence from anyone. I am with you, my beloved Egypt and my beloved Tunisia, I love Egypt and I hope that Egypt would not be ungrateful, and I don't want Egypt to be a failed country, on the contrary, I want it to be a leader country, now it went behind Tunisia and there is no harm, this means the leaders are the Tunisians and you followed them, however, there is no harm, even Tunisia is an Arab country.<br /><br />I commend the soul of Jamal Abdel Nasser, hero of the Arab world in this day, I commend the Egyptian people. I commend the Egyptian youth, I hope that God may guide them to the path of the popular revolution and the people's authority.Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-27687206499657626132011-03-31T00:26:00.000-07:002011-03-31T00:49:33.219-07:00Are Israel and the USA attempting to destabilise Syria?As the global media cheers on NATO’s war on Libya, the media focus is increasing on the unrest in Syria. While the Western press is claiming that Syrian forces are ‘firing on their own people’, other reports would suggest that a complex nexus of subversion could also be at work to destabilise the Middle Eastern country.<br />Syria has been a staunch supporter of Palestinian liberation and was opposed to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Israel has occupied the part of Syrian territory called the Golan Heights since 1967, when up to 110 thousand Syrians were forced to leave their homes.<br /><br />Syria has been in the firing line of US/Israeli imperialism for many decades. In 2003, the United States Congress passed the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Act (SALSRA), which threatened Syria with sanctions if it did not follow orders from Washington.<br />Section 2 of the act states<br />“1) On September 20, 2001, President George Bush stated at a joint session of Congress that `[e]very nation, in every region, now has a decision to make . . . [e]ither you are with us, or you are with the terrorists . . . [f]rom this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime'. [1]<br /><br /><br />On Friday March 11th 2011, Syrian state media revealed that the country’s security forces had seized a large quantity of fire arms, explosives, grenades and night-vision goggles coming from Iraq.<br />The Syrian authorities claimed that the weapons shipment was intended “for use in actions that affect Syria’s internal security and spread unrest and chaos”.[2]<br />On Saturday last, Syrian state television broadcasted confessions from foreign agents of different nationalities, after they were detained following violent clashes with Syrian police in several Syrian cities.<br />Mohammad Radwan 3 of dual US/Egyptian citizenship, currently working in Syria, was among those who confessed to having recently visited Israel for secret talks. The Egyptian claimed he had been given the mission of diffusing images and videos designed to create the impression that Syria was about to collapse in chaos.<br />The American citizen confessed to having been paid 100 Egyptian pounds but that he had not yet agreed the sum to be paid for the videos.<br />According to Venezuelan state-media Radio Del Sur:<br />“There are strong links between the Israeli and Colombian paramilitaries. In 2010, President Juan Manuel Santos, said he was "concerned" about the case of Yair Klein, a former Israeli military who travelled to Colombia to train Colombian paramilitary groups and performed "services" to the drug cartels. <br /><br />As recognized by Santos himself, "Klein was one of the architects of that process led paramilitary after so much violence in Colombia."[3]<br />Similar confessions have been aired by Syrian state television before. In November 2008 confessions from an Islamic militant group linked to Al Qaeda believed by the Syrian authorities to have been financed by the current pro-Western Lebanese leader Saad Hariri were aired on Syrian state television. As the BBC reports:<br /><br />“Speaking against the same black backdrop, the men admitted responsibility for the explosion, the aim of which, they said was to harm the Syrian government. <br /><br />One aspect of the "confessions" may be particularly damaging, and may have wider regional implications. <br />According to the televised testimonies, the explosives used in the attack were brought from northern Lebanon, where Fatah al-Islam, it is claimed, received financial support from the party of the country's pro-Western Sunni leader Saad Hariri.” [4]<br /><br />Contrary to the reports of the western media, the president of Syria Bashar Al Assad remains a popular figure due to his opposition to US/Israeli imperialism in the Middle East.<br /><br />Hundreds of thousands of supporters demonstrated in favour of the Syrian president in Damascus on the 29th of March 2011 in support for president Assad after his cabinet resigned. <br />President Assad has promised to end the state of emergency in place since 1963 as well as implementing other reforms.[5]<br /><br />Hundreds of Syrian communities abroad Greece, Bahrein, India, Russia and Belarus expressed their solidarity with the Syrian president. There were also demonstrations in the Lebanese city of Al-Nabatiya in support of the Syrian president.[6]<br /><br /><br /> A peaceful ‘Day of Rage’ organised by opponents of the Syrian government on Facebook, was scheduled to take place in early February but protestors failed to show up.<br /><br />The recent violence reported in several cities in Syria has received extensive coverage in the western press. But the circumstances of violence remain vague. It is not entirely clear whether peaceful protestors are being murdered by the police or the police are being murdered by the protestors. Some reports claim that 7 policemen have been murdered.[7]<br /><br />What is clear, however, is that Israel has been lobbying for similar military action against Syria. After a meeting with his French counterpart Alain Juppé, Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman told Reuters News Agency:<br /><br />“I think that the same principles, activities the Western world (has taken) in Libya ... I hope to see those regarding the Iranian regime and the Syrian regime.” [8]<br /><br />Syrian authorities have accused the Israeli secret service Mossad of attempting to destabilise the country. Given the role of US, French and British intelligence agencies, backed by the international corporate media, in the destabilisation of Libya, President Assad’s claims that foreign mercenaries in the service of Israel are now attempting to destabilise Syria are highly credible.<br /><br />[1] http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:H.R.1828:<br />[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/11/syria-seizes-arms-from-iraq<br />[3]http://laradiodelsur.com/?p=17449<br />[4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7715850.stm<br />[5]http://www.lorientlejour.com/category/Moyen+Orient+et+Monde/article/697247/Demonstration_de_force_des_pro-Assad.html<br />[6]http://www.sana.sy/eng/22/2011/03/29/339199.htm<br />[7] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24016<br />[8]http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/lieberman-west-should-deal-with-iran-and-syria-like-libya-1.351593?localLinksEnabled=falseGearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-3565515256586010432010-12-14T01:45:00.000-08:002010-12-14T02:43:24.137-08:00China should be colonised says Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.The media furore over the awarding of the Nobel Prize for peace to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo is yet another egregious example of European moral decadence. The Nobel Prize for peace has always served to bolster US and European imperial interests, with past prizes going to war criminals such as Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama. <br />But this year's prize smacks of unmitigated pusillanimity.<br /> <br />Liu Xiaobo was inprisoned in China due to his subversive political activity. It is difficult to judge the particular circumstances of this repression, but let's take a brief look into this man's past. <br />What does Xibao favour in China? What is his vision for a 'New Democratic China'? In an interview in 1988, Xiaobo the freedom fighter said he believed China needed up to three hundred years of colonisation in order to acquire 'democratic values' comparable to the West. He has never renounced these views.<br /><br />In the nineteenth Century China was occupied by Western powers. Britain's Opium Wars against China had reduced the Chinese population to servitude and misery. When the Chinese communists arrived in Shanghai in 1949, they found a city of down-trodden drug addicts. China under Western colonisation was not a democracy.<br />When the United States declared War on Iraq in 2003, Xiaobo told a Swedish human rights activist that he fully suppported the war.<br /><br />In Xiaobo's political manifesto one can read his project for a new China. He hopes to see a radical privatisation of all land, similar to the seigneurial system of China's past, where foreign investors could buy up large tracts of land and apartments,virtually re-colonising China.<br /><br />Once again the august Nobel Prize committee has chosed a champion of peace and human rights. Xiaobo has been an indefatigable proponent of war, colonisation, greed and mayhem. This man, considered a criminal and a traitor in his native country, this champion of war, advocate of colonisation and the 'human right' to exploit and be exploited, the human rights of countries to be bombed and invaded by the United States, is a most worthy recipient of this Year's Nobel Prize for Peace.Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-30651861120334136062010-07-07T07:06:00.000-07:002010-08-19T06:23:10.603-07:00Democracy Now loves the CIA's Dalai Lama!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy9BvqL5Tf-1Fk2rjBCSYOZHfUmU6s_J3XofH6WfRwC4JLta0p7O0Zhp556IYmRQrBqbNwNw9y-yqPLmPAnLIVLKECu208sAnt3rYMbFBP1B75Fagcq5gvRaqxlUekVfkBBtomdg/s1600/amy+goodman.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy9BvqL5Tf-1Fk2rjBCSYOZHfUmU6s_J3XofH6WfRwC4JLta0p7O0Zhp556IYmRQrBqbNwNw9y-yqPLmPAnLIVLKECu208sAnt3rYMbFBP1B75Fagcq5gvRaqxlUekVfkBBtomdg/s320/amy+goodman.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491173726993371426" /></a><br />The independent media station Democracy Now is one of the most well known 'progressive' media outlets. However, the news station has shown a startling blindness when it comes to investigating covert CIA activities. This is quite apparent from its coverage of lesser known geo-political problems and genocides caused by the United States and its allies such as the Darfur crisis, a US destabilization campaign to control Sudanese oil resources, the Rwandan genocide carried out by Pentagon-trained dictator Paul Kagame with full US backing,and of course Tibet. <br /><br /> <br />Here once again Democracy Now has done its job of steering the 'left' into ideologically confused waters. Amy Goodman enthusiastically greets the Tibetan despot and CIA agent the Dali Lama with fawning questions concerning peace and human rights.The Tibetan 'exiled community' and their descendants are of course experts on questions concerning peace and human rights having enslaved and brutalized the entire Tibetan population for centuries before the arrival of the Chinese Liberation Army in 1950. One would almost suspect from Mrs Goodman's tone that she and the CIA's old tyrant in robes have some deep 'spiritual' connection.<br /> <br />Notice the imperious attitude of the Dalai Lama towards his servile interpreter!Tibet's spiritual leader displays a decidedly poor command of English to boot.Having spent years outside his native land, traveling the world spreading the 'message' of Tibetan buddhism, earning over 200,000 dollars from the CIA per annum for terrorist activities against the Chinese government, one would think the least he could do is employ the services of a competent teacher.Oh, I beg your pardon your holiness, I meant language serf!<br />http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2010/5/24/amy_goodman_questions_dalai_lama_about_iraq_and_afghanistan_wars_and_about_tibetGearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-20332154364125987812010-07-05T14:36:00.000-07:002010-07-05T14:44:16.022-07:00Fidel Castro says world war is imminentLa felicidad imposible<br />4 Julio 2010 68 Comentarios<br /><br />Prometí que sería el hombre “más feliz del mundo si estaba equivocado” y desgraciadamente mi felicidad duraría muy poco.<br /><br />Todavía no ha concluido la Copa Mundial de Fútbol. Faltan aún seis días para el partido final.<br /><br />¡Qué extraordinaria oportunidad se perderán posiblemente el imperio yanki y el Estado fascista de Israel para mantener apartadas las mentes de la inmensa mayoría de los habitantes del planeta de sus problemas fundamentales!<br /><br />¿Quién se habrá percatado de los siniestros planes del imperio con relación a Irán y sus burdos pretextos para agredirlo?<br /><br />Al mismo tiempo me pregunto: ¿qué hacen por primera vez los buques de guerra israelitas en los mares del Golfo Pérsico, el Estrecho de Ormuz y las áreas marítimas de Irán?<br /><br />¿Es posible imaginar que de allí se marcharán los portaaviones nucleares yankis y los buques de guerra israelitas con el rabo entre las piernas, cuando se cumplan los requisitos contenidos en la Resolución 1929 del 9 de junio de 2010 aprobada por el Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas, que mantiene la autorización para la inspección de los buques y aeronaves iraníes con la posibilidad de llevarla a cabo en el territorio de cualquier Estado y que esta vez autoriza a hacerlo a los buques en altamar?<br /><br />La Resolución establece también que no se realizaría la inspección de los buques iraníes sin el consentimiento de Irán. En ese caso, la denegación sería objeto de análisis.<br /><br />Otro elemento añadido es la posibilidad de confiscar lo inspeccionado, si se confirma que incumple lo dispuesto por la Resolución.<br /><br />Un Irán desarmado fue víctima de aquella cruel guerra con Iraq en la que masas de Guardianes de la Revolución limpiaban los campos de minas avanzando sobre las mismas.<br /><br />Este no es el caso de hoy. Expliqué en Reflexiones anteriores que Mahmud Ahmadineyad fue jefe de los Guardianes de la Revolución en el Oeste de Irán, que llevó el peso principal de aquella guerra.<br /><br />Años más tarde, un gobierno de Iraq envalentonado envió el grueso de su Guardia Republicana y se anexó el Emirato Árabe de Kuwait rico en petróleo, que fue presa fácil.<br /><br />El gobierno de Iraq mantenía con Cuba estrecha amistad y se le prestaba, desde los tiempos en que no estaba en guerra con nadie, importantes servicios de salud. Nuestro país trató de persuadirlo de que abandonara Kuwait, y pusiera fin a la guerra que había provocado a partir de puntos de vista erróneos.<br /><br />Hoy se conoce que una mediocre embajadora yanki, que sostenía con el Gobierno de Iraq excelentes relaciones, lo indujo al error cometido.<br /><br />Bush padre atacó a su antiguo amigo dirigiendo una potente coalición con una fuerte composición árabe-musulmana-sunita de países que abastecen de petróleo a gran parte de las naciones industrializadas y ricas, la cual avanzó desde el Sur de Iraq para cortar la retirada a la Guardia Republicana que se replegaba hacia Bagdad, la que por prudencia de la Infantería de Marina y las Fuerzas Armadas de Estados Unidos -bajo la dirección de Colin Powell, general con prestigio, y posteriormente Secretario de Estado de George W. Bush- escapó hacia la capital de Iraq.<br /><br />Por pura venganza, contra ella utilizaron los proyectiles contaminados con uranio empobrecido con los que por primera vez experimentaron el daño que podrían ocasionar en los soldados adversarios.<br /><br />El Irán al que en este momento amenazan, con sus ejércitos de aire, mar y tierra, de religión musulmana-chiíta, en nada se parece a la Guardia Republicana que atacaron impunemente en Iraq.<br /><br />El imperio está a punto de cometer un impagable error sin que nada lo pueda impedir. Avanza inexorablemente hacia un siniestro destino.<br /><br />Lo único que puede afirmarse es que hubo cuartos de final en la Copa Mundial de Fútbol. De ese modo los fanáticos del deporte pudimos disfrutar los emocionantes partidos en que vimos cosas increíbles. Se afirma que, en 36 años, el equipo de Holanda no perdía un viernes en partidos de la Copa Mundial de Fútbol. Únicamente gracias a las computadoras podría sacarse esa cuenta.<br /><br />El hecho real es que Brasil fue eliminado de los cuartos de final de la Copa.<br /><br />Un juez dejó a Brasil fuera de la misma. Al menos esa fue la impresión que no se cansó de repetir un excelente narrador de la televisión cubana. Después la FIFA declaró que era correcta la decisión arbitral.<br /><br />Más adelante, el mismo juez dejó a Brasil con 10 jugadores en un momento decisivo, cuando faltaba todavía más de la mitad del segundo tiempo del partido. Con seguridad que esa no fue nunca la intención del árbitro.<br /><br />Ayer fue eliminada Argentina. En los primeros minutos el equipo alemán, a través del mediocampista Müller, sorprendió a la confiada defensa y al portero argentino logrando obtener un gol.<br /><br />Con posterioridad, no menos de 10 veces los delanteros argentinos, por una del equipo alemán, no lograron un gol.<br /><br />Por el contrario, el equipo alemán anotó tres más, y hasta Angela Merkel, Canciller Federal de Alemania, aplaudía rabiosamente.<br /><br />Así, nuevamente, uno de los equipos favoritos perdió. De ese modo, más del 90% de los fanáticos del fútbol en Cuba quedaron estupefactos.<br /><br />La inmensa mayoría de los amantes de ese deporte ni siquiera saben en qué continente está Uruguay. Un final entre países europeos será lo más descolorido y antihistórico desde que nació ese deporte en el mundo.<br /><br />En cambio, ocurrieron hechos en la esfera internacional que no tienen nada que ver con los juegos de azar y sí con la lógica elemental que rige los destinos del imperio.<br /><br />Una serie de noticias vieron la luz los días 1, 2 y 3 de julio.<br /><br />Todas giran en torno a un hecho: las grandes potencias representadas en el Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas con derecho al veto, más Alemania, instaron el dos de julio al Gobierno de Irán a dar “una pronta respuesta” a la invitación que se le hiciera para retornar a las negociaciones por su programa nuclear.<br /><br />El Presidente Barack Obama firmó el día anterior una Ley que amplía las medidas existentes contra los sectores energético y bancario de Irán, y podría penalizar a compañías que realicen negocios con el Gobierno de Teherán. Es decir, el bloqueo riguroso y el estrangulamiento de Irán.<br /><br />El Presidente Mahmud Ahmadineyad afirmó que su país retomará las conversaciones a fines de agosto y destacó que en las mismas deben participar países como Brasil y Turquía, los dos únicos miembros del Consejo de Seguridad que se opusieron a las sanciones el 9 de junio.<br /><br />Un funcionario de alto rango de la Unión Europea advirtió, despectivamente, que ni Brasil ni Turquía serán invitados a participar en las conversaciones.<br /><br />No hace falta más para sacar las conclusiones pertinentes.<br /><br />Ninguna de las dos partes cederá; una, por el orgullo de los poderosos, y otra, por la resistencia al yugo y la capacidad para combatir, como ha ocurrido tantas veces en la historia del hombre.<br /><br />El pueblo de Irán, una nación de milenarias tradiciones culturales, se defenderá sin duda alguna de los agresores. Es incomprensible que Obama crea seriamente que se plegará a sus exigencias.<br /><br />El Presidente de ese país y sus líderes religiosos, inspirados en la Revolución Islámica de Ruhollah Jomeini, creador de los Guardianes de la Revolución, las Fuerzas Armadas modernas y el nuevo estado de Irán, resistirán.<br /><br />A los pueblos pobres del mundo, que no tenemos la menor culpa del colosal enredo creado por el imperialismo, ubicados en este hemisferio al Sur de Estados Unidos, los demás situados al Oeste, Centro y Sur de África, y los otros que puedan quedar indemnes de la guerra nuclear en el resto del planeta, no nos queda otra alternativa que enfrentar las consecuencias de la catastrófica guerra nuclear que en brevísimo tiempo estallará.<br /><br />Desdichadamente no tengo nada que rectificar y me responsabilizo plenamente con lo escrito en las últimas Reflexiones.Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-56620689003154929162010-06-07T09:27:00.000-07:002010-06-07T09:37:22.170-07:00Lukashenko. Europe's last democrat<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEhqh9ACULqx37lsINpkj3tTjlPO3OtkMkbrTvDH85lsLrWqUEz6XxtjR0NHtOUYmkzViDCvNcAOYKkSpC0MhgDCpK8__62dGbpw0yS_C8uVf51Bu-wTR9P4xlx-QT2Eyu-E8Y0Q/s1600/lukashenko2.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 227px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEhqh9ACULqx37lsINpkj3tTjlPO3OtkMkbrTvDH85lsLrWqUEz6XxtjR0NHtOUYmkzViDCvNcAOYKkSpC0MhgDCpK8__62dGbpw0yS_C8uVf51Bu-wTR9P4xlx-QT2Eyu-E8Y0Q/s320/lukashenko2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480071003247849634" /></a><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />There is no other nation in Europe so maligned and demonised as Belarus. Since the pronouncement of former US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice in 2008 calling the democratically elected president of the country “Europe’s last dictator”, the image and reputation of this noble country has been callously tarnished.<br />Belarus is deeply familiar with the notion of dictatorship. They, more than any other country, suffered the worst of Nazi atrocities during World War 11.Belorussia has always been a multicultural country with Jews, Christians and Muslims living side by side for centuries. This deep tolerance for cultural and religious differences is still celebrated in Belarus today. Yet the European Union, Israel and their mafia don the United States, never cease from spreading atrocious lies and disinformation concerning the Republic of Belarus. This is because Belarus is a social democracy which refuses to take orders from the IMF, the World Bank and their geopolitical manifestations in the form of the United States, the European Union and their numerous vassel-states.<br /> <br />Unlike the crony regimes in Ireland, Romania, Poland and other states, you will not find complicity in crimes against humanity in Belarus. There are no CIA stop-overs like Shannon, no CIA run -prisons where innocent people are incarcerated without trial or due process and tortured. Unlike Poland, you will not find Belarussian shock troops in Iraq. Unlike Ireland, you will not find Belarussian ‘military advisors’ in the illegal occupation of Afghanistan. Belarussians will pay for their oil and energy resources unlike the US and NATO who will bomb and occupy all of Central Asia and most likely Iran in order to get control of oil and gaz under the pretext of ‘security'.<br /> <br />President Lukashenko, whose salary amounts to a modest 17,000 Euro per year, has no connections to multi-national corporations unlike the crooks in the US and the EU who accuse him of ‘human rights’ violations, corruption and ‘electoral fraud’.<br />Under Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus has enjoyed some of the highest living standards in the former Soviet Union with little over 1 percent unemployment. But, of course, this constitutes a severe violation of human rights. But isn’t Lukashenko the man who praised Hitler in an interview with the German paper Handelsblatt in 1995? Is that the anti-Semitic guy who called a Jewish town a pigsty. No my dear reader. That is most definitely not he! The interview with Dr. Martin Zeiner was cleverly mistranslated to include references to Hitler. This was confirmed by the interviewer himself who said “"a tape of the interview had been quoted out of context and with the sequence of comments altered” Only an idiot would fall for such lies and only scoundrels like the BBC would repeat them.<br /> <br />Lukachenko is a communist and has spoken out against fascism on numerous public occasions. As for anti-Semitism and the pig-sty comment, the Belarussian president was actually praising the Jews. What he was trying to say is that Belarus is trying to encourage Jews to stay and that the town in question which once had a thriving Jewish community, is now a pigsty since they left for Israel. In spite of the fact that the chief Rabbi of Belarus has praised the Belarussian president for his kindness to the Jewish community, the EU and the US seem to think that Lukachenko is ‘anti-Semitic’ and also opposes ‘free media’. In 2000, a synagogue in Minsk was the victim of an arson attack from a racist group. This patsy group claims to be pro-Lukachenko. They are one of the many groups financed by the United States. When the president condemned the attack and outlawed their racist publications, the US and the EU condemned him for ‘cracking-down’ on the ‘free media’<br /><br /> The list of accusations against the Belarus president is impressive and shows just how effective the agents of capitalism are at destroying social democracies. For example, Amnesty International, whose former board director was US national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, published a report accusing the Belarus President of countless ‘human rights’ violations. Among the absurd claims made by Amnesty International is that the scientist Yury Bandazhevsky is a ‘prisoner of conscience’ He was arrested and charged for accepting bribes from student’s parents. This is a crime for which he was justly punished.<br />As for the arrest of members from so-called ‘opposition groups’ Zubr and Kmara, it is a well-documented fact that these groups are financed by the United States, who has declared itself an enemy of Belarus. The financing of opposition groups in the United States by state openly hostile to the US government is illegal, with the notable exception of Israel. I haven’t seen any Amnesty International criticism of this.<br /><br />The Belaurus government has also been accused of internet censorship and media control.Th is claim is absolute nonsense. The Open Net Initiative carried out a study recently to see if the claims about Internet censorship were true. They found “found no evidence of systematic and comprehensive interference with the Net. Any regime-directed tampering that may have taken place was fairly subtle, causing disruptions to access, but never turning off the alternative information tap” <br />Much of this misinformation concerning the Belarus media comes from Reporters Without Borders, another phony US-funded pressure group which targets any government who does not support the Washington Consensus. Reporters Without Borders rarely criticise the totalitarian control exercised by corporations over the media in the United States.<br /><br />The US finances over 300 ‘pro-democracy’ NGOs in Belarus whose job is to spread neo-liberal dictatorship and fascism to a population happy with the system they have. In 2000, President Clinton appointed Micheal Kozak as US ambassador to Belarus. Kozak is a great champion of human rights. He oversaw the ‘humanitarian’ massacres of the US –trained contra rebels in Nicaragua under the Reagan regime. The contras slaughtered entire villages killing over 30,000 innocent men, women and children. Kozak later told the London Times that the the US ‘democracy’ mission in Belarus would be similar to those in Nicaragua. The EU is firmly behind the US mission threatening sanctions and spreading lies about repression and electoral fraud. But as we in Ireland know too well, the EU seems to have a problem with election results it doesn’t like. So what can we say about Lukashenko? He is anti-racist, anti-war, anti-corruption, pro-democracy and pro-freedom. Yep, he’s definitely Europe’s last dictator!<br /><br />The problem with Belarussians is that they just don’t understand what we Europeans mean by liberty, democracy and ‘European values’. But don’t worry, we’ll teach them!Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-58421635244145478142010-05-22T08:34:00.000-07:002010-09-27T02:56:46.388-07:00On the necessity of a thorough de-Trotskization of the left<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO5VQLjyUoDa1-6J8sYH1nLHfe9n9SBekB4D_Z3vY9-x8ZMpPEdtSeMmJg5tEgCHgzGIcf7TcZlbAXsu7KvDP5Q1Ku-_WflXyLwe7B6sZ3DhezaI1C_dfKEzWEJxp9Nj5Kp2TQhw/s1600/trotsky.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 130px; height: 106px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO5VQLjyUoDa1-6J8sYH1nLHfe9n9SBekB4D_Z3vY9-x8ZMpPEdtSeMmJg5tEgCHgzGIcf7TcZlbAXsu7KvDP5Q1Ku-_WflXyLwe7B6sZ3DhezaI1C_dfKEzWEJxp9Nj5Kp2TQhw/s320/trotsky.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474120240944152850" /></a><br /><br />"in place of finding myself face to face with a political chief who was directing the struggle for the liberation of the working class, I found myself before a man who desired nothing more than to satisfy his needs and desires of vengeance and of hate and who did not utilize the workers' struggle for anything more than a means of hiding his own paltriness and despicable calculations.<br /><br />... in connection with this house, which he said very well had been converted into a fortress, I asked myself very often, from where had come the money for such work. . . . Perhaps the consul of a great foreign nation who often visited him could answer this question for us... .<br /><br />It was Trotsky who destroyed my nature, my future and all my affections. He converted me into a man without a name, without country, into an instrument of Trotsky. I was in a blind alley. . . . Trotsky crushed me in his hands as if I had been paper."<br /><br />Ramon Mercader, the man who saved the USSR from a fascist collaborator called Trotsky.<br /><br /><br /><br />Reading an article by John Waters in the Irish Times recently criticising the activities of the Socialist Workers Party, I was surprised for once to find myself actually agreeing with him, but for all the wrong reasons. I can scarcely imagine ever having agreed with John Waters but I am glad to say that I do agree with him on this issue.<br /><br /> I was struck by the comment John made concerning the protests of the Socialist Workers Party, SWP outside the Dáil. I fully support protests but I do not,however, subscribe to the ‘ideology’ of the SWP. John, citing the work of Slavov Zizek, pointed out the paradox that radical demonstrations, far from being a critique of the bourgeois order, in fact, validate the freedoms granted under that order. There is a certain truth in this but Waters seems to think that the SWP advocates some form of radical revolutionary change. Waters, I believe, unwittingly, points at the central problem concerning the SWP, namely that it is as though capitalism itself had created the space for them to exist, that, far from offering a radical alternative to capitalism, the SWP are in fact a creation of capitalism itself.<br /><br />Historically this is absolutely true. The key figure mentioned here by Waters is of course Leon Trotsky, the favourite counter-revolutionary of ‘Socialist Workers’. Leon Trotsky is perhaps one of the greatest liars in modern history and those political groups who still admire him, are tragically clinging on to a vicious falsification of left-wing history by claiming that Trotsky was the ‘true revolutionary’ and the ‘real successor to Lenin’. Lenin despised Trotsky and never ceased to point out his mistakes, his bumptious ego and his factional activity within the Bolshevik party in the former USSR. The usual phrase thrown out about Trotsky is that he was the ‘architect of the October Revolution’. This is indeed what Trotsky thought of himself but it bears no reflection on reality. Trotsky only joined the Bolshevik party when they were about to cease power in 1917. He was as Lenin described him an ‘opportunist’.<br /><br />For years, he had vilified Lenin and the Bolsheviks, supporting every kind of right-wing policy disguised in left-wing jargon. Months before the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 while, Lenin , Stalin and others were working indefatigably at organising party activity, Trotsky was wining and dining in New York with the high and mighty of the capitalist world. The only contribution to the October Revolution by Trotsky was his command of the Red Army. The essence of a bourgeois army commander is to dictate and Trotsky was certainly a ruthless disciplinarian and dictator. In fact, most soldiers of the Red Army hated him for his dictatorial methods. He never ceased to criticise what he called the ‘Stalinist bureaucracy’ ignoring the fact that Lenin’s chief criticisms of Trotsky concerned his ‘tendency’ to couch right wing ideology in left wing slogans and that he devoted himself almost exclusively to ‘administrative matters’, in other words ‘bureaucracy’.<br /><br />However, when it came to politics Trotsky, the disciplinarian and bureaucrat, refused to submit to the agreed rules of inter-party democracy. When his own right-wing ideas were defeated at party congresses, he reacted by forming his own faction, the so-called Trotsky-Bukharinite block.<br /><br /> In the famous Moscow‘show trials’ of 1937, many members of Trotsky’s ‘Leningrad Centre’ faction were accused of having conspired with Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan in order to form a fascist puppet regime after a joint Nazi-Japanese invasion of the USSR. Trotsky was, of course, living in exile; but his terrorist faction had been infiltrated by the NKVD, the state security police. The prosecution produced a plethora of documentary evidence to convict the men of treason. Realising that they were caught, they all confessed to their crimes, blaming their gang leader Trotsky for their treasonous plans. The trials were observed by many Western diplomats who all concluded that they had been conducted fairly and that there was no question concerning the men’s guilt, including US president Roosevelt’s ambassador to Moscow Joseph E Davies. The Nazi minister for propaganda, Josef Goebbels, later wrote in his dairies, ‘The Fuhrer is furious with himself for having let himself be fooled by the potential of reports from his Bolshevik agents’. Hitler was indeed fooled but his arche nemesis Stalin was not! The trails were only deemed to be show trails after Soviet dictator Nikita khrushchev’s infamous ‘Secret Speech in 1956. But he has subsequently been shown by a number of historians to have been part of the self-same treasonous gang! Professor Grover Furr and Vladimir Bobrov have proven that every single anti-Stalinist tirade in Khushchev's 'Secret Speech' was a complete lie.It would not be too difficult to see why Khrushchev wanted to demonise Stalin.His economic policies were clearly a restoration of capitalism and his method of governance was far more dictatorial than his predecessor. In fact, Stalin had never been a dictator. He was elected by the party to take decisions in accordance with consensus of the central committee, who had the power to remove him at any time. As the great Irish communist Neil Goold Verschoyle pointed out:<br />‘Under capitalism a dictator may have great power because the powerful capitalist interests in the country agree to sink their differences and hand over the state to the control of one man pledged to suppress the people. But the Soviet Union is not a capitalist state, there are no powerful organised private interests’<br /><br /> Stalin offered to resign from the position of general secretary of the party no less than 4 times and criticised the 'cult of personality'on numerous occasions, a cult fanatically promoted by traitorous sycophants like Khrushchev who would later use it to denounce Stalin and destroy socialism in the USSR.<br /><br />Stalin's work 'Economic Problems in the USSR' would not be published until 1978 when the Soviet Union was already in terminal decline. Trotsky's pathetic lies about Stalin and the Soviet Union were easily refuted by communist intellectuals of Trotsky's time who had traveled to the Soviet Union themselves. Jr Campbell's book 'Soviet Policy and its Critics' refutes Trotsky's lies one after the other with consumate ease. In the Spanish Civil War, the Trots helped the fascists to seize power by attacking the popular front to defend the Republic. Soviet foreign policy was based on Marxist principles applied to concrete reality. It was not dogmatic Marxism, but rather creative Marxism, that is to say Marxism-Leninism. The concrete reality after the failed revolutions in Germany was that socialism was unlikely to spread to Europe for some time. The Soviet Governement therefore judged that the best way to promote revolution was to build up socialist structures in the Soviet Union and conduct friendly relations with all other countries. The revolution would be permanent but in stages.Socialism in one country would lead to socialism in others. This policy initiatlly adumbrated by Lenin and later developed by Stalin subsequently proved to be correct with the victory of Mao in China, another revolution which Trotsky failed to understand.<br /> By the time of the Spanish civil war, European nations were divided between bourgeois democracies where communist parties could agitate, albeit in a limited form, and fascist states where all oppposition to capitalism was outlawed. The Soviets therefore judged that a popular front composed of communist parties and progressive bourgeois elements to defend the gains of formal bourgeois democracy over fascist degeneration was the correct position to support in their foreign policy. There were, however, two principal forces that attacked this popular front, the Trotskyists and the fascists, the treason of the former ultimately leading to the rise of the latter. <br /><br />The Trotskyite myth of Stalinist villainy was taken up by British intelligence agent George Orwell and subsequently re-layed by the film director Ken Loach. Shame on you Ken! Only ignoramuses, reactionaries and poor philosophers fall for Trotskyism. Yet there is, sadly, a plethora of such 'theorisits' still ranting and raving about their outcast 'prophet'.<br /><br />George Orwell was not a fool but he was unquestionably a vicious reactionary. His only knowledge of the Soviet Union came, as he admitted, from the bourgeois press and, of course, Trotsky! Working for British intelligence, he submitted lists of writers who had actually visited and studied the Soviet Union for censorship; people like Anna Louis Strong, Walter Duranty, Sidney and Beatrice Webb and others.Once the left was split by Trotsky and Stalin's personality slandered by the traitor Khrushchev, the cold war historians delivered the coup de grace to history's greatest revolutionary Josef Stalin.Nazi sources of disinformation became the norm rather than the exception. Robert Conquest, another British intelligence agent, is the most notorious of the cold war sham historians.Aledandrre Adler, who has close connections with the CIA, is perhaps his equivalent in France.<br />By whom, then, was the ‘revolution betrayed’ to borrow another one of Trotsky’s phrases? By none other than himself! Shame on you SWP for promoting a convicted and proven fascist agent!Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-28249645731416637192010-01-04T13:30:00.000-08:002010-01-04T13:36:19.866-08:00Iosrael san Aontas Eorpach? Is ball é cheanna féin dár le Javier Solana<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEbfFVVOgrXOJ1TvVEP8pmK-oRsI7ZWmWHI9UIYeHu_jg-hx2Ii16gXvNu-ctP6_D9qg-SGWQzEO6_8x8ZOrVUoONsOosodZgJViXeBGkkeRgkH_Zzc4tA9F3t1cg4nploH204gA/s1600-h/solana.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 100px; height: 122px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEbfFVVOgrXOJ1TvVEP8pmK-oRsI7ZWmWHI9UIYeHu_jg-hx2Ii16gXvNu-ctP6_D9qg-SGWQzEO6_8x8ZOrVUoONsOosodZgJViXeBGkkeRgkH_Zzc4tA9F3t1cg4nploH204gA/s320/solana.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423001369820298162" /></a><br /><br /><br />Is cuid den Eoraip í Iosrael, dár le Javier Solana. Bhí an t-aire eorpach um gnothaí eachtracha ag caint ar chomhdháil sa Jerusalem eagraithe ag Uachtarán na hIosraele Simon Peres. Ba ea ‘Facing Tomorrow’ téama an chomhdhála agus bhí se lán de dhaoine uaisle cosúil le Baron David Meyer de Rothshild, José Maria Aznar, Tony Blair agus mar sin de. Agus cuspóir an chruinniú? Bhí siad ag iarriadh fháil amach na deiseanna a tá ann mar gheall ar an ngearchéim airgeadais domhnanda!<br /><br /> Nuair a smaoiníonn tú ar ce chomh cumhachtach agus ce chomh tábhachtach is é an t-uasal Solana do bheartas eachtannach an t-Aontais Eorpaigh, tá sé soléir anois go bhfuil aicme cheannais na hEorpha ar thaobh na hIosraela agus nach gcuireann a gcuid gcoireanna isteach ar Bhruiséil ar chor ar bith!<br /><br />Dá bhrí sin, ta gach seans go mbeidh iarrthóireacht na hIosraela i gcróilár na tosaíochtaí ins na blianta amach romhain agus bigí cinnte nach mbeidh aon vóta riachtanach chun doirse na hEorpha a oscailt don Stát ciníoch!<br /><br />Bithiúnach eile é Xavier Solana. Is cara dlúth é le Henry Kissinger, an coirpeach cogaidh is mó ar domhan. Tuairiscítear go raibh Kissinger ar iarriadh líne díreach a fháil leis an Eoraip agus go fuar sé sin nuair a fuar Solana a phost mar aire um ghnothaí eachtracha. Mar sin, beidh sé i bhfad níos éasca as seo amach deireadh a chur le daonlathas san Eoraip agus an t-uaslathas domhanda a dhaingniú.<br /><br />Os comhair na troscaireachta dúirt Solana nach raibh aon fhadhb le stát na hIosraela faoi stádus an phróiseas siochána. Má leanann an t-Aontas Eorpach ar aghaidh mar sin , beimid ag breathnú ar dheachtóireacht an aicme airgeadais feasta agus dímheas iomlán do chearta daoine. Cur i gcás, ó roinnt iarrthóirí d’uachtarántacht an t-Aontais Eorpaigh tá Tony Blair, coirpeadh cogaidh, bréagadóir agus bithiúnach amach is amach agus iar-uachtarán na fionnlainne Marti Ahtisaari, fear a bhí i bhfabhar cuimhneacháin a dhéanamh ar Waffen SS na Fionlainne sa Dara Cogadh Domhanda in 1999!Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-90374429366265302422010-01-04T13:28:00.000-08:002010-01-04T13:30:39.355-08:00Mr. Netanyahu, open this gate, Mr Netanyahu tear down this wall!All this maudlin, sentimental, hypocritical and utterly dishonest discourse about the ‘fall of the Berlin wall’ and the destruction of the Soviet Union makes me sick! <br /><br /> Listening to the hollow speeches by the leaders of the imperial powers in Berlin was a surreal experience indeed. Former French president, now regent and shameless nepotist Nicolas Sarkozy, phony labourite anti-socialist Gordon Brown, new Czar of Russia Medvedev and the man himself President Obama as well as former US president Bill Clinton gloating in the audience, all overdosing in a narcissistic orgy of hypocrisy, cheered on by their media courtiers and brainwashed masses!<br /><br />Angela Merkel had made her prelude to the occasion by addressing the US Congress in Washington on the 3rd of Novemeber where she thanked the United States for bringing ‘freedom’ to Germany. She mentioned Ronald Reagan’s speech where he famously said ‘ Mr Gorbachev open this gate, Mr Gorbachev tear down that wall’. I wonder when we will hear a US president say “ Mr. Netanyahu, open this gate, Mr Netanyahu tear down this wall!”. The ironies proliferated as Chancellor Merkel went on to mention the holocaust and thank President George Herbert Walker Bush for allowing Germany to become ‘partners in leadership’ after German unification. “What a generous offer” she opined. A generous offer indeed! But she forgot to thank his father Prescott Bush, the Nazi sympathiser who handled the Wall Street finances of the Third Reich both before and throughout the war! Here too the US financial elite and the Nazis were ‘partners in leadership!’<br /><br />It took Germany a mere two years after reunification to resume old habits.In 1992 the US and German ‘partners in leadership’ undertook their first post war joint-venture: the rape and destruction of Yugoslavia. Germany dispatched the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) ,Germany’s secret services whose mission was to arm, train and advise the psychopathic KLA, Bosnian and Croatian rebels, their old World War Two Nazi collaborators. The result was a brutal civil war and the destruction of the peaceful nation of Yugoslavia .<br /><br />Chancellor Merkel also forgot to thank the United States for giving jobs to all the unemployed Nazi criminals after the war, especially in the areas of biological warfare, military intelligence and space research. After all, what would America have become had it not been for Operation Paperclip, Fort Dietrich and German Nazis who put the first man on the moon? German and American Nazis, partners in leadership!<br /><br />Since the Second World War, the United States has bombed over 50 countries, killed millions of people and imposed fascist dictatorships all over the world in order to protect the interests of America’s ruling class.<br /><br /> To come back to the Berlin Wall, It should be pointed out that the German Democratic Republic did not want to divide Germany, nor did it wish to build an odious wall. The Soviet post-war proposals were for a unified, demilitarised Germany which would pay reparations to the Soviet Union for the economic destruction and the deaths of 20 million Soviet citizens Germany had caused. It was the Allied Powers who refused to agree to these proposals. This meant that the GDR had to pay the reparations to the Soviet Union for Germany’s Nazi past while the West received significant US investment. It was the Western powers who decided to divide Germany when a currency reform was created for the Western zone in 1948.<br /><br />But it was the Atomic re-armament of the German Bundeswehr and their refusal of GDR proposals that both East and West Germany withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and NATO, coupled with West Germany’s insistence on annexing the East which lead to the tragic construction of the wall. The GDR and the Soviet Union had a deep fear that the Allied Powers would provoke another war. But there was also other reasons for the wall which I have discussed in a previous article.<br /><br />It should not be forgotten that it was the Soviet Union which had experienced the worse horrors of the Second World War, and that few if any American civilians were killed. Furthermore, the term ‘Cold War’ was invented by a US financier and presidential advisor Bernard Baruch in 1947. Josef Stalin’s project was to create socialism in one country. The soviets had no intention of embarking upon another war.<br /><br />This is the inconvenient truth about the Cold War, a war faught by a greedy minority, a war on the hopes of millions to a decent life, a war on humanity. The Iron curtain that blocked out the stench of capitalist excesses has been replaced by a steel frame crushing the planet, criminalising all dissent, killing hope.Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-41564163064198764872010-01-04T13:23:00.000-08:002010-01-04T13:28:15.825-08:00America's message to China: dump the dollar and we'll unleash hell.US President Obama’s visit to China last week to China captured much attention in the world press. Obama’s visit to China was intended to convey three key, carefully calibrated messages. The principal message was obvious: don’t pull the plug on our global empire by dumping the dollar. The second and third messages were a follow up from the first.If you refuse to take orders from Washington, we will use our human rights monopoly to break up your country into separate client states of the US.<br /><br />Obama’s deeply ironic reference to the importance of human rights was carefully formulated to stress the ‘rights of ethnic minorities’ in China as opposed to human rights per se. What this means is that if China allows the dollar to fall, thereby plunging the US empire into free fall, the CIA will resume destabilisation activities in the Qinyang province and in Tibet. We saw a taste of this in Qinjang this year with the Uigur riots and in Tibet last year when the Tibetan hooligans, funded and trained by the CIA and its numerous front organisations created chaos, murdering innocent civilians and looting shops and industries.<br /><br />The World Uigur Congress is based in Washington DC and, like the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan separatist movement, it is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, one of the CIA’s numerous front organisations. Like the Tibetan movement, the World Uigur Congress has close ties with Germany and its virtues have been widely extolled in the right-wing German press, which is unsurprising. After all, it was Nazi Germany who taught the US the art of mendacious propaganda and the US ruling class has proven itself to be an dedicated student.<br /><br />President Obama’s coded mission in China was to make it clear to Beijing that the US does not really care about what the Chinese government does to its own population in general but that Washington is ‘concerned’ about China’s ethnic minorities. So, in a nutshell Obama’s message to China amounted to something like this: do as we say or we will carve you up into little pieces, install pre-trained puppet regimes before plundering your stocks of precious metals.<br /><br />The World Uigur Congress was formed in 2004 and like the World Zionist Congress it is openly racist and religious fundamentalist. The millionaire leader of the World Uigur Congress is a lady by the name of Rebiya Kadeer. This lady does not even disguise her racist proclivities.<br /><br />In an interview with Antonella Rampino of the Italian newspaper La Stampa on May 8th 2009, she put the plight of the Uigur people thus: “ As you see, you behave like I do, you have the same white skin: you are Indo-European. Would you like to be oppressed by a yellow Han communist?” Of course, the notion of the Uigurs , who are the majority in the Xinjang Autonomous Region, being oppressed is a bare-faced lie. The Chinese government has been quite tolerant of their religious and cultural identity; they are generally better off than their Han compatriots, and most Uigurs, like the Jews of pre-Nazi Germany, are quite content to live and work in the multicultural Chinese state. But the World Uigur Congress could soon put an end to that if given the green light from their Washington masters. I could say more about the historical and ideological similarities between the World Zionist Congress and the World Uigur Congress but I do not wish to break any dogmatic taboos here. <br /><br />According to former FBI translator, Sibel Williams, the islamic radicalisation of the Xinyang province was outsourced by the CIA to Bin Laden's(remember him?) Al Qaeda. Williams alleges that Bin Laden was working for the CIA right up until 911. Mrs Williams subsequent dismissal by the FBI in 2002 for 'disruptive' behaviour was strongly criticised by US state department inspector general Glenn A Fine. As in the outsourcing of labour, the outsourcing of terrorism is the secret weapon of the global ruling class.<br /><br />Some of the Western headlines concerning Obama’s visit to China would be funny were it not for the fact that the US empire is most likely to lead humanity into another world war. In the Ochs-Sulzberger family newspaper, known to the world as The International Herald, I read that the Chinese ‘unfree’ press did not give Obama’s visit the coverage it deserved. Other Western press outlets were outraged when the Chinese spokesman Qin Gang pointed out the embarrassing truth to Obama that the Tibetan population had been serfs of the Lama despots before the Chinese liberated them in 1952; he quickly followed up the attack by stating that Obama’s support for the Dalai Lama was ironic given his skin-colour and admiration for Abraham Lincoln. If I were president Obama I would have retorted thus " ‘touché old boy , but as you know racism has always been the tool of the ruling class to divide and crush the proletariat of the world. Are you not a communist? Have you not read Karl Marx?”Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-89241683448874945192010-01-04T13:20:00.000-08:002010-01-04T13:21:46.200-08:00Plean na Colóime: Tá an Cholóim nasc-ghafa leis na Stáit Aonaithe anois agus tá seach-chogadh in ndán do mhuintir na Veiniséala.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilyNKcGygBm7tJU9ClH0dzn7KsLoByoIln1mi7NQmnWtFYvs5wM7hhfhiXUg3noN1mkXbPPLnH54v-CJbS7XTrRVXZ-zeWXWX0WXqj12Mq7BXTJhlQDnDNfKCGzfyfznJTRWdf9w/s1600-h/plan+columbia.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilyNKcGygBm7tJU9ClH0dzn7KsLoByoIln1mi7NQmnWtFYvs5wM7hhfhiXUg3noN1mkXbPPLnH54v-CJbS7XTrRVXZ-zeWXWX0WXqj12Mq7BXTJhlQDnDNfKCGzfyfznJTRWdf9w/s320/plan+columbia.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5422997937514419778" /></a><br /><br />¿Tiene algún sentido que el gobierno de Estados Unidos invierta tiempo y dinero en construir bases militares en Colombia para imponer a nuestros pueblos su odiosa tiranía? Por ese camino, si un desastre amenaza al mundo, un desastre mayor y más rápido amenaza al imperio, y todo sería consecuencia del mismo sistema de explotación y saqueo del planeta. Fidel Castro<br /><br />Nuair a vótáil muintir na Veinséala Hugo Chavez mar uachtarán na tire i 1998 , d’athraigh polaitíocht agus eacnamaíocht na tíre go radacach don chéad uair ó neamhspleáchas na Colóime Mhóir i 1820. Ba mhór an dóchas a mhothaigh muintir na Veiniséala ar an lá sin. Is tír fhíorbhocht í Veiniséala; tá morchuid na ndaoine gan dídean, gan oideachas, gan dóchas ar an taobh amhain agus olagarchacht bhrúidiúlach fhíorshaibhir ar an taobh eile gan aon chomhbhá leis an mórchuid bhocht. Choinnigh an olagarchacht saibhris na tíre ina lámha fein agus faigheann siad gach tacaíocht sheasta ó Washington chun a gcumhacht a choinnéal.<br /><br />Cé go ndearna an CIA iarracht eile deireadh a chur le daonlathas sa Veiniséala leis an coup d’état i 2002, nuair a tháinig an pobal amach ins na sráideanna chun léirsiú ollmhór a dhéanamh i gcoinne na faisistithe, bhí bua tábhachtach, stairiúl ag na Chavistas. Ó shin i leith, tá geilleagar na Veiniséala ag dul o neart go neart. Ach le 95% de mheán cumarsáide sa tír ag an olagarchacht, beidh sé fíordheacair do Chavez an cogadh inmheánach leis an olagarchacht chomh maith leis an gcogadh atá a teacht in gcoinne Colóime a bhuachaint. Ach más féidir leis chomhobair a dhéanamh le Fuerzas Armadas Revolutionarias de Colombia(FARC) bhféidir go bhfuil seans acu na faisistithe a ruigeadh.<br /><br />Ina ‘reflexiones’ suas luaite, altanna a scríobhann Fidel Castro faoi cúrsaí reatha, dúirt sé go bhfuil an Cholóim nasc-gafe leis na Stáit Aonaithe anois. Shínigh rialtas na Colóime conradh mileata nua le Washington le déanaí chun seacht bunáite nua mileata a bhunú sa tír. Má léann tú an conradh ‘Acuerdo complementario para la Cooperación y Asistencia Técnica en Defensa y Seguridad entre los gobiernos de Colombia y Estados Unidos ‘ is léir go bhfuil baol mór ann do mhuintir na Veiniséala ó nasc-ghabháil mheiricánach na Colóime.<br /><br />Fáinne fí is ea é caipitleachas agus cogadh. San alt eile a scríobh Castro le déanaí, dúirt sé go scríosfaidh na faisithe sna Stáit Aonaithe Obama sa chéad olltoghchán eile agus cruthóidh siad leithscéal eile don chogadh domhanda. Ach dúirt sé chomh maith go bhfuil súil aige nach bhfuil sé sin fíor. Ar an taobh amháin aontaím le comradero Castro, ach measaim go bhfuil sé ró-dhéanach anois. Tá an cogoadh tarlaithe cheana féin. Beidh me ag dul go dtí an Veiniséala ar ball chun cabhrú leis an bpobal móruchtúil siúd ina thróid in gcoinne los gringos!<br /><br /> <br /><br />Gluais<br /><br />Nasc-ghafa- annexed<br /><br />Seach-chogadh-proxy war<br /><br />Chomhbhá- sympathy.<br /><br />Móruchtúil- courageous<br /><br />‘Does it make any sense that the United States would spend time and money in building military bases in Columbia in order to impose on our people their odious tyranny. By this route, if a disaster threatens the world, a major disaster, the more the threat will be to the empire and all will be a consequence of the same system of exploitation and pillage of the planet’ . CastroGearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-56124239428765143222010-01-04T13:16:00.000-08:002010-01-04T13:18:41.681-08:00The market is foul playThierry Henry’s ‘main de dieu’ (hand of God) has been the thorn in the side of French society since the World Cup qualifier between the Republic of Ireland and France a couple of weeks ago . As an Irishman living in France, I have been inundated with apologies and commiserations from French friends and colleagues. I must admit I have been quite moved by the sense of fairness and sympathy which French people have expressed towards Ireland. As it happens, Henry’s infamous hand ball has in fact coincided with a national debate about French identity.<br />The French have always been a nation given to introspection. It that insuperable question which became the title one of Gaugain’s masterpieces ‘ D'où venons-nous ? Que sommes-nous ? Où allons-nous ?’ Where are we from, what are we and where are we going? Among the responses to the question of French identity, the values of human rights have come to the prominently fore. For the French, therefore, the French Revolution is a foundation stone of what it means to be French. But France has long ceased to be a revolutionary society. The May 68 riots were perhaps the last pathetic attempt to resuscitate French revolutionary consciousness, yet they amounted to little if nothing. In fact, French socialism died in May 68. Many of the 68ers would later prove to be among the greatest sell-outs and proselytisers in French history. The Trotskyist Lionel Jospin was one of the students in the 1968 riots is perhaps one of the most notable traitors of socialism. When France finally elected a socialist government under the stewardship of Francois Mitterand, himself a former collaborator with the Vishy regime during the Nazi occupation, the greatest privatisation programme in French history was launched. The Trotskyite dissembler Jospin called it ‘réalisme de gauche’ left-wing realism. George Orwell would have been proud of him!<br /> Mitterand turned socialism on its head, sending military aircraft and warships to the Gulf to be used against the Iranian people in the days when Saddam Hussein was a ‘friend’ of the West. His conduct in Africa was typical French colonialism with a ‘human face’. The attitude of the French ‘socialist’ led coalition government during the nineteen eighties towards Africa’s most progressive leader Thomas Sankara is a case in point. In 1983 in the Republic of Upper Volta, Thomas Sankara took power a revolutionary coup d’etat. His programme was to educate, feed and house all citizens of the former French colony. He re- named the country Burkina Faso, land of the upright men.<br />Unlike Mitterand, Sankara didn’t just preach and waffle about socialism, he practised it. Unlike former Nazi collaborator Mitterand Sankara’s father faught in the French army against the Nazis during World War II. During Thomas Sankara’s short reign, female circumcision was banned, women were given full and equal rights to men, contraception was promoted and the country’s first supermarket was opened. But that wasn’t enough for Sankara. He sold the government’s fleet of Mercedes cars and replaced them with modest Renault 5s! He himself continued to live with his family in a poor mud cabin. Thomas Sankara promoted socialism,ecologism and feminism; he understood Africa’s problems and dedicated his life to solving them.<br />But the ‘socialist’ French government had always been less than enthusiastic about Sankara; he had been placed under arrest just in 1983 after a visit by Mitterand’s son Jean Christophe, the crook locals called ‘Papa m’as dit’ Daddy told me. In a state visit to Burkina Faso in 1984 President Mitterand warned Sankara that his socialism was going to far. In other words, France had many interests in the country which were threatened by Sankara’s reforms, such as the super rich French minority who lived in luxury from the labour of Burkina Faso’s poor. Sankara’s reforms could conflict with their priviledges. Such a threat to Burkina Faso’s plutocracy was a problem for the French ‘socialists’.<br />In 1987 Sankara was murdered in right-wing coup d’état lead by his friend Blaise Compaore. Many people in Burkina Faso suspected French involvement. It would be hard to blame them given the fact that subsequent French presidents have to this day greeted the murderer Compaore as a friend<br />It is the same old story of hypocrisy and greed. The French nation changed the world in 1789 and changed it again albeit briefly in the Paris commune of 1871. These events marked France’s claim to greatness. But where are the philosophers today? Where are the revolutionary ideas and who will implement them? What has become of this once great nation that no longer understands what it came from, who it is and where it is going?<br />We live in a world where the greatest liars and cheaters win the greatest prizes. It is a world of capital rights; human rights are irrelevant. In this sense Henry’s handball is symptomatic not only of the crisis in French identity. Rather, the handball is the symbol of our corrupt capitalist world. It is the hidden hand of the market ruthlessly sticking down all hope of fairness and justice, the hand that steals as it gives, the hand of treachery.Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29182620.post-71642119268938955272010-01-04T13:07:00.000-08:002010-01-04T13:16:00.377-08:00Post-democracy and the new dictators<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizhYBZbKOhW3DltqXXSwzU1B4pjst_9WpbPvuN8IXePS-l38arWo1AOnV4o3hV03cBqOIF6GuzuhhvHZdlBMMA56Rdgt2clrp9a3oHdPF3Oz3bow4P7rtRBTOPYKwdcfA0yaE8lg/s1600-h/post+democracy.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 124px; height: 124px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizhYBZbKOhW3DltqXXSwzU1B4pjst_9WpbPvuN8IXePS-l38arWo1AOnV4o3hV03cBqOIF6GuzuhhvHZdlBMMA56Rdgt2clrp9a3oHdPF3Oz3bow4P7rtRBTOPYKwdcfA0yaE8lg/s320/post+democracy.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5422996407875961650" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />In this post-democratic age any politician who defends democracy is denounced as a tyrant or dictator. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, Athmadinejad of Iran and many others have consistently been demonised in the Western press for their ‘anti-democratic’ politics. The reason for this is simple: All three leaders defend economic policies which favour the poor over the rich. This is their biggest crime. Now, before you shout me down, I should say that there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Athmadinjad ‘stole’ the presidential election this year. I have pointed out in other articles that the so-called Green revolution agenda in Iran is part of a US-funded regime change project to replace Athmadinejad with a leader propitious to US interests in Iran. It was in reality an anti-democratic agenda.<br /><br /> There is no doubt that most of the young people in Iran want change but this desire for change is more cultural rather than political. I spoke to many students in my last visit to Iran a few months ago. What struck me about many of them was their deeply confused reasoning on international issues. Many students I spoke to admired Israel and the United States as paragons of democracy and progress, flagrantly denying the fact that these are two of the most aggressive states on the planet, both guilty of war crimes and genocide abroad as well as deep corruption at home.<br /><br />The opponents of Athmadinejad have fallen from the Scylla of Islamic theocracy into the Charybdis of Western pseudo-democracy.The problem with the Iranian opposition groups is that their opposition to the cultural politics of the Islamic Republic has thrown them back into the hands of CNN and propaganda radio stations from Israel. Moreover, many of them express views of Arabs and in particular Palestinians that amount to racism. But in the west racism against Arabs is the norm. Every time the newspapers and TV channels refer the Israeli Defence Forces combating Palestinian ‘terrorists’, they are guilty of racism as they deliberately ignore the fact that the Israeli occupied territories are in breach of international law and if you defy the law you are a de facto criminal. Therefore, the Israeli state is as such a criminal entity. Moreover, Israel’s insistence on describing itself as a ‘Jewish’ state is outright racism, as it favours one ethnic community over others. Hamas is one of the only democratically elected organisations in the Middle East and in view of the fact that Israel chooses to ignore international law, their military struggle with Israel does not constitute terrorism. Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah are no less unlawful than the IDF, they are simply combatants in a protracted conflict.<br /><br />President Athmadinejad of Iran has also been demonised for his statements concerning Israel. But his statement was as usual taken out of context. He did not call for the destruction of the Jews. On the contrary, he called for an end to Zionism. There are many anti-Zionist Jews both in Iran, Israel and throughout the world. Athmadinejad has Jewish ancestry himself and is supported by a majority of the Jewish community in Iran, the biggest Jewish community in the Middle East outside Israel. He also has support from anti-Zionist rabbis in Israel itself.<br /><br />As for Hugo Chavez, here the vitriol, lies and anti-democratic propaganda reaches dizzying proportions. Hugo Chavez is a democratically elected president. Since he has come to power, he has provided free schooling for the country’s poor, free health care through generous help from Cuba and a free press for the first time in the country’s history. He has given hope to millions of the country’s poor and has overcome a US backed fascist coup against him and an international campaign to demonise him. Human Rights Watch and Reporters without Borders are the most notorious examples of mendacious propaganda against Chavez. I will reserve discussion of Venezuela and an exposé of the lies and propaganda of Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders for another article. But before I finish, it is important to debunk one of the biggest lies propagated throughout the world concerning Chavez. Unlike the US-backed dictators the ‘human rights’ activists in the opposition promote, Hugo Chavez has consistently promoted freedom of expression and freedom of the press in Venezuela. 95 percent of the media in Venezuela is privately owned by right-wing pro-us moguls. When the ‘human rights’ opposition supported the CIA-backed coup d’etat against the democratic Chavez in 2002, the Venezuelan media applauded the re-installed fascists. Since then, they have spread the most atrocious propaganda against the president, accusing him of mental illness, among other calumnies. As the media in Venezuela refuses to recognise the democratic leader of the country, Chavez has been forced to open his own TV programme where he answers calls from Venezuela’s poor. In this Orwellian world, leaders who side with the poor, oppose imperialism and favour the interests of their people over those of the US,EU and the international cabal of capitalist hawks are subject to the most callous and outrageous calumnies. It is a deeply worrying sign of how inhuman and decadent Western societies have become when we attack the democrats and freedom fighters and defend the tyrants. The problem is now ubiquitous in this post-democratic age.Gearóid Ó Colmáinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16332663581617691258noreply@blogger.com0