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Paul Merrell

Petraeus Spared Ray McGovern's Question | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...-spared-ray-mcgoverns-question

war & peace Patraeus McGovern arrest

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • New York City police arrested ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern to prevent him from attending a public event where he planned to pose a pointed question to retired Gen. David Petraeus, another sign of how much U.S. neocons love democracy, writes Robert Parry.
  • Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who was arrested by New York City police on Thursday night to prevent him from attending a speech by retired Gen. and ex-CIA Director David Petraeus, told me the day before that he was planning to ask a question during the Q-and-A. McGovern, who writes regularly for Consortiumnews.com, compared his goal in New York to his famous questioning of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Atlanta in 2006 when McGovern pressed Rumsfeld on false statements he had made about Iraq’s WMD and ties to al-Qaeda.
  • But the 75-year-old McGovern was blocked from entering the event at the 92nd Street Y, was roughly put under arrest, and was held overnight in jail. He described his ordeal in an interview with RT, saying “I was warned as soon as I got to the ticket-taker, ‘Ray, you’re not welcome here.’” McGovern, who was suffering from a shoulder injury, said he was caused sharp pain by being forcefully handcuffed. “If you’ve seen the footage, you can see me screaming in pain as they try to pin my left wrist around behind my back,” McGovern told RT.
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  • He was hauled off to a local precinct and charged with resisting arrest, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. He said he spent the night on a stainless steel cot.
Paul Merrell

Louis Freeh's Latest Investigation: Billionaire Businessman Accused of Bribing African Government - The Intercept - 0 views

firstlook.org/...sed-bribing-african-government

corruption Freeh FBI Steinmetz

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Louis Freeh, the former FBI director whose wife was deeded half of a $3 million beachside penthouse by a businessman–just nine days after Freeh cleared that same businessman of wrongdoing–is onto a new job: Helping exonerate a billionaire businessman accused of bribing an African government. As I reported here the other day, Freeh has made piles of money since leaving government service by hiring himself out to conduct allegedly independent corporate and political investigations.  These investigations are clearly a growth business, because now Freeh’s firm is helping coordinate the defense of an Israeli billionaire who is being investigated on three continents in regard to bribes he allegedly paid to win a mining stake in one of the world’s poorest countries.
  • The case involves Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz, who controls BSGR, a holding company that in 2008 obtained a huge stake in a gigantic iron mine in the West African nation of Guinea. BSGR reportedly paid nothing for its rights to Simandou and two years later flipped 51% of its stake to a Brazilian mining giant for $2.5 billion – twice the size of Guinea’s annual budget. The deal was consummated two weeks before the death of Lansana Conté, a homicidal dictator who had ruled since a 1984 coup. An investigation by the current government of Guinea found that a shell company controlled by BSGR paid at least $2.4 million to Mamadie Touré, a wife of the former dictator, in return for her help in acquiring the rights to the mine for BSGR. Earlier this year the government annulled BSGR’s stake in the mine, saying the firm had obtained it through corruption. Police in France and Switzerland raided offices linked to Steinmetz, and in the United States, there is an ongoing court case in the Southern District of New York about the Simandou affair as well as a huge Foreign Corrupt Practices Act investigation led by the Justice Department. The Justice Department could indict Steinmetz if it’s shown that he played a direct role in paying bribes. (See this fantastic New Yorker account if you want the full story. Also see the great work by Global Witness.)
Paul Merrell

Ukraine Massacre has CIA Fingerprints Says Oliver Stone | News | teleSUR - 0 views

www.telesurtv.net/...liver-Stone-20141231-0005.html

war & peace Ukraine-coup CIA Stone

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Revered film maker Oliver Stone revealed that the overthrow of the Ukrainian president in February 2014, in which more than 50 people were killed, has the hallmarks of the techniques used by the CIA to remove undesirable leaders in Venezuela, Chile and Iran. After a four-hour interview with the ousted, legitimately elected president Viktor Yanukovych, Stone concluded that a “third party” played a part in the massacre, and that the resulting shooting had “CIA fingerprints on it.” “It seems clear that the so-called ‘shooters’ who killed 14 police men, wounded some 85, and killed 45 protesting civilians, were outside third party agitators. Many witnesses, including Yanukovych and police officials, believe these foreign elements were introduced by pro-Western factions -- with CIA fingerprints on it,” the director wrote on his Facebook page.
  • Stone went on to point out the “similar technique” used against former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's elected government in 2002, when he was briefly driven out, which also used “mysterious shooters in office buildings.” Just like in the Maiden Massacre, the mainstream media portrayed the latter event as the work of a brutal, authoritarian government. “Create enough chaos, as the CIA did in Iran ‘53, Chile ‘73, and countless other coups, and the legitimate government can be toppled. It’s America’s soft power technique called ‘Regime Change 101,'” Stone said. The documentary-maker, who spoke to Yanukovych for a new film, said that the United States would not be able to hide its crimes for much longer. “The truth is not being aired in the West. It’s a surreal perversion of history that’s going on once again, as in Bush pre-Iraq ‘WMD’ campaign. But I believe the truth will finally come out in the West, I hope, in time to stop further insanity,” Stone concluded.
Paul Merrell

Jordan submits UN draft on Palestinians; Lieberman: Act of aggression - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1.632456

UNSC Palestine Israel draft-resolution EU France U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Jordan late Wednesday submitted a draft United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an end to the Israeli occupation by 2017, on behalf of the Palestinian leadership. After a day of closed-door negotiations among Arab members of the United Nations, Jordan, which represents Arab countries on the Security Council, put the draft resolution "in blue," meaning the text of the draft has been finalized and could be put to a vote 24 hours later.
  • Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said that the resolution submitted by Jordan was a French-sponsored version of the draft, not the one originally phrased by the Palestinians and the Arab League. The resolution sets a two-year deadline to reach a solution to the Palestinian issue, Al-Malki told Voice of Palestine Radio. "France said it wants to go to the Security Council with us because the proposal will deal with all the problems that existed over the past 20 years of negotiations," al-Malki said. "It believes a ceiling to end negotiations and end the occupation is the best process now, because direct negotiations have proven to be futile." Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday that the submission of the draft amounted to an act of aggression.
  • Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to censure Israel, Lieberman said, a process he added would have no benefit for the Palestinians but rather worsen the regional council. Such a measure will not advance steps toward a permanent agreement, Lieberman added, as without Israel's consent, nothing will change.
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  • Earlier on Wednesday, the European Parliament accepted, with a large majority, a decision expressing support "in principle" of the recognition of a Palestinian state, along with furthering negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Some 498 parliamentarians voted in favor of the motion, 88 voted against it, and 111 abstained. On Tuesday, the U.S. clarified that it would be willing to support a United Nations Security Council proposal on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, as long as it contains "no unilateral measures" that would predetermine the outcome of diplomatic negotiations. State Department Spokesman Jen Psaki said that if the wording of the resolution included terms of reference for negotiations on the core issues, the United States would accept it, and not view it as a unilateral move.
  • Paul Merrell on 21 Dec 14
     
    Smoke and mirrors. The EU, France, and the U.S. are trying to rescue Israel from the inevitable single-state solution if an independent Palestinian state is not recognized very soon. But Israel's bellicose government resists even that; it wants to annex the entirety of Palestine by pushing all the Muslim Palestinians out, one new settlement at a time. Meanwhile, the Palestine Authority threatens to join more treaties, including that for the International Criminal Court, and mumbles about ending its policing of the West Bank for Israel. And the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which is seeking a single state solution, gains momentum at an accelerating rate globally, which is what is driving all these diplomatic machinations.
Paul Merrell

France still on alert; terrorist sleeper cells activated | KFOR.com - 0 views

kfor.com/...rorist-sleeper-cells-activated

war & peace Paris terrorists™ politics-of-fear

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • French law enforcement officers have been told to erase their social media presence and to carry their weapons at all times because terror sleeper cells have been activated over the last 24 hours in the country, a French police source who attended a briefing Saturday told CNN Terror Analyst Samuel Laurent. Ahmedy Coulibaly, a suspect killed Friday during a deadly Kosher market hostage siege, had made several phone calls about targeting police officers in France.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Jan 15
     
    Just what's needed to respond to a terrorist™ attack in which all of the terrorists™ were killed; trigger-happy cops. 
Paul Merrell

California Senate approves measure banning warrantless drone surveillance | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...a-drones-idUSKBN0GR0E020140827

surveillance state California drones-police civil liberties

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • (Reuters) - The California State Senate passed legislation on Tuesday imposing strict regulations on how law enforcement and other government agencies can use drones, a move supporters said will protect privacy and prevent warrantless surveillance. The bill attracted bipartisan support in the Senate, passing 25-8 during the evening vote in Sacramento.The legislation would require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before using an unmanned aircraft, or drone, except in emergencies such as a fire or a hostage-taking.
  • Other public agencies would be able to use drones, or contract for their use, to achieve their "core mission," so long as that mission is not to gather criminal intelligence."The potential for abuse of drones is high and we need to be vigilant to ensure our Constitutional rights are protected," said the bill's co-author, Democratic Senator Ted Lieu.Idaho and Virginia have also passed laws restricting uses of pilotless aircraft because of privacy concerns.
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti supported the new regulations but the measure faced opposition from law enforcement groups, including the California Police Chiefs Association and the California State Sheriffs' Association.The legislation "is an inappropriate attempt to impose search and seizure requirements on California law enforcement agencies beyond what is required by the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution," the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office said in their opposition to the bill.
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Aug 14
     
    Gotta love that quote from the L.A. County District Attorney's Office. As though either the 4th Amendment or California's own constitution prohibits the legislature from granting citizens more liberties than the 4th Amendment sets as the irreducible minimum. By that logic, the federal Civil Rights Act would be unconstitutional because the 4th Amendment does not grant citizens the right to sue misbehaving cops in a civil action.  
Paul Merrell

The NSA's New Partner in Spying: Saudi Arabia's Brutal State Police - The Intercept - 1 views

firstlook.org/...di-arabias-brutal-state-police

surveillance state NSA Saudis human rights human-intelligence

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The National Security Agency last year significantly expanded its cooperative relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Interior, one of the world’s most repressive and abusive government agencies. An April 2013 top secret memo provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden details the agency’s plans “to provide direct analytic and technical support” to the Saudis on “internal security” matters. The Saudi Ministry of Interior—referred to in the document as MOI— has been condemned for years as one of the most brutal human rights violators in the world. In 2013, the U.S. State Department reported that “Ministry of Interior officials sometimes subjected prisoners and detainees to torture and other physical abuse,” specifically mentioning a 2011 episode in which MOI agents allegedly “poured an antiseptic cleaning liquid down [the] throat” of one human rights activist. The report also notes the MOI’s use of invasive surveillance targeted at political and religious dissidents.
  • But as the State Department publicly catalogued those very abuses, the NSA worked to provide increased surveillance assistance to the ministry that perpetrated them.
  • “With the approval of the Third Party SIGINT relationship,” the memo reports, the NSA “intends to provide direct analytic and technical support to TAD.” The goal is “to facilitate the Saudi government’s ability to utilize SIGINT to locate and track individuals of mutual interest within Saudi Arabia.”
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  • The National Security Agency last year significantly expanded its cooperative relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Interior, one of the world’s most repressive and abusive government agencies. An April 2013 top secret memo provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden details the agency’s plans “to provide direct analytic and technical support” to the Saudis on “internal security” matters. The Saudi Ministry of Interior—referred to in the document as MOI— has been condemned for years as one of the most brutal human rights violators in the world. In 2013, the U.S. State Department reported that “Ministry of Interior officials sometimes subjected prisoners and detainees to torture and other physical abuse,” specifically mentioning a 2011 episode in which MOI agents allegedly “poured an antiseptic cleaning liquid down [the] throat” of one human rights activist. The report also notes the MOI’s use of invasive surveillance targeted at political and religious dissidents. But as the State Department publicly catalogued those very abuses, the NSA worked to provide increased surveillance assistance to the ministry that perpetrated them. The move is part of the Obama Administration’s increasingly close ties with the Saudi regime; beyond the new cooperation with the MOI, the memo describes “a period of rejuvenation” for the NSA’s relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Defense. In general, U.S. support for the Saudi regime is long-standing. One secret 2007 NSA memo lists Saudi Arabia as one of four countries where the U.S. “has [an] interest in regime continuity.”
Paul Merrell

U.S. "Humanitarian" Bombing of Iraq: A Redundant Presidential Ritual - The Intercept - 0 views

firstlook.org/...-redundant-presidential-ritual

war & peace Iraq U.S.-foreign-policy Obama Big-Energy humanitarian-wars

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • There are several brief points worth noting about all of this: (1) For those who ask “what should be done?,” has the hideous aftermath of the NATO intervention in Libya – hailed as a grand success for “humanitarian interventions” – not taught the crucial lessons that (a) bombing for ostensibly “humanitarian” ends virtually never fulfills the claimed goals but rather almost always makes the situation worse; (b) the U.S. military is not designed, and is not deployed, for “humanitarian” purposes?; and (c) the U.S. military is not always capable of “doing something” positive about every humanitarian crisis even if that were really the goal of U.S. officials? The suffering in Iraq is real, as is the brutality of ISIS, and the desire to fix it is understandable. There may be some ideal world in which a superpower is both able and eager to bomb for humanitarian purposes. But that is not this world. Just note how completely the welfare of Libya was ignored by most intervention advocates the minute the fun, glorious, exciting part – “We came, we saw, he died,” chuckled Hillary Clinton – was over.
  • (2) It is simply mystifying how anyone can look at U.S. actions in the Middle East and still believe that the goal of its military deployments is humanitarianism. The U.S. government does not oppose tyranny and violent oppression in the Middle East. To the contrary, it is and long has been American policy to do everything possible to subjugate the populations of that region with brutal force – as conclusively demonstrated by stalwart U.S. support for the region’s worst oppressors. Or, as Hillary Clinton so memorably put it in 2009: “I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family.” How can anyone believe that a government whose overt, explicit policy is “regime continuity” for Saudi Arabia, and who continues to lend all sorts of support to the military dictators of Egypt, is simultaneously driven by humanitarian missions in the region? (3) “Humanitarianism” is the pretty packaging in which all wars – even the most blatantly aggressive ones – are wrapped, but it is almost never the actual purpose. There are often numerous steps the U.S. could take to advance actually humanitarian goals, but those take persistence and resources, and entail little means of control, and are thus usually ignored in favor of blowing things and people up with Freedom Bombs.
  • (4) Note how even the pretenses of constitutional democracy are now dispensed with: there is a reasonable legal debate over legality, but in essence: the President has the power to order bombing of Iraq because he decides it should happen. (5) Perhaps having Israel and the U.S. simultaneously bombing Arabs in different countries – yet again – will create some extremely negative consequences?
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  • (6) This above-documented parade of “Saddam-is-worse-than-Hitler” campaigns was surrounded by stints of U.S. arming and funding of the very same Saddam (the same, of course, was true of the Taliban precursors, Gadhaffi, Iran, Manuel Noriega, and virtually every other Latest Villain who needed to be bombed; the US was roughly allied with ISIS allies in Syria and American allies fund ISIS itself). The propaganda has gone from “pulling babies from incubators: as bad as Hitler” to “rape rooms: worse than Hitler” to the new slogan: “worse than al-Qaeda!” What’s left? For quite some time, it was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – the democratically elected president of Iran who left office peacefully at the end of his term and who never actually invaded anybody – who was The New Hitler. As all of this demonstrates, there certainly are some heinous, violent people in the world: often including America’s closest allies and the ones who unleash the violence documented here, as well as those at whom that violence is directed. But perhaps some perspective and serious skepticism is warranted the next time we’re relentlessly bombarded with messaging about The New Greatest Villainous Threat in History – and especially manipulative accusations that opposition to U.S. military attack is indicative of support for those New Villains – as a means to secure acquiescence to the next bombing campaign.
  • (7) Maybe this and this, rather than humanitarianism, is a more significant influence in this new bombing campaign? Targeted strikes against ISIS is obviously not remotely the same as a full-scale invasion of Iraq, but whatever else is true, and whatever one’s opinions are on this latest bombing, it is self-evidently significant that, as the NYT’s Peter Baker wrote today, “Mr. Obama became the fourth president in a row to order military action in that graveyard of American ambition” known as Iraq.
Paul Merrell

Video: Palestinians cheer as Israeli "skunk" truck crashes into ravine | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...eli-skunk-truck-crashes-ravine

war & peace Israel Palestine skunk-trucks

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • It has been described as smelling like “a chunk of rotting corpse from a stagnant sewer” placed in a blender. It is the foul-smelling liquid the “skunk” truck, one of Israel’s weapons of occupation and oppression, routinely sprays at Palestinians. One of these skunk trucks can be seen in the video above spraying a jet of the disgusting liquid in eastern occupied Jerusalem on Saturday. “Apart from the repulsive nausea-inducing stench, the skunk liquid can cause pain and redness if it comes into contact with eyes, irritation if it comes into contact with skin and if swallowed can cause abdominal pain requiring medical treatment,” according to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).
  • As can be seen in the video, the skunk truck appears to be spraying a jet of its foul liquid over a wide area and at houses, an act that can have no effect other than to further provoke and aggravate the Palestinian victims of the Israeli occupation. On 26 August, the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, a local Jerusalem news agency, reported that Israeli occupation forces had severely escalated their use of skunk trucks over the last two months. Jerusalemites complained about the routine and indiscriminate spraying of the foul liquid at their homes, cars and businesses and said that the occupation has done this with increasing frequency since the 2 July kidnapping and murder by Israeli settlers of the Jerusalemite teenager Muhammad Abu Khudair.
  • On 10 August, ACRI said it had contacted the commander of Jerusalem’s occupation police “to request that he urgently clarify the details” of Israel’s use of the substance. “Witness testimony reveals that the police indiscriminately sprayed the skunk liquid towards houses, people, restaurants brimming with people and in crowded streets, causing harm to innocent residents,” ACRI said. “Evidence suggests that in some cases the skunk repellent was arbitrarily used with no apparent justification and in the absence of any public disturbances.” It’s no wonder Palestinians were so delighted to see at least one Israeli skunk truck put out of action.
  • Paul Merrell on 01 Sep 14
     
    What can I say? Life in an apartheid state.
Paul Merrell

ISIS is America's New Terror Brand    : Information Clearing House - ICH - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39566.htm

war & peace war on terror™ propaganda lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • In the wake of World War I, erstwhile propagandist and political scientist Harold Lasswell famously defined propaganda as “the management of collective attitudes” and the “control over opinion” through “the manipulation of significant symbols.”[1] The extent to which this tradition is enthusiastically upheld in the West and the United States in particular is remarkable. The American public is consistently propagandized by its government and corporate news media on the mSpread_Caliphateost vital of contemporary issues and events. Deception on such a scale would be of little consequence if the US was not the most powerful economic and military force on earth.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Sep 14
     
    The American public would be well-served to remind itself that ISIS is the new Al Qaeda-in other words, the new pretext that will in all likelihood be used to take police state measures at home and military aggression abroad to new, perhaps unprecedented, levels.
Paul Merrell

Paris attacks: David Cameron to discuss greater spying powers with UK security chiefs as calls to revive 'snooper's charter' grow - UK Politics - UK - The Independent - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...pers-charter-grow-9970989.html

surveillance state civil-liberties-repression war & peace false-flag

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Print Your friend's email address Your email address Note: We do not store your email address(es) but your IP address will be logged to prevent abuse of this feature. Please read our Legal Terms & Policies A A A Email David Cameron is to meet with UK security chiefs on Monday to discuss whether Britain will give greater powers to its police and spies in the wake of the Paris terror attacks. The Prime Minister said there were “things to learn” from the wave of violence that saw 17 killed across northern France from Wednesday to Friday – and he has faced pressure to revive the so-called “snooper’s charter” that would make it easier for GCHQ to monitor online communications. The head of MI5, Andrew Parker, has warned that a group of al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria is planning “mass casualty attacks” against Western targets, while former Royal Navy chief Lord West called for more money to be budgeted to the security service.
  • David Cameron is to meet with UK security chiefs on Monday to discuss whether Britain will give greater powers to its police and spies in the wake of the Paris terror attacks. The Prime Minister said there were “things to learn” from the wave of violence that saw 17 killed across northern France from Wednesday to Friday – and he has faced pressure to revive the so-called “snooper’s charter” that would make it easier for GCHQ to monitor online communications. The head of MI5, Andrew Parker, has warned that a group of al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria is planning “mass casualty attacks” against Western targets, while former Royal Navy chief Lord West called for more money to be budgeted to the security service.
  • In a broadcast interview ahead of his appearance at the unity march in Paris today, Mr Cameron said: “It's important to look at what happened in France and think through those scenarios and other scenarios like them: how we'd respond, how well prepared we are.
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  • The Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, who also attended the London demonstration, was criticised by Lord West for blocking the “snooper’s charter” in his capacity as deputy Prime Minister. “I think we need to make sure that we don't lose powers,” Lord West said. “The Communications Data Bill was there to ensure we kept capabilities we had which are beginning to disappear. I think that needs to go through.
  • “I'll be meeting with security and intelligence chiefs on Monday morning to once again go through all of those questions and to make sure we do everything we can to in order to ensure we're as well prepared as we can be to deal with this threat. “It's a threat that has been with us for many years and I believe will be with us for many years to come.” Speaking to Sky News from a demonstration in support of Paris at Trafalgar Square, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: “I’m not interested in this civil liberties stuff. If they’re a threat, I want their emails and calls listened to.”
  • “I was very irked that it was removed by the deputy prime minister when it had all been agreed across all parties. That needs to be pushed through.”
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Jan 15
     
    Let's remember that the lid came off NATO's use of staged false flag terrorist attacks in Europe several years ago. E.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k83L3I6Z35w
Gary Edwards

America's Terrorism Fear Factory Rolls On | The National Interest - 0 views

nationalinterest.org/...orism-fear-factory-rolls-12054

terrorism

shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • n her review of Risen’s book in the New York Times, Louise Richardson lauds his criticism of “the profligacy of government agencies and the ‘over-sight free zone’ they operated” as well as of “self-appointed terrorism experts” who promote fear “while drawing lucrative consulting contracts for themselves.
  • She is troubled, however, that Risen “makes no mention of the press,” which she considers a key member of the terrorism industry and “at least as guilty as others in his book of stirring up public anxiety for public gain.”             
  • Fear-mongering by officials and by the media is politically (and economically) understandable, but it is also decidedly irresponsible. Especially when public safety is the concern, it is vital to get the threats right and to evaluate counterterrorism measures in a systematic and coherent manner. Money and effort spent to deal with lesser threats is money unavailable for dealing with greater ones.     
  • Gary Edwards on 23 Jan 15
     
    ""Fear sells," points out journalist James Risen in his recent book, Pay Any Price.             There was a great deal of selling on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Friday. Segueing neatly from a report on raids against terrorists in Belgium, host George Stephanopoulos noted that "fears in Europe are matched by growing anxiety here about homegrown terror." He then stoked those anxieties as he introduced a segment on an apparently current "sting operation to stop a radicalized young man planning a deadly attack on our nation's Capitol."            Only at the end of the "exclusive" report, and in passing, was it noted that the plot actually took place three years ago. And nowhere was it pointed out that the man had overstayed his visitor's visa by 12 years (and therefore could have been deported at any time), that he had been evicted from his apartment in Virginia, or that FBI operatives had paid him $5,700 for living expenses and provided him with every scrap of weaponry he possessed. Also unmentioned: FBI informants had promised to pay the man's destitute parents in Morocco up to $1,000 a month after he killed himself in the process of detonating a small (FBI-provided) bomb in a ludicrous mission to bring down the Capitol dome. The average monthly household income in Morocco is less than $600.              It is often assumed that, even without the FBI's aid, a determined homegrown terrorist would eventually find someone else to supply him with his required weaponry. However, as Trevor Aaronson observes in his book, The Terror Factory, there has never "been a single would-be terrorist in the United States who has become operational through a chance meeting with someone able to provide the means for a terrorist attack." Only the police and FBI have been able to supply that service.             In his book, Risen skewers what he calls the "homeland security-industrial complex." American leaders, he
Paul Merrell

New regs say passengers cannot fly without biometric ID card - Police State USA - 0 views

www.policestateusa.com/...tsa-to-require-real-id

surveillance state national-id-cards biomettric-ID flying trains politics of fear

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The ability to travel in the United States is about to become more restrictive as the TSA announces it will soon be enforcing new identification standards in American airports. Beginning in 2016, passengers attempting to pass through a federal TSA checkpoint will be subject to the requirements of the REAL ID Act. To that end, the TSA will put higher scrutiny on travelers’ identities, and will only accept a federal passport or a “REAL-ID” card, which is issued by the states to meet federal requirements. Passengers will not be allowed to fly through an American airport without submitting to the advanced federal specifications. Both federal passports and REAL-ID cards require a number of unique personal identifiers to be stored together in government databases, including his or her full name, date of birth, Social Security Number, scanned signature, and other identifiers. Both cards require biometric data: a front-facing digital photograph of the passenger’s face, which is ultimately used with a facial recognition database.
  • The enhanced security measures stem from the passage of the REAL ID Act of 2005, a U.S. law enacted by President Bush that states that a Federal agency may not accept state-issued identification cards without complying with a number of enhanced standards of the REAL ID Act. The states were given a number of years to comply, and many moved to pass their own laws to meet the benchmarks of the REAL ID Act. Due to some sluggish response, DHS extended the compliance deadline several times. Unfortunately, most states were all too willing to bend to the requirements of the federal government in order to obtain “state certifications” of compliance. To signify their compliance with the federal standards, many states are now issuing identity cards emblazoned with gold stars in the corner.
  • According to the Department of Homeland Security, only Arizona, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, and American Samoa have not met REAL ID standards as of January 2015. By DHS estimates, 70%-80% of all U.S. drivers are already carrying around REAL ID cards or live in states that have received extensions for compliance. Some states have even gone as far as to require the applicant to present birth certificates, W-2 tax forms, bank statements, and/or pay stubs to verify one’s identity before handing out the new REAL-ID cards. Some cards have RFID chips embedded in them. Among the 39 benchmarks of the REAL ID Act, state ID cards have to be scannable with a bar code reader, and the states are required to share access to an electronic database with all other states.
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  • Once DHS begins enforcing the REAL ID standards, Americans without a compliant state ID will be effectively prohibited from flying at a commercial airport. Passengers would need to obtain passports even to fly on planes that never leave the United States.
  • a few rose in opposition to REAL ID, including Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), who was perhaps its most outspoken critic. Dr. Paul, a former presidential candidate, called REAL ID a “Trojan horse” which “transform[s] state drivers licenses into de facto national ID cards.” In an impassioned speech on the House floor on February 9, 2005, Paul laid out a number of specific objections to H.R. 418: The REAL ID Act establishes a national ID card by mandating that states include certain minimum identification standards on driver’s licenses. It contains no limits on the government’s power to impose additional standards. Indeed, it gives authority to the Secretary of Homeland Security to unilaterally add requirements as he sees fit.
  • Supporters claim it is not a national ID because it is voluntary. However, any state that opts out will automatically make non-persons out of its citizens. The citizens of that state will be unable to have any dealings with the federal government because their ID will not be accepted. They will not be able to fly or to take a train. In essence, in the eyes of the federal government they will cease to exist. It is absurd to call this voluntary. Republican Party talking points on this bill, which claim that this is not a national ID card, nevertheless endorse the idea that “the federal government should set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification such as driver’s licenses.” So they admit that they want a national ID but at the same time pretend that this is not a national ID. This bill establishes a massive, centrally-coordinated database of highly personal information about American citizens: at a minimum their name, date of birth, place of residence, Social Security number, and physical and possibly other characteristics. What is even more disturbing is that, by mandating that states participate in the “Drivers License Agreement,” this bill creates a massive database of sensitive information on American citizens that will be shared with Canada and Mexico!
  • This bill could have a chilling effect on the exercise of our constitutionally guaranteed rights. It re-defines “terrorism” in broad new terms that could well include members of firearms rights and anti-abortion groups, or other such groups as determined by whoever is in power at the time. There are no prohibitions against including such information in the database as information about a person’s exercise of First Amendment rights or about a person’s appearance on a registry of firearms owners. REAL ID cards streamline the process for the centralization and federalization of our private biometric data, while offering very little true benefit. In the words of Congressman Ron Paul, the program “offers us a false sense of greater security at the cost of taking a gigantic step toward making America a police state.” Its difficult to argue otherwise when passports may soon be necessary to travel domestically.
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Feb 15
     
    This is among the reasons I no longer fly. I refuse to be treated in that distrustful way by my government. Atthough I used to fly several hundred thousands of miles annually, if the airlines want my business, they need to actively and effectively oppose the emergence of the surveillance state. I reject the politics of fear that attempts to justify suppression of liberties. Where I travel is none of the government's business.
Paul Merrell

ISIS Executioner Emwazi claims Harassment by MI5: Forced Recruitment Methods | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...mi5-forced-recruitment-methods

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The ISIS executioner who appeared in several execution videos, speaking with British accent, has been identified as the 26-year-old Mohammed Emwazi who claims that he had been harassed and intimidated by MI5. How are Western intelligence services recruiting targeted persons? Mohammed Emwazi, a.k.a. Jihadi John” from the British capital London has, according to the guardian  been harassed by the British intelligence service MI5.
  • In an article entitled “How Mohammed Emwazi went from fresh Graduate to knife-wielding killer” the newspaper would report that his ordeal began when he traveled to Tanzania in 2009. The domestic British intelligence service MI5 was reportedly already in touch with Emwazi before he left the UK and began appearing in ISIS videos. Emwazi reportedly stated that he had been harassed to such a degree that he filed a complaint with the Independent Police Complaints Commission over his treatment.
  • What is the most common Forced Recruitment Strategy of the UK’s MI5, the German Verfassunsschutz and other Western European Intelligence Services?  One of the most common recruitment techniques among European intelligence services is to single out persons who committed minor crimes, threaten them with severe consequences or with the possibility to “set them up and let them serve major prison sentences”. After this first round of intimidation they are then approached by a domestic intelligence service who will offer them that “all problems could easily disappear if they cooperate; or else”. Especially the UK’s MI5 and the German Federal as well as State Verfassungsschutz (Constitutional Protection Police) have perfected this recruitment method. The most common “targets” for this recruitment method are individuals of special interest. During the 1960s – 70s this would typically be Communists, Socialists. Since the 1980s and after the end of the so-called cold war in the 90s, the Western European intelligence services began to focus on the new “enemy”, Muslims.
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  • British and most major corporate and State-funded Western media would focus on whether Emwazi’s claims were exaggerated or not; or whether the authorizations granted by the UK’s Counter-terrorism and Security Act violate the rights of citizens and contribute to radicalizing people rather than preventing terrorism. The questions almost all media shun are: Has MI5 used the above described or a similar method to force Emwazi into becoming cooperative? Has he been forced into the role of Jihadi John or is he a willing executioner / actor? Is he still handled by British or eventually NATO intelligence services? Are the revelations by the guardian a limited hangout to crate a new “legend” after inconsistencies in previous ISIS videos and “convenient timing” of executions had become too blatantly obvious?
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Feb 15
     
    "Is he still handled by British or eventually NATO intelligence services?" That's a very good question. How Emwazi finally managed to leave the UK despite being placed on a "no foreign travel" list remains a mystery. With MI5's assistance is a distinct possibility given the UK's collaboration with the U.S. in creating and managing ISIL 
Paul Merrell

What's Scarier: Terrorism, or Governments Blocking Websites in its Name? - The Intercept - 0 views

firstlook.org/...terally-blocking-websites-name

censorship-crimes web-site-blocking terrorism™ civil liberties discrimination War-on-Muslims

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Forcibly taking down websites deemed to be supportive of terrorism, or criminalizing speech deemed to “advocate” terrorism, is a major trend in both Europe and the West generally. Last month in Brussels, the European Union’s counter-terrorism coordinator issued a memo proclaiming that “Europe is facing an unprecedented, diverse and serious terrorist threat,” and argued that increased state control over the Internet is crucial to combating it. The memo noted that “the EU and its Member States have developed several initiatives related to countering radicalisation and terrorism on the Internet,” yet argued that more must be done. It argued that the focus should be on “working with the main players in the Internet industry [a]s the best way to limit the circulation of terrorist material online.” It specifically hailed the tactics of the U.K. Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), which has succeeded in causing the removal of large amounts of material it deems “extremist”:
  • In addition to recommending the dissemination of “counter-narratives” by governments, the memo also urged EU member states to “examine the legal and technical possibilities to remove illegal content.” Exploiting terrorism fears to control speech has been a common practice in the West since 9/11, but it is becoming increasingly popular even in countries that have experienced exceedingly few attacks. A new extremist bill advocated by the right-wing Harper government in Canada (also supported by Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau even as he recognizes its dangers) would create new crimes for “advocating terrorism”; specifically: “every person who, by communicating statements, knowingly advocates or promotes the commission of terrorism offences in general” would be a guilty and can be sent to prison for five years for each offense. In justifying the new proposal, the Canadian government admits that “under the current criminal law, it is [already] a crime to counsel or actively encourage others to commit a specific terrorism offence.” This new proposal is about criminalizing ideas and opinions. In the government’s words, it “prohibits the intentional advocacy or promotion of terrorism, knowing or reckless as to whether it would result in terrorism.”
  • If someone argues that continuous Western violence and interference in the Muslim world for decades justifies violence being returned to the West, or even advocates that governments arm various insurgents considered by some to be “terrorists,” such speech could easily be viewed as constituting a crime. To calm concerns, Canadian authorities point out that “the proposed new offence is similar to one recently enacted by Australia, that prohibits advocating a terrorist act or the commission of a terrorism offence-all while being reckless as to whether another person will engage in this kind of activity.” Indeed, Australia enacted a new law late last year that indisputably targets political speech and ideas, as well as criminalizing journalism considered threatening by the government. Punishing people for their speech deemed extremist or dangerous has been a vibrant practice in both the U.K. and U.S. for some time now, as I detailed (coincidentally) just a couple days before free speech marches broke out in the West after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Those criminalization-of-speech attacks overwhelmingly target Muslims, and have resulted in the punishment of such classic free speech activities as posting anti-war commentary on Facebook, tweeting links to “extremist” videos, translating and posting “radicalizing” videos to the Internet, writing scholarly articles in defense of Palestinian groups and expressing harsh criticism of Israel, and even including a Hezbollah channel in a cable package.
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  • Beyond the technical issues, trying to legislate ideas out of existence is a fool’s game: those sufficiently determined will always find ways to make themselves heard. Indeed, as U.S. pop star Barbra Streisand famously learned, attempts to suppress ideas usually result in the greatest publicity possible for their advocates and/or elevate them by turning fringe ideas into martyrs for free speech (I have zero doubt that all five of the targeted sites enjoyed among their highest traffic dates ever today as a result of the French targeting). But the comical futility of these efforts is exceeded by their profound dangers. Who wants governments to be able to unilaterally block websites? Isn’t the exercise of this website-blocking power what has long been cited as reasons we should regard the Bad Countries — such as China and Iran — as tyrannies (which also usually cite “counterterrorism” to justify their censorship efforts)?
  • s those and countless other examples prove, the concepts of “extremism” and “radicalizing” (like “terrorism” itself) are incredibly vague and elastic, and in the hands of those who wield power, almost always expand far beyond what you think it should mean (plotting to blow up innocent people) to mean: anyone who disseminates ideas that are threatening to the exercise of our power. That’s why powers justified in the name of combating “radicalism” or “extremism” are invariably — not often or usually, but invariably — applied to activists, dissidents, protesters and those who challenge prevailing orthodoxies and power centers. My arguments for distrusting governments to exercise powers of censorship are set forth here (in the context of a prior attempt by a different French minister to control the content of Twitter). In sum, far more damage has been inflicted historically by efforts to censor and criminalize political ideas than by the kind of “terrorism” these governments are invoking to justify these censorship powers. And whatever else may be true, few things are more inimical to, or threatening of, Internet freedom than allowing functionaries inside governments to unilaterally block websites from functioning on the ground that the ideas those sites advocate are objectionable or “dangerous.” That’s every bit as true when the censors are in Paris, London, and Ottawa, and Washington as when they are in Tehran, Moscow or Beijing.
Paul Merrell

German paper reports second German spy working for US | News | DW.DE | 09.07.2014 - 0 views

www.dw.de/...a-17769539

surveillance state Germany CIA double-agent

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The German paper Süddeutsche Zeitung has reported that German criminal police have searched the Berlin apartment of a second man thought to be spying for the CIA. The man worked for the German military, says the paper.
  • Citing its own information as well as sources from German public broadcasters WDR and NDR on Wednesday, the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) reports that officials from Germany's Federal Criminal Police Agency (BKA) and the public prosecutor's office are conducting a search in the apartment of a Berlin man. There is initial suspicion that the man is working as a spy. The federal prosecutor's office has confirmed that a search is under way. The SZ reports that Wednesday's investigation is being seen by observers as "more serious" than a different investigation that began last week. In that case, officials are investigating a man who admitted to delivering documents to the CIA two years ago in exchange for 25,000 euros. According to the paper, the two cases are independent of each other.
Paul Merrell

"Crisis At The Border" Is Yet Another Example Of "Blowback." - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39068.htm

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy immigration Honduras coup El-Salvador Guatemala

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • If you’re reading this, you probably follow the news. So you’ve probably heard of the latest iteration of the “crisis at the border”: tens of thousands of children, many of them unaccompanied by an adult, crossing the desert from Mexico into the United States, where they surrender to the Border Patrol in hope of being allowed to remain here permanently. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention and hearing system has been overwhelmed by the surge of children and, in some cases, their parents. The Obama Administration has asked Congress to approve new funding to speed up processing and deportations of these illegal immigrants. Even if you’ve followed this story closely, you probably haven’t heard the depressing backstory — the reason so many Central Americans are sending their children on a dangerous thousand-mile journey up the spine of Mexico, where they ride atop freight trains, endure shakedowns by corrupt police and face rapists, bandits and other predators. (For a sense of what it’s like, check out the excellent 2009 film “Sin Nombre.”) NPR and other mainstream news outlets are parroting the White House, which blames unscrupulous “coyotes” (human smugglers) for “lying to parents, telling them that if they put their kids in the hands of traffickers and get to the United States that they will be able to stay.” True: the coyotes are saying that in order to gin up business. Also true: U.S. law has changed, and many of these kids have a strong legal case for asylum. Unfortunately, U.S. officials are ignoring the law.
  • The sad truth is that this “crisis at the border” is yet another example of “blowback.” Blowback is an unintended negative consequence of U.S. political, military and/or economic intervention overseas — when something we did in the past comes back to bite us in the ass. 9/11 is the classic example; arming and funding radical Islamists in the Middle East and South Asia who were less grateful for our help than angry at the U.S.’ simultaneous backing for oppressive governments (The House of Saud, Saddam, Assad, etc.) in the region. More recent cases include U.S. support for Islamist insurgents in Libya and Syria, which destabilized both countries and led to the murders of U.S. consular officials in Benghazi, and the rise of ISIS, the guerilla army that imperils the U.S.-backed Maliki regime in Baghdad, respectively. Confusing the issue for casual American news consumers is that the current border crisis doesn’t involve the usual Mexicans traveling north in search of work. Instead, we’re talking about people from Central American nations devastated by a century of American colonialism and imperialism, much of that intervention surprisingly recent. Central American refugees are merely transiting through Mexico.
  • “The unaccompanied children crossing the border into the United States are leaving behind mainly three Central American countries, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. The first two are among the world’s most violent and all three have deep poverty, according to a Pew Research report based on Department of Homeland Security (DHS) information,” reports NBC News. “El Salvador ranked second in terms of homicides in Latin America in 2011, and it is still high on the list. Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are among the poorest nations in Latin America. Thirty percent of Hondurans, 17 percent of Salvadorans and 26 percent of Guatemalans live on less than $2 a day.” The fact that Honduras is the biggest source of the exodus jumped out at me. That’s because, in 2009, the United States government — under President Obama — tacitly supported a military coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras. “Washington has a very close relationship with the Honduran military, which goes back decades,” The Guardian noted at the time. “During the 1980s, the US used bases in Honduras to train and arm the Contras, Nicaraguan paramilitaries who became known for their atrocities in their war against the Sandinista government in neighbouring Nicaragua.”
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  • Honduras wasn’t paradise under President Manuel Zelaya. Since the coup, however, the country has entered a downward death spiral of drug-related bloodshed and political revenge killings that crashed the economy, brought an end to law, order and civil society, and now has some analysts calling it a “failed state” along the lines of Somalia and Afghanistan during the 1990s. “Zelaya’s overthrow created a vacuum in security in which military and police were now focused more on political protest, and also led to a freeze in international aid that markedly worsened socio-economic conditions,” Mark Ungar, professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York, told The International Business Times. “The 2009 coup, asserts [Tulane] professor Aaron Schneider, gave the Honduran military more political and economic leverage, at the same time as the state and political elites lost their legitimacy, resources and the capacity to govern large parts of the country.” El Salvador and Guatemala, also narcostates devastated by decades of U.S. support for oppressive, corrupt right-wing dictatorships, are suffering similar conditions.
  • Talk about brass! The United States does it everything it can to screw up Central America — and then acts surprised when desperate people show up at its front gate trying to escape the (U.S.-caused) carnage. Letting the kids stay — along with their families — is less than the least we could do.
Paul Merrell

ISIL, Turkey: The Dream of Restoring the Glories of Sublime Ottoman State , by Israa Al-Fass - 0 views

www.voltairenet.org/article185381.html

war & peace ISIL Turkey Erdogan

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • The ISIL’s funding father is Erdogan’s personal friend The name of the Saudi businessman Yassin al-Qadi has been linked to organizations classified as terrorist internationally. In particular, the foreign press and the Turkish opposition media describe him as “al-Qaeda’s funding father”. After the events of September 11/2001, al-Qadi- along with other figures- has been included in the world’s list of terrorists, and his name was stereotyped as a terrorist man. This made several countries ban him from entering into their territories, Turkey was one of them. Earlier, the Turkish media documented a photo scandal: Erdogan’s meetings with Yassin al-Qadi as well as long meetings with his son Bilal Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The scandal that was leaked by Turkish security elements came in the context of the case of corruption of which the son of the former Turkish Prime Minister has been accused. Based upon this, a large number of elements of the security corps were arrested being accused of plotting a coup against the government.
  • Nevertheless, the French journalist Thierry Meyssan describes Yassin al-Qadi as a personal friend of both Dick Cheney (former U.S. Vice President) and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to him, al-Qadi visited Turkey four times during 2012, and “his plane used to land at the second airport of Istanbul, and was being welcomed by the Prime Minister personally, without going through the smart gate, and after cutting the security cameras’ power supply”. The Turkish Gmehoriet Newspaper intended to publish details about the investigations conducted by the Turkish judiciary on the same case, and mentioned that Recep Tayyip Erdogan introduced Yassine al-Qadi as a Saudi businessman visiting Turkey to invest and denied that he is a terrorist. It quoted him as saying: “I trust Mr. Al-Qadi just as I trust myself. He is an almsgiver”.
  • The Turkish newspaper, after publishing Erdogan’s utterances before the Turkish judiciary, revealed that the Turkish police monitored 12 visits made by the Saudi man to Turkey. Seven out of these visits have been made with the help of Erdogan, the period when he was banned from entering Turkey, because his name was added as one of the world wanted terrorists in the list of the American FBI. The newspaper commented saying: “When the Turkish police was looking for al-Qadi, he was holding meetings with the Prime Minister”. Also, it published a photograph that showed separately the aforesaid man, Erdogan, and the Turkish intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, when they were going to a meeting that gathered them. The newspaper noted that Fidan himself met with al-Qadi 5 times when Al-Qadi has been banned from entering the Turkish territory.
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  • Yet, the interesting thing is the leaked recordings published by the newspaper that disclose that Yassin al-Qadi used to give orders to the Erdogan’s office. He used to call to inform them that he had decided today to meet with Erdogan, and that the latter should not engage in any other obligations. The newspaper reported details about the dates of the meetings between the two men, what implies that the meetings were being attended by Fidan and by the Egyptian businessman Osama Qutob; the son of Muhammad Qutob the brother of the Brotherhood leader Sayyid Qutob who holds the Turkish citizenship and is living with his father in Turkey at present. This also mean that the meetings were taking place sometimes at the home of the Turkish businessman Mustafa Latif Topas in Istanbul, attended by Erdogan’s son and Moaz the son of al-Qadi. The recordings verify that Qutob was in charge of delivering the messages from the insurgents in the battlefield in Syria to Erdogan, what signifies that the meetings of these figures exceeded the issues of investment, and perhaps they exploited the title of a charity practice!
  • Those returning from Turkey refer to the public sympathy in the pro-government Turkish street with the ISIL. Social networking websites publish photos of Islamic libraries in Istanbul selling “T-shirts” and goods with the ISIL logo on them. Perhaps this news is no longer shocking after what the German (ARD) Television has revealed regarding the opening of an office for the ISIL in al-Fateh Street in Istanbul, being ran by Turks. Through it, the process of supporting and supplying the Takfiri organization in Iraq and Syria with funds and fighters takes place.
  • The German channel itself revealed in a video report aired by it that the ISIL has training camps on the Turkish territory: 1- The GAZIANTEP Camp: a training camp for the ISIL fighters According to the report published by the website of “Today’s Zaman”, an English-language newspaper in Turkey, the Governor of the Gaziantep (Erdal Ata) rushed to hold a press conference to deny what has been revealed by the German television. However, he spoke about the arrest of 19 elements that belong to the ISIL in the city, among those who came from European countries before committing them to trial.
  • Additionally, the Lebanese journalist Hassan Hamade, in an earlier interview with Al-Manar, drew attention to the existence of three training camps in Turkey for the fighters of extremist organizations [3]. 2- The ORFA Camp, southeastern Turkey: a camp out of which the gunmen came when they attacked the Kasab city that its residents are predominantly Armenian.
  • 3- The OSMANIYA camp in Adana, southern Turkey: It is directly near the major bases of the U.S. Air Force in the Turkish territory. Yet, what is interesting is that the Osmaniya camp is a stone’s throw away from the gas pipelines points of intersection coming from Iraq and Central Asia that empty the freight in the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea. 4- The KARMAN camp, it is also in Adana but is much closer to Istanbul. Moreover, a document published by the French journalist Thierry Meyssan, earlier, revealed that Turkey facilitated the infiltration of 5,000 fighters, who belong to al-Qaeda, to the Syrian territory after receiving training in Libya.
  • Perhaps the report of the American TV Network clarifies the argument of the Turkish journalist Orhan Kama Genghis: “The strongholds of the ISIL are located close to the Turkish border, and this did not happen coincidentally”. The Turkish journalist Kadri Gursel talks about the fact that the Turkish border territories have turned into an easy pathway facilitating the arrival and departure of the militants, where there are no formal procedures (visas, etc…) that could bother them, referring to the cooperation of the Turkish intelligence agency with the militants. Above and beyond, the Turkish opposition Republican People’s Party MP Muharram Ingee said that the ISIL leader “Mazen Abu Mohammed” received treatment in one of the Turkish government hospitals in the city of Hatay on April 2014, publishing a photo of the terrorist man in the hospital.
  • Reviewing these data provide an early answer to the question of the Saudi writer, Nawaf Qadimi, who is known for his support for the Muslim Brotherhood, where the phenomenon of the ISIL leads us to evoke history. The Seljuks drew the policies to expand their influence and their tools were the advocates of takfir and the recruiting of fighters in the name of religion. Here is Erdogan in actual fact walking in the footsteps of the ancestors and painting policies, and the tools are the texts of takfir for which he is recruiting fighters in the name of religion itself! That is how history is enabling us to understand our present...
Paul Merrell

Venezuelan Opposition Mayor, Alias "The Vampire," Arrested for Role in Blue Coup Plot | venezuelanalysis.com - 0 views

venezuelanalysis.com/11223

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Venezuela coup-attempts Blue-Revolution color-revolutions

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Venezuelan opposition Mayor and longtime rightwing politician, Antonio Ledezma, has been arrested by the country’s intelligence services, SEBIN, for his alleged role in plotting to stage a coup against the democratically elected government of Nicolas Maduro.  The planned coup was uncovered last week by security forces, just hours before several US backed Air Force officials had planned to partake in a bombing spree of strategic targets in the capital. They had hoped this would lead to the assassination of the country’s president and bring about regime change in the South American country.  “Antonio Ledezma who, today, by order of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, was captured and is going to be prosecuted by the Venezuelan justice system, to make him answer to all of the crimes committed against the peace and security of the country and the Constitution… We’ve had enough of conspiracies, we want to work in peace!” announced Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, amidst a chorus of cheers from onlookers.
  • Last week, Ledezma, who is current Mayor of the Metropolitan Capital District of Caracas, signed a statement calling for a “National Transition Agreement” alongside opposition politicians, Maria Corina Machado and currently detained leader of the Popular Will party, Leopoldo Lopez.  The document calls on Venezuelans to unite behind a plan to remove elected President Nicolas Maduro and sets out an action programme for the would be provisional government. This includes facilitating the return of “exiled” Venezuelans, prosecuting current members of government and reaching out to international financial lending agencies such as the International Monetary Fund.  Circulated on February 11th, the statement was disclosed just a day before the attempted coup was set to unfold and was reportedly the signal to set the plan in motion.  
  • “It has no base in any juridic text, it is a putschist act of conspiracy that is unfortunately to the liking of thousands of opposition militants who have been indoctrinated to attack democracy,” Constitutional Lawyer, Jesus Silva, told Venezuelanalysis.  Ledezma’s detention comes in the wake of several other arrests, including those of a number of airforce officials implicated in the plan.   According to revelations made by the President of the National Assembly, Diosadado Cabello, on Wednesday night, Ledezma has since been named by one of the arrested officials under questioning.  The confession links Ledezma to a plan to “eliminate” opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez last year in order to create “chaos” and destabilise the government. Fellow opposition politician and National Assembly legislator, Julio Borges, is also implicated in the assassination plan, which forced an intervention by the government in early 2014. At the time, Lopez’s wife, Lilian Tintori, stated that the government had acted to protect her husband’s safety. 
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  • Although details surrounding Ledezma’s exact role in the recently discovered “Blue” coup plot are still unclear, it appears that the opposition politician is implicated beyond his call for a transitional government.  Following the announcement of the coup plot last Thursday, the Maduro administration suggested that further arrests were to be made once there was sufficient evidence to prosecute the political ringleaders of the plan.  “In these intelligence investigations, we have discovered a codified message, in another language,  by an important leader of a party. On translating it, we found that it gave the details, the elements of the coup. We are about to capture the person who brought the script that they were going to read, the script they were going to read out was already written, and circulated by a person who I will name at the correct moment”, said Maduro, referencing a preplanned statement which was to be read out to the public following the aerial bombardment, announcing a “rebellion” of the armed forces against the government. 
  • It is not the first time that Ledezma has been implicated in a plan to violently overthrow the government. In 2002, he participated in an attempted coup which saw socialist president of the time, Hugo Chavez, ousted for a period of 47 hours. Last year, he was also named several times as a “principal ally” by currently detained terror plotter, Lorent Saleh. Saleh was one of the main underground activists fuelling the armed barricades known as guarimbas which last year claimed the lives of at least 43 Venezuelans. He had planned to go on a killing spree with the help of Colombian paramilitaries but was arrested before the plan could take place.  
  • Popularly known as “the vampire”, Ledezma began his political career in 1973 as a member of the “Democratic Action” Party. In 1989, he infamously became Governor of the Federal District of Caracas, when he oversaw one of the most violent periods in the history of the Caracas Metropolitan Police.  The Police body, which was since disbanded in 2010 due to its human rights violations, regularly opened fire on unarmed student protests, systematically repressed street vendors, pensioners and the unemployed, as well as regularly disappeared political activists.   During this period he also oversaw the “Caracazo,” when up to 3000 people were killed and disappeared by security forces in the wake of violent protests against a government imposed austerity programme.  This particular period of Ledezma’s career earnt him the reputation of “student killer” amongst working class Venezuelans. He is founder and current leader of the rightwing party known as the “Brave People’s Alliance”. 
Paul Merrell

Islamic State militants allegedly used chlorine gas against Iraqi security forces - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...0-a7ed-033218f15cbb_story.html

war & peace ISIL al-Qaeda WMD chlorine

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • Dizzy, vomiting and struggling to breathe, 11 Iraqi police officers were rushed to a government hospital 50 miles north of the capital last month. The diagnosis: poisoning by chlorine gas. The perpetrators, according to the officers: Islamic State extremists. The chlorine attack appears to be the first confirmed use of chemical weapons by the Islamic State on the battlefield. An Iraqi Defense Ministry official corroborated the events, and doctors said survivors’ symptoms were consistent with chlorine poisoning. Iraqi forces say two other crude chlorine attacks have occurred since the extremists seized vast tracts of Iraqi territory this summer, but details on those incidents remain sketchy. The reported assaults all raise concerns that the militants are attempting to hone their chemical weapons capabilities as they push to control more ground
  • Chlorine, a common component in industry, is sold legally, but its use as a weapon violates the Chemical Weapons Convention. It was widely employed in trench warfare during World War I, including infamously at Ypres in Belgium, where German forces dispersed more than 160 tons of chlorine into the breeze, killing thousands of French and Allied soldiers.
  • One physician on the team, Hassanain Mohammed, had treated similar cases­ before. In 2006 and 2007, al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group that later morphed into the Islamic State, carried out a string of chlorine bombings in the country.
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  • An Iraqi Defense Ministry official confirmed this week that a bomb rigged with chlorine canisters was used in the Duluiyah attack. “They use it just to create terror,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to provide the information publicly. “But of course we are very concerned.” In a statement, the Defense Ministry confirmed that the Islamic State has used the gas in a “primitive and ineffective way” near water-treatment plants where it has gained access to chlorine, as well as in roadside bomb attacks. It did not specify the locations of the attacks, but there are several water plants near Duluiyah on territory controlled by the Islamic State.
  • Chlorine bombs are an easy-to-create but inexact weapon, experts say. All that is needed is a small explosive charge to rupture containers filled with the substance. “It’s difficult to deliver on target in combat situations,” said Jean Pascal Zanders, an independent researcher who specializes in chemical and biological weapons and disarmament. “Chlorine dissipates fast unless someone is able to concentrate it in a confined area.” Fighters in Duluiyah say it was not the only time chlorine has been used against them. Another attack this month caused minor injuries, and the fighters were treated locally, police officials said.
  • Soldiers who escaped an Islamic State rout of a besieged army base in Saqlawiyah, where hundreds of soldiers were killed last month, also said chlorine gas was used there — though reports of where and how the gas was delivered varied and could not be confirmed. While some officers said they believed artillery- or mortar-launched canisters fired by the attackers fell short of the base, others, who claimed to have remained in the installation for a longer period, said the canisters fell within its perimeter. Another claimed that the militants detonated chlorine-filled containers.
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