independent.co.uk

Robert Fisk: No, Aleppo is not the new Srebrenica

Robert Fisk

As armed rebels – “terrorists” in the eyes of the regime – tighten their grip on the country, at one stage holding 60 per cent of the land, government troops hit back, seizing control of the main roads and laying siege to major towns. 

The ruthless dictator, supported by Russia, accuses foreign powers of assisting his rebel enemies. There are massacres by both sides. NGOs fear for the tens of thousands of civilians trapped amid the fighting, while Western powers threaten to strike at the dictator unless he abides by a humanitarian ceasefire. 

Sound familiar? Of course. I’m describing Kosovo in 1998, the year before Nato launched its war against Slobodan Milosevic’s regime in Serbia. 

The Kosovo Liberation Army – assisted and advised, as we now know, by the CIA – was threatening to seize all of Kosovo, the Serbian province in which Milosevic’s regime had long committed human rights abuses and ethnic murder against its Muslim majority. Milosovic accused Albania of sending weapons into Kosovo with the help of Western powers. All true.

The difference between then and now is that, in 1998, the Western powers were itching for a war with Serbia. Today, those same Western nations will do anything to avoid going to war with Syria. 

Syria's civil war: Rebels launch operation to break Aleppo siege

For Albania, of course, read Turkey. For Milosevic, read Assad. For the KLA, read the Free Syrian Army, Jabhat al-Nusra or Isis or any of the other outfits which we either love or hate in Syria. 

But it’s worth remembering how much the humiliation of Bosnia was driving the West to war in Serbia. And it’s not, I fear, by chance that a UN official (widely quoted and, as usual, anonymous) said this week: “Aleppo is the new Srebrenica.” Good soundbite; bad history.

Aleppo’s tragedy is unique and terrible and totally different from the massacre at Srebrenica, the Bosnian mass slaughter of more than 8,000 Muslims by Christian Serb militia in 1995 while Western UN troops watched and did nothing.

In Aleppo, Sunni Muslim militias are fighting largely Sunni Muslim soldiers of the Syrian army whose Alawite (Shia) leader is supported by Shia Muslim Hezbollah militiamen and Shia Muslim Iran. Only three years ago, the same Sunni militiamen were besieging the surrounded Syrian army western enclave of Aleppo and firing shells and mortars into the sector where hundreds of thousands of civilians lived under regime control. 

Now the Syrian regime’s forces are surrounding the Sunni militiamen in the eastern enclave of Aleppo and firing shells and mortars – and dropping bombs and explosives – into the sector where hundreds of thousands of civilians live under rebel control. The first siege didn’t elicit many tears from the satellite channel lads and lassies. The second siege comes with oceans of tears.

For, since 2011, the West has been demanding the departure, overthrow or death of Bashar al-Assad, blaming him for 90 per cent or 95 per cent, or – the latest figure I’ve heard – 98 per cent of the 300,000 civil war deaths, or 350,000 deaths or – again, the latest figure I’ve heard – 400,000 deaths. And before you dismiss this as a cynical game of statistics, let me add that I suspect the real death toll may be more than 450,000. 

Aleppo bears the brunt in another day of carnage and defiance

But if the West is correct, then Assad’s forces have killed well over 400,000 of the dead – which is odd when the fatalities among the regime’s own army alone come to well over 60,000 – a military secret, but a real statistic which the regime does not wish to make public.

And if the West’s figures are correct, then the rebels – including the horrific Isis, whom we want to destroy, and the horrid Nusra whom we probably want to destroy, and the kindly Free Syrian Army and New Syrian Army and Syrian Democratic Forces, whom we like very much because they are Kalashnikov-toting “moderates”, who want to destroy Assad – have killed, at most, only a few thousand of the war’s victims.

This is absurd. There are no "good guys" among the Syrian warlords; yet still, despite all the evidence, we want to find them. At the same time, we can’t really work out who the "bad guys" are.

Of course, Isis – or the “so-called Islamic State” as the BBC likes to refer to them, for they are neither Islamic nor a state – must be liquidated. But the American supplied and reinforced Syrian Democratic Forces – which are never referred to as "so-called" by the BBC, even though they are neither a force (since they rely on US air power), nor democratic (since they are not elected), nor Syrian (because they are largely Kurdish) – must be supported. 

Having thus divided the cult-like evildoers of Isis from the groupuscules of “moderates” – be they old Dave Cameron’s 70,000 ghost warriors or just CIA clones – we are having problems with the Nusrah-whoops-changed-our-name-to-Sham-and-no-longer-with-the-al-Qaeda chaps. 

Because they hate Assad, but they also kill Christians, blow up churches, chop the heads off their enemies and do other rotten things which make it hard to like them, even though they are financed by Qatar – one of our wealthy "moderate" Arab Gulf allies – as opposed to Saudi Arabia, another of our wealthy "moderate" Gulf allies, which still unofficially supports the horrific Isis. And it’s the Nusra-Sham-no-longer-al-Qaeda rebels who are now besieged in Aleppo, along with 300,000 civilians.

Trouble is that our wealthy American allies – who may or may not be “moderate”, depending on who wins the presidential election – are going to have two candidates who will go all out over the next three months to demand once more the destruction of Bashar al-Assad.

We will not only be told all over again that his regime is responsible for almost the entire death toll of the Syrian civil war, but that he maintains the cruellest torture chambers in the world. Yet I promise you that the US presidential contenders won’t remind Americans that, until a few years ago, they were happily dispatching dark-skinned folk of the Muslim faith (including two Canadians) to endure the horrors of those very same torture chambers via a “security” agreement with the Syrian government. Rendition, I think it was called. 

And the parallels with Kosovo? Well it’s Hollywood. A movie. A simple plot.

In 1998, we had to go to war to save the Muslims of Kosovo from the Hitler of Belgrade. In 2016, we are going to be urged to go to war with the Hitler of Damascus – although whom we are supposed to save this time is less clear. The Kurds? The armed “moderates”? The Syrian people – millions of whom now live outside Syria? Isis? Surely not the latter. 

Or will we be saving Sunni Saudi Arabia and Sunni Qatar from disintegrating under the pressure of the war they have been stoking in their weary battle against the Shia of Iran and Lebanon and, yes, Iraq?

No, unlike 1998, we will not go to war for Syria. In Kosovo, we bombed from the air until Milosovic was told by Yeltsin’s Russia that he was on his own. But Putin’s Russia is not going to tell Assad he’s on his own. 

And besides, we don’t have Nato armies waiting on the Syrian border to invade the country if Assad surrendered. We used to have the Turks. Remember them? Wasn’t Nato’s most powerful army just itching to move into Syria on our behalf? Not any more, it’s not. And we all know why.

We can also forget “red lines”. Both sides in Syria have, I suspect, used gas and we didn’t go to war, even though we put all the blame on the regime. But we didn’t go to war for the Kurds when Saddam gassed them in 1988 – it became one of the smaller excuses for the Blair-Bush invasion of Iraq 15 years later. And after suggesting the Russians have just dropped gas in Idlib province, you can be sure we’re not going to war with Moscow.

So amid the anguish of Syria’s people, let’s not offer more lies to the Arabs. We are not going to save Aleppo, even if the Assad regime forces the rebels there to surrender (as they did in Homs, with scarcely a whimper from us). And I don’t think we are going to destroy Assad – indeed for several months before the US elections reached their climax, the "Assad-must-go" routine mysteriously faded away. 

Yes, it’s time we stopped lying to the people of the Middle East. And it’s time we stopped lying to ourselves.

 

US-Croatia War Crimes: Largest Act of Ethnic Cleansing since the Holocaust

globalresearch.ca

US-Croatia War Crimes. Krajina: Largest Act of Ethnic Cleansing since the Holocaust

By Carl Savich

 

On August 4, 1995, the Croatian Government, a proxy and satellite state of the U.S., launched the largest act of ethnic cleansing of the entire Yugoslav conflict of the 1990s.

From 250,000 to 300,000 Krajina Serbs were driven from their ancestral homes in the largest act of ethnic cleansing since the Holocaust, since the end of World War II in 1945.

Krajina Serb refugees listed the names of 2,650 Serbs who were killed in this unprecedented act of genocide. But because the U.S. Government and media orchestrated and planned this genocide and ethnic cleansing campaign, it was covered-up and censored and suppressed.

The Krajina genocide resulted in the destruction and elimination of an entire people, the Krajina Serbs.

The Genocide Convention was meant to prevent the kinds of war crimes and crimes against humanity that occurred in Krajina against the Serbian population. An entire people was left without a trace.

The Krajina ethnic cleansing orchestrated by the U.S. Government and media was the only genuine and real genocide that occurred during the Yugoslav secessionist conflicts of the 1990s. But because the U.S. planned and organized this genocide, it has been censored and suppressed.

Serbian houses, homes, businesses, churches, and property were systematically targeted in an organized genocide. Serbian civilians were murdered. Pro-Nazi and Ustasha graffiti were painted on destroyed and burned Serbian houses and property.

The systematic destruction demonstrated planning at the highest governmental levels of the Croatian government and military.

Ustasha imagery and references to pro-Nazi leader Ustasha Poglavnik Ante Pavelic were sprayed on vandalised Krajina Serb homes.

Serbian refugees were forced to evacuate their ancestral lands and flee to Serbia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. Their homes and property were taken over by Croats.

This was the largest refugee crisis since the Holocaust, since World War II.

The roads and streets were flooded to overflowing with Serbian refugees as an estimated 250,000 to 300,000 Krajian Serb refugees were expelled from Krajina. This act of ethnic cleansing constituted genocide, the total elimination and destruction of an entire people and culture.

Why wasn’t U.S. President Bill Clinton tried as a war criminal for genocide? Why wasn’t U.S. Ambassador to puppet and proxy Croatia Peter Galbraith tried for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide? Why wasn’t U.S. political and military leaders charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity? Why weren’t genocide charges brought against the U.S.?

The simple answer is: The U.S. controls the instruments of power and coercion and the media.

As a result, the largest act of ethnic cleansing since the Holocaust goes unpunished. It is not even documented or acknowledged. No justice is rendered for this crime of genocide. The U.S. and its Croat proxy and satellite gets away with mass murder and genocide and ethnic cleansing.

 The largest act of ethnic cleansing in Europe since World War II occurred in Krajina beginning on August 4, 1995. It was the only genuine and real act of genocide committed during the Yugoslav conflicts of the 1990s. Because it was planned and orchestrated by the U.S., however, it remains censored and covered-up. The Krajina genocide represents a genocide that has not been acknowledged or punished.

 

The Hague clears Slobodan Milosevic over Bosnia, what about Vladimir Putin over Ukraine?

theduran.com

The Hague clears Slobodan Milosevic over Bosnia, what about Vladimir Putin over Ukraine? - The Duran

Alexander Mercouris Editor-in-Chief at The Duran.

Those of us with memories that extend back to the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s will remember the way Western governments and the Western media cast Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic as the villain of the piece.

Milosevic was made out to be a fascistic ultra nationalist presiding over a corrupt and authoritarian regime in Serbia who regularly murdered his opponents, tyrannised the people of Kosovo, and who orchestrated wars in Bosnia and Croatia as part of a megalomaniac ethicist project to create a Greater Serbia.  He was made out to be the puppet master behind the Serbs in the long Bosnian war, and was accused of committing genocide both in Bosnia and in Kosovo. 

When Milosevic eventually fell from power following Western backed protests against him, he was put on trial before an international war crimes tribunal in The Hague on all these charges.  Though he died whilst the trial was underway, the Western media from time to time continues to repeat these charges as if they had been proved to be true. Anyone who has ever questioned these charges, or who has suggested that there might be more to the wars in Yugoslavia than an evil plot by Milosevic and his associates, is regularly denounced as an apologist for “ethnic cleansing” and genocide, and as a stooge of Milosevic or at best a “useful idiot”.

It is therefore very interesting to see how over a succession of trials the international tribunal in The Hague, as well as other investigations and tribunals, have comprehensively rejected the entire case against Milosevic as Western governments and the Western media have told it.

The process actually began in Kosovo where investigators quickly discovered that claims made during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 that hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered there on Milosevic’s orders were simply untrue.  It continued with Milosevic’s trial when – as discussed brilliantly by the British writer John Laughland in his book Travesty – despite the prosecution using every conceivable dodge to convict him, the case against Milosevic essentially unravelled.  There was then a Judgment in the International Court of Justice made shortly after Milosevic’s death, which confirmed that neither he nor Serbia had any role in the Srebrenica affair.  And it has now concluded with a lengthy discussion of Milosevic’s role in the Bosnian war in the international tribunal’s Judgment against the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.  Rather than discuss this Judgment in detail I will confine myself to reproducing Andy Wilcoxson’s excellent summary of it:

“The March 24th Karadzic judgment states that “the Chamber is not satisfied that there was sufficient evidence presented in this case to find that Slobodan Milosevic agreed with the common plan” to permanently remove Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from Bosnian Serb claimed territory.

The Karadzic trial chamber found that “the relationship between Milosevic and the Accused had deteriorated beginning in 1992; by 1994, they no longer agreed on a course of action to be taken. Furthermore, beginning as early as March 1992, there was apparent discord between the Accused and Milosevic in meetings with international representatives, during which Milosevic and other Serbian leaders openly criticised Bosnian Serb leaders of committing ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ and the war for their own purposes.”

The judges noted that Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic both favored the preservation of Yugoslavia and that Milosevic was initially supportive, but that their views diverged over time. The judgment states that “from 1990 and into mid-1991, the political objective of the Accused and the Bosnian Serb leadership was to preserve Yugoslavia and to prevent the separation or independence of BiH, which would result in a separation of Bosnian Serbs from Serbia; the Chamber notes that Slobodan Milosevic endorsed this objective and spoke against the independence of BiH.”

The Chamber found that “the declaration of sovereignty by the SRBiH Assembly in the absence of the Bosnian Serb delegates on 15 October 1991, escalated the situation,” but that Milosevic was not on board with the establishment of Republika Srpska in response. The judgment says that “Slobodan Milosevic was attempting to take a more cautious approach”

The judgment states that in intercepted communications with Radovan Karadzic, “Milosevic questioned whether it was wise to use ‘an illegitimate act in response to another illegitimate act’ and questioned the legality of forming a Bosnian Serb Assembly.” The judges also found that “Slobodan Milosevic expressed his reservations about how a Bosnian Serb Assembly could exclude the Muslims who were ‘for Yugoslavia’.”

The judgment notes that in meetings with Serb and Bosnian Serb officials “Slobodan Milosevic stated that ‘[a]ll members of other nations and ethnicities must be protected’ and that ‘[t]he national interest of the Serbs is not discrimination’.” Also that “Milosevic further declared that crime needed to be fought decisively.”

The trial chamber notes that “In private meetings, Milosevic was extremely angry at the Bosnian Serb leadership for rejecting the Vance-Owen Plan and he cursed the Accused.” They also found that “Milosevic tried to reason with the Bosnian Serbs saying that he understood their concerns, but that it was most important to end the war.”

The judgment states that “Milosevic also questioned whether the world would accept that the Bosnian Serbs who represented only one third of the population of BiH would get more than 50% of the territory and he encouraged a political agreement.”

At a meeting of the Supreme Defense Council the judgment says that “Milosevic told the Bosnian Serb leadership that they were not entitled to have more than half the territory in BiH, stating that: ‘there is no way that more than that could belong to us! Because, we represent one third of the population. […] We are not entitled to in excess of half of the territory – you must not snatch away something that belongs to someone else! […] How can you imagine two thirds of the population being crammed into 30% of the territory, while 50% is too little for you?! Is it humane, is it fair?!’”

In other meetings with Serb and Bosnian Serb officials, the judgment notes that Milosevic “declared that the war must end and that the Bosnian Serbs’ biggest mistake was to want a complete defeat of the Bosnian Muslims.” Because of the rift between Milosevic and the Bosnian-Serbs, the judges note that “the FRY reduced its support for the RS and encouraged the Bosnian Serbs to accept peace proposals.””

In other words there was no Greater Serbia project on the part of Milosevic, Karadzic or anyone else, Milosevic (and Karadzic) wanted to hold Yugoslavia together (as Western leaders at the time also professed they wanted to do), Milosevic was not the puppet master of the Bosnian war and had only limited influence over the Bosnian Serb leadership led by Karadzic with whom he was on increasingly bad terms, and so far from being committed to violent solutions, war crimes or ethnic cleansing Milosevic always spoke out against them and at all times strove for peace.

Needless to say the Western media has failed to report this Judgment.  Nor have any of the Western politicians or journalists who monstered Milosevic during the 1990s come forward to admit that what they said about him – which was used to justify the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 – was untrue.  On the contrary I expect them to ignore this Judgment and go on saying what they said about Milosevic before, just as the media in the West ignores or fails to report other court Judgments or investigations that contradict its chosen narrative, such as the succession of Judgments confirming that the Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky was a fraudster that the European Court of Human Rights has made, or the Tagliavini report which has established that it was Georgia not Russia that began the war in South Ossetia in 2008.

To those of us however who pay more attention to such things, it is impossible to avoid drawing comparisons between the West’s treatment of Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s and the West’s treatment of Vladimir Putin today.  Almost identical claims about Putin’s role in the wars in Ukraine are being made today as were made in the 1990s about Milosevic’s role in the wars in Yugoslavia.  Those of us who question these claims find ourselves called “Putin apologists” or “useful idiots”, just as those who question the claims made about Milosevic’s role in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s find themselves called “Milosevic apologists” or “useful idiots”.  Hopefully this time it will not take 20 years before these claims, like those once made against Milosevic, are properly examined and found to be untrue.

 

War crime blame game not so cut and dry

thechronicleherald.ca

ON TARGET: War crime blame game not so cut and dry

SCOTT TAYLOR Published July 31, 2016 - 3:06pm

First it was the release last month of Britain’s Chilcot Inquiry findings, which concluded that the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq was an unnecessary mistake. While Chilcot cited former British prime minister Tony Blair, and former U.S. president George Bush for falsely claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, Canadians could smugly adopt an ‘I told you so’ attitude, as our Liberal government of the day never bought into the WMD claims.

By not joining in Bush and Blair’s bogus self-defence invasion of Iraq, Canadians can rightfully absolve themselves of the horrific death toll that has resulted in the violent aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s ouster and subsequent execution.

Canadians should feel a lot less smug about a ruling that came down this past March from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Buried in a 2,590-page ruling on former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, convicting him of war crimes and sentencing him to 40 years in prison — was an astonishing exoneration of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.

For those old enough to remember the violent civil wars that tore apart Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995, the name Milosevic was linked in the Western media to all of the horrific ethnic cleansing and genocide allegations emerging from that bloody conflict.

Milosevic was dubbed ‘The Butcher of the Balkans’ by the British press and the Serbs were vilified as the sole culprits in a multi-factional civil war. Thousands of Canadian soldiers were deployed as peacekeepers to the former Yugoslavia, and their eyewitness accounts painted a far more complex equation than the media’s simplistic “Serb = bad, non-Serb = good” equation. As Canada’s most famous peacekeeper, Maj.-Gen. Lewis Mackenzie stated while posted in war-ravaged Sarajevo, “All factions here have blood on their hands.”

Truth often matters little when shaping propaganda, and it was far easier to project all the evil onto the Serbs, in the personage of Slobodan Milosevic. This came in particularly handy in early 1999 when NATO was looking to prove its continued validity as a military alliance in a post-Soviet era.

With Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia all having successfully seceded from Yugoslavia, the Albanian ethnic majority in the Serbian autonomous region of Kosovo was in the midst of an armed insurrection in pursuit of their own independence. This was a low-level insurgency and the original perpetrators — known as the Kosovo Liberation Army — were a collection of criminals and terrorists.

The Yugoslav authorities were using security forces to quell the armed insurrection, much the same as Turkey was simultaneously deploying troops to suppress armed Kurdish separatists in eastern Anatolia. In fact, the casualty count in Turkey would have already been higher than the Kosovo conflict, but NATO was not about to bomb its own ally.

Instead, Canada took a lead role in the NATO bombing campaign to assist the Albanian Kosovo rebels. Milosevic — as the Yugoslav president, was painted as a genocidal maniac, and likened to a modern day Hitler.

This was something Canadians could justify having our combat pilots wage war against — even if those targets engaged included civilian utilities and infrastructure in Serbia itself — i.e. not in disputed Kosovo.

Milosevic’s presidency survived the 78-day NATO campaign in 1999, but he was ousted following the October 2000 elections. The subsequent, pro-West Serbian government arrested and handed over Milosevic to stand trial for war crimes and genocide at the ICTY in The Hague in June 2001.

In the interest of full disclosure, I met with Milosevic in his prison cell at The Hague in August 2004, and after a six-hour interview I agreed to testify in his defence.

Having covered extensively the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, Milosevic felt I could add an eyewitness perspective to the fact that all factions had been guilty of wanton bloodshed, not just the Serbs.

Milosevic died in 2006, before I testified, and before the ICTY could conclude that he was not in fact guilty of those horrific crimes of which he had been accused. In fact, in their ruling against Radovan Karadzic, the ICTY makes it clear that Milosevic actually helped to force the Bosnian Serb leader to sign the 1995 Dayton Accord Peace agreement.

The butcher wasn’t a butcher after all, and Bush and Blair have yet to face any consequence for their ‘mistake’ of invading Iraq in 2003 that has cost to date far more innocent lives than the entire Balkan Wars.

 

counterpunch.org

No Lesser Evil, Not this Time

by

John Halle and Noam Chomsky recently published at Halle’s blog their defense of “lesser evil voting”, “AN EIGHT POINT BRIEF FOR LEV (LESSER EVIL VOTING)”. In it they make an argument that by electing Clinton (i.e. by voting for her in swing states) this allows for the continuing growth of the left and reduces the amount of harm that will be caused over the next four years. I do not doubt their desire for radical change, nor do I doubt that they make these arguments because they find them morally justifiable in consideration of the consequences of our actions. Yet, it is dubious whether we can consider Clinton an LEV, just as much as it is dubious whether electing Clinton would enable the growth of the Left. I am not arguing from what they call a “politics of moral witness”, but argue in the same analytic vein that they have placed their brief. That is, is Clinton on topics such as climate change, trade, and militarism actually an LEV in comparison to Trump? Taking their criteria of consequences over rhetoric, there seems at best a “dimes worth of difference” on these topics.

For instance, on climate change they state that Trump “denies the existence of global warming, calls for increasing use of fossil fuels, dismantling of environmental regulations and refuses assistance to India and other developing nations as called for in the Paris agreement, the combination of which could, in four years, take us to a catastrophic tipping point.” What is left unsaid is that Clinton only rhetorically accepts the existence of climate change, that under her tenure at the State Department she pushed for privatization of PEMEX, for more fracking, and has continuously stated she would continue policies beneficial to fossil fuel companies. Further, and known most likely to both Halle and Chomsky, the Paris agreement dropped the more direct language on reparations for ecological debt that were part of the Lima draft agreement, for the less direct language about transferring knowledge and research to aid in reducing effects. Nor has it mattered whether a Democrat or a Republican is in power in terms of global CO₂ emissions, which rise in either case, as production is moved around the world-system in accordance with the trade agreements pushed by both parties. Thus, the consequences for the planet are identical whomever is elected. Halle and Chomsky would be hard pressed to dispute that fact.

Together with climate change, the issue of trade agreements is highly pertinent, seeing as the ramping up of production is a major reason why companies want these agreements. It is clear that Clinton has only rhetorically changed her position on TPP, just as Bill did with NAFTA. Those trade agreements are principle mechanisms causing migration, such as in Mexico, where NAFTA destroyed the livelihood of farmers. Further, they increase resentment in the working class, typically alienated due to the weakening of the labor movement, who see their jobs go overseas and their wages slashed. This increases ethnic/racial tensions as the working class is pitted against itself in an ever more brutal competition for declining employment and livelihood, a negative feedback loop breeding racists and reversing the strides made during and post-Civil Rights Movement. The worse of it all, these agreements are entrenching even more the power of corporations, who will now be able to sue nation-states based on the fact that regulations harm profit. This is clearly a grotesque attack on environmental regulations, one much more likely to do damage than rhetorical denials.

On militarism, we have a candidate, Clinton, with a clear record, from Serbia to Libya, from Honduras to Paraguay, of supporting coups, militarization of authoritarian regimes, breaking international law, and genuinely following the neoconservative playbook in trying to make the 21^st Century another century of American hegemony and empire. Militarism is highly destructive on the environment, and the US military is one the principal consumers of fossil fuels, on top of dispersing environmentally destructive materials around the world (agent orange, depleted uranium, etc.). When Halle and Chomsky write, “Trump has also pledged to increase military spending while cutting taxes on the rich, hence shredding what remains of the social welfare “safety net” despite pretenses”, this could just as easily apply to Hillary, a candidate who has already stated she would like to expand Plan Colombia-style policy in the Western Hemisphere. Further, we know Hillary supported the destruction of welfare, the repeal of Glass-Stegall, and has pushed for privatizing social security (Bill supported this at the 2012 convention with the Simpson-Bowles budget).

If we focus on domestic racial and ethnic relations, clearly Trump’s rhetoric has emboldened white supremacists and reactionary nationalists. Yet once more, how likely is it that an oligarch whose companies use undocumented labor and maquiladoras is actually going to build a wall or change trade deals? Obviously Trump doesn’t mind lying and saying whatever just to say it, that is basically his entire campaign. It was Obama who has been the deporter-in-Chief, and it is Clinton’s State Department supporting a coup in Honduras that increased the migration of children. The ban on Muslims Trump supports is possible because of the Islamophobia that Clinton herself is a part of stoking, along with the surveillance apparatus that was extended under the Obama Administration. And the Democrats have not used their executive power to curtail police abuses, but only continued to do what they do well, which is the theatre of nothing.

Thus, we seem to have words versus action. Halle and Chomsky say we are supposed to be concerned with action and consequences, yet tell us to vote against words and strategically support the action and consequences as the LEV. It is to take the unknown and make it a bogey, when we know the known is already a bogey. Or stated differently, Trump is a wild card and we really have no clue in many instances what he will do. We know it will be reprehensible, but so will Clinton’s actions. Even on the topic of nuclear weapons, with the Obama Administration recent updating of the arsenal, it is safe to assume that both Clinton and Trump consider them an option (MAD still being official policy, a lunatic with a finger on the gun). Thus, there is no “high probability” of either candidate being worse than the other. In this election there is no LEV, not even slightly.

What we are deciding is to vote for the cause or the effect. Hillary and neoliberalism/neoconservativism in general are the cause of the Trump-style authoritarian populism that now haunts the US. There is little evidence that Hillary is a lesser evil, that her presidency will cause less harm. Actually, it seems we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t with no less damneder a situation on the horizon. Hillary’s presidency would solidify much of neoliberalism and imperialism, and continue to buttress the corrupt, rotten formal institutions of our society. In my opinion, their conclusion is a fool’s bargain: “by dismissing a “lesser evil” electoral logic and thereby increasing the potential for Clinton’s defeat the left will undermine what should be at the core of what it claims to be attempting to achieve.” In an electoral season where people are itching for principle, they call for pragmatism, a pragmatism that has only ever seen in my lifetime the ideological spectrum swing to the right, where now we have a Republican in Democrat’s clothing against a Republican in demagogue robes.

At least we agree, the real work is never this quadrennial circus. That begs the question, why participate in it at all? Green Panther Party anyone?

Andrew Smolski is a writer and sociologist.

 

thenation.com

The United States and NATO Are Preparing for a Major War With Russia

By Michael T. KlareTwitter July 7, 2016

 

Throughout the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton has made a point of trying to mend fences with right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by eschewing any criticisms of Israel whatsoever. (AP Photo / Andrew Harnik)

On Monday in Philadelphia, the Democrats ratified what Hillary Clinton’s website touted as “the most progressive platform in party history.” On several issues—the minimum wage and trade, for example—the platform took positions closer to those espoused by Clinton’s erstwhile primary rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. On a few issues, though, Clinton’s campaign dictated a platform that took more moderate positions. One was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the document doesn’t mention Israel’s occupation or its settlements. That was in line with Clinton’s position: Throughout the Democratic primary, she has made a point of trying to mend fences with right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by eschewing any criticisms of Israel whatsoever.

Arriving at the final platform was a long journey, during which Clinton’s delegates had to beat back challenges on her pro-Israel orthodoxies over and over again. During the past two months Democrats gathered three times to set the platform, first to hear testimony from witnesses chosen by the campaigns, then twice to flesh out the platform before passing a draft on to this week’s Democratic National Committee. At the second session, in late June in St. Louis, a month before the convention, the platform committee sat through a series of lengthy debates. It was past one in the morning before Israel came up and the last proposed amendment—to the language about the Mideast conflict—was read aloud.

In the two paragraphs of the platform dealing with Israel, the document called for supporting Israel and pushing for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. James Zogby, the head of the Arab American Institute and a longtime party activist, read aloud a proposed amendment in an unmistakably Midwest accent. Zogby wanted to add language that would explicitly mention Israel’s occupation and strip out the platform’s condemnation of the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel (BDS).

“We didn’t recognize a Palestinian state in our platform until 2004, after George Bush did it,” Zogby said during the debate. “We have an opportunity here to send a message to the world, to the Arab world, to the Israeli people, to the Palestinian people, and to all of America: that America hears the cries of both sides, that America wants to actually move people toward a real peace.”

“The term ‘occupation’ shouldn’t be controversial,” Zogby, a Lebanese-American, added. “If our policy says it’s an occupation and settlements are wrong and they inhibit peace, why can’t our politics say it? It doesn’t make sense!”

Zogby mentioned several times that the proposed changes had come from Bernie Sanders himself. Sanders began his campaign avoiding foreign policy altogether, but eventually became more outspoken on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, taking Netanyahu to task not only for the Israeli settlement project and continued occupation but also for Israel’s conduct of the 2014 war against the besieged Gaza Strip.

The move was a natural one for Sanders. These days, criticisms of Israel are issued among not only from the left-wing of the Democratic Party, but much of its base. American liberals have become disenchanted with Israel as its occupation becomes more permanent. Then the Israeli government led a fight against the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal with a misinformation campaign that saw denunciations of Netanyahu among Democratic members of Congress—once a stronghold of unconditional support for Israel. As a result, Pew polls show a consistent trend of liberal Democrats shedding their unquestioning support for the Jewish state.

Like on the minimum wage, Sanders stood at the vanguard of a widespread emerging progressive sentiment. Now his delegates to the platform committee would be doing battle—civil, though it was—with Clinton’s delegates over one of Washington’s most contentious issues. In the end, it would be Sanders who would make decisions of how hard to press the debate. Party activists and progressive Democrats wondered if the candidate would take the fight all the way to the convention floor.

* * *

Stirrings of a debate over Israel-Palestine in the platform had become apparent as Sanders and Clinton each announced their delegates to the committee; Sanders got five positions and Clinton six. Among Sanders’s picks were Zogby, with his long record of advocating for pro-Palestinian causes, and Cornel West, the loquacious left-wing academic who has advocated for the controversial BDS movement. On Clinton’s side, a medley of more establishment delegates—among them Ambassador Wendy Sherman, a former undersecretary of state and Clinton campaign surrogate, and Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress (where I used to work), which has played a role in Clinton’s play to mend fences with Netanyahu and Israel.

The Clinton campaign’s delegates to the platform committee and its witness to the hearings held firm on this stance. Asked by West, Robert Wexler, a former congressman called to testify before the committee before the platform’s drafting, said the document should not refer to “what you refer to as occupation”—let alone settlements.

At the drafting hearing, the issue would reemerge. Zogby read aloud the initial plank calling for a two-state solution. “Here we add our language,” he said, proposing his amendment to insert a call for “an end to occupation and illegal settlements.”

BDS also came up. Initially dismissed by pro-Israel forces, now that BDS is a burgeoning grassroots movement, pro-Israel advocates speak of it in apocalyptic terms—often equating the peaceful activism with the violent terrorism faced by Israelis. Sanders hasn’t endorsed the BDS movement, nor has he condemned it. Clinton, on the other hand, has made a point to attack the movement: in a letter to her top funder, the Israeli-American businessman and philanthropist Haim Saban, Clinton proclaimed BDS “counterproductive” and vowed to advocate against it. The promise was fulfilled in the platform draft. The Democratic Party committed itself to “oppose any effort to delegitimize Israel, including at the United Nations or through the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement.”

Zogby’s amendment sought to strip the language out. “They were pretty damn insistent on it,” he told The Nation of the Clinton campaign’s efforts to keep the plank. “It was gratuitous, is what it was. You wanna say we oppose efforts to delegitimize Israel? Go ahead and say it. I personally think Netanyahu does more to delegitimize Israel than anybody, but go ahead.”

At the drafting hearing, the Clinton campaign defended the inclusion of the anti-BDS plank. “I think the drafters were very careful here not to say outright we oppose BDS, but basically to say if, in fact, there is a delegitimization of Israel through BDS,” said Sherman at the hearing, “this is not a good thing for anyone.”

What was supposed to be a 16-minute debate about Zogby’s amended language turned into more than a half an hour of back and forth. Committee members stated their support for and opposition to the amendment as Representative Elijah Cummings, the committee chair, allocated minutes.

As the debate went on, Zogby brought up 1988—when he had also tussled with Wendy Sherman, who worked for the Dukakis campaign. “I remember being in this same situation with Wendy Sherman in 1988,” he told the committee, “when we called for mutual recognition, territorial compromise and self-determination for both people.”

Sherman acknowledged the shared history: “Jim is right,” she said. “He and I haven’t grown any older since 1988 when we tread this same territory.”

* * *

The Democrats’ 1988 debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in fact tread a very different territory. In 1987, Palestinians had risen up in the First Intifada, overwhelming peaceful organizing against the occupation that was met by Israel’s overwhelming military force. As the 1988 conventions approached, consciousness of the Palestinians’ plight was growing among Americans. Thanks to a campaign organized by, among others, Zogby’s Arab American Institute, seven state Democratic Parties endorsed Palestinian self-determination. The moves became a source of worry for pro-Israel lobbyists. “We’re deeply troubled,” an American Jewish Committee official said at the time, “by any outcropping of the kinds of views we are seeing in some of these states. But I am confident they do not reflect American opinion in general, nor the mainstream of the Democratic Party.”

In 1988, Zogby was acting as a delegate for another progressive primary insurgent, Jesse Jackson. By the time of the convention, Jackson’s campaign had long since lost its race for the nomination, but his supporters and delegates sought to infuse the Democratic Party with the left-leaning vigor that spurred Jackson’s unprecedented run. Zogby, who then as now served on the platform committee, wanted to have the Democratic Party recognize the Palestinians as a people with basic rights. At the time, even such a basic proclamation was controversial, and inserting the language into the party platform would be an uphill battle.

Some party elites bristled at the notion that the Jackson campaign would seek to introduce a pro-Palestinian plank. “Although such a proposal would have no chance of being included in the platform,” reported The Chicago Tribune, “the mere possibility that it might be discussed disturbs many Democrats. ‘It would be bad,’ said a party leader. ‘Rhetoric would be unleashed which Republicans would like to dine out on.’”

As the platform committee met, Zogby fought to include language endorsing “self-determination” for the Palestinians. It was to be a call for a two-state solution: mutual recognition between Israelis and Palestinians. But the effort faltered: the plank was “debated by the committee and defeated without rancor,” reported The Chicago Tribune. Zogby and his allies in the Jackson campaign were determined to press on: they gathered enough signatures to introduce a minority plank to the platform at the convention in Atlanta later that summer. “That was the main platform fight in ‘88, the Israeli issue,” said Gov. Bill Richardson, who served on the platform committee. “You want to avoid a platform floor fight as much as possible,” he added, because independent voters and media pay closer attention once the conventions roll around.

Zogby suspected he had many Democratic delegates behind him. According to a Los Angeles Times/CNN survey released in July 1988, nearly two-thirds of Dukakis’s delegates supported “giving the Palestinians a homeland in the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.” Of Jackson delegates, 90 percent supported the notion. But the results were inconsistent: An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll of delegates found that a narrow majority opposed endorsing a Palestinian State. What’s more, anonymous survey results don’t always transfer over to votes made in public.

Those who wanted to amend the platform feared that even some Jackson delegates might not end up voting for the plank. A compromise was brokered: Jackson gave Zogby his blessing to introduce the language and have it debated on the floor, but the amendment would be withdrawn before a vote was taken.

Though there would be no vote, a spirited debate ensued. Zogby read aloud his plank and was met by vociferous opposition. New York Senator Chuck Schumer, then in the House, condemned the plank. Daniel Inouye, a senator from Hawaii known for strong pro-Israel views, called it “a vicious kick in the teeth of America’s interests in that part of the world.” Both Schumer and Inouye were booed by convention delegates.

“The tensions were very high about Middle East policy,” Jesse Jackson told The Nation, recalling the fight in a June interview. “We felt it was the peoples both fighting for a state. And we had to go from a ‘no talk’ policy to a ‘let’s talk’ policy.”

The conversation over Palestinian self-determination had broken new ground for the party. “[O]nly a few years ago, even to discuss an idea so contrary to U.S. policy and to Israel’s view of security would have been unimaginable,” a New York Times editorial proclaimed. Zogby, remarking on the convention floor, said, “The deadly silence that submerged the issue of Palestinian rights has been shattered.”

Though no pro-Palestinian plank would end up on the platform, Jackson’s policy of “let’s talk” would soon become official American policy—and even led to a breakthrough. Though to this day no Palestinian state exists and Israel’s occupation has become more entrenched, a peace process toward a two-state solution was begun just three years after the 1988 fight when, at the Madrid Conference, Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization began unofficial talks. A year later, following a round of secret talks between Israel and the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn, presided over by Bill Clinton, to mark the Oslo Accords—a peace deal that yielded, if not a state, the mutual recognition between the two people Jackson’s delegates had called for.

Bill Richardson said Jackson delegates like Zogby helped bring the party along to the two-state solution. “I think they launched a useful effort that led to that historic handshake,” recalled Richardson, who along with Zogby and other figures in the 1988 fight was on the White House lawn that day.

“I didn’t feel vindicated,” Jackson said, recalling the Oslo Accords. “What happened that day could have happened years before.”

* * *

In St. Louis last month, as the early hours of Saturday morning ticked away, Elijah Cummings finally called a vote on Zogby’s Israel amendment. “It was pretty clear how it was going to go down,” one committee member recalled to The Nation. Throughout the long day, string of lopsided vote tallies had beaten back progressive efforts to get planks in the platform that took aggressive stances on trade, wages and climate change.

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The amendment fell by an eight-to-five vote. “It stung,” the committee member said.

In Orlando on July 9, as the full 187-member platform committee gathered to make the additional changes to and approve the 2016 Democratic platform, party activists took another shot. Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, introduced two amendments to the platform that followed on the same changes Zogby had tried to make in St. Louis: one calling for an end to settlements and occupation and another calling for rebuilding the Gaza Strip. Berry and Cornel West gave impassioned speeches, followed by Clinton supporters opposing the additions. Neither amendment passed.

Still, Zogby is not entirely despondent. “Last time we were just trying to get Palestinians recognized as an entity,” Zogby told The Nation. “They wouldn’t let me use the ‘P-word’”—Palestinian—“in the platform. This time we were talking about occupation and settlements and the suffering of people in Gaza. It was a much richer discussion than we had last time.”

The draft language in the 2016 platform, for the first time, spoke of a Palestinian self-determination not just for the sake of Israel’s security, calling for a solution that provides the Palestinians with “independence, sovereignty, and dignity.” Some members of the platform committee lauded the addition. “The language in the platform is different from what it was on 2012, a little more balanced,” a second committee member said. “My view is that it sets us in a more progressive direction than four years ago.”

Other figures from the 1988 fight, however, were less sanguine. Asked whether he thought the Democratic Party had changed on Israel-Palestine issues, Jesse Jackson demurred. “Not very much. Not very much,” he said. “There’s no winners until there’s a resolution.” Jackson went on, “There’s no other nation in the world that could play the broker role. But we’re not inclined to play it. The very term ‘fair’ was put off limits.”

As it was when, 28 years ago, he introduced a minority plank that would never get voted on, Zogby understood his odds were more than long. “I knew we wouldn’t win, so there’s no ‘disheartening’ to it,” he responded when asked if he was upset at the loss. Like many amendments to the draft platform introduced by Sanders delegates, Zogby went into the platform debate without the votes to carry the day. Other similarities with the 1988 fight persisted: “The intensity, the nervousness of the other side was about the same. They didn’t want it debated then, they don’t want it debated now.”

When he was pushing for Palestinian rights in 1988, Zogby sought and received permission from Jackson to push the minority plank at the platform on the convention floor. In the runup to the convention in Philadelphia, Democratic and pro-Palestinian activists spoke of the possibility of pressing forward against Clinton’s mealy-mouthed platform. But on July 11, Sanders endorsed Clinton, ending his run for the Democratic nomination, and his campaign from there forward sought to avoid a confrontation. “It is not easy to introduce a minority plank without the campaign’s blessing,” Zogby told The Nation. “But then Bernie decided not to go forward.”

“I would have preferred to continue the debate as a minority plank,” Zogby went on, “both because it gives the issue much deserved exposure and would provide Bernie with greater leverage enabling him to press for structural reforms. At the same time, I’m going to respect that Bernie didn’t want to continue. I can only imagine the pressure to which he was subjected and the exhaustion he must feel.”

Clinton’s moderate tack on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had finally prevailed among her party. With the Clinton’s Democratic Party shying away from so much as mild criticisms of Israel—even avoiding basic truths about the conflict—liberals who focus on the Middle East are left wondering whether, if she can prevail over Donald Trump in the general election, Clinton will stand up for liberal values and Palestinian rights.

 

Behind The CIA Desperate Turkey Coup Attempt

williamengdahl.com

 

Behind The CIA Desperate Turkey Coup Attempt
By F. William engdahl
18 July 2016

On the evening of July 15, a group of Turkish army officers announced that they had staged a military coup d’etat and had assumed control of the country. They claimed that Erdogan was in a desperate flight for his life and that they were now in the process of restoring order. The only problem for those army officers and their sponsors far away in Langley, Virginia and Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania– where Turkish political operator, Fetullah Gülen, hides in exile under CIA protection–is that they did not succeed. Behind the coup attempt is a far more dramatic story of the huge geopolitical shift that the often unpredictable political survivor, President (still) Recep Erdogan, was in the midst of making when Gülen’s loyalists made their desperate, now apparently failed coup attempt. What follows is a series of Q&A remarks to the background of the dramatic events unfolding in a pivotal part of the geopolitical order.

Q: How would you comment on the events of Friday to Saturday evening, when the army carried out a coup? Are these events were predictable? WE: The coup was a reaction to the recent dramatic geopolitical shift of Erdogan. It was instigated by networks in Turkey loyal to the CIA. It clearly was a desperate move, ill-prepared.

Q: What do you think are the real reasons for such a move of the army? WE: This was a network of officers inside the Army loyal to the Fetullah Gülen Movement. Gülen is a 100% CIA controlled asset. He even lives since years in exile in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania having gotten safe passage and a green card by former top CIA people like Graham Fuller and the former US Ambassador to Ankara.

Gülen has been a decades-long mad project of the CIA to weaponize political Islam as an instrument of regime change. Recall that in 2013 there were mass protests against Erdogan in Istanbul and elsewhere. That was when Gülen, who previously had made a deal with Erdogan’s AK Party, broke and criticized Erdogan as a tyrant in the Gülen-controlled media such as Zaman. Since then Erdogan has been moving to root out his internal most dangerous adversary, Gülen and friends, including raids on Zaman and other Gülen-controlled media. This is not about a battle between the White Knight and Evil Knievel. It is about power pure in Turkish politics. If you are interested in the details of the Gülen CIA project I urge readers to look in my book, The Lost Hegemon (German: Amerikas Heilige Krieg).

Q: Do you think these events in Turkey could lead to civil war, as interpreted by some commentators? WE: I doubt that. The Gülen Movement in the past two years has been severely reduced in influence by Erdogan and his head of intelligence—purges etc. The traditional so-called Ataturk Army as State Guardian is long gone …since the 1980s.

What is interesting to watch now will be the foreign policy of Erdogan: Rapprochement with Russia, reopening talks on the Russia Turkish Stream gas pipeline to the Greek border. The simultaneous Erdogan rapprochement with Netanyahu. And most critical, Erdogan’s apparent agreement, part of Putin’s demands for resumption of ties, that Turkey cease efforts to topple Assad by covertly backing DAESH or other terrorists in Syria and training them in Turkey, selling their oil on the black market. This is a huge geopolitical defeat for Obama, probably the most incompetent President in American history (even though he has some serious competition for the title from George W. Bush and Clinton).

Q: How should we interpret the information alleged that Erdogan sought asylum in Germany, and do you think that Germany would not approve? WE: There are many wild rumors. I have no information on that.

Q: How do you put the United States and Russia in relation to recent events? WE: It should be clear from what I have said that Washington was behind the coup as their impotent reaction to the major Erdogan geopolitical shift since June, when he fired Davotoglu as Prime Minister and named loyalist Binali Yıldırım. At that point Erdogan simultaneously turned away from the Washington anti-Assad strategy in Syria and towards Israel (who is in a sharp geopolitical conflict with Washington these days), towards Russia and now, even towards Assad in Syria.

Q: What impact on developments has the fact that Turkey is a member of NATO? WE: This is difficult to assess. Washington desperately needs Turkey in NATO for its global strategy, especially in controlling oil flows of the Middle East, and now its natural gas. This is why the moment it was clear the coup would fail, Obama and company “embraced” their “friend” Erdogan. It’s called damage control in intelligence parlance.

Q: Do you believe that it is good for Turkey that Erdogan and the current government is removed in this way, rather than in the elections? WE: By the time I am writing this, it appears he is firmly still in power, perhaps more than before.

Q: How do you think the events in Turkey may affect the European Union? WE: The EU is in the process of dissolving as a project. It was always a monstrous idea, encouraged in the 1950s by Churchill, by the early CIA and their European friends like Monnet, in order for the US better to control Europe. That was obvious when President Obama made his brazen intervention into British politics to tell the British not to exit the EU. The European Union is a monstrous top-down faceless bureaucracy, unelected, unanswerable to the people, sitting in Brussels next to NATO headquarters.

Brexit started the dissolution. It will now go rather fast now is my feeling. Perhaps Hungary will be next if the CIA is not able to do a color revolution against Orban before their October referendum on “Huexit.” France? Marie Le Pen’s supporters and millions of French are fed up with dictates from Brussels. Look at the recent criminal decision, despite huge scientific evidence that glyphosate, the widest-used weed killer in the EU, is carcinogenic, to ignore all health and safety evidence even of EU governments, and arbitrarily re-approve it for 18 more months of poisoning of the food and the population. This is not what the people of Europe or anywhere deserve from their civil servants.

Q: How do you think the events in Turkey may affect the migrant crisis, and do you expect the reopening of so-called Balkan route for refugees? WE: It’s too early to say. If Erdogan and Assad, brokered by Putin and Russia, and perhaps some cooperation from Israel, manage to make true peace in Syria, the refugee flow from the war could cease. People want to return home, rebuild their lives in their own country.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”

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washingtonpost.com

After Nice attack, officials warn that terror threats will stalk for 'a long time'

https://www.facebook.com/michael.birnbaum1

NICE, France — France was reminded Friday that terror threats will likely shadow the nation for years to come, as investigators picked through the chaos of the latest attack that left at least 84 people dead when a truck carved a mile-long path of horror through Bastille Day revelers on the French Riviera.

Counterterrorism authorities worked frantically to determine whether the attack had been perpetrated by a lone assailant, or whether it had connections and a support network that could be plotting further violence.

The driver — who zigzagged the 19-ton truck through the crowds, witnesses said — then opened fire on survivors before being shot dead by police, officials said.

There has been no claim of responsibility for Thursday's bloodshed along the palm-lined Mediterranean. But the investigation appeared to narrow around a possible Tunisian-born suspect.

[Texas father and son among the dead]

What we know about the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice, France

Police searched the Nice residence of a 31-year-old French citizen with Tunisian roots whose identity documents, mobile phone and bank card were found inside the refrigerated truck, French media reported. The Associated Press, citing police sources, described the man as having a record of petty crimes.

Meanwhile, French leaders vowed to expand the fight against Islamist militants beyond France's borders by boosting its military role in Iraq and Syria, where the Islamic State has its strongholds.

The truck struck the crowd after a fireworks display on the most important day in the French patriotic calendar on the Promenade des Anglais, a seaside walk in this southern French city. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced early Friday that in addition to the dead, another 18 people were in critical condition.

Among the dead were at least two Americans, said State Department spokesman John Kirby. More than two dozen German schoolchildren remained unaccounted for. Early Friday, the tarp-covered bodies were marked by orange and white traffic-control barriers that stood like rows of tombstones.

The truck used in the attack was rented on Monday from the Via Location rental agency just outside of Nice, according to a woman at the agency who answered the phone on Friday but said she was not authorized to give her name. She said that the French Interior Ministry had asked the agency not to share further information with the investigation underway.

[Shouts, a desperate dash and then 'bodies, limbs and blood']

Amid the high-alert atmosphere in Nice, the city's airport was briefly evacuated Friday after reports of a suspicious package. No threat was discovered.

A woman places flowers at a memorial near the site where a truck ran into a crowd celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday in Nice, France. (Pascal Rossignol/Reuters)

The attack plunged the country back into mourning and crisis — the latest in a string of mass violence that struck repeatedly over the past 18 months and put France on the front lines of attacks linked to the Islamic State.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Friday that he believed that terrorism would plague France for the foreseeable future.

"The threat of terrorism, as we have now been saying for a long time, is weighing heavily on France, and it will continue to do so for a long time yet," Valls said after an emergency meeting in Paris. "We are facing a war waged on us by terrorism."

France had just exhaled after living for weeks with terrorism fears during the European soccer championships, which concluded on Sunday, and hours before the violence, President François Hollande had announced that he planned to allow a state of emergency to expire at the end of the month. On Friday, Hollande announced it would be extended three months instead.

[On Nice's promenade: timeless beauty, modern horror]

The victims included a vacationing father and son from Lakeway, Tex. The city's children's hospital said it had treated more than 50 minors in the attack, including some that still hung between "life and death," said communications director Stephanie Simpson.

In the aftermath of the attack, the large white truck remained on the palm-lined boulevard, a macabre reminder of the carnage of the previous night, its screen riddled with bullets and its doors gaping open.

Witnesses described total chaos, with the crackle of gunfire and people screaming as they fled the scene. Graphic video and photographs flooding social media showed the bodies strewn for a mile along the boulevard where the truck plowed into the crowd. Revelers ran while sirens blared.

France has declared three days of mourning beginning Saturday and flags will fly at half-staff.

The attack was the latest in a string of horrific incidents that have unfolded across Europe in the past 18 months. In March, Islamic State attackers killed 32 people in suicide bombings at the Brussels airport and a metro station.

France was rocked by a devastating terrorist attack in November, when heavily armed suicide bombers killed 130 people in several places around Paris. The Islamic State asserted responsibility for that attack, the worst bloodshed on French soil since World War II.

In an address early Friday morning, Hollande condemned the "attack whose terrorist nature cannot be denied." He announced that France would ramp up its military efforts in Syria and Iraq, where a U.S.-led coalition has tried to uproot the Islamic State from its strongholds.

[Newt Gingrich suggests sharia 'test' for Muslims]

"All of France is under the threat of Islamic terrorism," said Hollande, who returned to Paris to deal with the crisis after a private visit to Avignon, France.

"[France] is strong. It will always be stronger, I assure you, than the fanatics that want to attack it today."

The nearby city of Marseille, one of France's largest, canceled its own fireworks display in response to the attack.

The reverberations spread across Europe. Germany said it would tighten border checks, Italy ordered police officials to reinforce security at all "sensitive targets" and Belgium added additional counterterror measures before its own national holiday celebrations next week.

[Texas father and son among the dead]

In London, the French flag flew from atop 10 Downing Street and new prime minister Theresa May convened a meeting of the government's emergency "Cobra" committee. May described the attack as "horrifying" and said Britain will stand "shoulder to shoulder" with France.

In Washington, President Obama released a statement Thursday night condemning the attack and said he had directed his team to get in touch with French officials to assist with the investigation.

"We stand in solidarity and partnership with France, our oldest ally, as they respond to and recover from this attack," the statement said.

From Moscow, Secretary of State John F. Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov said the attack underscored the need to end the violence in Syria, the home of the Islamic State. The U.S. is proposing greater intelligence coordination with Russia on Syria.

"The problem," a solemn Kerry told Lavrov, "is you and I and other foreign ministers are doing this now on almost a weekly basis. And nowhere is there a greater hotbed or incubator for these terrorists than in Syria."

[One woman helped the Paris attacks mastermind. The other turned him in.]

The Islamic State has previously called for attacks using vehicles, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist statements. It said supporters of the radical Islamist organization, also known as ISIS or ISIL, were sharing the news of the Nice attack and "celebrating the massacre."

Pro-Islamic State forums posted old messages in which the terrorist group urged followers to carry out lone-wolf attacks against France.

Police said people in the vicinity should stay home and follow instructions from authorities. Police urged people not to spread rumors or broadcast shocking videos of the scene.

Within half an hour of initial reports of the incident, Facebook had activated its "safety check" feature for people in Nice. On Twitter, others used the hashtag #Portes­OuvertesNice ("OpenDoorsNice") to find and offer refuge to those who needed a place to stay.

The attack came on one of France's most treasured holidays, the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. In Paris, the occasion is marked by a military parade down the Champs-Elysees, the oldest such parade in Europe.

On Nice's Promenade des Anglais, which skirts the Mediterranean coast where thousands of revelers had gathered to watch a fireworks display, music mixed with the sounds of laughter and the crackle of fireworks for most of the night.

Then gunshots were fired into the crowd.

"There were so many injured, and dead bodies," said Fiona Le Goff, 27, a concierge at an apartment building facing the Promenade des Anglais. "The worst was a woman whose body was just stuck to the street." 

Later, she surveyed the area as forensic teams moved in. "There were people just covered with white cloths," she said. "It was . . . horrible." 

Among the dead were two Americans: Sean Copeland, 50, and his 11-year-old son Brodie from Lakeway, Tex., just outside of Austin. The two were vacationing around Europe together on a trip that began in Pamplona, Spain, and through Barcelona.

They had stopped in Nice to celebrate Bastille Day.

"We are heartbroken and in shock over the loss of Brodie Copeland, an amazing son and brother who lit up our lives, and Sean Copeland, a wonderful husband and father," the family said in a statement released by family friend Jess Davis which was obtained by the Austin-American Statesmen. "They are so loved . . . it was a terrible loss."

James McAuley in Nice, Souad Mekhennet in Frankfurt, Brian Murphy and William Branigin in Washington, Carol Morello in Moscow, Griff Witte in London and Yanan Wang in Toronto contributed to this report.

Read more:

Two Americans among the dead in Nice attack

What we know about the Paris attacks and the hunt for the attackers

How Belgium became the hub of terror in Europe

Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world

 

russia-insider.com

Serbia Is Marching Into NATO Servitude at Full Speed

Stefan Karganović (The Vineyard of the Saker) 21 hours ago | 1,934 22

Serbia’s pathetic defense minister, Zoran Djordjevic, was seen dutifully in attendance in Warsaw last Thursday where he rubbed shoulders with NATO notables and associated freaks (e.g. the guest of honor, Ukrainian killer-lady, Nadiya Savchenko). Apparently delighted that its minister was treated to such generous photo-ops in Warsaw, Serbia’s defense ministry triumphantly averred that NATO’s invitation to Djordjevic to attend the gathering was proof that “the Serbian government enjoys the status of a stable and responsible NATO partner.”

How enjoyable that status will ultimately turn out to be remains to be seen. Serbia’s slow but steady drift toward NATO means that the message that President Putin pointedly addressed to the Atlantic alliance’s Eastern European satellites – that making their territory available for the deployment of weaponry that threatens Russia’s security will make them a legitimate retaliatory target in case of nuclear hostilities – may end up being applicable to Serbia as well. Unless, that is, its dilettantish government comes to its senses, or Serbia’s vehemently anti-NATO and pro-Russian public reads to their rulers the long overdue “riot act”.

A few months ago, with little fanfare and mostly out of the public’s field of vision, the Serbian government deepened its NATO involvement (it is already enrolled in the “Partnership for Peace” program) by signing an additional Status of Forces agreement with the Alliance although, technically, it is not a member. The eventual disclosure of this perfidy caused a brief uproar before the public retired again to its customary torpor. However, the reaction, brief as it was, left no doubt that the Serbian people utterly abhor NATO and everything that is associated with it.

But public sentiment is only a part of it. Neutrality is not a matter of preference but a policy officially enshrined in Serbian law, which explicitly forbids joining any military block. However, legal obstacles have not been known to discourage Serbia’s political elite once it receives marching orders from its Western masters. They recently signed an ominous Status of Forces agreement, granting NATO troops unlimited access to the country’s facilities and NATO soldiers diplomatic immunity and impunity before Serbian courts for any act of personal wrongdoing. In conformity with previously signed agreements, NATO personnel already sit ensconced in the Serbian Defense Ministry. They are presumably engaged in “cooperation” and imparting “advice” to the military of the country they ruthlessly and illegally bombed 17 years ago.

The stark fact is that NATO is the only security threat that Serbia faces on its horizon.The audacity of the NATO-Serbia Status of Forces agreement is best appreciated in contrast to the terms of Yugoslavia’s brief March 1941 accession to the Axis Pact (NATO being its obvious successor today). That episode was cut short two days after the signing by an army coup which infuriated Hitler and precipitated his decision to invade and crush Yugoslavia 10 days later. The Axis, however, had required Yugoslavia only to remain neutral for the duration of the war, guaranteeing its territorial integrity, and pledging never to demand the use of Yugoslavia’s territory for military purposes. Whether in the long run these promises would have been kept is a matter of speculation, but they were made and signed. In contrast, NATO has already conducted a brutal military campaign against Yugoslavia (Serbia being its major component), it dismembered the country after the 1999 aggression by occupying and then granting “independence” to its vassal territory of Kosovo, and now it has obtained the approval of the servile government of what remains of the country for its military personnel to move about without hindrance and with diplomatic immunity. By demanding from Serbia to join in anti-Russian sanctions, the NATO/EU tandem has also made it clear that it will in fact tolerate nothing resembling Serbian neutrality. The 1941 deal with Hitler seems vastly more advantageous by any comparison.

As might be expected, NATO membership is opposed by a stratospherically elevated percentage of the Serbian population. However, numerous well-financed pro-NATO “NGOs” and lobbying groups are working overtime in Serbia to paint a positive picture of the Alliance and the supposed benefits that await Serbia upon joining it.

Their activities should not be underestimated. The way the equally unpopular NATO membership issue was managed in neighboring Montenegro might give a clue to how the matter is likely to be handled in Serbia as well. In Montenegro it was categorically stated by the ruling regime that there was no need for a referendum on NATO membership and that the rubber stamp legislature was entirely qualified to settle the issue as it sees fit, without popular interference. The stealth, no advance notice, no public debate procedure by which the Status of Forces agreement was recently adopted by the Serbian parliament is probably the model which will be followed to give a fig leaf of legality to Serbia’s eventual membership in NATO, notwithstanding the fact that, as indicated by most polls, it is an idea abhorred by as much as 90% of the population.

The rather infantile arguments advanced by the pro-NATO lobby to push for closer political coordination with the Alliance and eventually membership amount essentially to two main points. First, it is argued rather circularly that since almost all of the countries surrounding Serbia are already NATO members it would be geopolitically awkward for Serbia not to be. The same argument, assuming it had any validity at all, could have been advanced to motivate Switzerland, literally surrounded from all sides by Nazi-controlled territory during World War II, to be “practical” and to join the Axis camp.

The second bogus argument has to do with the nebulously conceived “Euro-Atlantic integrations,” of which NATO is said to constitute a key component. This narrative is presented in terms that recall the illusionist “civilizational choice” rhetoric used not too long ago to further besot the gullible Ukrainian masses, except that in Serbia the only people deluded by it (or corrupted and blackmailed, as the case may be) enough to take it seriously are members of the completely self-contained and alienated political ruling class and its media and NGO enablers.

It is clear to everyone in Serbia who is capable of thinking straight that NATO’s underlying objective in absorbing the country into its military and political framework is exactly the same as was Hitler’s seventy-five years ago. It is to do with the planned war against Russia and the necessity of taking full control of the strategic rear before the assault is launched. Color revolution rumblings in Serbia are part of the same process of imposing “full spectrum dominance” and replacing 99% subservient puppets by a new set that would be obedient 100%.

The realization that NATO is surreptitiously seizing one position after another and stealthily entrenching itself in Serbia provoked a brief outburst of popular indignation in Belgrade several months ago, when 20,000 citizens turned out onto the streets to protest. That may not seem much by robust Greek or French standards, but in comatose Serbia it qualifies as an impressive demonstration. However, for sustained political activism much more is needed than the haphazard activism of a few uncoordinated volunteers with no resources to organize the masses or serious backing from any significant geopolitical player.

The demoralized and passive Serbian people undoubtedly bear the principal burden of responsibility for allowing the ruling coterie of corrupt renegades to jerk them and their country around, drawing them into the disaster that NATO membership and alignment with Russia’s enemies will inevitably turn out to be. But official Russia also has a huge share of responsibility in the matter. It does little to mobilize and encourage its friends in Serbia, devoting itself, instead, to the hopeless task of reforming the governing elite and persuading it to mend its ways. Unless Russia is prepared to lose Serbia by default, which would be a tragedy for both countries which for centuries have been bound by common values, it must act quickly to address its message directly to the Serbian people and to make them, instead of their alienated rulers, the focus of its policy.

Russia has nothing to expect from the scum which constitutes Serbia’s governing class. They will not change their ways before – in the memorable words of Nikita Khrushchev – shrimp learn to whistle, if then.

 

Brexit hit the fan

economist.com

Adrift

Europe | Jul 1st, 19:05

 

THE campaign to leave the European Union repeatedly urged Britain to “Take back control”. It is now a week since voters narrowly opted for Brexit, and the country has seldom looked so wildly off the rails. The prime minister has handed in his notice. The leader of the opposition is struggling to survive a coup. The pound hit a 31-year low against the dollar and banks lost a third of their value, before stabilising. Meanwhile there is talk in Scotland and Northern Ireland of secession.

Every one of these calamities was predicted in the event of a Leave victory, and yet still the country seems transfixed by what it has brought upon itself. It is time to snap out of the daze. The country needs a new leader, a coherent approach to negotiating with the EU, and a fair settlement with those nations within its own union that voted Remain. The damage to Britain’s prosperity and to its standing in the world is already grave, and will become far worse if the country now fails to “take back control” of its future.

The sick man of nowhere

Brexit’s grisly first week, and the misery ahead, have already provoked buyer’s remorse. More than 4m people have signed a petition calling for a re-run of the vote. An instant rejection of the result would be wrong. Although we regret the Brexit vote, 34m people have cast their ballot and the result was clear. A straight rematch would be no fairer than allowing England’s footballers another crack at Iceland, which inflicted a second humiliation a week after the referendum.

And yet Britain’s fate is still highly uncertain. Although Britons opted to leave the EU, Brexit comes in 57 varieties. The mildest sort would be an arrangement like Norway’s, involving continuing access to Europe’s “single market” in return for the free movement of people from EU countries and a contribution to the EU budget. At the opposite extreme, Britain could cut its ties entirely, meaning no more payments into the EU budget and no more unlimited migration—but no special access to the market which buys nearly half Britain’s exports, either. Voters were told they could have it all. They cannot.

The Norwegian option would do the least damage to the economy. It would also be the best chance to preserve the union with Scotland and Northern Ireland, both of which voted Remain. The ruling Scottish Nationalists, who lost an independence referendum in 2014, always said that Britain’s leaving the EU would justify another ballot on independence. They are right—especially since in 2014 many Scots voted to stay in Britain in order to remain in the EU. But independence would be painful: it might mean promising one day to adopt the euro and hardening the border with England, with which Scotland trades more than it does with the EU. Under a Norwegian-style deal, Scots might prefer to stick with England. The Nationalists should wait to see a deal before asking for a new referendum.

In Northern Ireland Brexit raises other problems. One is the prospect of resurrecting the border between north and south, a dismal piece of symbolism which might be avoided if Britain got a Norwegian settlement. Another shamefully overlooked snag is that Britain’s exit from Europe will break the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, in which Northern Ireland’s peace process was underpinned by the EU. This treaty has kept the peace in the UK’s most troubled region for nearly 20 years. Fixing the mess will be an urgent task for the prime minister.

Point of no Breturn

Who should that be? Tory party members, who have the final say, may favour one of the victorious Leave campaigners, a mediocre bunch who have disgraced themselves during the campaign: lying about inflated budget payments and phantom Turkish migrants, before vanishing after the vote when the Brexit hit the fan. None of them would make a worthy prime minister. And yet the very falseness of the prospectus they flogged may be their best qualification for the job. Britain’s next leader must explain to 17m voters that the illusion they were promised—all the EU’s benefits with none of its obligations—does not exist. Only when the authors of the Brexit fantasy themselves return from Brussels without this magical deal might Leave voters accept that a compromise is necessary.

European leaders are in no mood to negotiate with their bolshie neighbour. That is why Britain should delay as long as it can before invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, the mechanism for a Brexit negotiation, which sets a two-year deadline. For every extra month that the cost of Brexit sinks in, the possibility of a fudge will increase. Angela Merkel, a champion procrastinator who, like her French and Dutch counterparts, faces angry elections next year, may also feel that accommodating some British demands, such as allowing an emergency brake on the free movement of people during “surges” (perhaps applied across the EU), would be possible, though she may find it hard to sell the idea to other European leaders.

Given that nearly half of British voters did not want out, it is likely that a majority might prefer a Norwegian compromise to complete isolation. Whatever deal takes shape in Brussels will be so far from what was promised by the Leave campaign that it will surely have to be put to the British public again, through a general election, another referendum or both. It is even possible that the whole notion of Brexit may stall. A thin majority have said they would prefer life outside the EU to life inside. But it may be that, when faced with the question of whether to endorse a Norway-like deal that entails many of the costs of being in the single market without having a say in the rules, many would rather stay in the EU after all.

Negotiating over Brexit will stretch the tolerance of both British voters and European leaders. Yet the EU specialises in muddled compromises and talking its way around referendums. After months of economic hardship, and a recession-induced fall in immigration, British voters may be ready to think differently about the balance between immigration, the economy and their place in Europe. By far the most likely outcome of this sorry situation remains Brexit. But it would be wrong completely to discount the possibility of an inelegant, humiliating, and yet welcome, Breversal.