Guaidó is een ordinaire couppleger van de VS, e.e.a. gaat volledig in tegen de Venezolaanse constitutie

Op CounterPunch van 8 februari jl. een artikel van Roger Harris waarin hij een aantal zaken opvoert die duidelijk maken dat Guaidó een zetbaasje is van de VS en dat de zogenaamde afzetting van Maduro (immers op order van de VS stelde Guaidó dat hij de nieuwe president is) en een eventuele installatie van Guaidó als president volkomen tegen de Venezolaanse constitutie ingaat……..

Bovendien is Guaidó voorzitter van een kleine oppositie partij (Voluntad Popular) en niet de oppositieleider van Venezuela, zoals de reguliere media je keer op keer willen doen geloven….. Sterker nog: Guaidó zou zelfs niet tot de top van zijn partij behoren, aldus Harris, voorts zouden andere oppositiepartijen Guaidó niet steunen…..
Lees het volgende artikel en geeft het ajb door, het is van het hoogste belang dat de VS, de NAVO, de EU, Canada en een aantal Latijns Amerikaanse landen met hun handen afblijven van Venezuela…… Als het tot een inval van de VS en de NAVO in Venezuela komt, zullen veel Venezolanen het leven verliezen en gezien de agressie van de VS en haar terreurorganisatie NAVO, zal een fiks deel van Venezuela in puin worden gelegd…….
Laten de VS, Canada en de EU zich maar eens bemoeien met de genocide in Jemen en dan niet op de manier van de VS, het helpen bij die genocide, maar door de Saoedische terreurcoalitie te isoleren, te boycotten en zo te dwingen te stoppen met alweer een genocide, die het westen tegen de eerder door haarzelf gedane verklaringen in, na de genocide in Rwanda, toch laat gebeuren……
Kan het westen eindelijk ook eens Israël onder druk zetten te stoppen met de etnische zuivering van Palestijnen en te stoppen met de massamoorden op dit verdrukte volk…..
De situatie in Jemen en de Palestijnse gebieden is duizenden keren erger dan die in Venezuela en toch wil men bij de laatste, geheel hypocriet, wel ingrijpen……. Vergeet natuurlijk niet dat de situatie in Venezuela geheel te danken is aan de economische oorlog die de VS tegen dit land voerde en voert (nu met de zogenaamd gelegaliseerde hulp middels sancties van de EU…)
FEBRUARY 8, 2019

Juan Guaidó: The Man Who Would Be President of Venezuela Doesn’t Have a Constitutional Leg to Stand On

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor Juan Guaidó: The Man Who Would Be President of Venezuela Doesn’t Have a Constitutional Leg to Stand On
Donald Trump imagines Juan Guaidó is the rightful president of Venezuela. Mr. Guaidó, a man of impeccable illegitimacy, was exposed by Cohen and Blumenthal as “a product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington’s elite regime change trainers.” Argentinian sociologist Marco Teruggi described Guaidó in the same article as “a character that has been created for this circumstance” of regime change. Here, his constitutional credentials to be interim president of Venezuela are deconstructed.
Educated at George Washington University in DC, Guaidó was virtually unknown in his native Venezuela before being thrust on to the world stage in a rapidly unfolding series of events. In a poll conducted a little more than a week before Guaidó appointed himself president of the country, 81% of Venezuelans had never even heard of the 35-year-old.
To make a short story shorter, US Vice President Pence phoned Guaidó on the evening of January 22rd and presumably asked him how’d he like to be made president of Venezuela. The next day, Guaidó announced that he considered himself president of Venezuela, followed within minutes by US President Trump confirming the self-appointment.
A few weeks before on January 5, Guaidó had been installed as president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, their unicameral legislature. He had been elected to the assembly from a coastal district with 26% of the vote. It was his party’s turn for the presidency of the body, and he was hand-picked for the position. Guaidó, even within his own party, was not in the top leadership.
Guaidó’s party, Popular Will, is a far-right marginal group whose most enthusiastic boosters are John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, and Mike Pompeo. Popular Will had adopted a strategy of regime change by extra-parliamentary means rather than engage in the democratic electoral process and had not participated in recent Venezuelan elections.
Although anointed by Trump and company, Guaidó’s Popular Will Party is not representative of the “Venezuelan opposition,” which is a fractious bunch whose hatred of Maduro is only matched by their abhorrence of each other. Leading opposition candidate Henri Falcón, who ran against Maduro in 2018 on a neoliberal austerity platform, had been vehemently opposed by Popular Will who demanded that he join their US-backed boycott of the election.
The Venezuelan news outlet, Ultimas Noticias, reported that prominent opposition politician Henrique Capriles, who had run against Maduro in 2013, “affirmed during an interview that the majority of opposition parties did not agree with the self-swearing in of Juan Guaidó as interim president of the country.” Claudio Fermin, president of the party Solutions for Venezuela, wrote “we believe in the vote, in dialogue, we believe in coming to an understanding, we believe Venezuelans need to part ways with the extremist sectors that only offer hatred, revenge, lynching.” Key opposition governor of the State of Táchira, Laidy Gómez, has rejected Guaidó’s support of intervention by the US, warning that it “would generate death of Venezuelans.”
The Guaidó/Trump cabal does not reflect the democratic consensus in Venezuela, where polls consistently show super majorities oppose outside intervention. Popular opinion in Venezuela supports negotiations between the government and the opposition as proposed by Mexico, Uruguay, and the Vatican. The Maduro administration has embraced the negotiations as a peaceful solution to the crisis facing Venezuela.
The US government rejects a negotiated solution, in the words of Vice President Pence: “This is no time for dialogue; this is time for action.” This intransigent position is faithfully echoed by Guaidó. So while most Venezuelans want peace, the self-appointed president, backed by the full force of US military power, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that it was possible to “end the Maduro regime with a minimum of bloodshed.”
The Guaidó/Trump cabal’s fig leaf for legitimacy is based on the bogus argument that Article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution gives the National Assembly the power to declare a national president’s “abandonment” of the office. In which case, the president of the National Assembly can serve as an interim national president, until presidential elections are held. The inconvenient truth is that Maduro has shown no inclination to abandon his post, and the constitution says no such thing.
In fact, the grounds for replacing a president are very clearly laid out in the first paragraph of Article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution and do not include fraudulent or illegitimate election, which is what the cabal has been claiming. In the convoluted logic of the US government and its epigones, if the people elect someone the cabal doesn’t like, the election is by definition fraudulent and the democratically elected winner is ipso facto a dictator.

The function of adjudicating the validity of an election, as in any country, is to be dealt with through court challenges, not by turning to Donald Trump for his approval. And certainly not by anointing an individual from a party that could have run in the 2018 election but decided to boycott.
The Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), which is the separate supreme court branch of the Venezuelan government has certified Maduro’s reelection, as have independent international observers. Further, no appeal was filed by any of the boycotting parties, while all participating parties – including opposition ones – signed off on the validity of the election after the polls closed.
The far-right opposition has boycotted the high court as well as the electoral process. They contest the legitimacy of the TSJ because some members of the TSJ were appointed by a lame duck National Assembly favorable to Maduro, after a new National Assembly with a majority in opposition had been elected in December 2015 but not yet seated.
Even if President Maduro were somehow deemed to have experienced what is termed a falta absoluta (i.e., some sort of void in the presidency due to death, insanity, absence, etc.), the National Assembly president is only authorized to take over if the falta absoluta occurs before the lawful president “takes possession.” However, Maduro was already “in possession” before the January 10, 2019 presidential inauguration and even before the May 10, 2018 presidential election. Maduro had won the presidency in the 2013 election and ran and won reelection last May.
If the falta absoluta is deemed to have occurred during the first four years of the presidential term, the vice president takes over. Then the constitution decrees that a snap election for the presidency must be held within 30 days. This is what happened when President Hugo Chávez died while in office in 2013. Then Vice President Nicolás Maduro succeeded to the presidency, called for new elections, and was elected by the people of Venezuela.
If it is deemed that the falta absoluta occurred during the last two years of the six-year presidential term, the vice president serves until the end of the term, according to the Venezuelan constitution. And if the time of the alleged falta absoluta is unclear – when Maduro presided over “illegitimate” elections in 2018, as is claimed by the far-right opposition – it is up to the TSJ to decide, not the head of the National Assembly or even such an august authority as US Senator Marco Rubio. Or the craven US press (too numerous to cite), which without bothering to read the plain language of the Bolivarian Constitution, repeatedly refers to Guaidó as the “constitutionally authorized” or “legitimate” president.
As Alfred de Zayas, United Nations independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, tweeted: “Article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution is inapplicable and cannot be twisted into legitimizing Guaidó’s self-proclamation as interim President. A coup is a coup.”
More articles by:ROGER HARRIS

Roger Harris is on the board of the Task Force on the Americas, a 32-year-old anti-imperialist human rights organization.

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Zie ook:
Venezuela: VS bedrijf dat wapens smokkelde is gelinkt aan CIA ‘Black Site’ centra

Congreslid Ilhan Omar fileert het monster Elliot Abrams, de speciale gezant van de VS voor Venezuela

Venezuela >> de media willen het socialisme definitief de nek omdraaien

Joel Voordewind (CU 2de Kamer) bakt de ‘Venezolaanse vluchtelingencrisis’ op Curaçao wel erg bruin en van Ojik (GL 2de Kamer) schiet een Venezolaanse bok

BBC World Service radio >> fake news and other lies about Venezuela‘ (bericht van dit blog)

Venezolaanse verandering van regime bekokstoofd door VS en massamedia

Venezuela zou humanitaire hulp weigeren, het echte verhaal ziet er ‘iets anders’ uit

Venezuela >> regime change: ‘de 12 stappen methode’ die de VS gebruikt

Venezuela >> VS economische oorlogsvoering met gebruikmaking van o.a. IMF en Wereldbank

VS couppleger in Venezuela belooft VS Venezolaanse olie als hij de macht heeft overgenomen

Pompeo: US Military Obligated to “Take Down” the Iranians in Venezuela

(de opgeblazen oorlogshitser en oorlogsmisdadiger Pompeo beweert dat Hezbollah werkzaam is in Venezuela en daar een leger heeft dat gezien zijn woorden amper onder doet voor de gezamenlijke NAVO troepen… ha! ha! ha! Ook hier is totaal geen bewijs voor deze belachelijke beschuldiging…)

Halliburton en Chevron hebben groot belang bij ‘regime change’ in Venezuela

Mike Pence (vicepresident VS) gaf Guaidó, de door de VS gewenste leider, groen licht voor de coup in Venezuela

VS coup tegen Maduro in volle gang……..

Antiwar Hero Medea Benjamin Disrupts Pompeo Speech on Venezuela

Venezuela’s Military Chief, Foreign Allies Back Maduro

Als de VS stopt met spelen van ‘politieagent’ en het vernielen van de wereld, zullen de slechte krachten winnen……

Venezuela: VS verandering van regime mislukt >> de Venezolanen wacht een VS invasie

Vast Majority of Democrats Remain Silent or Support Coup in Venezuela

Trump wilde naast de economische oorlogsvoering tegen Venezuela dat land daadwerkelijk militair aanvallen……

Venezolaanse regionale verkiezingen gehekeld door westen, terwijl internationale waarnemers deze als eerlijk beoordeelden……….

Venezuela: Target of Economic Warfare

Venezuela: de anti-propaganda van John Oliver (en het grootste deel westerse massamedia) feilloos doorgeprikt

Venezuela: ‘studentenprotest’ wordt uitgevoerd door ingehuurde troepen………

Abby Martin Busts Open Myths on Venezuela’s Food Crisis: ‘Shelves Fully Stocked’‘ (zie ook de video in dat artikel!)

Rex Tillerson waarschuwt Venezuela voor een coup en beschuldigt China van imperialisme…….. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Edwin Koopman (VPRO Bureau Buitenland) over Venezolaanse verkiezingen met anti-Maduro propaganda bij de ‘onafhankelijke NOS…..

EU neemt uiterst hypocriet sancties tegen de Venezolaanse regering Maduro………

Venezuela ontwricht, wat de reguliere media u niet vertellen……..

VS steunt rechtse coalitie (MUD) in Venezuela………






The Left and Venezuela‘ (met mogelijkheid tot directe vertaling)

Venezolaanse regering treedt terecht op tegen de uiterst gewelddadige oppositie!!

Star Wars 2.0: Trump wil een ‘raketafweersysteem’ in de ruimte

Jason Ditz plaatste op ANTIWAR een artikel over de wil van Trump een raketafweersysteem in de ruimte te construeren. Eerder kondigde Trump al aan (waarschijnlijk nadat hij een marathon van Star War films had gezien) dat de VS een militair ruimteleger zal opzetten……

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor trump als darth vader
Overigens bepaald niet de eerste keer dat men in de VS sprak over een VS raketafweersysteem in de ruimte: ook de knettergekke president en B-acteur Reagan wilde in de 80er jaren van de vorige eeuw een raketafweersysteem in de ruimte, een plan dat destijds sarcastisch Star Wars werd genoemd……
Verder hebben zowel Trump als zijn adviseur Bolton aangekondigd dat de VS uit het INF verdrag zal stappen, met de claim dat Rusland zich niet aan dit verdrag houdt, terwijl het juist de VS is die met een ‘raketschild’ in Polen en Roemenië de boel verder op scherp heeft gesteld…… Dat raketschild zou gericht zijn tegen raketten uit Iran, terwijl dat land bepaald niet bekend staat als land dat overal en nergens illegale oorlogen begint, zoals de VS dat met hulp van andere NAVO partners pleegt te doen…..
De raketten van het raketschild in Polen en Roemenië kunnen in een mum van tijd van kernkoppen worden voorzien en daarmee als aanvalsraketten worden ingezet…… Met dat schild heeft de VS dan ook het Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces-verdrag (INF-verdrag) al lang en breed geschonden, immers de raketten van het raketschild staan op strategische afstand van doelen als Moskou in Rusland, een afstand die binnen het INF-verdrag als verboden is gekenmerkt, ofwel raketten die doelen op een afstand van 500 tot 5.500 kilometer kunnen raken……
Het voorgaande terwijl zoals gezegd de VS het gore lef heeft te stellen dat Rusland het INF-verdrag schendt…..
Geen sterk stuk van Ditz, daar hij een aantal zaken is vergeten. Waar hij een punt heeft is zijn stelling dat de VS duidelijk van zins is om Rusland vergeldingscapaciteit uit te schakelen, ofwel dat Rusland bij een nucleaire aanval van de VS plus haar NAVO partners GB en Frankrijk, geen raketten als vergelding kan lanceren…… Het voorgaande zal leiden tot een nieuwe wapenrace en deze is zeker niet in het belang van het volk in de VS, Rusland en de rest van Europa……

Met een ruimte raketafweersysteem breekt de VS de al zeer fragiele stabiliteit in de wereld verder af, terwijl Trump, Bolton en andere top-oorlogsmisdadigers in de VS, keer op keer schermen met de leugen dat de VS de stabiliteit in de wereld bewaart en bewaakt…….. Hoe verzint men het en dat in een land dat de ene illegale oorlog na de andere begint??!!! De VS houdt zich verder bezig met economische oorlogsvoering en het opzetten van opstanden die tot een staatsgreep moeten leiden……. Ook vermoordt de VS een enorm aantal verdachten (ofwel illegale executies zonder een fatsoenlijke rechtszaak) middels drones, waarbij meer dan 90% van de slachtoffers niet eens werd verdacht, dus veelal vrouwen en kinderen…… Alsof al deze zaken stabilisatie bevorderend zijn……

Eén ding is zeker: mocht WOIII uitbreken is deze één op één ‘te danken aan’ de grootste terreurentiteit op de wereld, t.w. de VS (en haar oorlogshond de NAVO)…….

Star Wars’ Returns: US Military to Develop Space-Based Missile Defense System

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor ‘Star Wars’ Returns: US Military to Develop Space-Based Missile Defense System
January 17, 2019 at 9:23 pm
Written by Jason Ditz
(ANTIWAR.COM) — In what looks to be a highly ambitious and even more highly cost prohibitive scheme, President Trump has announced his intention to greatly expand US missile defense systems, with a major focus on putting them in space.
During his announcement Thursday at the Pentagon, Trump set out his goals, saying that he wants “to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States – anywhere, anytime, anyplace.”
The Pentagon has had space-based interceptors on its wish list for some time, but between that and drones with lasers on them, they were far short of the sort of total, planet-wide coverage that President Trump is talking about.
A space-centric missile defense system must inevitably draw comparisons to the Strategic Defense Initiative, commonly called Star Wars, of the 1980s, a controversial and hugely expensive program that also sought space-based interceptors.
The timing of President Trump’s announcement will likely raise eyebrows on a few fronts, as it comes just a day after the US announced its intentions to withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, and just a day before North Korean officials are to arrive to meet with the secretary of state.
Especially with respect to Russia, US buildups of missile defense systems have been met with major suspicion that the US is trying to eliminate Russia’s deterrent capability, a concern which often leads to Russian threats of a new arms race. With a treaty having just collapsed, that’s an even bigger concern this time.
This also likely is tied to President Trump’s long-standing fondness for militarizing space, and his attempts to create a Space Force. During his speech, Trump declared space to be a “new warfighting domain.”

By Jason Ditz / Republished with permission / ANTIWAR.COM / Report a typo

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Zie ook:
Trump zag onlangs alle afleveringen van Star Wars en wil de VS nu ook militair overwicht geven in de ruimte…….

CDA wil Nederlands ‘space force’ in de ruimte……. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Neil deGrasse Tyson, de populaire astrofisicus, is grootlobbyist van het militair-industrieel complex

Het label USSF direct onder dit bericht staat voor United States Space Force.

VS zet Latijns-Amerikaanse landen tegen elkaar op en is bezig met voorbereiding invasie Venezuela

InformationClearing House bracht gisteren een artikel over de plannen van de VS met Latijns-Amerika, van belang nu het er toch op lijkt dat de VS aanzienlijke troepenverminderingen zal doorvoeren in het Midden-Oosten.
Thierry Mason, de schrijver van het artikel gaat uitvoerig in op de bestaande status quo in Latijns-Amerika, waar bijvoorbeeld Venezuela al tijden in de schijnwerpers staat. De VS is al jaren bezig met een economische oorlogsvoering tegen Venezuela, waarbij o.a. de VS winkelketens voor levensmiddelen al een aantal jaren geleden onder druk werden gezet door de Obama administratie hun winkels en magazijnen in Venezuela niet langer te bevoorraden……
Deze smerige ‘tactiek’ heeft deels gewerkt, de middenstand en de hogere klasse gooiden de kont tegen de krib en met uiterst gewelddadige demonstraties probeerde men Maduro tot aftreden te dwingen en zoals we weten is dit niet gelukt. Men gaf de regering Maduro de schuld van dat geweld, echter uit beelden bleek dat veel demonstranten gewapend waren en op de politie schoten, naar verluid ging het hier om door de VS aangevoerde terroristen…..
Bolton heeft Venezuela, Cuba* en Nicaragua aangewezen als as van het kwaad in Latijns-Amerika en heeft gesteld dat de VS daar wil ingrijpen, ofwel er staan weer nieuwe illegale oorlogen van de VS op stapel….. De NAVO heeft in opdracht van haar bevelhebber, de VS Columbia toegelaten als lid van deze ‘Noord Atlantische Verdragsorganisatie…..’ (ha! ha! ha! ha!) Intussen schijnt terreurorganisatie NAVO twee militaire bases te hebben in dat land, dicht op de grens met o.a. Venezuela…….
Voorts heeft de VS landen als Brazilië in de zak (dat overigens onder fascist Bolsonaro nauw samenwerkt met terreurstaat Israël). Guyana (eerder Brits-Guiana genoemd) een ander buurland van Venezuela, wordt zoals de voormalige naam al zegt in feite door Groot-Brittannië gecontroleerd en bestuurd, GB ook al geen vriend van Venezuela, om het maar zachtjes uit te drukken…….. En dan beste bezoeker is daar… Nederland dat een dikke vinger in de Antilliaanse pap heeft, waar de Nederlandse marine in het gebied van de Antilliaanse eilanden (relatief dicht op Venezuela) nauw samenwerkt met de VS, zogenaamd alleen tegen drugssmokkelaars, echter je hoeft geen universitaire graad te hebben om te begrijpen dat deze samenwerking veel verder gaat dan het tegengaan van drugssmokkel…..
Na 13.00 u. vanmiddag kwam WDR nog eens met een aantal leugens over Maduro, dit n.a.v. de inauguratie van Maduro voor zijn tweede termijn als president. Zo werd gesteld dat het grootste deel van de Venezolaanse bevolking tegen Maduro is, dit is een grove leugen, de meerderheid staat wel degelijk achter Maduro, t.w. de grote onderlaag van die bevolking……. Uiteraard werd weer gesteld dat Maduro een desastreus economisch beleid voert, met geen woord werd over de economische oorlog van de VS tegen dat land gesproken, waardoor bijvoorbeeld zelfs medicijnen moeilijk of niet te krijgen zijn, het blokkeren van dergelijke importen is zonder meer een ernstige oorlogsmisdaad……
Lees het volgende artikel van Meyssan en geeft het ajb door, de wereld zit allesbehalve te wachten op oorlogen in Latijns-Amerika. De VS dient zich eindelijk terug te trekken op eigen grondgebied en het fascisme dat ook in Latijns-Amerika op weg terug is naar de macht, moet de pas afgesneden worden, deze ultrarechtse schoften die al zoveel ellende hebben gebracht over de wereld, moeten worden bestreden, voor ze nog veel meer onheil kunnen aanrichten! Opvallend ook het bericht dat de zoon van de Surinaamse president Bouterse niet werd gearresteerd vanwege drugssmokkel, maar vanwege zijn poging het Libanese Hezbollah te introduceren in Suriname….. Dino Bouterse werd in 2013 ondanks zijn diplomatieke paspoort in Panama (dat onder controle van de VS staat) gearresteerd (!!) en uitgeleverd aan de VS waar hij werd veroordeeld tot 16 jaar cel……
The Terrible Forthcoming Destruction of the “Caribbean Basin”
President Trump has announced the withdrawal of US combat troops from the « Greater Middle East », but the Pentagon is still pursuing the implementation of the Rumsfeld-Cebrowski plan. This time the aim is to destroy the States of the “Caribbean Basin “. This is nothing like the overthrow of pro-Soviet regimes, as in the 1970’s, but the destruction of all regional State structures, without consideration for friends or political enemies. Thierry Meyssan observes the preparations for this new series of wars.

By Thierry Meyssan

January 10, 2019 “Information Clearing House” – In a series of previous articles, we presented the SouthCom plan to provoke wars between the Latin-American nations in order to destroy the structures of all the States in the « Caribbean Basin » [1].

Preparations for wars of this magnitude, intended to follow on from the conflicts in the « Greater Middle East » according to the Rumsfeld-Cebrowski strategy, requires a decade [2].

After the period of economic destabilisation [3] and that of military preparation, the actual operation should begin in the years to come by an attack on Venezuela by Brazil (supported by Israël), Colombia (an ally of the United States) and Guyana (in other words, the United Kingdom). It will be followed by others, beginning with Cuba and Nicaragua (the « troïka of tyranny » according to John Bolton).

However, the original plan may be modified, particularly because of the return of the imperial ambitions of the United Kingdom [4] which may influence the Pentagon.

This is where we are now :


The evolution of Venezuela

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had developed relations with the « Greater Middle East » on an ideological basis. He had in particular grown closer to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bachar el-Assad. Together, they had imagined the possibility of founding an intergovernmental organisation, the « Free Allies Movement », on the model of the « Non-Aligned Movement », which was paralysed by the alignment with the United States, over time, of certain of its members [5].

Although Nicolas Maduro adopted the same language as Hugo Chávez, he chose a very different foreign policy. It is true that he continued the rapprochement with Russia and, in his turn welcomed Russian bombers to Venezuela. He signed a contract to import 600,000 tonnes of wheat in order to deal with starvation in his country. Above all, he prepared to receive six billion dollars of investments, including five in the oil sector. Russian engineers took over the posts which were intended for Venezuelan workers but which they had abandoned.


Nicolas Maduro reorganised the alliances of his country on new foundations. He wove close links with Turkey, which is a member of NATO and whose army presently occupies Northern Syria. Maduro went to Istanbul on four occasions and Erdoğan went once to Caracas.
Switzerland was an ally of Hugo Chávez, and had advised him for the composition of his Constitution. Fearing that he would be unable to refine his country’s gold in Switzerland, Nicolas Maduro looked to Turkey, which transformed the raw material into bullion. In the past, this gold had remained in Swiss banks as a guarantee for oil contracts. From now on, the liquid assets were transferred to Turkey, while the newly treated gold returned to Venezuela. This orientation may be interpreted as being no longer founded on ideology, but on interest. Everything depends on who benefits.

Simultaneously, Venezuela became the target of a destabilisation campaign which began with the guarimbas demonstrations, continued with the attempted coup d’etat on 12 February 2015 (« Operation Jericho »), then by a series of attacks on the national currency, and organised emigration. In this context, Turkey offered Venezuela the possibility of avoiding US sanctions. The exchanges between the two countries multiplied fifteen-fold in 2018.
Whatever the evolution of the Venezuelan régime, nothing can justify what is being prepared against its population.

Coordination of logistical means

From 31 July to 12 August 2017, SouthCom organise a vast exercise with more than 3,000 men from 25 allied states, including France and the United Kingdom. The goal was to prepare a swift landing for troops in Venezuela [6].

Colombia

Colombia is a state, but not a nation. Its population lives geographically separate according to social class, with enormous differences in the quality of life. Almost no Colombian has ever spent time in a neighbourhood attributed to another social class than their own. This strict separation has made possible the multiplication of paramilitary forces and consequently armed interior conflicts which have caused more than 220,000 victims in thirty years.

In power since August 2018, President Iván Duque has challenged the fragile peace concluded with the FARC by his predecessor, Juan Manuel Santos – but not with the ELN. He has not dismissed the option of a military intervention against Venezuela. According to Nicolas Maduro, the United States are currently training 734 mercenaries in a training camp situated in Tona with a view to carrying out a false flag operation intended to spark a war with Venezuela. Taking into account the sociological particularity of Colombia, it is impossible to determine with certainty whether or not the training camp is controlled by Bogota.

Guyana

In the 19th century, the colonial powers agreed to a frontier between British Guyana (presently Guyana) and Dutch Guyana (presently Surinam). but no text has ever defined the frontier between the British zone and the Spanish zone (presently Venezuela). Consequently, Guyana administrates 160,000 km2 of forest which is still a source of dispute with its larger neighbour. By virtue of the Geneva agreement of 17 February 1966, the two states deferred to the Secretary General of the UNO (at that time the Burmese U Thant). Nothing has changed since then – Guyana has proposed to bring the case before the UNO** Permanent Court of Arbitration, while Venezuela prefers direct negotiations.

This territorial dispute does not seem particularly urgent, because the contested area is an uninhabited forest which was believed to be without value – however, it is a huge area which represents two thirds of Guyana. The Geneva agreement has been violated 15 times by Guyana, which specifically authorised the exploitation of a gold mine. Above all, the stakes were raised in 2015 with the discovery by ExxonMobil of oil deposits in the Atlantic Ocean, particularly in the territorial waters of the contested zone.

The population of Guyana is composed of 40 % Indians, 30 % Africans, 20 % mixed race and 10 % American Indians. The Indians are a strong presence in the civil services and the Africans in the army.

On 21 December, a vote of no confidence was lodged against the government of President David Granger, a pro-British, anti-Venezuelan General, in power since 2015. To everyone’s surprise, a deputy, Charrandas Persaud, voted against his own party, and in an atmosphere of indescribable chaos, provoked the fall of the government which had only a one-vote majority. Since then, the country is in a state of great instability – we do not know whether President Granger, who is presently undergoing chemotherapy, will be able to handle current affairs, while Charrandas Persaud left Parliament with an escort, via a back door, and has fled to Canada.

On 22 December 2018, in the absence of a government, the Ramform Tethys (under the flag of the Bahamas) and the Delta Monarch (Trinidad and Tobago) undertook submarine explorations in the contested zone on behalf of Exxon-Mobil. Considering that this intrusion violated the Geneva agreement, the Venezuelan army chased the two ships away. The Guyanese Minister for Foreign Affairs, working with current affairs, declared it a hostile act.

The United Kingdom Minister for Defense, Gavin Williamson, declared to the Sunday Telegraph on 30 December 2018 that the Crown was putting an end to decolonisation, which had been Whitehall’s doctrine since the Suez affair in 1956. London is preparing to open a new military base in the Caribbean (for the moment the UK has bases only in Gibraltar, Cyprus, Diego Garcia and on the Falkland islands). The new base could be situated on Montserrat (West Indies), or more probably in Guyana, and should be operational in 2022 [7].

Guyana is a neighbour of Surinam (Dutch Guyana). Its President, Desi Bouterse, is wanted in Europe for drug trafficking – an affair which pre-dated his election. But his son, Dino, was arrested in Panama in 2013, despite the fact that he entered that country under a diplomatic passport. He was extradited to the United States where he was sentenced to 16 years of prison for drug trafficking – in reality because he was setting up the Lebanese Hezbollah in Surinam.

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The baptism of Jair Bolsonaro in the waters of the Jordan (Israël) (opvallend hoe goed het christelijk geloof het meestal kan vinden met fascisten….)

Brazil

In May 2016, Henrique Meirelles, the Minister of Finance for the transitional government of Libano-Brazilian Michel Temer, nominated Israelo-Brazilian Ilan Goldfajn as director of the Central Bank. Mereilles had also presided the Committee for the preparation of the Olympic Games, calling on Tsahal to coordinate the Brazilian army and police, thus guaranteeing the security of the Games. Simultaneously controlling the Central Bank, the army and the police of Brazil, Israël had no difficulty in supporting the popular movement of dissatisfaction in the face of the incompetence of the Workers’ Party.

Believing – without any solid proof – that Presidente Dilma Rousseff had fudged the public accounts in the context of the Petrobras scandal, the parliamentarians impeached her in August 2016.

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During the Presidential election of 2018, candidate Jair Bolsonaro went to Israël to be baptised in the waters of the Jordan, and consequently obtained a massive percentage of the evangelical vote. He was elected with General Hamilton Mourão as his Vice-President. During the period of transition, Mourão declared that Brazil should prepare to send men to Venezuela as a « peace force » once President Maduro had been overthrown – comments which constitute a barely-disguised threat which President Bolsonaro attempted to downplay.


In an interview on 3 January 2019, on the TV channel SBT, President Bolsonaro spoke of negotiations with the Pentagon concerning the possibility of creating a US military base in Brazil. This declaration raised powerful opposition within the armed forces, for whom their country is capable of defending itself without assistance.

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Benjamin Netanyahu during the investiture of President Bolsonaro. Israël has taken position in Brazil.

During his investiture on 2 January 2019, the new President welcomed Israëli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This was the first time that an Israëli personality of this importance had been to Brazil. On this occasion, President Bolsonaro announced the coming transfer of the Brazilian embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who also went to the investiture, where he met Peruvian Minister for Foreign Affairs Néstor Popolizio, announced with President Bolsonaro his intention to fight with him against the « authoritarian régimes » of Venezuela and Cuba. Returning to the United States, he stopped over in Bogota to meet with Colombian President Iván Duque. The two men agreed to work for the diplomatic isolation of Venezuela. On 4 January 2019, the 14 States of the Lima Group (including Brazil, Colombia and Guyana) met to agree that Nicolas Maduro’s new mandate, which begins on 10 January, is « illegitimate » [8]. This communiqué has not been signed by Mexico. Apart from this, six of the member-States lodged a complaint with the International Criminal Tribunal*** against President Nicolas Maduro for crimes against humanity. It is perfectly clear today that the process towards war is under way. Enormous forces are in play, and there is little that can be done to stop them now. It is in this context that Russia is studying the possibility of setting up a permanent aero-naval base in Venezuela. The island of La Orchila – where President Hugo Chávez was held prisoner during the coup d’etat of April 2002 – would enable the storing of strategic bombers. This would constitute a much greater threat to the United States than the Soviet missiles stationed in Cuba in 1962.

Thierry Meyssan, Political consultant, President-founder of the Réseau Voltaire (Voltaire Network).

Latest work in French – Sous nos Yeux. Du 11-Septembre à Donald Trump (Right Before our Eyes. From 9/11 to Donald Trump). Translation – Pete Kimberley

This article was originally published by Voltaire Network

Notes

[1] « Plan to overthrow the Venezuelan Dictatorship – “Masterstroke” », Admiral Kurt W. Tidd, Voltaire Network, 23 février 2018. “The United States “Master Stroke” against Venezuela”, by Stella Calloni; “The United States are preparing a war between Latin-American states”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 17 May and 18 December 2018.

[2] The Pentagon’s New Map, Thomas P. M. Barnett, Putnam Publishing Group, 2004. “The US military project for the world”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 22 August 2017.

[3] “Declaration of a National Emergency with Respect to Venezuela”, “Executive Order – Blocking Property and Suspending Entry of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Venezuela”, by Barack Obama, Voltaire Network, 9 March 2015.

[4] « Brexit : Londres assume sa nouvelle politique coloniale », Réseau Voltaire, 3 janvier 2019.

[5] “Assad and Chávez call for the creation of a Free Allied Movement”, Voltaire Network, 29 June 2010.

[6] “Large-scale manoeuvres encircling Venezuela”, by Manlio Dinucci, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Il Manifesto (Italy) , Voltaire Network, 23 August 2017.

[7] “We are opening new overseas bases to boost Britain”, Christopher Hope, Sunday Telegraph, December 30, 2018.

[8] “Declaration of the Lima Group”, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network, 4 January 2019.

==See Also==

The United States are preparing a war between Latin-American states: The Pentagon is planning to assassinate an elected head of state, ruin his country, and undermine the unity of Latin-America.

==========================================
* Afgelopen week werd bekend gemaakt dat het VS ambassade personeel dat middels ‘een sonisch wapen’ onwel werd, waar men in de westerse pers al flink tamtam over maakte en met de beschuldigende vinger naar de Cubaanse regering wees, in werkelijkheid werd ‘aangevallen’ door het geluid van (echte) baltsende krekels…… ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

** UNO (United Nations Organisation) >> nu kortweg UN of het Nederlandse VN.

*** Naar grote waarschijnlijkheid doelt de schrijver op het Internationaal Strafhof (ICC) in Den Haag.

Zie ook:
VS coup tegen Maduro in volle gang……..

VS weer op oorlogspad in Latijns-Amerika: Venezuela het volgende slachtoffer…….

Als de VS stopt met spelen van ‘politieagent’ en het vernielen van de wereld, zullen de slechte krachten winnen……

Venezuela: VS verandering van regime mislukt >> de Venezolanen wacht een VS invasie

Trump wilde naast de economische oorlogsvoering tegen Venezuela dat land daadwerkelijk militair aanvallen……

Venezolaanse regionale verkiezingen gehekeld door westen, terwijl internationale waarnemers deze als eerlijk beoordeelden……….

Venezuela: ‘studentenprotest’ wordt uitgevoerd door ingehuurde troepen………

Venezuela: Target of Economic Warfare

Venezuela: de anti-propaganda van John Oliver (en het grootste deel westerse massamedia) feilloos doorgeprikt

Abby Martin Busts Open Myths on Venezuela’s Food Crisis: ‘Shelves Fully Stocked’‘ (zie ook de video in dat artikel!)

Venezuela: VS verandering van regime mislukt >> de Venezolanen wacht een VS invasie

Rex Tillerson waarschuwt Venezuela voor een coup en beschuldigt China van imperialisme…….. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Edwin Koopman (VPRO Bureau Buitenland) over Venezolaanse verkiezingen met anti-Maduro propaganda bij de ‘onafhankelijke NOS…..

EU neemt uiterst hypocriet sancties tegen de Venezolaanse regering Maduro………

Venezuela moet en zal ‘verlost’ worden van Maduro, met ‘oh wonder’ een dikke rol van de VS en de reguliere westerse media

Venezolaanse regering treedt terecht op tegen de uiterst gewelddadige oppositie!!

Venezuela ontwricht, wat de reguliere media u niet vertellen……..

VS steunt rechtse coalitie (MUD) in Venezuela………






The Left and Venezuela‘ (met mogelijkheid tot directe vertaling)

NewsGuard, het nieuwste wapen van Big Brother VS tegen de alternatieve media

NewsGuard is het nieuwste wapen waarmee de VS overheid, haar geheime diensten, het militair-industrieel complex, oligarchen, de grote (corrupte) bedrijven, de financiële sector en dan m.n. de banken, de farmaceutische maffia en uiteraard de reguliere massamedia de bevolking verder willen manipuleren en waarmee de alternatieve media de oorlog wordt verklaard….. Sterker nog: vertegenwoordigers van deze organisaties/bedrijven zijn verbonden aan NewsGuard…..
NewsGuard wordt als het straks tegenzit standaard als app ingebouwd in alle computers en smartphones die in de VS of door VS bedrijven worden geproduceerd….. Sterker nog Microsoft gebruikt deze app al….
Met platforms als Facebook en Twitter, die nu al op grote schaal accounts verwijderen, is de toekomst klaar voor grootschalige geschiedvervalsing en het brengen van propaganda op een schaal waar zelfs Goebbels niet van durfde dromen….. Nu al wordt SafeGuard gebruikt door openbare bibliotheken, scholen en universiteiten in de VS……
Het zal je niet verbazen dat NewsGuard uiteraard geen moeite heeft met fake news (nepnieuws) en desinformatie in de reguliere massamedia, zoals die op CNN en de Washington Post (WaPo), waar aantoonbaar een groot aantal kul verhalen werden gebracht, waarvoor deze ‘fake news’ organen nooit een rectificatie plaatsten, alles zonder daar ook maar enige kritiek voor te hebben gekregen van NewsGuard…… Waar collega ‘s van deze VS nieuwsmedia met grote graagte de leugens van deze twee hebben geholpen door verdere verspreiding van die leugens…… (zoals je begrijpt geldt dit ook voor de rest van de westerse massamedia)

Het voorgaande is niet zo vreemd als je ziet dat de reguliere massamedia in handen zijn van oligarchen en grote investeringsgroepen, groepen die het grootste belang hebben bij het bewaren van de huidige status quo en het opjagen van winsten met propaganda, zoals die voor de wapenfabrikanten, waaronder ik ook de fabrikanten reken die rollend, varend en vliegens oorlogstuig produceren…..

Overigens zijn ook publieke zendgemachtigden al lang niet meer onafhankelijk, ze worden grotendeels door de staat betaald en je weet het: wiens brood men eet diens woord men spreekt!! (klik voor de gein op het label NOS, direct onder dit bericht)

Schokkend te lezen dat het American Enterprise Institute (AEI) al 4 jaar voor 911 pleitte voor een nieuws Pearl Harbour, om meer steun te verkrijgen voor het militaire apparaat en de terreur die het in het buitenland uitoefent (alleen deze eeuw al meer dan 2,5 moorden….)…..
Lees het uitstekende relaas van Whitney Webb over griezelorganisatie NewsGuard, die gegarandeerd ook in de rest van het westen zal worden geïntroduceerd, althans als dat nog nodig is, nadat bedrijven als Microsoft de NewsGuard app al hebben overgenomen……. (let op: als je gisteren mijn bericht met de volgende titel hebt gelezen: ‘Britse militaire geheime dienst bedient zich van moddergooien en andere manipulaties om Europese en VS politiek te manipuleren, zo blijkt uit gelekte documenten, op basis van een artikel van William Blumenthal en Mark Ames, zal het je opvallen dat een paar afbeeldingen gebruikt door Webb, een dag eerder door Blumenthal en Ames in hun artikel werden gebruikt, zoals Webb ook een paar kleine delen overnam van de tekst daarbij)

NewsGuard Launches War on Alternative Media

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor NewsGuard Launches War on Alternative Media

January 9, 2019 at 10:39 pm
Written by Whitney Webb
(MPN) — Soon after the social media “purge” of independent media sites and pages this past October, a top neoconservative insider — Jamie Fly — was caught stating that the mass deletion of anti-establishment and anti-war pages on Facebook and Twitter was “just the beginning” of a concerted effort by the U.S. government and powerful corporations to silence online dissent within the United States and beyond.
While a few, relatively uneventful months in the online news sphere have come and gone since Fly made this ominous warning, it appears that the neoconservatives and other standard bearers of the military-industrial complex and the U.S. oligarchy are now poised to let loose their latest digital offensive against independent media outlets that seek to expose wrongdoing in both the private and public sectors.
As MintPress News Editor-in-Chief Mnar Muhawesh recently wrote, MintPress was informed that it was under review by an organization called Newsguard Technologies, which described itself to MintPress as simply a “news rating agency” and asked Muhawesh to comment on a series of allegations, several of which were blatantly untrue. However, further examination of this organization reveals that it is funded by and deeply connected to the U.S. government, neo-conservatives, and powerful monied interests, all of whom have been working overtime since the 2016 election to silence dissent to American forever-wars and corporate-led oligarchy.
More troubling still, Newsguard — by virtue of its deep connections to government and Silicon Valley — is lobbying to have its rankings of news sites installed by default on computers in U.S. public libraries, schools, and universities as well as on all smartphones and computers sold in the United States.
In other words, as Newsguard’s project advances, it will soon become almost impossible to avoid this neocon-approved news site’s ranking systems on any technological device sold in the United States. Worse still, if its efforts to quash dissenting voices in the U.S. are successful, Newsguard promises that its next move will be to take its system global.
Red light, green light . . .
Newsguard has received considerable attention in the mainstream media of late, having been the subject of a slew of articles in the Washington Post, the Hill, the Boston Globe, Politico, Bloomberg, Wired, and many others just over the past few months. Those articles portray Newsguard as using “old-school journalism” to fight “fake news” through its reliance on nine criteria allegedly intended to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to online news.
Newsguard separates sites it deems worthy and sites it considers unreliable by using a color-coded rating — green, yellow, or red — and more detailed “nutrition labels” regarding a site’s credibility or lack thereof. Rankings are created by Newsguard’s team of “trained analysts.” The color-coding system may remind some readers of the color-coded terror threat-level warning system that was created after 9/11, making it worth noting that Tom Ridge, the former secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) who oversaw the implementation of that system under George W. Bush, is on Newsguard’s advisory board.
As Newsguard releases a new rating of a site, that rating automatically spreads to all computers that have installed its news ranking browser plug-in. That plug-in is currently available for free for the most commonly used internet browsers. NewsGuard directly markets the browser plug-in to libraries, schools and internet users in general.
According to its website, Newsguard has rated more than 2,000 news and information sites. However, it plans to take its ranking efforts much farther by eventually reviewing “the 7,500 most-read news and information websites in the U.S.—about 98 percent of news and information people read and share online” in the United States in English.
A recent Gallup study, which was supported and funded by Newsguard as well as the Knight Foundation (itself a major investor in Newsguard), stated that a green rating increased users likelihood to share and read content while a red rating decreased that likelihood. Specifically, it found 63 percent would be less likely to share news stories from red-rated websites, and 56 percent would be more likely to share news from green-rated websites, though the fact that Newsguard and one of its top investors funded the poll makes it necessary to take these findings with a grain of salt.
However, some of the rankings Newsguard itself has publicized show that it is manifestly uninterested in fighting “misinformation.” How else to explain the fact that the Washington Post and CNN both received high scores even though both have written stories or made statements that later proved to be entirely false? For example, CNN falsely claimed in 2016 that it was illegal for Americans to read WikiLeaks releases and illegally colluded with the DNC to craft presidential debate questions.
In addition, in 2017, CNN published a fake story that a Russian bank linked to a close ally of President Donald Trump was under Senate investigation. That same year, CNN was forced to retract a report that the Trump campaign had been tipped off early about WikiLeaks documents damaging to Hillary Clinton when it later learned the alert was about material already publicly available.
The Washington Post, whose $600 million conflict of interest with the CIA goes unnoted by Newsguard, has also published false stories since the 2016 election, including one article that falsely claimed that “Russian hackers” had tapped into Vermont’s electrical grid. It was later found that the grid itself was never breached and the “hack” was only an isolated laptop with a minor malware problem. Yet, such acts of journalistic malpractice are apparently of little concern to Newsguard when those committing such acts are big-name corporate media outlets.
Can you distinguish between propaganda and a free press? NewsGuard can help.

See NewsGuard’s other Tweets
Furthermore, Newsguard gives a high rating to Voice of America, the U.S. state-funded media outlet, even though its former acting associate director said that the outlet produces “fluff journalism” and despite the fact that it was recently reformed to “provide news that supports our [U.S.] national security objectives.” However, RT receives a low “red” rating for being funded by the Russian government and for “raising doubts about other countries and their institutions” (i.e., including reporting critical of the institutions and governments of the U.S. and its allies).
Keeping the conversation safe for the corporatocracy
Newsguard describes itself as an organization dedicated to “restoring trust and accountability” and using “journalism to fight false news, misinformation and disinformation.” While it repeatedly claims on its website that its employees “have no political axes to grind” and “care deeply about reliable journalism’s pivotal role in democracy,” a quick look at its co-founders, top funders and advisory board make it clear that Newsguard is aimed at curbing voices that hold the powerful — in both government and the private sector — to account.
Newsguard is the latest venture to result from the partnership between Steven Brill and Louis Gordon Crovitz, who currently serve as co-CEOs of the group. Brill is a long-time journalist — published in TIME and The New Yorker, among others — who most recently founded the Yale Journalism Initiative, which aims to encourage Yale students who “aspire to contribute to democracy in the United States and around the world” to become journalists at top U.S. and international media organizations. He first teamed up with Crovitz in 2009 to create Journalism Online, which sought to make the online presence of top American newspapers and other publishers profitable, and was also the CEO of the company that partnered up with the TSA to offer “registered” travelers the ability to move more quickly through airport security — for a price, of course.
While Brill’s past does not in itself raise red flags, Crovitz — his partner in founding Journalism Online, then Press+, and now Newsguard — is the last person one would expect to find promoting any legitimate effort to “restore trust and accountability” in journalism. In the early 1980s. Crovitz held a number of positions at Dow Jones and at the Wall Street Journal, eventually becoming executive vice president of the former and the publisher of the latter before both were sold to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in 2007. He is also a board member of Business Insider, which has received over $30 million from Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos in recent years.
In addition to being a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Crovitz proudly notes in his bio, available on Newsguard’s website, that he has been an “editor or contributor to books published by the American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation.” Though many MintPress readers are likely familiar with these two institutions, for those who are not, it is worth pointing out that the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is one of the most influential neoconservative think tanks in the country and its “scholars,” directors and fellows have included neoconservative figures like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Bolton and Frederick Kagan.
During the George W. Bush administration, AEI was instrumental in promoting the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq and has since advocated for militaristic solutions to U.S. foreign policy objectives and the expansion of the U.S.’ military empire as well as the “War on Terror.”
During the Bush years, AEI was also closely associated with the now defunct and controversial neoconservative organization known as the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which presciently called, four years before 9/11, for a “new Pearl Harbor” as needed to rally support behind American military adventurism.
The Heritage Foundation, like AEI, was also supportive of the war in Iraq and has pushed for the expansion of the War on Terror and U.S. missile defense and military empire. Its corporate donors over the years have included Procter & Gamble, Chase Manhattan Bank, Dow Chemical, and Exxon Mobil, among others.
Crovitz’s associations with AEI and the Heritage Foundation, as well as his ties to Wall Street and the upper echelons of corporate media, are enough to make any thinking person question his commitment to being a fair watchdog of “legitimate journalism.” Yet, beyond his innumerable connections to neoconservatives and powerful monied interest, Crovitz has repeatedly been accused of inserting misinformation into his Wall Street Journal columns, with groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation accusing him of “repeatedly getting his facts wrong” on NSA surveillance and other issues. Some of the blatant falsehoods that have appeared in Crovitz’s work have never been corrected, even when his own sources called him out for misinformation.
For example, in a WSJ opinion piece that was written by Crovitz in 2012, Crovitz was accused of making “fantastically false claims” about the history of the internet by the very people he had cited to support those claims.
As TechDirt wrote at the time:

Almost everyone he [Crovitz] sourced or credited to support his argument that the internet was invented entirely privately at Xerox PARC and when Vint Cerf helped create TCP/IP, has spoken out to say he’s wrong. And that list includes both Vint Cerf, himself, and Xerox. Other sources, including Robert Taylor (who was there when the internet was invented) and Michael Hiltzik, have rejected Crovitz’s spinning of their own stories.”

The oligarch team’s deep bench
While Brill and Crovitz’s connections alone should be enough cause for alarm, a cursory examination of Newsguard’s advisory board makes it clear that Newsguard was created to serve the interests of American oligarchy. Chief among Newsguard’s advisors are Tom Ridge, the first Secretary of Homeland Security under George W. Bush and Ret. General Michael Hayden, a former CIA director, a former NSA director and principal at the Chertoff Group, a security consultancy seeking to “advise corporate clients and governments, including foreign governments” on security matters that was co-founded by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who also currently serves as the board chairman of major weapons manufacturer BAE systems.


Another Newsguard advisor of note is Richard Stengel, former editor of Time magazine, a “distinguished fellow” at the Atlantic Council and Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy under President Barack Obama. At a panel discussion hosted last May by the Council on Foreign Relations, Stengel described his past position at the State Department as “chief propagandist” and also stated that he is “not against propaganda. Every country does it and they have to do it to their own population and I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.”
(de video, waarvan de still in het hieronder weergegeven artikel kan ik niet overnemen, zie daarvoor het origineel)
Embedded video
At a Council on Foreign Relations forum about “fake news,” former Editor at Time Magazine Richard Stengel directly states that he supports the use of propaganda on American citizens – then shuts the session down when challenged about how propaganda is used against the third world

Other Newsguard advisors include Don Baer, former White House communications director and advisor to Bill Clinton and current chairman of both PBS and the influential PR firm Burson Cohn & Wolfe as well as Elise Jordan, former communications director for the National Security Council and former speech-writer for Condoleezza Rice, as well as the widow of slain journalist Michael Hastings — who was writing an exposé on former CIA director John Brennan at the time of his suspicious death.
A look at Newguard’s investors further illustrates the multifarious connections between this organization and the American political and corporate elite. While Brill and Crovitz themselves are the company’s top investors, one of Newsguard’s most important investors is the Publicis Groupe. Publicis is the third largest global communications company in the world, with more than 80,000 employees in over 100 countries and an annual revenue of over €9.6 billion ($10.98 billion) in 2017. It is no stranger to controversy, as one of its subsidiaries, Qorvis, recently came under fire for exploiting U.S. veterans at the behest of the Saudi government and also helped the Saudi government to “whitewash” its human rights record and its genocidal war in Yemen after receiving $6 million from the Gulf Kingdom in 2017.
Furthermore, given its size and influence, it is unsurprising that the Publicis Groupe counts many powerful corporations and governments among its clientele. Some of its top clients in 2018 included pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly, Merck, Pfizer and Bayer/Monsanto as well as Starbucks, Procter & Gamble, McDonalds, Kraft Heinz, Burger King, and the governments of Australia and Saudi Arabia. Given its influential role in funding Newsguard, it is reasonable to point out the potential conflict of interest posed by the fact that sites that accurately report on Publicis’ powerful clients — but generate bad publicity — could be targeted for such reports in Newsguard’s ranking.
In addition to the Publicis Groupe, another major investor in Newsguard is the Blue Haven Initiative, which is the venture capital “impact investment” fund of the wealthy Pritzker family — one of the top 10 wealthiest families in the U.S., best known as the owners of the Hyatt Hotel chain and for being the second largest financial contributors to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Other top investors include John McCarter, a long-time executive at U.S. government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, as well as Thomas Glocer, former CEO of Reuters and a member of the boards of pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co., financial behemoth Morgan Stanley, and the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a member of the Atlantic Council’s International Advisory Board.
Through these investors, Newsguard managed to raise $6 million to begin its ranking efforts in March of 2018. Newsguard’s actual revenues and financing, however, have not been disclosed despite the fact that it requires the sites it ranks to disclose their funding. In a display of pure hypocrisy, Newsguard’s United States Securities and Exchange Commission Form D — which was filed March 5, 2018 — states that the company “declined to disclose” the size of its total revenue.
Why give folks a choice?
While even a quick glance at its advisory board alone would be enough for many Americans to decline to install Newsguard’s browser extension on their devices, the danger of Newsguard is the fact that it is diligently working to make the adoption of its app involuntary. Indeed, if voluntary adoption of Newsguard’s app were the case, there would likely be little cause for concern, given that its website attracts barely more than 300 visits per month and its social-media following is relatively small, with just over 2,000 Twitter followers and barely 500 Facebook likes at the time of this article’s publication.
To illustrate its slip-it-under-the-radar strategy, Newsguard has gone directly to state governments to push its browser extension onto entire state public library systems, even though its website suggests that individual public libraries are welcome to install the extension if they so choose. The first state to install Newsguard on all of its public library computers across its 51 branches was the state of Hawaii — which was the first to partner with Newsguard’s “news literacy initiative,” just last month.
Aloha, Hawaiian libraries! The state has added the NewsGuard extension to the computers patrons use in all its public libraries. Thanks to for sponsoring news literacy. http://bigislandnow.com/2018/12/17/libraries-join-newsguard-in-news-literacy-partnership/

According to local media, Newsguard “now works with library systems representing public libraries across the country, and is also partnering with middle schools, high schools, universities, and educational organizations to support their news literacy efforts,” suggesting that these Newsguard services targeting libraries and schools are soon to become a compulsory component of the American library and education system, despite Newsguard’s glaring conflicts of interest with massive multinational corporations and powerful government power-brokers.
Notably, Newsguard has a powerful partner that has allowed it to start finding its way into public library and school computers throughout the country. As part of its new “Defending Democracy” initiative, Microsoft announced last August that it would be partnering with Newsguard to actively market the company’s ranking app and other services to libraries and schools throughout the country. Microsoft’s press release regarding the partnership states that Newsguard “will empower voters by providing them with high-quality information about the integrity and transparency of online news sites.”
Since then, Microsoft has now added the Newsguard app as a built-in feature of Microsoft Edge, its browser for iOS and Android mobile devices, and is unlikely to stop there. Indeed, as a recent report in favor of Microsoft’s partnership with Newsguard noted, “we could hope that this new partnership will allow Microsoft to add NewsGuard to Edge on Windows 10 [operating system for computers] as well.”
Newsguard, for its part, seems confident that its app will soon be added by default to all mobile devices. On its website, the organization notes that “NewsGuard will be available on mobile devices when the digital platforms such as social media sites and search engines or mobile operating systems add our ratings and Nutrition Labels directly.” This shows that Newsguard isn’t expecting its rating systems to be offered as a downloadable application for mobile devices but something that social media sites like Facebook, search engines like Google, and mobile device operating systems that are dominated by Apple and Google will “directly” integrate into nearly every smartphone and tablet sold in the United States.
A Boston Globe article on Newsguard from this past October makes this plan even more clear. The Globe wrote at the time:

Microsoft has already agreed to make NewsGuard a built-in feature in future products, and [Newsguard co-CEO] Brill said he’s in talks with other online titans. The goal is to have NewsGuard running by default on our computers and phones whenever we scan the Web for news.”

This eventuality is made all the more likely given the fact that, in addition to Microsoft, Newsguard is also closely connected to Google, as Google has been a partner of the Publicis Groupe since 2014, when the two massive companies joined Condé Nast to create a new marketing service called La Maison that is “focused on producing engaging content for marketers in the luxury space.” Given Google’s power in the digital sphere as the dominant search engine, the creator of the Android mobile operating system, and the owner of YouTube, its partnership with Publicis means that Newsguard’s rating system will soon see itself being promoted by yet another of Silicon Valley’s most powerful companies.
Furthermore, there is an effort underway to integrate Newsguard into social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Indeed, as Newsguard was launched, co-CEO Brill stated that he planned to sell the company’s ratings of news sites to Facebook and Twitter. Last March, Brill told CNN that “We’re asking them [Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Google] to pay a fraction of what they pay their P.R. people and their lobbyists to talk about the problem.”
On Wednesday, Gallup released a poll that will likely be used as a major selling point to social media giants. The poll — funded by Newsguard and the Knight Foundation, which is a top investor in Newsguard and has recently funded a series of Gallup polls relating to online news — seems to have been created with the intention of manufacturing consent for the integration of Newsguard with top social media sites.
This is because the promoted findings from the study are as follows:“89% of users of social media sites and 83% overall want social media sites and search engines to integrate NewsGuard ratings and reviews into their news feeds and search results” and “69% would trust social media and search companies more if they took the simple step of including NewsGuard in their products.” However, a disclaimer at the end of the poll states that the results, which were based on the responses of 706 people each of whom received $2 to participate, “may not be reflective of attitudes of the broader U.S adult population.”
With trust at Facebook nose-diving and Facebook’s censorship of independent media already well underway, the findings of this poll could well be used to justify its integration into Facebook’s platform. The connections of both Newsguard and Facebook to the Atlantic Council make this seem a given.
Financial censorship
Another Newsguard service shows that this organization is also seeking to harm independent media financially by targeting online revenue. Through a service called “Brandguard,” which it describes as a “brand safety tool aimed at helping advertisers keep their brands off of unreliable news and information sites while giving them the assurance they need to support thousands of Green-rated [i.e., Newsguard-approved] news and information sites, big and small.”
At the time the service was announced last November, Newsguard co-CEO Brill stated that the company was “in discussions with the ad tech firms, leading agencies, and major advertisers” eager to adopt a blacklist of news sites deemed “unreliable” by Newsguard. This is unsurprising given the leading role of the Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s largest advertising and PR firms, has in funding Newsguard. As a consequence, it seems likely that many, if not all, of Publicis’ client companies will choose to adopt this blacklist to help crush many of the news sites that are unafraid to hold them accountable.
It is also important to note here that Google’s connection to Publicis and thus Newsguard could spell trouble for independent news pages that rely on Google Adsense for some or all of their ad-based revenue. Google Adsense has long been targeting sites like MintPress by demonetizing articles for information or photographs it deemed controversial, including demonetizing one article for including a photo showing U.S. soldiers involved in torturing Iraqi detainees at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.
Since then, Google — a U.S. military contractor — has repeatedly tried to shutter ad access to MintPress articles that involve reporting that is critical of U.S. empire and military expansion. One article that has been repeatedly flagged by Google details how many African-Americans have questioned whether the Women’s March has aided or harmed the advancement of African-Americans in the United States. Google has repeatedly claimed that the article, which was written by African-American author and former Washington Post bureau chief Jon Jeter, contains “dangerous content.”
Given Google’s already established practice of targeting factual reporting it deemed controversial through Adsense, Brandguard will likely offer the tech giant just the excuse it needs to cut off sites like MintPress, and other pages equally critical of empire, altogether.
An action plan for the genuine protection of journalism
Though it is just getting started, Newsguard’s plan to insert its app into every device and major social-media network is a threat to any news site that regularly publishes information that rubs any of Newsguard’s investors, partners or advisors the wrong way. Given its plan to rank the English-language U.S. news sites that account for 98 percent of U.S. digital news consumption, Newsguard’s agenda is of the utmost concern to every independent media page active in the United States and beyond — given Newsguard’s promise to take its project global.
By linking up with former CIA and NSA directors, Silicon Valley Giants, and massive PR firms working for some of the most controversial governments and corporations in the world, Newsguard has betrayed the fact that it is not actually seeking to “restore trust and accountability” in journalism, but to “restore trust and accountability” in news outlets that protect the existing power structure and help shield the corporate-led oligarchy and military-industrial complex from criticism.
Not only is it trying to tank the reputations of independent media through its biased ranking system, Newsguard is also seeking to attack these alternative voices financially and by slipping its ranking system by default onto all computers and phones sold in the U.S.
However, Newsguard and it agenda of guarding the establishment from criticism can be stopped. By supporting independent media and unplugging from social media sites committed to censorship, like Facebook and Twitter, we can strengthen the independent media community and keep it afloat despite the unprecedented nature of these attacks on free speech and watchdog journalism.
Beyond that, a key way to keep Newsguard and those behind it on their toes is to hold them to
account by pointing out their clear conflicts of interest and hypocrisy and by derailing the narrative they are carefully crafting that Newsguard is “non-partisan,” “trustworthy,” and true guardians against the scourge of “fake news.”
While this report has sought to be a starting point for such work, anyone concerned about Newsguard and its connections to the war machine and corrupt corporations should feel encouraged to point out the organization’s own conflicts of interests and shady connections via its Twitter and Facebook pages and the feedback section on Newsguard’s website. The best way to defeat this new tool of the neocons is to put them on notice and to continue to expose Newsguard as a guardian of empire, not a guardian of journalism.

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Zie ook:
Russiagate geslaagd: geen impeachment van Trump, waar Clinton en haar team na bewezen misdaden vrijuit gaan…..

Warren (democratisch presidentskandidaat) toont met hulp van Facebook aan dat dit bedrijf niet hoort te gaan over wat wel en niet is toegestaan

WhatsApp beperking in strijd tegen fake news

Massamedia VS vallen keihard door de mand met ‘vers’ geschoten Russiagate bok >> publiek wordt om vertrouwen gevraagd

Jacht in VS op alternatief (echt) nieuws in volgend stadium: journalist wordt vastgehouden zonder aanklacht

New York Times te kakken gezet met haar berichtgeving over Russische manipulatie voor midterm verkiezingen

Netflix censureert aflevering van humoristisch programma, ‘na een geldig verzoek’ op grond van Saoedische wetgeving….

Bedrijf dat voor ‘Russische bots’ waarschuwde, heeft een leger met nep-Russische bots


Waarom de burgers van de VS de illegale oorlogen steunen

Facebook: uit gelekte documenten worden de steeds veranderende regels voor censuur op dit platform openbaar gemaakt: Facebook als geheime tak van de VS overheid

Facebooks departement voor censuur: een hoognodige uitleg over een maatregel die alleen in een dictatuur thuishoort

Two More Spiegel Employees Out After Fake News Scandal ExpandsOfwel: het zoveelste ‘gevalletje fake news’, gebracht door de reguliere massamedia……..

Facebook censureert foto’s van verhongerende Jemenitische kinderen als ‘sexual content’

Google manipuleerde VS presidentsverkiezingen van 2016 en censureert niet alleen linkse/alternatieve sociale media

Facebook gebruikte ‘fake news’ beschuldiging om de aandacht voor schandalen af te leiden

Google Maps veegt Palestijns gebied van de kaart

Twitter weert waarheid: Paul Craig Roberts in de ban, Roberts >> de grote criticus van de illegale oorlogen die de VS voert

Russiagate sprookje ondermijnt VS democratie en de midterm verkiezingen

Bolsonaro, de fascistische nieuwe president van Brazilië, werd volgens Avaaz en fake news brengers als de NYT gekozen door manipulatie via WhatsApp

Facebooks zuivering van de alternatieve (nieuws) media staat nog in de kinderschoenen

Politico rapport bevestigt: Russiagate is een hoax‘ (Russiagate, de enorme leugen op basis waaraan we de huidige censuurgolf te danken hebben……)

The US military’s vision for state censorship

Israël en VS werken samen in tegenwerken van critici op beleid t.a.v. Palestijnen

Facebook censureert de waarheid over Columbus en de verovering van de Amerika’s…….

Facebook censuur gestuurd door het westers militair-industrieel complex en de NAVO in het bijzonder……….

Why the Coordinated Alternative Media Purge Should Terrify Everyone‘ (Tyler Durden op Zero Hedge)

First They Came for Alex Jones — We Told You We Were Next — We Were‘ (Matt Agorist op The Free Thought Project)

CNN, de grote brenger van ‘fake news!!!’

Facebook en Twitter verwijderen nu volledige accounts………

Facebook (en Twitter) onderdrukt meningsvorming door het verwijderen van (echt) onafhankelijke media

Wie het nieuws controleert, controleert de wereld……

Facebook en Twitter verwijderen de eerlijke journalistiek en oprechte opinie >> censuur…..

Facebook verlaat ‘tranding news’ voor ‘brekend nieuws’ van 80 reguliere mediaorganen, ofwel nog meer ‘fake news…..’

Facebook komt met nieuwsshows van betrouwbare media als CNN en Fox News…. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Censuur op het internet met vliegende start in de VS, ‘het land van het vrije woord….’

Facebook en NAVO werken samen in censuur op niet welgevallig nieuws……

Facebook helpt Saoedi-Arabië: doodstraf door onthoofding van vrouw die het waagde kritiek te uiten…..

Aanval op alternatieve media ‘succesvol’: meer en meer sites worden van het net geweerd………

ThinkProgress eiste censuur van Facebook en werd inderdaad gecensureerd…. ha! ha! ha! ha!

VS staatscensuur op Facebook (ook in de EU)

Facebook stelt perstituee van New York Times aan als censuur-agent…… ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Het echte Facebook schandaal: manipulatie van de gebruikers en gratis diensten voor eertijds presidentskandidaat Obama…….

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook doneerde aan de politici die hem in de VS aan de tand voelden >> in het EU parlement maakte hij gebruik van megalomane EU politici…..

Facebook wil samen met door Saoedi-Arabië gesubsidieerde denktank censureren…. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Media Too Busy Defending John McCain to Report the News That Actually Affects You‘ Onder andere aandacht voor PRISM.

Westerse massa misleiding in aanloop naar WOIII……

VS gebruikt sociale media om ‘fake comment’ te verspreiden en de bevolking te hersenspoelen met leugens, ofwel ‘fake news….’

Eis een nee tegen censuur op het internet!

Facebook e.a. hebben lak aan AVG (GDPR), misbruik persoonsgegevens gaat gewoon door…….

Jeremy Corbyn wordt gedemoniseerd als antisemiet…….

Facebook: verrijking van oliemaatschappijen en andere grote bedrijven, plus wereldwijde corruptie…….

Rusland krijgt alweer de schuld van hacken, nu van oplichters Symantec en Facebook……. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Voor nog meer berichten over Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft en censuur, klik op het betreffende label direct onder dit bericht.

Erdogan stelt militaire operatie uit op verzoek van Trump >> Turkse inval op Syrisch-Koerdisch gebied aanstaande

Erdogan liep afgelopen week te pochen dat hij op verzoek van het beest Trump de voorgenomen militaire actie in Syrië heeft afgeblazen, de actie van Turkije die bestaat uit een inval op Syrisch grondgebied dat in handen is van de Koerden……

Kan best kloppen, immers de ommezwaai van Trump was wel zeer plots, zonder zelfs een verkiezing voor de deur!* Deze stap, ‘zéééér toevallig’, op het moment dat Turkije klaar is met de troepenopbouw om Syrisch grondgebied binnen te vallen. Kan me zelfs voorstellen dat Trump het wel prima vindt als Erdogan die ‘vieze Koerden’ de zoveelste bloedige les leert……. Zeker gezien het volgende: ‘hoge militairen’ (korporaal eerste klasse of zo) hebben bevestigd dat de VS ook haar luchtmacht terug zal trekken……

Erdogan zei verder nog dat Trump hem had gevraagd of Turkije groepen als IS kan bestrijden en uiteraard heeft Erdogan die vraag met een bevestiging beantwoord….. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Tja, als je onder bestrijden verstaat het afnemen van IS olie, of het bewapenen van groepen als IS, kan je Turkije inderdaad aanwijzen als de beste partij die dit kan doen (al is de VS daar nog beter in, maar die zal zich zoals gezegd terugtrekken uit Syrië, althans als je Trump moet geloven)
Eén ding is zeker, van de VS hoeven de Koerden niets meer te verwachten, wat dat betreft was de stap van Mattis vreemd genoeg ‘een mooi gebaar’ naar de Koerden…… Ach, Mattis wil nog liever vandaag dan morgen Iran aanvallen dan morgen en aan de Koerden zal hij een broertje dood hebben…….. Laten we wat dat betreft hopen dat Trump niet wordt omgeluld door Bolton, die als ik me niet vergis Iran met kernraketten zou willen aanvallen….. Niet voor niets dat de haviken in de VS over de rooie zijn gegaan na de aankondiging van Trump de VS troepen terug te trekken uit Syrië……
Onbegrijpelijk dat andere westerse landen, voor een fiks deel NB NAVO-partners, de VS en Turkije laten begaan met de vreselijke terreur die ze begaan in landen waar ook wij en de rest van het westen niets te zoeken hebben……. Je kan dit ook de militairen voorhouden die daar illegaal opereren, zij zien toch de verschrikkingen, de vernietiging, de lijken, de vreselijke ellende onder de bevolking en ze zouden zelfs moeten kunnen bedenken dat we daar i.d.d. niets te zoeken hebben……..Dit alles en dan te bedenken dat de militaire missies eindeloos zijn en kapitalen aan belastinggeld opslokken….

Natuurlijk zijn de reguliere westerse (massa-) media een grote verantwoordelijkheid hebben van wat er allemaal is gepasseerd in Syrië, zonder correspondenten, anders dan embedded bij westerse troepen, in het land te hebben…. Als kippen zonder kop herhalen deze media de leugens van geheime diensten, het Pentagon en politici die ten koste van alles de regering Assad willen laten vallen……..

Om het voorgaande te bewerkstelligen, herhalen deze massamedia zelfs de berichten van het Syrisch Observatorium voor Mensenrechten (SOHR), terwijl dit SOHR nauwe contacten heeft met de terreurgroepen in Syrië en aantoonbaar een hele berg leugens heeft gebracht in de loop van een paar jaar….. Het SOHR dat wordt geleid door een voormalige misdadiger die zogenaamd een politiek vluchteling is, terwijl hij terechte gevangenisstraf in Syrië heeft ontlopen…….

De meest belachelijke reacties zijn die wel van de reguliere (massa-) media in de VS, dezen doen het voorkomen als zou de VS met de stap van Trump, Syrië weggeven aan Assad, Rusland en Iran……. Terwijl de VS volkomen illegaal opereert boven en op Syrische bodem en Syrië allesbehalve bezit is van deze grootste terreurentiteit op onze aarde!!
Het volgende bericht komt van TurkishMinutes (weer eens wat anders dan ‘Times….’), een zeer beperkt bericht, waar geen woord van kritiek is te lezen op Erdogan, precies zoals de media zich onder een dictatuur moeten gedragen, al valt het me mee dat er niet in lovende woorden over Erdogan wordt gesproken:

Erdoğan postpones military operation east of Euphrates after Trump call


By TM December 21, 2018
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday said Turkey had decided to postpone a military offensive in northern Syria against Kurdish militia after a phone call with US President Donald Trump, Sputnik Turkish service reported.
Actually, we announced our decision to launch the operation east of the Euphrates last week,” Erdoğan said at a business meeting in İstanbul.
He told the audience Trump had asked him on the phone whether Turkey could get rid of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
We did it before, we can do it again,” Erdoğan said he answered.
According to Erdoğan, Turkey has killed around 3,000 ISIL militants in Jarabulus, a Syrian city in Aleppo province.
US support for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia in the fight against ISIL had been a complication in relations between the two NATO allies.

Turkey had previously conducted two military operations west of the Euphrates River, in the Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria.
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*VS trekt troepen terug uit Syrië zodat Turkije een massale aanval kan lanceren op de Koerden……

Zie ook:
New York Post geeft 5 jaar te laat toe: IS werd en wordt gesteund door Turkije

Syrië: de etnische, culturele en religieuze zuivering door Turks leger en islamitische terreurgroep

Turkije valt weer illegaal Syrisch gebied binnen: NAVO-lidstaten stil……

Turkije klaar voor nieuwe inval in Noordoost-Syrië

VS keurt raketleveringen van Turkije aan terreurgroep in Syrië goed

Erdogans vrouw krijgt mensenrechtenprijs WHF voor ‘opvang’ vluchtelingen……

Koerdische gevangenen in Turkse gevangenissen massaal in hongerstaking

Idlib: akkoord Turkije – Rusland leidt tot grote aanval op Syrië…..

Turkse verkiezingen: Stoltenberg (roverhoofdman NAVO) feliciteert Erdogan met zijn verkiezing tot dictator

Turkse geheime dienst ontvoert etnische Turken in het buitenland……..

Turkije bombardeert ziekenhuis in Afrin, waar blijft de westerse verontwaardiging zoals die over de bevrijding van Oost-Ghouta?

Turkse illegale inval Syrië gaat gepaard met etnische zuivering…….

Zie verder ook:
VS oorlogshitsers wijzen hysterisch op aanslag als teken dat VS in Syrië moet blijven

CBC Nova Scotia meldt zojuist dat de eerste VS troepenvermindering in Syrië een feit is: 10 militaire trucks zijn de grens met Irak overgestoken…… ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Trumps beslissing de VS terug te trekken uit Syrië, wordt door Bolton en Netanyahu geblokkeerd

Reactions to Trump’s Syria Withdrawal Plan Say More Than the Plan Itself

Trump’s Surprise Syria Pullout Fuels Backlash From Hawks Across DC

Officials: US Warplanes Will Stop Bombing Syria After Troops Leave

10 Takeaways on Mattis Exit and Possible US Withdrawal From Syria and Afghanistan

US Set for “Full Withdrawal” From Syria as Trump Claims Victory

Scott Ritter, voormalig VN-wapeninspecteur: Iran verdient de eer voor het verslaan van ISIS

In het hieronder opgenomen artikel, geschreven door voormalig VN-wapeninspecteur Scott Ritter en eerder gepubliceerd op The American Conservative, stelt hij dat niet de VS, maar vooral Iran de eer toekomt van het verslaan van IS in zowel Irak als Syrië…..
Ritter verhaalt over het ontstaan van IS en alle daarbij behorende gore spelletjes van de VS, waarbij hij de VS in feite beschuldigt van het beschermen van en samenwerken met IS, al was het alleen om Assad af te kunnen zetten en nu als stok tegen Iran te gebruiken…….. Intussen heeft IS al een paar aanslagen gepleegd in Iran (met de hulp van de CIA). Over de CIA gesproken: de VS heeft toegegeven dat het al jaren bezig is om de oppositie in Iran te steunen en op te zetten tegen de regering……. Zo zijn ook de zogenaamde opstanden die de laatste jaren in Iran plaatsvonden (uiterst gewelddadige ‘opstanden’), georganiseerd door de CIA…..
Scott Ritter was VN-wapeninspecteur voorafgaand aan de illegale oorlog van de VS tegen Irak in 2003. Keer op keer liet hij de VN, de reguliere (massa-) media en politici weten dat Irak niet langer de beschikking had over ‘massavernietigingswapens en dat dit uit en te na was onderzocht door hem en z’n team, waarbij Ritter uiteindelijk zijn gelijk haalde….. Lullig genoeg haalde hij z’n gelijk, pas lang nadat de VS Irak aanviel….* Deze illegale oorlog van de VS betekende de dood van meer dan nu al 1,5 miljoen mensen (in feite is de oorlog in Irak nog steeds gaande….)….. Ach ja, de VS: de grootste terreurentiteit op onze kleine aarde…….

Lees het volgende uitstekende artikel van Scott Ritter en oordeel zelf:

Iran Deserves Credit for the Ruin of ISIS

But is the U.S. now allowing its last remnants to survive in Syria to spite Tehran?

Until recently the United States viewed the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, as a major threat to regional stability in the Middle East. Barack Obama made it a mission to roll back ISIS’s territorial and propagandistic gain, and Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to “kick ISIS’s ass.” The United States expended considerable effort, both military and political, in a campaign to defeat the terror group in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, in Syria.
But there is also no doubt that the bulk of the effort came from Iran, not the United States. Without Iranian involvement, ISIS would still have a formidable presence in both Iraq and Syria.
ISIS was born out of the ashes of the American invasion of Iraq. Their rise was the logical extension of a process that saw the fabric of secular Sunni society torn asunder by an American occupier unwilling to further empower a Sunni ruling elite that had been loyal to Saddam Hussein. Washington failed to understand the resentment engendered within the Sunni community when Iraq’s Shia, some of whom were beholden to Iran, came to power.
Traditional Sunni tribal power structures were eviscerated as a result, only to be replaced with radicalized Sunni youths beholden to only themselves. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was al-Qaeda in name only—its mission wasn’t to export jihad to the West, but to free Iraq from the grips of an American and Iranian occupation.
America’s campaign against AQI never resulted in that movement’s destruction. Instead, the United States, in an effort to free itself of the burden of war created when it invaded Iraq in the first place, withdrew from Iraq in 2012, leaving the final phase of AQI’s destruction in the hands of the Iraqi government. This period coincided with the start of the civil unrest in Syria and the creation of a radicalized Islamist opposition to Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad. The willingness to cede large swaths of Syrian territory to Islamist forces as a means of destabilizing Assad created the conditions for the birth of ISIS in the deserts of both central Syria and western Iraq.
When ISIS advanced on the Iraqi cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, the American-trained and -equipped Iraqi army was unable to halt its advance. Soon the major city of Mosul fell to ISIS, and its forces pushed down the Tigris River valley to the outskirts of Baghdad.
The story of Iraq’s struggle to form a viable resistance to ISIS in the aftermath of the fall of Mosul is little known, and even less appreciated, by the United States. The formation of so-called “Popular Mobilization Forces,” or PMF—organized at the behest of Iraq’s senior Shia leadership, and trained, equipped, and led by Iran—was the single most important factor behind the halting of ISIS’s drive on Baghdad and its eventual eviction from Iraqi territory.
Western media have paid a disproportionate amount of attention to the actions of a select few American-trained Iraqi security forces, which, with ample support from U.S. airpower and advisors, helped end fighting in and around Mosul. All the while, they’ve ignored that the lion’s share of the fighting was done by the Iranian-directed PMF. This fact was not lost on the Iraqi people, many of whom (though not many of the Sunnis) hold the PMF in the highest regard. This sentiment has propelled many of the senior leadership of the PMF into political prominence in Baghdad.
For Iran, the ISIS phenomenon is not limited to Iraq. It is seen as part and parcel of a concerted effort undertaken by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf Arab nations to overthrow Assad in Syria, diminish the power and influence of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and roll back Iranian influence in both Syria and Iraq. ISIS’s geographic presence in Syria, concentrated as it was in the central and northeastern deserts, made it a secondary target compared to the al-Qaeda affiliates operating in and around Aleppo and Damascus.
As the Syrian government, with the assistance of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, gained the upper hand in the fight against the American- and Saudi-backed al-Qaeda groups, however, the importance of ISIS as a source of anti-regime resistance grew. While ISIS never had the power to challenge Damascus directly, the efforts undertaken by the Syrian coalition to defeat ISIS diverted resources needed in the larger fight. As such, the continued existence of a viable ISIS presence on Syrian soil was deemed an acceptable outcome by the United States as it sought to contain Iran’s presence on Syrian soil.
ISIS in Syria lingers on, despite the fact that U.S. military power could ensure its almost immediate elimination. The reason for the stay of execution is not entirely clear, but it could well be that the U.S. sees ISIS as a useful foil against Iran. Efforts by the United States to roll back Iran’s presence inside Syria have recently become more volatile in the wake of fiery rhetoric from senior Trump administration officials and actions undertaken by Iran to harden their positions. The American policy of Iranian rollback includes the re-imposition of economic sanctions and support for opposition groups opposed to the Iranian theocracy.
The latter point is very sensitive. This sensitivity has only been heightened by remarks from Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman suggesting that any struggle for influence between Riyadh and Tehran ought to take place “inside Iran, not in Saudi Arabia,” and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s encouraging Iranian Arab minorities to rise up in opposition to the Iranian government.
When gunmen linked to ISIS attacked a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, killing and wounding dozens, the Iranian government was quick to blame the United States and Saudi Arabia, among others, and promise retaliation in kind. This prompted National Security Advisor John Bolton to declare to Iran that “there will indeed be hell to pay” if Iran or its proxies attacked the U.S. or its allies.
A few days later, Iranian rockets were launched, not against American targets in Basra, but locations in Syria linked to ISIS. While the Iranian strike was in clear retaliation for the Ahvaz attack, the rockets were emblazoned with slogans hostile to the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. This made it clear that the strike was meant for a broader audience. Among those who took notice were the American forces located a mere three miles away from the targets struck by the Iranians.
Rising tensions and strong rhetoric, if not carefully managed, could easily lead to an unintended—and dangerous—escalation of hostilities. This could test President Donald Trump’s uncertain appetite for direct conflict. Moreover, the American effort to stir up an Iranian opposition could do more to unite competing power factions within Iran’s leadership, and unite Iranians behind that leadership, than to divide and weaken the Iranian polity. The Trump administration seems to operate under the delusion that Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, are operating in different spheres with somewhat disparate interests. U.S. efforts to drive a wedge between Rouhani and Khamenei will not only prove fruitless, but backfire, closing the door to any potential negotiations and cementing a hardline response that will have Rouhani, the IRGC, and the supreme leader united in their opposition.
The United States is engaged in a dangerous double game with ISIS that is not only hypocritical in the extreme—given the 9/11 attacks on American soil that precipitated this whole sorry affair—but counterproductive to American national security interests. It has both empowered and legitimized the very Iranian theocracy it seeks to contain.
Rather than relying on ISIS as a foil to blunt Iranian influence in Syria and terrorize its citizenry at home, the Trump administration should recognize the positive role that Iran has played in defeating ISIS. It should build upon that recognition to craft a wider regional peace process that both recognizes the realities inherent in Syria today and reduces the tensions that prompt Iran to lean forward in such an aggressive manner. Unfortunately, such thinking seems beyond the capabilities of Mike Pompeo and John Bolton. As such, America will continue to pursue poorly thought out policies with no chance of success without any thought to either cost or consequence.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.

==================================
* Onbegrijpelijk maar waar, ondanks dat deze oorlog meer dan 1,5 miljoen doden heeft gekost, zijn er nog steeds politici die stellen dat deze oorlog gerechtvaardigd was, zoals CDA onderknuppel de Hoop Scheffer, die voor zijn steun aan deze illegale oorlog door de VS als zetbaas van de NAVO werd aangesteld…….. De reguliere westerse massamedia hoor je niet meer over de beginjaren van de oorlog tegen Irak, media die de leugens van de VS over de massavernietigingswapens hysterisch hebben uitgevent en de eerste jaren van de illegale oorlog tegen Irak, pal achter de VS bleven staan, waarbij ze een hele berg ‘fake news’ brachten, aangevuld met gezwets en leugens van opiniemakers……. Een smerig spel dat zoals gezegd was gebaseerd op leugens en bedrog, waarmee ze het grootste deel van het westerse volk achter deze schandalige illegale oorlog wisten te houden……… Vergeet niet dat ook wij Nederlanders via de belasting fiks hebben meebetaald aan deze oorlog, daar Nederland niet alleen in aanloop van deze illegale oorlog met een onderzeeboot inlichtingen verzamelde voor de VS, maar vervolgens gaf Nederland naast politieke steun, ook militaire steun aan deze oorlog, ofwel militairen op de grond….. Ook Nederlandse F16’s hebben lang steun verleend aan deze vuile oorlog, wat zeg ik: Nederland verleent nog steeds steun aan die oorlog met F16’s en met het trainen van het Iraakse leger……

Trump volgt het scenario van deep state: oorlog met Iran ‘is onvermijdelijk….’

John C. O’Day publiceerde vorige week vrijdag een artikel op Fair.org dat ik overnam van Anti-Media (en dat je onder mijn schrijven terug kan vinden). Hierin vestigt O’Day de aandacht op de Iran-deal van een paar jaar geleden, deze deal of: the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), werd destijds bediscussieerd in de reguliere (massa-) media, waar men stelde dat Iran ofwel deze deal moest slikken, daar anders alleen oorlog met Iran zou overblijven als alternatief………

De voorspelling dat oorlog het enige alternatief zou zijn, werd door de Trump administratie gevolgd, door de deal alsnog af te blazen en met enorme anti-Iran propaganda te beweren dat Iran zich niet aan de deal houdt, ook al zeggen alle VN wapeninspecties dat Iran inderdaad is gestopt met de verrijking van uranium en is begonnen met het ontmantelen van de daarvoor benodigde centrifuges.

Bolton, de oorlogshitser en oorlogsmisdadiger (die voor het leven gevangen zou moeten zitten in Scheveningen) beweerde dat wanneer Iran de boel zou belazeren, het land te maken zou krijgen met ‘de woede van de VS’, ofwel met grootscheepse terreur in de vorm van één van de zwaarste oorlogsmisdaden, het beginnen van alweer een illegale oorlog door deze grootste terreurentiteit op aarde…………

Een belachelijke uitlating van Bolton daar de VS zonder enig bewijs en in tegenspraak met officiële VN rapporten toch al stelt dat Iran vals speelt, m.a.w.: de reden voor de VS om een (illegale) oorlog tegen Iran te beginnen, is door de VS zelf gecreëerd…….. (iets waar de VS ‘goed in is’, neem alle false flag operaties van deze terreurenteit)
O’Day stelt dat de woorden van figuren als Bolton en Trump nog amper op kritiek kunnen rekenen in de VS, wat volgens hem het gevolg is van de berichtgeving in de reguliere media……. O’Day noemt een groot aantal voorbeelden en stelt dan ook dat de Trump administratie die media volgt, echter daar ben ik het niet mee eens. O’Day vergeet het begrip Deep State, de werkelijke machthebbers, die al helemaal niet blij waren met de Iran-deal. Deze Deep State beheerst ook de massamedia en zijn derhalve verantwoordelijk voor wat die media brengen aan (nep-) nieuws, leugens en pure propaganda (waarbij Goebbels z’n gore vingers zou aflikken….)

Ondanks dat een groot deel van die media in onmin leven met Trump, staan ze volkomen achter de terreur die de VS verspreidt over het Midden-Oosten, Latijns-Amerika en Afrika……. Vergeet daarnaast niet dat het in feite niet uitmaakt wie er regeert in de VS, al helemaal niet wat betreft de buitenlandpolitiek, neem ‘vredesduif’ Obama die als eerste VS president de volle 2 termijnen in (illegale) oorlogen was verwikkeld met meerdere landen en er zelf (officieel) 2 begon….
Echter lees het artikel van O’Day en oordeel zelf; wat hij schrijft over de media is zonder meer feitenmateriaal (zoals je onder de links kan lezen):

Trump Administration Follows Corporate Media Playbook for War With Iran

October 5, 2018 at 8:03 am
Written by John C. O’Day
(FAIR.org) — Three years ago, as Americans debated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran—popularly known as “the Iran deal”—I highlighted a troubling media trend on FAIR.org (8/20/15): “For nearly all commentators, regardless of their position, war is the only alternative to that position.”
In the months since US President Donald Trump tore up the JCPOA agreement, his administration has been trying to make good on corporate media’s collective prediction. Last week, John Bolton (BBC, 9/26/18), Trump’s national security advisor and chief warmonger, told Iran’s leaders and the world that there would be “hell to pay” if they dare to “cross us.”

John Bolton (BBC, 9/26/18): “Let my message today be clear: We are watching, and we will come after you.”
That Bolton’s bellicose statements do not send shockwaves of pure horror across a debt-strapped and war-weary United States is thanks in large part to incessant priming for war, facilitated by corporate media across the entire political spectrum, with a particular focus on Iran.
Back in 2015, while current “resistance” stalwarts like the Washington Post (4/2/15)
and Politico (8/11/15) warned us that war with Iran was the most likely alternative to the JCPOA, conservative standard-bearers such as Fox News (7/14/15) and the Washington Times (8/10/15) foretold that war with Iran was the agreement’s most likely outcome. Three years hence, this dynamic has not changed.
Cartoonist Patrick Chappatte (New York Times, 5/10/18) presents Trump and Bolton’s “deal” for Iran.
To experience the full menu of US media’s single-mindedness about Iran, one need only buy a subscription to the New York Times. After Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, the Times’ editorial board (5/8/18) wrote that his move would “lay conditions for a possible wider war in the Middle East.” Susan Rice (New York Times, 5/8/18), President Barack Obama’s national security advisor, agreed: “We could face the choice of going to war or acquiescing to a nuclear-armed Iran,” she warned. Cartoonist Patrick Chappatte (New York Times, 5/10/18) was characteristically more direct, penning an image of Trump alongside Bolton, holding a fictitious new agreement featuring the singular, ultimate word: “WAR.”
On the other hand, calling Trump’s turn against JCPOA a “courageous decision,” Times columnist Bret Stephens (5/8/18) explained that the move was meant to force the Iranian government to make a choice: Either accede to US demands or “pursue their nuclear ambitions at the cost of economic ruin and possible war.” (Hardly courageous, when we all know there is no chance that Trump or Stephens would enlist should war materialize.)
Trump’s latest antics at the United Nations have spurred a wave of similar reaction across corporate media. Describing his threat to “totally destroy North Korea” at the UN General Assembly last year as “pointed and sharp,” Fox News anchor Eric Shawn (9/23/18) asked Bill Richardson, an Obama ally and President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the UN, whether Trump would take the same approach toward Iran. “That aggressive policy we have with Iran is going to continue,” Richardson reassured the audience, “and I don’t think Iran is helping themselves.” In other words, if the United States starts a war with Iran, it’s totally Iran’s fault.
Politico (9/23/18), meanwhile, reported that Trump “is risking a potential war with Iran unless he engages the Islamist-led country using diplomacy.” In other words, if the United States starts a war with Iran, it’s totally Trump’s fault. Rice (New York Times, 9/26/18) reiterated her view that Trump’s rhetoric “presages the prospect of war in the Persian Gulf.” Whoever would be the responsible party is up for debate, but that war is in our future is apparently all but certain.
Politico’s article cited a statement signed by such esteemed US experts on war-making as Madeleine Albright, who presided over Clinton’s inhuman sanctions against Iraq in the ’90s, and Ryan Crocker, former ambassador for presidents George W. Bush and Obama to some of America’s favorite killing fields: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. James Clapper, Obama’s National Intelligence Director, who also signed the letter, played an important role in trumping up WMD evidence against Saddam Hussein before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. When it comes to US aggression, they’re the experts.
Vanity Fair (9/26/18) interviewed John Glaser of the Cato Institute, who called Trump’s strategy “pathetic,” and also warned that it forebodes war. In an effort to “one-up Obama,” Glaser explained, Trump’s plan is “to apply extreme economic pressure and explicit threats of war in order to get Iran to capitulate.” Sound familiar? As Glaser implies, this was exactly Obama’s strategy, only then it wasn’t seen as “pathetic,” but rather reasonable, and the sole means for preventing the war that every US pundit and politician saw around the corner (The Hill, 8/9/15).
When everyone decides that war is the only other possibility, it starts to look like an inevitability. But even when they aren’t overtly stoking war fever against Iran, corporate media prime the militaristic pump in more subtle yet equally disturbing ways.
Benjamin Netanyahu speaks for the Iranian people on CNN (9/29/18).
First among these is the near-complete erasure of Iranian voices from US airwaves (FAIR.org, 7/24/15). Rather than ask Iranians directly, national outlets like CNN (9/29/18) prefer to invite the prime minister of Israel, serial Iran alarmist and regional pariah Benjamin Netanyahu, to speak for them. During a jovial discussion this weekend over whether regime change and/or economic collapse is Iran’s most likely fate, Netanyahu explained to the audience that, either way,
The ones who will be happiest if that happens are the people of Iran.” No people of Iran were on hand to confirm or deny this assessment.
Bloomberg (9/30/18) similarly wanted to know, “What’s not to like about Trump’s Iran oil sanctions?” Julian Lee gleefully reported that “they are crippling exports from the Islamic Republic, at minimal cost to the US.” One might think the toll sanctions take on innocent Iranians would be something not to like, but Bloomberg merely worried that, notwithstanding the windfall for US refineries, “oil at $100 a barrel would be bad news for drivers everywhere—including those in the US.”
Another prized tactic is to whitewash Saudi Arabia, Iran’s chief geopolitical rival, whose genocidal destruction of Yemen is made possible by the United States, about which corporate media remain overwhelmingly silent (FAIR.org, 7/23/18). Iran’s involvement in Yemen, which both Trump and the New York Times (9/12/18) describe as “malign behavior,” is a principal justification for US support of Saudi Arabia, including the US-supplied bombs that recently ended the brief lives of over 40 Yemeni schoolchildren. Lockheed Martin’s stock is up 34 percentfrom Trump’s inauguration day.
Corporate media go beyond a simple coverup of Saudi crimes to evangelize their leadership as the liberal antidote to Iran’s “theocracy.” Who can forget Thomas Friedman’s revolting puff piece for the Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman? Extensively quoting Salman (New York Times, 11/23/17), who refers to Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “the new Hitler of the Middle East,” Friedman nevertheless remains pessimistic about whether “MBS and his team” can see their stand against Iran through, as “dysfunction and rivalries within the Sunni Arab world generally have prevented forming a unified front.” Oh well, every team needs cheerleaders, and Friedman isn’t just a fair-weather fan.
While Friedman (New York Times, 5/15/18) believes that Trump has drawn “some needed attention to Iran’s bad behavior,” for him pivotal questions remain unanswered, such as “who is going to take over in Tehran if the current Islamic regime collapses?” One immediate fix he proposed was to censure Iran’s metaphorical “occupation” of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Isn’t this ironic coming from an unapologetic propagandist for Washington’s decades-long, non-metaphorical occupation of the two countries to the east and west of Iran (FAIR.org, 12/9/15)?
In a surprising break from corporate media convention, USA Today (9/26/18) published a column on US/Iran relations written by an actual Iranian. Reflecting on the CIA-orchestrated coup against Iran’s elected government in 1953, Azadeh Shahshahani, who was born four days after the 1979 revolution there, wrote:

I often wonder what would have happened if that coup had not worked, if [Prime Minister] Mosaddeq had been allowed to govern, if democracy had been allowed to flourish.”
It is time for the US government to stop intervening in Iran and let the Iranian people determine their own destiny,” she beseeched readers.
Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin confronts the head of Trump’s “Iran Action Group” (Real News, 9/21/18).

Shahshahani’s call is supported by some who have rejected corporate media’s war propaganda and have gone to extreme lengths to have their perspectives heard. Anti-war activist and Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin was recently forcibly removed after she upstaged Brian Hook, leader of Trump’s Iran Action Group, on live TV, calling his press conference “the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen” (Real News, 9/21/18). Benjamin implored the audience: “Let’s talk about Saudi Arabia. Is that who our allies are?”
How dare you bring up the issue of Yemen,” admonished Benjamin as she was dragged from the room. “It’s the Saudi bombing that is killing most people in Yemen. So let’s get real. No more war! Peace with Iran!” Code Pink is currently petitioning the New York Times and Washington Post to stop propagandizing war.
Sadly, no matter whom you ask in corporate media, be they spokespeople for “Trump’s America” or “the resistance,” peace remains an elusive choice in the US political imagination. And while the public was focused last week on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s perjurious testimony, the Senate finalized a $674 billion “defense” budget. Every single Democrat in the chamber voted in favor of the bill, explicitly naming Iran as persona non grata in the United States’ world-leading arms supply network, which has seen a 25 percent increase in exports since Obama took office in 2009.
The US government’s imperial ambitions are perhaps its only truly bipartisan project—what the New York Times euphemistically refers to as “globalism.” Nowhere was this on fuller display than at the funeral for Republican Sen. John McCain (FAIR.org, 9/11/18), where politicians of all stripes were tripping over themselves to produce the best accolades for a man who infamously sang“bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” to the tune of a Beach Boys song.
McCain’s bloodlust was nothing new. Nearly a hundred years ago, after the West’s imperial competition culminated in the most destructive war the world had ever seen, the brilliant American sociologist and anti-colonial author WEB Du Bois wrote, “This is not Europe gone mad; this is not aberration nor insanity; this is Europe.”
Iranian leaders have repeatedly said they do not want war with the US (AP, 9/27/18), but US corporate media, despite frequently characterizing Trump as a “mad king” (FAIR.org, 6/13/18), continue to play an instrumental role in rationalizing a future war with Iran. Should such an intentional catastrophe come to pass, we can hardly say that this would be America gone mad; war is not aberration, it is always presented as the next sane choice. This is America.
By John C. O’Day / Republished with permission / FAIR.org / Report a typo

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Zie ook:
KLM vliegt na ‘risicoanalyse’ niet meer in luchtruim van Iran en Irak

Oorlog tegen Iran: VS heeft lak aan democratie >> Irak wordt gedreigd met sancties en ‘herstelbetaling’

VS moord op Qasem Soleimani is een oorlogsverklaring aan adres van Iran…….

Iraakse regering pissig over VS beschuldiging dat Iraanse bewind corrupt is

VS-anti-Iran conferentie in EU lidstaat Polen, ondanks EU verzet tegen VS sancties…..

Bolton ‘feliciteert’ Iran vanwege het 40 jarige revolutie jubileum met een oorlogsdreiging……


Trump gelooft zijn geheime diensten inzake Iran niet meer

Trump Warns Europeans Not to Defy US Sanctions Against Iran


Trump administratie chanteert en bedreigt de EU over ‘schending’ onterechte VS-sancties tegen Iran

Iran houdt zich aan nucleair verdrag, ondanks VS agressie

SWIFT betalingssysteem raakt monopolie (gelukkig) kwijt

VS, Saoedi-Arabië en Israël willen Iraanse bewind verdrijven met terreur, moord, sabotage en manipulatie van het nieuws…

Frankrijk beschermt Iran tegen de ‘politieagent’ van de wereld, de VS

The New Tyranny of the Dollar


VS vermoordt Iraniërs met sancties, EU doodstil…….

Rudy Giuliani viert het sterven van Iraniërs en stelt desondanks dat het Iraanse bewind door de VS geweldloos zal ondergaan…….

Jeremy Bowen (BBC correspondent) vindt Iran een gevaar voor het Midden-Oosten

Iran, de protesten en wat de media je niet vertellen………

Iraanse protesten gezien door de propaganda bril van de VS en de rest van het westen……..


Iraanse protesten allesbehalve compleet spontaan (zoals VS ambassadeur bij de VN Haley durfde te stellen…)….

Protesten Iran opgezet door de VS en Israël


Warmonger Called Out on Live TV After Pretending to Care About Iranian Protesters



Iran: moderne oorlogspropaganda ingezet door VS tegen ‘ongehoorzaam land…’

Reagan middels manipulaties tot president gekozen; waarom de gijzelaars in Iran moesten wachten op hun vrijheid….

Medea Benjamin toont kijkers wat echt verzet tegen Trump inhoudt en hoe de VS Iran demoniseert

Medea Benjamin, een activist van CodePink, heeft afgelopen woensdag een tv uitzending verstoord waarin Brian Hook, een ultra rechtse plork van de denktank Hudson Institute, met zijn smerige anti-Iraanse propaganda de kijker voorliegt dat een oorlog tegen Iran volkomen gerechtvaardigd is. Het gegeven dat deze Hook de adviseur was van massamoordenaar en oorlogshitser Bolton en dat nu is voor ploert Mike Pompeo, o.a. directeur van Iran Action Team, zal je na het voorgaande niet verrassen.
Benjamin liet voordat ze door twee ‘zware jongens’ werd afgevoerd, precies weten waar het op staat en hekelde ze de afwijzing door de Trump administratie van de nucleaire deal met Iran en de opnieuw opgelegde sancties tegen Iran, die m.n. de gewone Iraniërs treffen…. Voorts hekelde Benjamin de weg die de Trump administratie volgt naar een illegale oorlog van de VS tegen Iran, waar ze nog eens fijntjes wees op de desastreuze gevolgen van de illegale oorlogen die de VS begon tegen Irak, Libië en Syrië……. (o.a. meer dan 2 miljoen doden, ofwel door de VS vermoordde slachtoffers…)
In de VS worden de anti-Trump democraten afgeschilderd als verzetslieden tegen de Trump administratie, dit vanwege de zogenaamde ‘Trump-Rusland connectie’ (‘Russiagate’). Johnstone stelt terecht dat dit zogenaamde verzet zich niet bezighoudt met de genocide (die Johnstone jammer genoeg niet zo noemt), die Saoedi-Arabië met hulp van de VS* uitvoert in Jemen…….
Vandaar ook de titel die Johnstone haar artikel meegaf, waarin ze het echte verzet tegen de Trump administratie door Benjamin verwoordt.
Niet vergeten moet worden dat onder Obama die steun al bestond, de steun voor de genocide die Saoedi-Arabië uitvoert in buurland Jemen Johnstone stelt dan ook terecht dat er geen verschil bestaat tussen de de buitenlandpolitiek van de republikeinen en de democraten**. Wel vreemd dat Johnstone de democraten de enorme ongefundeerde hysterie over Trump-Russische inmenging in de presidentsverkiezingen van 2016 verwijt en de democraten meteen onder de neus wrijft geen kritiek te leveren op de massamoord die in Jemen nu al sinds 2014 plaatsvindt (Johnstone betoogt dat je als democraat de Trump administratie het verwijt kan maken mee te werken aan die massamoord in Jemen en dan m.n. door te wijzen op het grote aantal kinderen dat hier het slachtoffer van is…..) Het is bepaald niet zo vreemd dat de democraten die niet doen, daar de situatie onder het democratisch bewind van Obama hetzelfde was, ook deze ‘vredesduif’ werkte mee aan die genocidale massamoorden, ofwel enorme oorlogsmisdaden……..

Johnstone wijst ook op de VS of beter gezegd de CIA machinaties in Iran, waar de VS een gewelddadige opstand op poten heeft gezet (het gebruikelijke VS scenario), om zo het huidige bewind ten val te brengen en een VS vriendelijk bewind te vestigen (dat hoeft zelfs niet een democratisch bewind te zijn….)….. De VS heeft zelfs toegeven geld te steken in de (gewelddadige) oppositie en met hen samen te werken….. Je kan er dan ook donder op zeggen dat de VS (CIA) regisseur is van de aanslag, die afgelopen zaterdag plaatsvond op een militaire parade in Iran……..

Medea Benjamin Shows America What Real Resistance Looks Like

Almost immediately after hitting publish on my last article about how the so-called “Resistance” to the Trump administration doesn’t actually resist Trump’s most pernicious agendas in any meaningful way, I saw an awesome video clip proving that there is at least one woman out there providing real opposition to Trump where it matters.
A think tank is an organization wherein highly-paid academics pour their collective brainpower into coming up with convincing arguments that it would be good and smart to do something evil and stupid. At one such think tank, the Hudson Institute, former John Bolton advisor and current Mike Pompeo lackey Brian Hook had his neocon cuddle party interrupted by CodePink activist Medea Benjamin Wednesday morning. Benjamin excoriated the Director of Policy Planning for Pompeo’s Iran Action Team, decrying the Trump administration’s crippling sanctions following its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.
That is the most ridiculous thing I have seen,” Benjamin exclaimed while security staff worked to muscle her off the stage. “The world community wants to keep the Iran nuclear deal. Our allies—the Germans, the French, the British—they want to keep in this deal. The world community wants to keep the deal. Let’s talk about normal countries. Let’s talk about Saudi Arabia. Is that who our allies are? They are the biggest threat to the world community. And let’s talk—you’re hurting me. You’re actually hurting me. I want to ask: Do you think these sanctions are hurting the regime, or are they hurting the Iranian people? They’re hurting the Iranian people. You are making a case for war with Iran. How did the war with Iraq turn out? You’re doing exactly the same thing we did in the case of Iraq. We don’t want another war in the Middle East. Let’s see, how did Iraq turn out? How did Libya turn out? We have the people of Syria suffering. And how dare you bring up the issue of Yemen? It’s the Saudi bombing that is killing most people in Yemen. So let’s get real. No more war! Peace with Iran!”
The think tank ghouls chuckled and mocked her, but the damage was done and the video went viral.
As a reminder, the Trump administration has not only leveled crippling sanctions upon Iran with the goal of fomenting civil unrest, but has also escalated CIA covert operations led by Trump-appointed officials and cultivated an intimate relationship with the MEK terror cult, which is spearheading a social media propaganda campaign against the Iranian government directed at western audiences. The Trump administration’s approach to Iran is in these ways mirroring the Obama administration’s approach to Libya and Syria, and has been called a regime change policy in all but name due to the many unrealistic demands being made of the Iranian government in order to deescalate. These escalations could easily erupt into direct hot war in the future, especially with this administration being stuffed to the gills with virulent Iran hawks at the highest levels.
Bush to Obama to Trump, @medeabenjamin interrupts business as usual to expose US sponsored terrorism. If only there were millions more doing the same
(in het bovenstaande een video die ik niet kan overnemen, hier de meer uitgebreide video van 3 minuten die op YouTube is te vinden, er is in feite weinig verschil tussen alle getoonde video’s in dit artikel:)
The Medea Benjamin video is so tasty I’ve watched it several times. It feels like it’s attuning my cells and reminding me what it takes to put up real time resistance in the stifling atmosphere of opposition by breaking through the somnolent hypnosis of tribal dynamics.
This is what it takes. But this is all it takes. Interrupt our regularly scheduled programming with a burst of truth and humanity will inevitably rouse a few more from their hypnosis, and a few more awake is a few more towards tipping point. While Democrats are holding demonstrations in support of longstanding neocon agendas against Russia and leftists are gathering to punch racist nobodies in the face, this feisty little sheila threw her body into the bright lights of the brainwashing machine and jammed it right up until they had to physically remove her.
Are we seeing the heart of the anti-war left kick back into life? I sure fucking hope so. Unlike the impotent busybox of Russiagate, this is the resistance to Trump that is real, and it will work. Attacking the Trump administration on their continuation of Bushbama’s warmongering ecocidal, omnicidal policies and refusing to fall in line with longstanding neocon agendas runs interference on the very lifeblood of the parasitic elite that seek to suck the tax dollars of working Americans into murdering humans and fattening Raytheon profit margins.

Destroying the war machine fixes everything from climate change to living standards, terrorism, famine, homelessness, mental health, slavery, plus all the horrors that war always necessarily births into the world such as rape, black markets, human trafficking, refugee crises and so on. Not to mention the butchery of humans for profit which is what war is. Putting up resistance by breaking the hypnotic effect of war propaganda works. No one actually wants war apart from a handful of powerful elites who fund these think tanks to weave lies and manipulate truth into stories that will manufacture consent for endless military bloodbaths. Simply using the truth to run interference on these lies and spin is enough.

Medea Benjamin is my hero. People are going to tell me that she and her organization haven’t been exactly 100 percent perfect on every single issue every single day, because this is the left and that’s what the left does. But I don’t care; anyone who’s willing to throw a hammer in the gears of the machine to any extent is a hero to whatever extent that they did so. Enough of us doing what Medea Benjamin did would bring the entire machine crashing down.
Medea Benjamin, thank you. I salute you.
___________________
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* -De VS doet de coördinatie van de bombardementen die de Saoedische terreurcoalitie uitvoert op Jemen, -de VS tankt het vliegend oorlogstuig van deze terreurcoalitie af in de lucht, -de VS levert wapens en munitie (zoals de bom die onlangs een bus met kinderen in Jemen trof, voorts leverde de VS clustermunitie aan Saoedi-Arabië), -de VS levert verder vliegend, rollend en varend oorlogstuig aan S-A en -de VS helpt Saoedi-Arabië bij de zee blokkades voor door de Houthi rebellen beheerst gebied….. De strijd om havenstad Hodeida zorgt ervoor dat er nog minder medische hulpmiddelen de al zo geplaagde Jemenitische bevolking bereiken….. Blokkades die samen met die op land een enorme hongersnood hebben veroorzaakt in Jemen, blokkades die een enorm tekort aan medicijnen hebben veroorzaakt……. Het voorgaande, tezamen met het bombarderen van ziekenhuizen, infrastructuur, water en waterzuiveringsinstallaties door de Saoedische coalitie, hebben gezorgd dat er een cholera en difterie uitbraak plaatsvond in Jemen, die nog steeds honderden doden per week eist……

Bij die hoofdelijke verantwoordelijkheid van de VS moet niet vergeten worden dat dezelfde VS maar hoeft te kikken en S-A zal haar barbaarse terreur stoppen, terreur die zonder de hulp en toestemming van de VS niet eens mogelijk is……. Kortom de VS is in feite dubbel verantwoordelijk voor de massamoorden in Jemen……

** Een uitspraak van Julian Assange, zie: ‘Jemen genocide: democratische oppositie steunt met bijna 100% Trumps terreuragenda, terwijl ze hem aanvallen op niet bewezen Russiagate……

PS: zag na plaatsing dat ik bij de verandering van de kop vergeten was een ‘s’ achter de naam Banjamin te verwijderen, bij deze.

MI6 bezig met voorbereiding van een chemische aanval in Idlib

De republikeinse senator Richard (‘Dick’) Black heeft op het arabisch tv station Al Mayadeen gemeld dat MI6 bezig is met de voorbereiding van een chemische aanval in Idlib. Black zei verder dat e.e.a. al een maand bekend is….. Volgens Black kan het gaan om een echte aanval met gifgas, of een gespeelde, ofwel een ‘false flag’ operatie, waar de schuld in beide gevallen bij Assad zal worden gelegd…. Black beweert dat er al met ‘acteurs’ wordt geoefend hoe ze slachtoffer moeten spelen en wordt met hen getraind op de symptomen van een gifgasaanval (die ze moeten tonen)……

Daarover gesproken: volgens Black zijn meerdere gifgasaanvallen, die de laatste jaren werden gepleegd, ‘false flag’ operaties, deze werden met hulp van de White Helmets uitgevoerd…. Dit was overigens al bekend*, zoals ook bekend is dat men bezig is een gifgasaanval voor te bereiden in Idlib, dit door de herhaaldelijke waarschuwingen aan het adres van Assad geen gifgasaanval uit te voeren, waarschuwingen van psychopaten als Bolton….**

Dergelijke waarschuwingen van de VS werden eerder gedaan in aanloop van gifgasaanvallen, aanvallen waar het Syrische leger niets mee te winnen had, alleen al door het simpele feit dat dit leger aan de winnende hand was (zonder gifgas gebruik)…….
Het volgende bericht komt van de Independant en werd door mij overgenomen van 9 for News:

MI6 plant chemische nepaanval in Syrië. Amerikaanse senator doet opvallende uitspraken op tv

MI6 plant chemische nepaanval in Syrië. Amerikaanse senator doet opvallende uitspraken op tv
in Het Complot 11 september 2018 19:00
De Amerikaanse staatssenator Richard Black heeft opvallende uitspraken gedaan op de Arabisch tv over een nauwe bondgenoot van de Verenigde Staten. Black zei dat MI6, de Britse inlichtingendienst, een chemische aanval voorbereidt op Syrische burgers die vervolgens in de schoenen van Assad zal worden geschoven.
Vier weken geleden wisten we al dat het Britse inlichtingenapparaat toewerkte naar een chemische aanval waar de Syrische overheid vervolgens de schuld van zou krijgen,” zei Black op de Arabische nieuwszender Al Mayadeen.
Acteurs
Hij zei later dat de Britten de aanval niet zelf zullen uitvoeren, maar dat laten doen door rebellen.
Een andere mogelijkheid is dat ze de aanval in scène zetten en acteurs gebruiken, aldus Black.
Hij zei ook dat eerdere gifgasaanvallen in Syrië nep waren. Die waren volgens hem uitgevoerd door Groot-Brittannië, met hulp van de Syrische Witte Helmen.
Nepaanval
Ze bereiden een nepaanval voor, geen echte,” zei hij. “Ze hebben mensen getraind om te doen alsof ze slachtoffer van een gasaanval zijn.”
Het plan is om de Witte Helmen, die steeds betrokken zijn geweest bij deze misleidingen, de aanval te laten uitvoeren,” vervolgde hij.
Het Amerikaanse ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken noemde de beschuldigingen van Black ‘schandalig’.

Buffer
Hij had onlangs voor de tweede keer een ontmoeting met de Syrische president Bashar al-Assad.
Black, een Vietnamveteraan en voormalige Pentagon-advocaat, zegt hem te zien als beschermer van Syrische christenen en buffer tegen islamitisch extremisme.
Foto: Mohamadrsk Wikimedia Commons/Tasnim News Agency

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* Deze false flag operaties werden of niet gemeld in de reguliere westerse media, dan wel werden ze afgedaan als complottheorie……. (en derhalve als ‘fake news’ of nepnieuws neergezet….)

** Zie: John Bolton geeft terreurgroepen in Syrië de opdracht een false flag gifgasaanval uit te voeren

Zie ook:
Gifgasaanval Idlib: de komende ‘kindslachtoffers’ worden getraind door terreurgroep White Helmets………

Tulsi Gabbard (VS congres Hawaï): Trump is de beschermende Big Brother van Al Qaida

Filming of staged chemical attack in Syrian Idlib begins – Russian MoD‘ (via blog Stan van Houcke)

‘False flag terror’ bestaat wel degelijk: bekentenissen en feiten over heel smerige zaken……….

Sico van der Meer (‘deskundige’ Clingendael) weet niet, dat Israël en Egypte grote hoeveelheden gifgas maken en op voorraad hebben……….

Rutte: raketaanval VS tegen Syrische basis was begrijpelijk en proportioneel, ook al is er geen bewijs voor Syrische schuld……..

‘Koenders (PvdA BuZa): Assad is schuldig aan gifgasaanval en is een ‘criminele recidivist……’ ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Esther de Lange (CDA): het afschieten door de VS van raketten op een Syrische basis ‘was even nodig………..’

Al Jazeera filmde een onderdeel van de ‘gifgasshow’ in Kahn Sheikhoun………..

Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) laat weten hoe White Helmets vips rekruteren met Saoedisch geld….



VS geeft toe dat er geen bewijs is voor het gebruik van gifgas ‘door Assad’, ofwel: alweer ‘fake news’ van de massamedia doorgeprikt!

Genocidale aanval op sjiitische vluchtelingen uit Foua en Kefraya wordt door massamedia afgedaan als ‘een ongelukje’, of volgens CNN zelfs als een ‘hiccup………

Exactly how the US trained and armed ISIS

Hier nog een terzake doende PS van het bericht dat ik gisteren plaatste: ‘‘Gematigde’ terreurgroepen in Syrië kregen Nederlands belastinggeld om te moorden, verkrachten, martelen en om te roven…….
PS: nu loopt de hysterie weer op rond de aanstaande aanval van het Syrische leger op Idlib, terwijl niemand kijkt naar de terreur die de daar aanwezige terreurgroepen (‘gematigde rebellen’) uitoefenen op de oorspronkelijke bevolking…. Waar al helemaal niet naar wordt gekeken is het vasthouden van vluchtelingen door de terreurgroepen in Idlib, zoals ze dit keer op keer in het verleden hebben gedaan, mensen die wilden vluchten door corridors van het Syrische leger, werden doodgeschoten door sluipschutters van die ‘gematigde rebellen…’
Het aantal vluchtelingen in Idlib wordt zwaar overdreven en men vergeet voor het gemak dat onder die vluchtelingen zich vooral de gezinnen van terroristen bevinden…….


Vandaag of morgen zal er gegarandeerd een gifgasaanval plaatsvinden in Idlib, daar heeft de VS bij wijze al om gesmeekt bij deze terreurgroepen (die zoals gezegd beschikken over gifgas, met medeweten van de westerse regeringen)…….. Deze gifgasaanval zou wel eens het begin van een oorlog tussen de VS en Rusland kunnen inluiden, daar Putin al te vaak over z’n hart heeft gestreken, zelfs bij de moedwillige moord op zo’n 100 Russische vrijwilligers door terreurentiteit VS, of het neerhalen van een Russische jager door terreurstaat Turkije…… (ofwel als Putin niet volledig zijn gezicht wil verliezen zal Rusland moeten ingrijpen als de VS weer onterecht Syrische bases aanvalt, na de zoveelste false flag gifgasaanval…….)

Boltons spaak in het wiel: beloof Noord-Korea het Libië model…… Trump ‘wil nu toch praten….’

Drie dagen voordat Trump zich terugtrok van de onderhandelingen met Kim Yung-un, zei oorlogshitser en grootlobbyist van het militair-industrieel complex, Bolton dat de onderhandelingen met Noord-Korea van hetzelfde kaliber zijn als die met Libië, zo’n 13 jaar voordat het bewind van Khadaffi omver werd geworpen door de illegale oorlog die de VS en NAVO coalitie tegen Libië begon……

Des te opvallender de opmerking van het beest Trump, hij heeft het gesprek met Kim afgezegd vanwege de agressieve woorden die Noord-Korea zou hebben gebruikt…….. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Een enorm grote pot, verwijt een piepklein keteltje zwart te zien!

Leeghoofd Mike Pence probeerde de (agressieve) woorden van Bolton tevergeefs af te zwakken, met te stellen dat Noord-Korea hetzelfde lot te wachten staat als Libië, wanneer Noord-Korea niet akkoord zou gaan met de voorwaarden van de VS…. Ofwel: de besprekingen tussen Trump en Kim waren bedoeld voor de bühne en Kim werd alleen geacht z’n handtekening te zetten onder de voorwaarden zoals de VS die zou dicteren……..
Uiteraard heeft Noord-Korea daarop zelf voorwaarden gesteld……
Overigens werd gisteren, bekend gemaakt dat ondanks de afzegging van Trump, Noord-Korea bereid blijft te praten* (zo die kunnen de hufters Trump, Bolton en Pence in hun zak steken!).
Vanmorgen werd bekend gemaakt dat Trump nu toch wil praten met Kim, al hoef je niet op te kijken als hij het uiteindelijk toch af laat weten….. Om te beginnen zal de VS van Noord-Korea opnieuw eisen de zaken te tekenen die de VS het land voorlegt, ofwel wat stelt het overleg tussen Trump en Kim dan nog voor??
Mensen lees het volgende prima de luxe en verhelderende artikel van Caitlin Johnstone over deze zaak:

Brilliant Strategy of Offering North Korea the ‘Libya Model’ Somehow Falls Through

May 25, 2018 at 8:49 am
Written by Caitlin Johnstone
Three days before President Trump announced him as the new National Security Advisor, deranged mutant death walrus John Bolton appeared on Radio Free Asia and said of negotiations with North Korea, “I think we should insist that if this meeting is going to take place, it will be similar to discussions we had with Libya 13 or 14 years ago.”

Bolton has been loudly and publicly advocating “the Libya model” with the DPRK ever since.
I think we’re looking at the Libya model of 2003, 2004,” Bolton said on Face the Nation last month, and said the same on Fox News Sunday in case anyone failed to get the message.
Bolton never bothered to refine his message by saying, for example, “Without the part where we betray and invade them and get their leader mutilated to death in the streets.” He just said they’re doing Libya again.
This was what John Bolton was saying before he was hired, and this was what John Bolton continued to say after he was hired. This was what John Bolton was hired to do. He was hired to sabotage peace and facilitate death and destruction. That is what he does. That is what he is for. Can openers open cans, John Bolton starts wars. You don’t buy a can opener to rotate your tires, and you don’t hire John Bolton to facilitate peace.

It should have surprised no one, then, when the administration saw Bolton’s Libya comments and raised him a canceled peace talk.

Hieronder de afbeelding behorend tot een Twitter video, die ik niet weet over te nemen, klik hier voor op het origineel.

As @POTUS Trump made clear, this will only end like the Libya model ended if Kim Jong-un doesn’t make a deal.

View image on Twitter

View image on Twitter

Sadly, I was forced to cancel the Summit Meeting in Singapore with Kim Jong Un.

You know, there were some talk about the Libya model last week,” Vice President Pence told Fox News on Saturday. “And you know, as the president made clear, you know, this will only end like the Libya model ended if Kim Jong-un doesn’t make a deal.”

Some people saw that as a threat,” Fox’s Martha MacCallum replied, because there is no other way it could possibly be interpreted.
Pence blathered something about it being “a fact”, not a threat, but that is because he is a fake plastic doll manufactured by Raytheon. It was an extremely obvious and blatant threat, so of course North Korea responded accordingly. Below is the full text of the response to Pence’s statement by North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, which reportedly was the basis for Trump’s cancellation of the scheduled summit in Singapore:

At an interview with Fox News on May 21, US Vice-President Pence made unbridled and impudent remarks that North Korea might end like Libya, military option for North Korea never came off the table, the US needs complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation, and so on.

As a person involved in the US affairs, I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the US vice-president.

If he is vice-president of “single superpower” as is in name, it will be proper for him to know even a little bit about the current state of global affairs and to sense to a certain degree the trends in dialogue and the climate of détente.

We could surmise more than enough what a political dummy he is as he is trying to compare the DPRK, a nuclear weapon state, to Libya that had simply installed a few items of equipment and fiddled around with them.

Soon after the White House National Security Adviser Bolton made the reckless remarks, Vice-President Pence has again spat out nonsense that the DPRK would follow in Libya’s footstep.

It is to be underlined, however, that in order not to follow in Libya’s footstep, we paid a heavy price to build up our powerful and reliable strength that can defend ourselves and safeguard peace and security in the Korean peninsula and the region.

In view of the remarks of the US high-ranking politicians who have not yet woken up to this stark reality and compare the DPRK to Libya that met a tragic fate, I come to think that they know too little about us.

To borrow their words, we can also make the US taste an appalling tragedy it has neither experienced nor even imagined up to now.

Before making such reckless threatening remarks without knowing exactly who he is facing, Pence should have seriously considered the terrible consequences of his words.

It is the US who has asked for dialogue, but now it is misleading the public opinion as if we have invited them to sit with us.

I only wonder what is the ulterior motive behind its move and what is it the US has calculated to gain from that.

We will neither beg the US for dialogue nor take the trouble to persuade them if they do not want to sit together with us.

Whether the US will meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown is entirely dependent upon the decision and behavior of the United States.

In case the US offends against our goodwill and clings to unlawful and outrageous acts, I will put forward a suggestion to our supreme leadership for reconsidering the DPRK-US summit.”

Trump cancels North Korea summit? Actually John Bolton already torpedoed it by telling North Korea to self destruct with the “Libya model”. This was perfect warmonger strategy to stop the threat of peace breaking out on the Peninsula. South Korea, please stay the course!
The message of Trump’s withdrawal couldn’t be more clear: we get to threaten you, you don’t get to threaten us. This extremely one-sided dynamic is not a style of negotiation that any sane person would go along with if they didn’t have to, and as Choe pointed out, North Korea doesn’t have to. Libya had only the barest rudiments of what could have eventually one day become a nuclear program. North Korea has a full arsenal, and thus a much bigger stack of bargaining chips. A negotiation at gunpoint can only be one-sided if the other side has no gun.
This negotiation was never meant to succeed. Publicly stating that North Korea gets “the Libya model” was like a hostage negotiator offering “the Waco model”. It was plainly designed to fail.
Of course the US-centralized empire has no intention of a mutually beneficial negotiation with a sovereign nation. That isn’t how imperialism works. You either join the mass of tightly allied nations which function in effective unison on foreign policy, or you are smashed like Libya. This policy of threatening nations to join the empire on pain of decimation is what is causing all nonconforming nations to form into a growing and increasingly close alliance of their own, and it is what is causing them to seek nuclear weapons so that they don’t end up like Libya.


If there’s a silver lining to be found in all of this, it was summed up by the Ron Paul Liberty Report’s Daniel McAdams:

I think Trump is making America great again by making America irrelevant. We are irrelevant in the North and South peace talks right now. The ball is completely in [South Korea President] Moon’s court, what is he going to do next; we’ve basically recused ourselves from the whole process. Which is very, very good for us. So I feel rather upbeat. I think although it’s always better to talk to people, and it would be better to talk, but in the current environment, for us to get out of the way is really the non-interventionist position.”

America getting out of the way would be great for everyone, especially for the Americans whose resources are being relentlessly consumed by constant aggressive interventionism and an oligarchy whose vastly disproportionate wealth is propped up with the barrel of a gun. The natural drive of plutocratic smash-and-grab imperialism is in the exact opposite direction of non-interventionism, but as people continue to wake up from the madness and the rest of the world refuses to be consumed by the blob, it’s possible that the empire ends not with a bang but with a barely noticed fizzle. And that is my sincere prayer for all of us.
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Opinion by Caitlin Johnstone / Republished with permission / Steemit / Report a typo

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* Noord-Korea heeft de laatste jaren meermaals aangegeven te willen praten met de VS, een verzoek dat keer op keer door de VS werd afgewezen……..

Mijn excuus voor de vormgeving, krijg het niet op orde.