Ongelofelijk
maar waar: het Europees Hof voor Mensenrechten (ECHR) heeft geoordeeld
dat een Oostenrijkse vrouw terecht werd veroordeeld door de rechter,
daar ze profeet Mohammed had aangeduid als pedofiel……..
Met
andere woorden als ik stel dat veel rk priesters pedofielen zijn, mag
de rechter mij daarvoor veroordelen, weg vrijheid van meningsuiting
en dat voor de bescherming van een geloof! Geloof, dus je gelooft zonder enig bewijs*
dat er een god bestaat, dat mag je uitdragen en als je daarin wordt
weersproken staat de gang naar de rechter wijd open om diegene te
laten veroordelen………. Vergeet niet dat diezelfde gelovigen, of ze nu christen, moslim of hindoe zijn, de ongelovigen openlijk afschilderen als heidenen, honden en ga nog maar even door, niet zelden vergezeld van moord, verkrachting en marteling…….
Als je
wilt dat het fascisme nog verder wordt gepusht in Europa moet je
vooral een dergelijke onzinnige uitspraak doen…….
Als een
man van 50 een kind van 6 trouwt en het huwelijk op haar 9de
‘consumeert’, kan je niet anders dan van een pedofiel spreken……..
Waar
gaan we naartoe? Je mag op de sociale media niet meer de waarheid
over het nieuws zeggen, of zelfs nieuws brengen dat de reguliere
media expres laten liggen…. Nu mag je dus ook niets meer over
religies zeggen….. Religies waardoor er zo ongelofelijk veel bloed
is gevloeid in de geschiedenis (zoals de eerder genoemde genocide in
de Amerika’s, die met de bijbel in de hand werd
uitgevoerd……)…..
Religies waarmee kinderen worden
gehersenspoeld en waardoor ze voor het leven een trauma kunnen
oplopen en niet zelden verzanden in een chronische geestelijke aandoening……. Het rk geloof met het celibaat, de stimulator van
kindermisbruik, een zaak die je overigens naast incest, ook
terugvindt op de bijbelbelt (of biblebelt, wat je wilt) en als ik het goed
begrepen heb, ook in de huidige islam, waar in een land als Afghanistan een aantal oudere mannen met hoge posities jongens misbruiken………
Als het
zo doorgaat met de censuur op het internet en de bescherming van
gelovige mensen, hebben we binnen de kortste keren een ‘mooie nieuwe
orde’, ofwel een fascistische politiestaat…… Immers een zaak als die hierboven en hieronder besproken, is koren op de molen van fascisten als Wilders……
Het is
2018, is het niet om te janken..??
Calling
Prophet Muhammad a pedophile does not fall within freedom of speech:
European court
The
ECHR ruled against an Austrian woman who claimed calling the Prophet
Muhammad a pedophile was protected by free speech. The applicant
claimed she was contributing to public debate.
An
Austrian woman’s conviction for calling the Prophet Muhammad a
pedophile did not violate her freedom of speech, the European Court
of Human Rights ruled Thursday.
The
Strasbourg-based ECHR ruled that Austrian courts carefully balanced
the applicant’s “right to freedom of expression with the right
of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the
legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria.”
The
woman in 2009 held two seminars entitled “Basic Information on
Islam,” during which she likened Muhammad’s marriage to a
six-year-old girl, Aisha, to pedophilia.
Limits
of free speech
The
marriage according to Islamic tradition was consummated when Aisha
was nine and
Muhammad
was around 50. Aisha was the daughter of Muhammad’s best friend and
the first caliph, Abu Bakr.
The
court cited the Austrian women stating during the seminar
that Muhammad “liked to do it with children” and
“… A 56-year-old and a six-year-old? … What do we call it,
if it is not pedophilia?”
An
Austrian court later convicted the woman of disparaging religion and
fined her €480 ($546). Other domestic courts upheld the decision
before the case was brought before the ECHR.
#FREEDOMOFSPEECH
ACROSS THE WORLD
Shammi Haque, blogger, Bangladesh
“People in Bangladesh can’t say what’s on their mind. There is
no freedom of speech at all and every day the situation is getting
worse. I’m a social activist and blogger and my topics include
religion. Islamists don’t like this. They already killed six bloggers
– my friends – so I decided to leave the country. I want to return
but I don’t know when and if it will be safe.”
(mijn excuus, de cijfers hierboven, waar nummer 1 is afgevallen, verwijzen alk afzonderlijk naar een andere pagina, krijg het niet beter gekopieerd dan op deze manier, hier de link naar het origineel)
The
women had argued that her comments fell within her right of freedom
of expression and religious groups must tolerate criticism. She also
argued they were intended to contribute to public debate and not
designed to defame the Prophet of Islam.
No
intention of promoting public debate
The
ECHR recognized that freedom of religion did not exempt people from
expecting criticism or denial of their religion.
However,
it found that the woman’s comments were not objective, failed to
provide historical background and had no intention of
promoting public debate.
The
applicant’s comments “could only be understood as having been
aimed at demonstrating that Muhammad was not worthy of worship,” the
court said, adding that the statements were not based on facts and
were intended to denigrate Islam.
It
also found that even in a debate it was not compatible with freedom
of expression “to pack incriminating statements into the
wrapping of an otherwise acceptable expression of opinion and claim
that this rendered passable those statements exceeding the
permissible limits of freedom of expression.”
================================
* Er zijn juist legio bewijzen dat de
zogenaamde god niet bestaat, neem bijvoorbeeld de claim van gelovigen dat hun god goed is >>
kijk onder welke omstandigheden een groot deel van de wereld moet
leven en je ziet dat dit lariekoek is. (of neem een zaak als de
holocaust, of de hierboven aangehaalde vreselijke genocide in de
Amerika’s) Christenen komen dan vaak met de ‘stelling’ dat je niet kan bewijzen dat god niet bestaat, echter het is juist aan mensen die geloven, aan te tonen dat hun geloof in een entiteit geen onzin is, immers er zijn geen bewijzen dat god bestaat. Anders gezegd, veronderstel dat ik beweer te geloven in apen zo groot als Kink Kong in de films, dan zal ik toch echt met bewijzen moeten komen, ook al zeg ik 100 keer dat een ander het tegendeel maar moet bewijzen.
Toch wel een soort van rustgevend feit: Saoedi-Arabië had 15 psychopathische macho’s nodig om de qua postuur onbetekenende journalist Khashoggi te vermoorden…….
BBC World Service (radio) meldde gisteren in haar nieuws van 1.30 u. (CET) dat Trump (de dag ervoor) stelde ervan overtuigd te zijn dat de Saoedische dictatuur, dus de beide oorlogsmisdadigers koning Salman bin Abdoel Aziz al-Saoed en kroonprins Mohammad bin Salman (al-Saoed), ofwel MBS, niets van doen hebben met de dood van de Saoedische journalist Khashoggi……
‘Voorts is Trump ervan overtuigd dat Hitler een zachtaardige man was, die het beste voorhad met de wereld en dat Charles Manson een uitstekende kinderoppas was……..’
Intussen moet wel gemeld worden dat Trump wat gas heeft teruggenomen en nu wel overtuigd is van het feit dat Khashoggi is vermoord door een Saoedisch team (waar één van de daders intussen is overleden na een ‘verkeersongeluk…’). Wat overigens niet betekent dat de Saoedische terreurtop zoals hiervoor genoemd, ook van deze moord op de hoogte was, althans zo luidde gisteren nog het oordeel van Trump…….
Beste bezoeker, tot slot moet ik nogmaals opmerken dat ik het onbegrijpelijk vind dat men zich zowel in de westerse reguliere media en de westerse politiek wel druk maakt over journalist Khashoggi, maar niet over het lot van de gevangen zittende journalisten in Saoedi-Arabië (waar de aandacht voor de journalisten die in Turkije gevangenzitten is verdwenen als sneeuw voor de zon) en al helemaal niet voor de genocide die door Saoedi-Arabië wordt uitgevoerd in Jemen……. Onbegrijpelijk……
As`ad
AbuKhalilschrijver
van het hieronder opgenomen bericht, eerder gepubliceerd op
Consortium News, stelt dat de in feite hysterische reactie in het
westen en dan m.n. die van westerse massamedia over de verdwijning
van Khashoggi voor een fiks deel een onoordeelkundige beeld geeft
over ‘journalist’ Khashoggi.
Zonder
de vele artikelen van Khashoggi te hebben gelezen die in
Saoedi-Arabië werden gepubliceerd en zonder veel van diens leven te
weten, hebben ze in feite een ex-fanatiek aanhanger van het Saoedisch
koningshuis (bloederige dictators) schoon gewassen…….
Khashoggi
was heel lang een groot bewonderaar van het Saoedische koningshuis en
heeft zich het grootste deel van zijn leven achter deze dictatuur en
al haar bloederige uitspattingen geschaard………
Khashoggi
zou zelfs aan de kant van Osama bin Laden hebben gevochten, al was
het dan als embedded journalist……
Vergeet
niet dat alle jaren dat Khashoggi in Saoedi-Arabië werkte, echte
journalistiek niet was toegestaan, laat staan kritiek leveren op de
dictatuur……. Collega’s die door de dictatuur van S-A werden opgepakt en gemarteld vanwege ‘de geur van kritiek’ in hun berichtgeving, behoefden niet te rekenen op steun van Khashoggi…….
Zelf
concludeer ik na een aantal columns van Khashoggi in de
Washington Post*
(WaPo) te hebben gelezen, dat Khashoggi weliswaar vuile handen heeft
gemaakt in Saoedi-Arabië, al was het maar het niet opkomen voor
collega’s die niet zo braaf waren en zwaar werden gestraft, maar hij
in de VS wel degelijk fiks tekeerging tegen S-A en bijvoorbeeld haar
smerige oorlog in Jemen (die hij overigens niet als genocide
aanduidde, zoals het overgrote deel van de westerse collega’s dat nalaten)……
Er is
niet veel nodig om de doodstraf te krijgen in S-A en gezien een
aantal van zijn columns overschreed hij daarmee een lijn, die
waarschijnlijk tot zijn dood leidde….. Zo had hij verder kritiek op o.a
de blokkade van Qatar en de propaganda van S-A tegen Iran, zaken die
in S-A ‘doodstrafwaardig’ zijn…… Kortom Khashoggi is ten inkeer gekomen, wat hem niet vrijpleit van het jarenlang propaganda maken voor het bloederige Saoedische koningshuis.
Jamal
Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist, who disappeared in the Saudi
consulate in Istanbul last week is not quite the critic of the Saudi
regime that the Western media says he is.
(CN Op-ed) — The
disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist, in the Saudi
consulate in Istanbul last week has generated huge international
publicity, but unsurprisingly, little in Saudi-controlled, Arab
media. The
Washington Post, for
whom Khashoggi wrote, and other Western media, have kept the story
alive, increasing the pressure on Riyadh to explain its role in the
affair.
It’s
been odd to read about Khashoggi in Western media. David Hirst in The
Guardian claimed
Khashoggi merely cared about absolutes such as “truth, democracy,
and freedom”.
Human Rights Watch’s director described him as representing
“outspoken and critical journalism.”
But
did he pursue those absolutes while working for Saudi princes?
Khashoggi
was a loyal member of the Saudi propaganda apparatus. There is no
journalism allowed in the kingdom: there have been courageous Saudi
women and men who attempted to crack the wall of rigid political
conformity and were persecuted and punished for their views.
Khashoggi was not among them.
Some
writers suffered while Khashoggi was their boss
at Al-Watan newspaper. Khashoggi—contrary to what
is being written—was never punished by the regime, except lightly
two years ago, when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS)
banned him from tweeting and writing for Al-Hayat, the
London-based, pan-Arab newspaper owned by Saudi Prince Khalid
bin Sultan.
By
historical contrast, Nasir As-Sa`id was a courageous secular Arab
Nationalist writer who fled the kingdom in 1956 and settled in Cairo,
and then Beirut. He authored a massive (though tabloid-like) volume
about the history of the House of Saud. He was unrelenting in his
attacks against the Saudi royal family.
For
this, the Saudi regime paid a corrupt PLO leader in Beirut (Abu
Az-Za`im, tied to Jordanian intelligence) to get rid of As-Sa`id. He
kidnapped As-Sa`id from a crowded Beirut street in 1979 and delivered
him to the Saudi embassy there. He was presumably tortured and killed
(some say his body was tossed from a plane over the “empty quarter”
desert in Saudi Arabia). Such is the track record of the regime.
Finding
the Right Prince
Khashoggi
was an ambitious young reporter who knew that to rise in Saudi
journalism you don’t need professionalism, courage, or ethics. In
Saudi Arabia, you need to attach yourself to the right prince. Early
on, Khashoggi became close to two of them: Prince Turki Al-Faysal
(who headed Saudi intelligence) and his brother, Prince Khalid
Al-Faysal, who owned Al-Watan (The Motherland) where
Khashoggi had his first (Arabic) editing job.
Khashoggi
distinguished himself with an eagerness to please and an uncanny
ability to adjust his views to those of the prevailing government. In
the era of anti-Communism and the promotion of fanatical jihad in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Khashoggi was a true believer. He
fought with Osama bin Laden and promoted the cause of the Mujahideen.
The
Washington Post‘s
David Ignatius and others want to embellish this
by implying that he was an “embedded” reporter—as if bin
Laden’s army would invite independent journalists to report on
their war efforts. The entire project of covering the Afghan
Mujahideen and promoting them in the Saudi press was the work of the
chief of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki, Khashoggi’s principal
patron-prince.
Western
media coverage of Khashoggi’s career (by people who don’t know
Arabic) presents a picture far from reality. They portray a
courageous investigative journalist upsetting the Saudi regime.
Nothing is further from the truth: there is no journalism in Saudi
Arabia; there is only crude and naked propaganda.
Editors
are trusted individuals who have demonstrated long-time loyalty.
Khashoggi admitted to an Arab reporter last year in an interview
from Istanbul that in Saudi Arabia he had been both
editor and censor.
Editors of Saudi regime papers (mouthpieces of princes and kings)
enforce government rules and eliminate objectionable material.
Khashoggi
never spoke out for Saudis in distress. He ran into trouble in two
stints as Al-Watan editor because of articles he
published by other writers, not by himself, that were mildly critical
of the conservative religious establishment—which he at times
supported. He was relocated to another government media job— to
shield him from the religious authorities.
Khashoggi
was the go-to man for Western journalists covering the kingdom,
appointed to do so by the regime. He may have been pleasant in
conversation with reporters but he never questioned the royal
legitimacy. And that goes for his brief one-year stint in Washington
writing for the Post.
A
Reactionary
Khashoggi
was a reactionary: he supported all monarchies and sultanates in the
region and contended they were “reformable.” To him, only the
secular republics, in tense relations with the Saudis, such as Iraq,
Syria and Libya, defied reform and needed to be overthrown. He
favored Islamization of Arab politics along Muslim Brotherhood lines.
Khashoggi’s
vision was an “Arab uprising” led by the Saudi regime.
In his Arabic writings he backed MbS’s “reforms” and even his
“war on corruption,” derided in the region and beyond. He thought
that MbS’s arrests of the princes in the Ritz were legitimate
(though he mildly criticized
them in a Post column)
even as his last sponsoring prince, Al-Walid bin Talal, was locked up
in the luxury hotel. Khashoggi even wanted to be an advisor to MbS,
who did not trust him and turned him down.
Writing
in the Post (with an Arabic version) Khashoggi came
across as a liberal Democrat favoring democracy and reform. But he
didn’t challenge Saudi regime legitimacy or Western Mideast policy.
Mainstream journalists were enamored with him. They saw him as an
agreeable Arab who didn’t criticize their coverage of the region,
but praised it, considering the mainstream U.S. press the epitome of
professional journalism. Khashoggi was essentially a token Arab
writing for a paper with a regrettable record of misrepresenting
Arabs.
In
Arabic, his Islamist sympathies with Turkey and the Muslim
Brotherhood (Ikhwan) were unmistakable. Forgotten or little
known in the West is that during the Cold War the Saudis sponsored,
funded, and nurtured the Muslim Brotherhood as a weapon against the
progressive, secular camp led by Egypt’s Gamal Abdel
Nasser. Ikhwan controlled the Saudi educational
system raising Saudi students to admire the Brotherhood. But Sep. 11
changed the Saudi calculus: the rulers wanted a scapegoat for their
role in sponsoring Islamist fanaticism and the Ikhwan was
the perfect target. That made Khashoggi suspect too.
Hints
Against Him
Recent articles in
the Saudi press hinted that the regime might move against him. He had
lost his patrons but the notion that Khashoggi was about to launch an
Arab opposition party was not credible. The real crime was that
Khashoggi was backed alone by Ikhwan supporters,
namely the Qatari regime and the Turkish government.
A
writer in Okaz,
a daily in Jeddah, accused him
of meeting with the Emir of Qatar at the Four Seasons Hotel in New
York and of having ties to “regional and international intelligence
services.” If true it may have sealed his fate. Qatar is now the
number one enemy of the Saudi regime—arguably worse than Iran.
Khashoggi
was treated as a defector and one isn’t allowed to defect from the
Saudi Establishment. The last senior defections were back in 1962,
when Prince Talal and Prince Badr joined Nasser’s Arab nationalist
movement in Egypt.
Khashoggi
had to be punished in a way that would send shivers down the spine of
other would-be defectors.
Ongelofelijk
maar waar, voorafgaand aan het onderzoek naar de moord op de
Saoedische journalist Khashoggi, vond een grote schoonmaak van dit
consulaat plaats…. Het is dat ‘t allemaal zo triest is, anders zou
je je daadwerkelijk doodlachen……
Het zogenaamde onderzoek naar de moord op Khashoggi is één
grote show om de contracten met de reli-fascistische dictatuur
Saoedi-Arabië veilig te stellen, veronderstel dat men aan de
wapencontracten met die dictatuur zou gaan tornen….. Wapens en
militaire hardware waarmee Saoedi-Arabië o.a. een genocide uitvoert in
Jemen……
De westerse smerige oplichters die zich politici durven te noemen, hebben jarenlang geroepen dat men niet
langer zal afwachten met acties als er een genocide plaatsvindt…….. Het is intussen meer dan duidelijk dat de dader in dat geval niet goed moet zijn voor vele miljarden aan
bijvoorbeeld de zojuist genoemde wapencontracten……. Zelfs economisch gewin gaat voor op een genocide….
Hoe
is het gvd mogelijk dat men terecht op de kop staat voor de moord op
een journalist, maar de ogen sluit voor een genocide in
uitvoering*?? Uiteraard valt dit niet alleen de westerse politici
aan te rekenen, maar ook de reguliere westerse (massa-) media zijn schuldig aan het
verzwijgen van die genocide, niet zo vreemd als je bedenkt dat die
media in handen zijn van steenrijke figuren en investeerders, hufters
die belang hebben bij dood en vernietiging, immers daaraan valt nog
altijd het meest te verdienen……
Aan
de genocide in Jemen werken verder de volgende landen mee: de VS,
Groot-Brittannië, Egypte, Marokko en de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten
(VAE), allen goede handelspartners van Nederland, waar Nederlandse
bedrijven al meerdere decennia werken voor de reli-fascistische terreurstaat Saoedi-Arabië….. Zelfs ‘ons’ koningshuis onderhoudt goede banden
met dit geteisem en dat zegt weer genoeg over dit achterlijke,
middeleeuwse koningshuis…….
Men
sprak de laatste week al over sancties tegen Saoedi-Arabië vanwege de
moord op Khashoggi, maar een genocide uitvoeren op bijna het hele volk
van Jemen is zelfs geen reden om over diezelfde sancties te spreken,
laat staan ze uit te voeren……… Vunzig smerige hypocrisie!!
Hier een artikel van Jake Johnson over dit onderwerp, let wel: zie voor de video’s in de Twitterberichten het origineel, al zie je niet meer dan de schoonmakers die met hun spullen het consulaat ingaan:
“You
Couldn’t Make This Up”: A Bunch of Mops, Cleaners, and Trash Bags
Delivered to Saudi Consulate Ahead of Murder Probe
(CD) — What
does it say about the credibility of an investigation when a cleaning
crew fully equipped with boxes of chemicals, mops, trash bags, and…
milk arrives at the scene of the alleged crime right before the probe
begins?
At
around the same time Saudi King Salman** insisted in a Monday morning
phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump that his regime had
nothing to do with the disappearance and alleged murder of Washington
Post journalist
Jamal Khashoggi—a denial Trump dutifully echoed to reporters while
suggesting that perhaps “rogue
killers”
were behind the gruesome crime—video cameras captured a team of
cleaners hauling several buckets of mops, two large cases of trash
bags, Dixi cleaning solution, another carton of what appears to be
bleach, and two cases of Pinar milk through
the front door of Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul.
The
cleaning crew was seen entering the consulate shortly before Turkish
investigators were set to arrive to carry out an “inspection”
in search of additional
evidence of
who was behind the disappearance of Khashoggi, a frequent critic of
the Saudi royal family.
If
the Saudis were concerned about the optics of a well-prepared
cleaning crew arriving on the scene of an alleged murder just moments
before the start of an investigation that is being closely watched by
the international community, they did not show it—the crew walked
in the front entrance of the consulate in full
view of Reuters and Associated
Press cameras and
journalists.
Independent
reporter Borzou Daragahi joked in a tweet that “the way to preserve
the integrity of a possible crime scene and bolster confidence in the
investigation is to bring in a bunch of cleaners through the front
door before the detectives arrive.”
Cleaning crew was brought in to #SaudiArabia consulate in Istanbul before Riyadh reportedly agreed to #Turkey‘s demand for a search of the premise where journo #Khashoggi was las seen entering.
Journalists at Saudi consulate in Istanbul spotting cleaners coming into building just before Turkish investigators are scheduled to arrive to probe Jamal Khashoggi disappearance (via APTN feed) pic.twitter.com/iAAjM0PpGu
Cuz the way to preserve the integrity of a possible crime scene and bolster confidence in the investigation is to bring in a bunch of cleaners through the front door before the detectives arrive pic.twitter.com/p9oKfPCArF
You couldn’t make his up!!! Literally minutes after #Saudi authorities said Turkish investigators could enter the consulate – a cleaning team arrived and entered the building!!!! #JamalKjashoggi
Shortly after the cleaning crew entered the Saudi consulate, a team of investigators arrived in an unmarked police car to begin an inspection of the building a full 13 days after Khashoggi entered to obtain marriage documents and never reemerged.
While
Turkish officials have not officially stated what they believe
happened to Khashoggi, they have reportedly
told the U.S. that
they have video and audio that suggests the journalist was tortured
and murdered by a team of Saudis.
In
the days following his disappearance, lawmakers from both sides of
the aisle have demanded answers from the Saudis, an immediate halt of
U.S. arms sales to the repressive monarchy, and total withdrawal of
American support for the kingdom’s vicious assault on Yemen.
“I
think one of the strong things that we can do is not only stop
military sales, not only put sanctions on Saudi Arabia, but most
importantly, get out of this terrible, terrible war in Yemen led by
the Saudis,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) toldCNN on
Sunday.
The
Saudi regime, for its part, has fervently denied accusations that it
had anything to do with Khashoggi’s disappearance and threatened
to retaliate against
nations that attempt to hold the kingdom accountable.
* Opvallend dat deze media wel aandacht hebben voor een Saoedische journalist die in het buitenland wordt vermoord, maar niet voor zijn collega’s die in Saoedi-Arabië worden vermoord, dan wel wegrotten in de cellen van de Saoedische reli-fascistische dictatuur…….
Terecht veel aandacht in de reguliere westerse (massa-) media en een aantal westerse politici voor de verdwijning en waarschijnlijke moord op de Saoedische journalist Khashoggi. Enorm veel aandacht wel te verstaan.
Ongelofelijk en onbegrijpelijk dat diezelfde media en politici amper of geen aandacht hebben voor de genocide die Saoedi-Arabië uitvoert (met hulp van o.a. de VS en Groot-Brittannië) op de sjiitische bevolking van Jemen, een genocide die intussen aan een enorm aantal mensen, inclusief een groot aantal kinderen, het leven heeft gekost…… Trouwens als men al bericht over de situatie in Jemen, blijft het woord ‘genocide’ afwezig, in tegenstelling tot de kop boven dit bericht, waar ik het woord ‘amper’ gebruikte. Het woord ‘amper’ gebruikte ik dan ook om aan te geven dat men af en toe nog wel bericht over de honger in Jemen….*
Men durft in die media te stellen dat er door de Saoedische terreurcoalitie meer dan 10.000 mensen zijn omgekomen (lees: vermoord) in Jemen, terwijl dit aantal intussen meer dan 50.000 moet zijn……. Ach ja, S-A moet niet al te negatief worden voorgesteld, je kan er tenslotte enorme winsten halen met nieuwbouw, dienstverlening** en vooral met de verkoop van oorlogstuig door de wapenfabrikanten van westerse landen (waaronder ik ook de makers van militaire hardware versta, dus de fabrikanten van vliegend, rollend en varend oorlogstuig)…… Vergeet daarnaast niet de belangen van de oliemaffia in Saoedi-Arabië……
Zo af en toe spreekt men in de reguliere media nog net schande over de openbare executies in de reli-fascistische dictatuur Saoedi-Arabië, maar zelden was de kritiek zo hevig als na de verdwijning van (en zoals gezegd waarschijnlijke moord op) Khashoggi……. Overigens hoor je de reguliere media vrijwel nooit over de niet bestaande persvrijheid in Saoedi-Arabië….
Daarover gesproken: plotsklaps is men ook de persbreidel in Turkije vergeten, Turkije waar een groot aantal journalisten wegrot in de gevangenissen van massamoordenaar en dictator Erdogan…….
Wat betreft kritiek van politici moet wel opgemerkt worden dat degenen die de banden met terreurstaat Saoedi-Arabië willen sparen, zich nu doodstil houden of stellen zoals de Trump administratie, dat er gesproken moet worden met de Saoedische autoriteiten en er samen met de Saoediërs moet worden onderzocht wat er is gebeurd (het recept voor de onschuldig verklaring van S-A….)……
Wat een hypocriet zootje, gadver!!
* Als die media spreken over het geweld van de Saoedische coalitie, zoals na het bombarderen van een schoolbus, haalt men direct even ‘het geweld’ van de Houthi rebellen aan, terwijl die zich volkomen terecht verzetten tegen de terreur die wordt uitgeoefend op de sjiitische burgers van Jemen door diezelfde coalitie….. Bovendien kan men geen bewijzen geven voor massamoorden begaan door de Houthi rebellen.
** Onder andere Virgin baas, topgraaier Branson deed twee toeristische projecten voor de Saoedische dictatuur. Deze week besloot hij daar, vanwege de waarschijnlijke moord op Khashoggi, een punt achter te zetten, terwijl de al meer dan 3 jaar gaande zijnde genocide in Jemen hem koud liet en laat…….
Daniel
Ellsberg die werkend als defensie analist voor de RAND denktank* de
‘Pentagon Papers‘ lekte naar de pers (leugens over de oorlog in Vietnam), heeft tijdens een interview met Consortium News gesteld dat Assange niet veroordeeld kan
worden onder de Espionage Act, die gebruikt wordt om ‘spionnen’ (dat
ben je als in veel dictaturen al snel in de VS…) te veroordelen,
immers hij is journalist….
Tijdens
een online ‘wake’ voor Assange zei Ellsberg verder dat het niet gaat
om het zogenaamd beschermen van de nationale veiligheid, maar dat de hysterie over dit lekken alles te maken heeft met het beschermen van de schrijvers (ambtenaren en politici die flink grof ‘in de bek’
waren) van documenten, die al helemaal niet geheim hadden mogen
zijn……
Volkomen terecht stelt Ellsberg dat Assange geen klokkenluider is, maar een journalist die de met het lekken verkregen documenten van klokkenluiders naar buiten bracht…….
Lees
het artikel en zie de video, hoor de scherpte van een 87
jarige man:
Watch:
Daniel Ellsberg Says Assange, as a Journalist, Can’t Be Tried Under
Espionage Act
(CN) — In
an interview with Consortium News Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria,
Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg says the Espionage Act,
under which he was indicted, cannot apply to Julian Assange because
he is a journalist.
Speaking
during an online vigil for Assange organized by Unity4J.com,
Ellsberg told Lauria that the motive for U.S. leaders to protect
their secrets and go after Assange has nothing to do with their
mantra of “national security.”
“The
purpose is not to protect national security, but to protect the asses
of the people who wrote the directives” of classified material,
most of which should never have been classified, Ellsberg said.
Ellsberg,
87, said that as a publisher and journalist, the Espionage Act cannot
be applied to Assange, as it should not have been applied to Ellsberg
for non-spying activities when he released the Pentagon Papers
revealing that the U.S. government long knew it was losing the
Vietnam War but continued lying to the American public.
“Julian
is not a whistle blower per se, but a facilitator of whistleblowing,”
Ellsberg said, “…the point being that as a journalist, he can not
fairly be tried under the Espionage Act.”
As
one who only received classified material and published it, “It is
essential that Julian Assange not be indicted, be convicted, or be
extradited to the United States,” Ellsberg said.
You
can watch the entire 38 minute and 17 second interview here:
Professor
Stephen Cohen prikt in een interview dat Aaron Mate afnam, fijntjes door de
Putin – Trump hysterie heen, de hysterie die in de VS ontstond na het gesprek dat
Putin en Trump voerden in de Finse hoofdstad Helsinki. Men raakt er
in de VS weer niet over uitgesproken, al heeft dat alles met de reguliere, over het algemeen rechtse neoliberale pers in de VS te maken,
uiteraard aangevuld met de democratische en republikeinse politici
die openlijk lobbyen voor het militair-industrieel complex……….
Vanaf
het eind van de Sovjet-Unie tot de ontmoeting van Trump en Putin, zet
Cohen duidelijk uiteen hoe we zijn voorgelogen, bijvoorbeeld over ‘de
oorlog van Rusland tegen Georgië’, via Oekraïne, De Krim tot
Syrië…..
Voorts
moet ik Cohen gelijk geven als hij stelt dat we nu blij mogen zijn met
Trump als president, daar hij niet meegaat in de oorlogshitserij die
zoveel VS politici in hun greep houdt. Zoals op deze plek al eerder gesteld,
wat is erop tegen dat men met elkaar spreekt en probeert oorlog te
voorkomen??? Oké Trump is een beest, maar liever een beest dat niet aanvalt dan bijvoorbeeld Obama die 2 volledige termijnen in illegale oorlogsvoering was verwikkeld, zelfs 2 illegale oorlogen extra begon en veel meer bommen liet afwerpen dan Bush in 2 termijnen…….
Cohen stelt voorts terecht dat het onder eerdere
presidenten de normaalste zaak van de wereld was om te spreken met
de Russische collega’s, terwijl dat nu als verraad wordt
neergezet, alleen om Trump af te kunnen zetten en ongebreideld oorlog te kunnen voeren, zoals de VS gewend is te doen…….
Cohen gaat ook in op de beschuldiging dat Putin journalisten laat vermoorden, terwijl daar geen bewijs voor wordt geleverd, sterker nog: Cohen stelt dat deze moorden alles te maken hebben met de georganiseerde misdaad in Rusland……
Lezen mensen en geeft het door, de hoogste tijd dat we met z’n allen weer ons gezonde verstand gebruiken en ons niet langer laten voorliegen en gek laten maken door de reguliere media en het grootste deel van de politici in ons land!
Video:
Debunking the Putin Panic With Professor Stephen Cohen
(RN) — President
Trump’s warm words for Vladimir Putin and his failure to endorse
U.S. intelligence community claims about alleged Russian meddling
have been called “treasonous” and the cause of a “national
security crisis.” There
is a crisis, says Prof. Stephen F. Cohen, but one of our own making…
Part
1:
AARON
MATE: It’s
The Real News. I’m Aaron Mate.
The
White House is walking back another statement from President Trump
about Russia and U.S. intelligence. It began in Helsinki on Monday,
when at his press conference with Vladimir Putin, Trump did not
endorse the claim that Russia meddled in the 2016 election. After an
outcry that played out mostly on cable news, Trump appeared to
retract that view one day later. But then on Wednesday, Trump was
asked if he believes Russia is now targeting the U.S. ahead of the
midterms.
DONALD
TRUMP: [Thank]
you all very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.
REPORTER: Is
Russia still targeting the U.S. [inaudible]. No, you don’t believe
that to be the case?
DONALD
TRUMP: Thank
you very much, everyone. We’re doing very well. We are doing very
well, and we’re doing very well, probably as well as anybody has
ever done with Russia. And there’s been no president ever as tough
as I have been on Russia. All you have to do is look at the numbers,
look at what we’ve done, look at sanctions, look at ambassadors.
Not there. Look, unfortunately, at what happened in Syria recently. I
think President Putin knows that better than anybody. Certainly a lot
better than the media.
AARON
MATE: The
White House later claimed that when Trump said ‘no,’ he meant no
to answering questions. But Trump’s contradiction of U.S.
intelligence claims has brought the Russiagate story, one that has
engulfed his presidency, to a fever pitch. Prominent U.S. figures
have called Trump’s comments in Helsinki treasonous, and compared
alleged Russian e-mail hacking and social media activity to 9/11 and
Pearl Harbor. Those who also question intelligence claims or
warmongering with Russia have been dubbed traitors, or Kremlin
agents.
Speaking
to MSNBC, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul
declared that with Trump’s comments, the U.S. is in the midst of a
national security crisis.
MICHAEL
MCFAUL: Republicans
need to step up. They need to speak out, not just the familiar
voices, because this is a national security crisis, and the president
of the United States flew all the way to Finland, met with Vladimir
Putin, and basically capitulated. It felt like appeasement.
AARON
MATE: Well,
joining me to address this so-called national security crisis is
Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus at New York University and
Princeton University. His books include “Failed Crusade: America
and the Tragedy of Post-Soviet Russia,” and “Soviet Fates and
Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War.” Professor
Cohen, welcome. I imagine that you might agree with the view that we
are in the midst of a national security crisis when it comes to
Russia, but for far different reasons than those expounded on by
Ambassador McFaul.
STEPHEN
COHEN: There is a national security crisis, and there is a
Russian threat. And we, we ourselves here in the United States, have
created both of them. This has been true for years, and now it’s
reached crisis proportion. Notice what’s going on. A mainstream TV
reporter shouts to President Trump, “Are the Russians still
targeting our elections?” This is in the category “Are you still
beating your wife?” There is no proof that the Russians have
targeted or attacked our elections. But it’s become axiomatic. What
kind of media is that, are the Russians still, still attacking our
elections.
And
what Michael McFaul, whom I’ve known for years, formerly Ambassador
McFaul, purportedly a scholar and sometimes a scholar said, it is
simply the kind of thing, to be as kind as I can, that I heard from
the John Birch Society about President Eisenhower when he went to
meet Khrushchev when I was a kid growing up in Kentucky. This is
fringe discourse that never came anywhere near the mainstream before,
at least after Joseph McCarthy, that the president went, committed
treason, and betrayed the country. Trump
may have not done the right thing at the summit, because agreements
were reached. Nobody discusses the agreements. But to stage a
kangaroo trial of the president of the United States in the
mainstream media, and have plenty of once-dignified people come on
and deliver the indictment, is without precedent in this country.
And it has created a national crisis in our relations with Russia. So
yes, there’s a national crisis.
AARON
MATE: Let
me play for you a clip from Trump’s news conference with Putin that
also drew outrage back in the U.S. When he was asked about the state
of U.S.-Russia relations, he said both sides had responsibility.
DONALD
TRUMP: Yes,
I do. I hold both countries responsible. I think that the United
States has been foolish. I think we’ve all been foolish. We should
have had this dialogue a long time ago. A long time, frankly, before
I got to office. And I think we’re all to blame. I think that the
United States now has stepped forward, along with Russia, and we’re
getting together, and we have a chance to do some great things.
Whether it’s nuclear proliferation, in terms of stopping, because
we have to do it. Ultimately that’s probably the most important
thing that we can be working on.
AARON
MATE: That’s
President Trump in Helsinki. Professor Cohen, I imagine that this
comment probably was part of the reason why there was so much
outrage, not Just of what Trump said about the claims of Russian
meddling in the election. Can you talk about the significance of what
he said here, and how it contradicts the, the entire consensus of the
bipartisan foreign policy establishment?
STEPHEN
COHEN: I
did not vote for President Trump. But for that I salute him, what he
just said. So far as I can remember, no wiser words or more important
words have been spoken by the American president about Russia and the
Soviet Union since Ronald Reagan did his great detente with Mikhail
Gorbachev in the late 1980s. What
Trump just did, and I don’t- we never know, Aaron, how aware he is
of the ramifications of what he says. But in this case, whether he
fully understood it or not, he just broke with, and the first time
any major political figure in the United States has broken with the
orthodoxy, ever since at least 2000. And
even going back to the ’90s. That all the conflicts we’ve had
with post-Soviet Russia, after communism went away in Russia, all
those conflicts, which I call a new and more dangerous Cold War, are
solely, completely, the fault of Putin or Putin’s Russia.That
nothing in American policy since Bill Clinton in the 1990s did
anything to contribute seriously to the very dangerous conflict,
confrontation we have with Russia today. It was all Russia’s fault.
What
that has meant, and you know this, Aaron, because you live in this
world as well,it
has meant no media or public dialogue about the merits of American
policy toward post-Soviet Russia from Clinton, certainly through
Obama. It
may be changing now under President Trump. Not sure. It means if we
don’t have a debate, we’re not permitted to ask, did we do
something wrong, or so unwise that it led to this even more dangerous
Cold War? And
if the debate leads to a conclusion that we did do something unwise,
and that we’re still doing it, then arises the pressure and the
imperative for any new policy toward Russia. None of that has been
permitted, because the orthodoxy, the dogma, the axiom, is Putin
alone has solely been responsible.
So
you know, you know as well as I do what is excluded. It doesn’t
matter that we moved NATO to Russia’s borders, that’s not
significant. Or that we bombed Serbia, Russia’s traditional ally.
Or that George Bush left the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which was
the bedrock of Russian nuclear security and, I would argue, our own.
Or that we did regime change by military might in Iraq and Libya, and
many other things. Or that we provoked the Ukrainian crisis in 2004,
and supported the coup that overthrew a legitimate, elected,
constitutional president there. None of that matters. Oh, it was kind
of footnotes to the real narrative. And the narrative is, is that a
Russian leader Vladimir Putin in power was a horrible aggressor.
Killed everybody, somehow, with secret poisons or thieves in the
night who opposed him. And began this new cold or even worse war with
the United States.
No
historian of any merit will ever write the story that way. It’s
factually, analytically, simply untrue. Now Trump has said something
radically different. We got here in these dire circumstances because
both sides acted unwisely, and we should have had this discussion a
long time ago.
So for that, two cheers for President Trump. But whether he can
inspire the discussion that he may wish to, considering the fact that
he’s now being indicted as a criminal for having met Putin, is a
big question.
AARON
MATE: So
a few questions. You mentioned that some agreements were made, but
details on that have been vague. So do you have any sense of what
concretely came out of this summit? There was talk about cooperation
on nuclear weapons, possibly renewing the New START Treaty. We know
that Putin offered that to Trump when he first came into office, but
Trump rejected it. There was talk about cooperating in Syria. And,
well, yeah, if I can put that question to you first, and then I have
a follow-up about what might be motivating Trump here. But first,
what do you think concretely came out of this?
STEPHEN
COHEN: Well,
look, I know a lot, both as a historian, and I’ve actually
participated in some about the history of American-Russian,
previously Soviet, summits. Which, by the way, this is the 75th
anniversary of the very first one, when Franklin Roosevelt traveled
to Tehran to meet Stalin. And
every president, and this is important to emphasize, every president
since
Roosevelt
has met with the Kremlin leader. Some many times, or several times.
So there’s a long tradition. And therefore there are customs. And
one custom, this goes to your question, is that never, except maybe
very rarely, but almost never do we learn the full extent and nature
of what agreements were made. That
usually comes in a week or two or three later, because there’s
still the teams of both are hammering out the details.
So
that’s exactly what happened at this summit. There was no
conspiracy. No, you know, appeasement behind closed doors. The two
leaders announced in general terms what they agreed upon. Now,
the most important, and this is traditional, too, by meeting they
intended to revive the diplomatic process between the United States
and Russia which has been badly tattered by events including the
exclusion of diplomats, and sanctions, and the rest. So to get
active, vigorous diplomacy about many issues going. They
may not achieve that goal, because the American media and the
political mainstream is trying to stop that. Remember that anything
approaching diplomatic negotiations with Russia still less detente,
is now being criminalized in the United States. Criminalized. What
was once an honorable tradition, the pursuit of detente, is now a
capital crime, if we believe these charges against Trump.
So
they tried to revive that process, and we’ll see if it’s going to
be possible. I think at least behind the scenes it will be. Obviously
what you mentioned, both sides now have new, more elusive, more
lethal, faster, more precise nuclear weapons. We’ve been developing
them for a long time in conjunction with missile defense. We’ve
essentially been saying to Russia, you may have equality in nuclear
weapons with us, but we have missile defense. Therefore, we could use
missile defense to take out your retaliatory capacity. That is, we
could stage the first strike on you and you would not be able to
retaliate.
Now,
everybody who’s lived through the nuclear era knows that’s an
invitation to disaster. Because like it or not, we’ve lived with a
doctrine called MAD, Mutual Assured Destruction, that one side dare
not attack the other with a nuclear weapon because it would be
destroyed as well. We were saying we now have this primacy. Putin,
then, on March 1 of this year, announced that they have developed
weapons that can elude missile defense. And it seems to be true. In
the air and at sea, their dodgy, darty, quick thing- but they could
avoid our missile defense. So where we are at now is on the cusp of a
new nuclear arms race involving more dangerous nuclear weapons. And
the current START, New START Treaty will expire, I think, in three or
four years. But its expiration date is less important that the
process of talking and negotiating and worrying officially about
these new weapons had ended.
So
essentially what Trump and Putin agreed is that process of concern
about new and more dangerous nuclear weapons must now resume
immediately. And if there’s anybody living in the United States who
think that that is a bad idea they need to reconsider their life,
because they may be looking into the darkness of death. So
that was excellent. Briefly.
What
I hope they did- they didn’t announce it, but I’m pretty sure
they did- that there had been very close calls between American and
Russian combat forces and their proxies in Syria. We’re doing a
proxy war, but there are plenty of native Russians and Americans in
Syria in a relatively small combat cell. And there have been
casualties. The Russians have said at the highest level the next time
a Russian is killed in Syria by an American-based weapon, we will
strike the American launcher. If Russia strikes our launching pads or
areas, whether on land or sea, which means Americans will be there
and are killed, call it war. Call it war.
So
we need to agree in Syria to do more than, what do they call it,
deconfliction, where we have all these warnings. It’s
still too much space for mishap. And what I hope it think Trump and
Putin did was to try to get a grip on this.
AARON
MATE: Stephen
F. Cohen, professor emeritus at at Princeton University and New York
University, thank you. And stay tuned for part two. I’m Aaron Mate
for The Real News.
*
* *
There
is much to criticize the Russian president for, says Professor
Stephen F. Cohen of Princeton and NYU, but
many US political and media claims about Putin are false – and
reckless…
Part
2:
AARON
MATE: It’s
The Real News. I’m Aaron Mate. This is part two with Stephen Cohen,
professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and
Princeton. In part one we talked about the uproar over the
Trump-Putin summit, and Trump’s comments about the U.S.
intelligence community and about cooperation with Russia. Now
in part two we’re going to get to some of the main talking points
that have been pervasive throughout corporate media, talking about
the stated reasons for why pundits and politicians say they are
opposed to Trump sitting down with Putin.
So
let me start with Jon Meacham. He is a historian. And speaking to
CNN, he worried that Trump, with his comments about NATO calling on
the alliance to pay more, and calling into question, he worried about
the possibility that Trump won’t come to the aid of Baltic states
in the event that Russia invades.
JON
MEACHAM: And
what worries me most is the known unknown, as Donald Rumsfeld might
put it, of what happens next. Let’s say Putin- just look at this
whole week of the last five, six days in total. What happens if Putin
launches military action against, say, the Baltics? What, what is it
that President Trump, what about his comments that NATO suggest thar
he would follow an invocation of Article 5 and actually project
American force in defense of the values that not only do we have an
intellectual and moral assent to, but a contractual one, a treaty
one. I think that’s the great question going forward.
AARON
MATE: OK.
So that’s Jon Meacham speaking to CNN. So, Professor Cohen, putting
aside what he said there about our intellectual values and strong
tradition, just on the issue of Trump, of Putin posing a potential
threat and possibly invading the Baltics, is that a realistic
possibility?
STEPHEN
COHEN: So,
I’m not sure what you’re asking me about. The folly of NATO
expansion? The fact that every president in my memory has asked the
Europeans to pay more? But can we be real? Can we be real? The only
country that’s attacked that region of Europe militarily since the
end of the Soviet Union was the United States of America. As I
recall, we bombed Serbia, a, I say this so people understand, a
traditional Christian country, under Bill Clinton, bombed Serbia for
about 80 days. There is no evidence that Russia has ever bombed a
European country.
You
tell me, Aaron. You must be a smart guy, because you got your own
television show. Why
would Putin want to launch a military attack and occupy the Baltics?
So he has to pay the pensions there? Which he’s having a hard time
already paying in Russia, and therefore has had to raise the pension
age, and thereby lost 10 percentage points of popularity in two
weeks? Why
in the world can we, can we simply become rational people. Why in the
world would Russia want to attack and occupy Latvia, Lithuania, and
Estonia? The only reason I can think of is that many, many of my
friends love to take their summer vacations there. And maybe some
crazy person thinks that if we occupy it, vacations will be cheaper.
It’s crazy. It’s beyond crazy. It’s a kind-.
AARON
MATE: Professor
Cohen, if you were on CNN right now I imagine that the anchor would
say to you, well, okay, but one could say the same thing about
Georgia in 2008. Why did Russia attack Georgia then?
STEPHEN
COHEN: I’m not aware that Russia attacked Georgia. The
European Commission, if you’re talking about the 2008 war, the
European Commission, investigating what happened, found that Georgia,
which was backed by the United States, fighting with an
American-built army under the control of the, shall we say, slightly
unpredictable Georgian president then, Saakashvili, that
he began the war by firing on Russian enclaves. And the Kremlin,
which by the way was not occupied by Putin, but by Michael McFaul and
Obama’s best friend and reset partner then-president Dmitry
Medvedev, did what any Kremlin leader, what any leader in any country
would have had to do: it reacted. It sent troops across the border
through the tunnel, and drove the Georgian forces out of what
essentially were kind of Russian protectorate areas of Georgia.
So
that- Russia didn’t begin that war. And
it didn’t begin the one in Ukraine, either. We did that by
[continents], the overthrow of the Ukrainian president in [20]14
after President Obama told Putin that he would not permit that to
happen. And I think it happened within 36 hours. The
Russians, like them or not, feel that they have been lied to and
betrayed. They use this word, predatl’stvo, betrayal, about
American policy toward Russia ever since 1991, when
it wasn’t just President George Bush, all the documents have been
published by the National Security Archive in Washington, all the
leaders of the main Western powers promised the Soviet Union that
under Gorbachev, if Gorbachev would allow a reunited Germany to be
NATO, NATO would not, in the famous expression, move two inches to
the east.
Now
NATO is sitting on Russia’s borders from the Baltic to Ukraine. So
Russians aren’t fools, and they’re good-hearted, but they become
resentful. They’re worried about being attacked by the United
States. In fact, you read and hear in the Russian media daily, we are
under attack by the United States. And
this is a lot more real and meaningful than this crap that is being
put out that Russia somehow attacked us in 2016. I must have been
sleeping. I didn’t see Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and 2016. This is
reckless, dangerous, warmongering talk. It needs to stop. Russia has
a better case for saying they’ve been attacked by us since 1991. We
put our military alliance on the front door. Maybe it’s not an
attack, but it looks like one, feels like one. Could be one.
AARON
MATE: OK.
And in a moment I want to speak to you more about Ukraine, because
we’ve heard Crimea invoked a lot in the criticism of Putin of late.
But first I want to actually to ask you about a domestic issue. This
one is it’s widely held that Putin is responsible for the killing
of journalists and opposition activists who oppose him. And on this
front I want to play for you a clip of Joe Cirincione. He is the head
of the Ploughshares Fund. And this is what he said this week in an
appearance on Democracy Now!.
JOE
CIRINCIONE: Both
of these men are dangerous. Both of these men oppress basic human
rights, basic freedoms. Both of them think the press are the enemy of
the people. Putin goes further. He kills journalists. He has them
assassinated on the streets of Moscow.
Donald
Trump does not go that far yet. But I think what Putin is doing is
using the president of the United States to project his rule, to
increase his power, to carry out his agenda in Syria, with Europe, et
cetera, and that Trump is acquiescing to that for reasons that are
not yet clear.
AARON
MATE: That’s
Joe Cirincione.
STEPHEN
COHEN: I
know him well. It’s worse than that. It’s worse than that.
AARON
MATE: Well
Yes. There’s two issues here, Professor Cohen. One is the state of
the crackdown on press freedoms in Russia, which I’m sure you would
say is very much alive, and is a strong part of the Russian system.
But let’s first address this widely-held view that Putin is
responsible for killing journalists who are critical of him.
STEPHEN
COHEN: I
know I’m supposed to follow your lead, but I think you’re
skipping over a major point. How
is it that Joe, who was once one of our most eminent and influential,
eloquent opponents of nuclear arms race, who was prepared to have the
president of the United States negotiate with every Soviet communist
leader, including those who had a lot of blood on their hands, now
decide that Putin kills everybody and he’s not a worthy partner?
What happened to Joe?
I’ll
tell you what happened to him. Trump. Trump has driven once-sensible
people completely crazy. Moreover, Joe knows absolutely nothing about
internal Russian politics, and
he ought to follow my rule. When I don’t know something about
something, I say I don’t know. But what he just said is ludicrous.
And the sad part is-.
AARON
MATE: But
it’s widely held. If it’s ludicrous-. But widely held, yeah.
STEPHEN
COHEN: Well,
the point is that once
distinguished and important spokespeople for rightful causes, like
ending a nuclear arms race, have been degraded, or degraded
themselves by saying things like he said to the point that they’re
of utility today only to the proponents of a new nuclear arms race.
And he’s not alone. Somebody called it Trump derangement
syndrome. I’m
not a psychiatrist, but it’s a widespread mania across our land.
And when good people succumb to it, we are all endangered.
AARON
MATE: But
many people would be surprised to hear that, because again, the
stories that we get, and there are human rights reports, and it’s
just sort of taken as a given fact that Putin is responsible for
killing journalists. So if that’s ludicrous, if you can explain why
you think that is.
STEPHEN
COHEN: Well, I
got this big problem which seems to afflict very few people in public
life anymore. I live by facts. I’m
like my doctor, who told me not long ago I had to have minor surgery
for a problem I didn’t even know I had. And I said, I’m not going
to do it. Show me the facts. And he did. I had the minor
surgery. Journalists
no longer seem to care about facts. They repeat tabloid rumors. Putin
kills everybody.
All
I can tell you is this. I
have never seen any evidence whatsoever, and I’ve been- I knew some
of the people who were killed. Anna
Politkovskaya, the famous journalist for Novaya Gazeta was the first,
I think, who was- Putin was accused of killing. I knew her well. She
was right here, in this apartment. Look behind me, right here. She
was here with my wife, Katrina vanden Huevel. I wouldn’t say we
were close friends, but we were associates in Moscow, and we were
social friends. And
I mourn her assassination today. But I will tell you this, that
neither her editors at that newspaper, nor her family, her surviving
sons, think Putin had anything to do with the killing. No
evidence has ever been presented. Only media kangaroo courts that
Putin was involved in these high-profile assassinations, two of the
most famous being this guy Litvinenko by polonium in London, about
the time Anna was killed, and more recently Boris Netsov, whom, it’s
always said, was walking within view of the Kremlin when he was shot.
Well, you could see the Kremlin from miles away. I don’t know what
within the view- unless they think Putin was, you know, watching it
through binoculars. There is no evidence that Putin ever ordered the
killing of anybody outside his capacity as commander in chief. No
evidence.
Now,
did he? But we live, Aaron, and I hope the folks who watch us
remember this. Every professional person, every decent person lives
or malpractices based on verified facts. You go down the wrong way on
a one-way street, you might get killed. You take some medication
that’s not prescribed for you, you might die. You pursue foreign
policies based on fiction, you’re likely to get in war. And
all these journalists, from the New York Times to the Washington
Post, from MSNBC to CNN who churn out daily these allegations that
Putin kills people are disgracing themselves. I
will give you one fact. Wait. One fact, and you could look it up, as
Casey Stengel used to say. He was a baseball manager, in case you
don’t know.
There’s
an organization called the Committee to Protect American Journalists.
It’s kind of iconic. It does good things, it says unwise things. Go
on its website and look at the number of Russian journalists killed
since 1991, since the end of the Soviet Union, under two leaders.
Boris Yeltsin, whom we dearly loved and still mourn, and Putin, whom
we hate.Last
time I looked, the numbers may have changed, more were killed under
Yeltsin than under Putin. Did Putin kill those in the 1990s?
So
you should ask me, why did they die, then? And
I can tell you the main reason. Corrupt business. Mafia-like business
in Russia. Just like happened in the United States during our
primitive accumulation days. Profit
seekers killed rivals. Killed them dead in the streets. Killed them
as demonstrations, as demonstrative acts. The only thing you could
say about Putin is that he might have created an atmosphere that
abets that sort of thing. To which I would say, maybe, but originally
it was created with the oligarchical class under Boris Yeltsin, who
remains for us the most beloved Russian leader in history. So that’s
the long and the short of it. Go look at the listing on the Committee
to Protect Journalists.
AARON
MATE: OK.
So, following up on that, to what extent- and this gets a bit into
history, which you’ve covered extensively in your writings. To what
extent are we here in the West responsible for the creation of that
Russian oligarchal class that you mentioned? But also, what is
Putin’s relationship to it now, today? Does he abet it? Is he
entrenched in it? We hear, often, talk of Putin possibly being the
richest person in the world as a result of his entanglement with the
very corruption of Russia you’re speaking about. So both our role
in creating that problem in Russia, but then also Putin’s role now
in terms of his relationship to it.
STEPHEN
COHEN: I’m
going to give you a quick, truncated, scholarly, historical
perspective on this. But this is what people should begin with when
they think about Vladimir Putin and his 18 years in power. Putin came
to power almost accidentally in 2000. He inherited a country whose
state had collapsed twice in the 20th century. You’ve got to think
about that. How
many states have collapsed that you know of once? But the Russian
state, Russian statehood, had collapsed once in 1917 during the
revolution, and again in 1991 when the Soviet Union ended. The
country was in ruination; 75 percent of the people were in poverty.
Putin
said- and this obsesses him. If you want to know what obsesses Putin,
it’s the word ‘sovereignty.’ Russia lost its sovereignty-
political, foreign policy, security, financial- in the 1990s. Putin
saw his mission, as I read him, and I try to read him as a
biographer. He says a lot, to regain Russia’s sovereignty, which
meant to make the country whole again at home, to rescue its people,
and to protect its defenses. That’s been his mission. Has it been
more than that? Maybe. But everything he’s done, as I see it, has
followed that concept of his role in history. And he’s done pretty
well.
Now,
I can give you all Putin’s minuses very easily. I would not care
for him to be my president. But let me tell you one other thing
that’s important. You evaluate nations within their own history,
not within ours. If
you asked me if Putin is a democrat, and I will answer you two ways.
He thinks he has. And compared to what? Compared to the leader of
Egypt? Yeah, he is a democrat. Compared to the rulers of our pals in
the Gulf states, he is a democrat. Compared to Bill Clinton? No, he’s
not a Democrat. I mean, Russia-. Countries are on their own
historical clock. And you have to judge Putin in terms of his
predecessors. So people think Putin is a horrible leader. Did you
prefer Brezhnev? Did you prefer Stalin? Did you prefer Andropov?
Compared to what? Please tell me, compared to what.
And
by the way, that’s how that’s how Russians-. You want to know why
he’s so popular in Russia? Because Russians judge him in the
context of their own what they call zhivaya istoriya, living history;
what we call autobiography. In
terms of their own lives, he looks pretty darn good. They complain
out him. We sit in the kitchen and they bitch about Putin all the
time. But they don’t want him to go away.
AARON
MATE: All
right. Well, on that front, we’re going to wrap this up there.
Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York
University and Princeton. His books include “Failed Crusade:
America and the Tragedy of Post-Soviet Russia,” and “Soviet Fates
and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War.”
Professor Cohen, thank you.
STEPHEN
COHEN: You
forgot one book.
AARON
MATE: I
did not say I was reading your, your complete bibliography.
STEPHEN
COHEN: It’s
called-. It’s called “Confessions of a Holy Fool.”
AARON
MATE: Is
that true? Or are you making a joke.
STEPHEN
COHEN: Somewhere
in between. [Thank you, Aaron.]
AARON
MATE: Professor
Cohen, thank you. And thank you for joining us on The Real News.
De Israëlische advocaat Yuval Shany is unaniem gekozen tot voorzitter
van het Mensenrechtencomité van de VN* , ofwel men heeft in feite de
fascistische apartheidsstaat Israël voorzitter gemaakt van een
mensenrechtencomité…….. Zoals eerder Saoedi-Arabië, ook al een
notoire schender van mensenrechten, werd verkozen tot voorzitter van de
UNHRC…..
E.e.a.
wordt nog duidelijker als je ziet waarmee Shany zich tot nu toe heeft
beziggehouden: zo was hij werkzaam voor het Israëlische ministerie
‘van Justitie’ (ha! ha! ha!) en werkte hij voor de Israëlische
premier en het Israëlische leger, alle 3 tot hun kin badend in het bloed van Palestijnen……..
Wat
een enorme aanfluiting, de VN is op sterven na dood……..
Israeli
Lawyer Appointed Chairman of UN Human Rights Committee
(MEMO) — An
Israeli lawyer was chosen this week to chair the UN Human Rights
Committee, despite the country’s dire human rights record.
The
UN Human Rights Committee, not to be confused with the UN Human
Rights Council, is a panel of legal professionals which reviews
states’ adherence to the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),
which forms part of the International Bill of Human Rights.
The
Covenant commits parties to respect the civil and political rights of
individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, speech
and assembly, electoral rights and rights to due process and a fair
trial. Israel has signed and ratified the Covenant.
The
committee will now be chaired by Yuval Shany, who was unanimously
selected on Monday by its 18 members. Shany is deputy president of
the Israel Democracy Institute and a member of the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem’s Faculty of Law. He has also worked for
Israel’s Ministry of Justice and as an advisor to the Israeli Prime
Minister’s Office and the Israeli army. He will be the first
Israeli to chair the Human Rights Committee.
In
a statement following his appointment, Shany said that “we live in
an international climate that no longer supports human rights. As
head of the committee, I hope to harness its positive and apolitical
influence to secure human rights for all citizens of the world,”
according to Haaretz.
The
appointment will raise eyebrows in light of Israel’s dire human
rights record and systematic denial of Palestinians’ human rights.
According to Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem,
Israel uses administrative
detention of Palestinians, in which a person who has not committed an
offense is held without trial or legal proceedings, as a “quick and
easy alternative to criminal trial”. B’Tselem statistics show
that “at the end of May 2018, 440 Palestinians – including two
women and three minors – were held in administrative detention in
Israel Prison Service (IPS) facilities.”
Israel’s
disregard for human rights has also been highlighted during the Great
March of Return,
which began on 30 March. Since the protests began, 135
Palestinians have died after
being hit by Israeli live fire, with a further 15,000 injured. Israel
has also been criticised for its targeting
of journalists, photographers and paramedics in
a bid to silence reports and images of its human rights violations.
In
addition, Israel in June passed a
law making it an offence to film Israeli soldiers on duty, making
filming “with intent to harm the morale of Israel’s soldiers or
its inhabitants” punishable by up to five years in prison. The law
will limit the work of human rights groups who document human rights
violations committed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank.
*
Niet te verwarren met de Mensenrechtenraad van de VN >> de UNHRC.
Dit comité ziet toe hoe landen zich verhouden tot het Internationaal
Verdrag inzake burgerrechten en politieke rechten(ICCPR),
een onderdeel van het Internationale Verdrag van de Rechten van de
Mens.
‘Israël gebruikt nieuw chemisch wapen tegen Palestijnse demonstranten in de Gazastrook‘ (Wel aandacht voor ‘Syrische gifgasaanval’ in Douma, maar als Israël daadwerkelijk dit wapen inzet, blijft het doodstil….Israël, samen met Egypte, de twee landen die nog steeds chemische wapens ontwikkelen, produceren, opslaan en…. exporteren!! (de VS heeft overigens tegen de afspraken in nog steeds grote voorraden gifgas…) Wellicht leveren deze landen ook aan de terreurgroepen, ofwel de ‘gematigde rebellen’ in Syrië, die met instemming van het westen over voorraden gifgas beschikken…… Zowel Israël als Egypte staan achter de psychopathische terreurgroepen in Syrië, groepen die in het westen zoals gezegd ‘gematigde rebellen’ worden genoemd…..
‘Christen’Unie (CU) voorzitter in de Tweede Kamer, Gert-Jan Segers heeft een interview gegeven aan de Telegraaf, waarin hij volkomen terecht stelt dat Nederland Turkije niet langer moet verdedigen ‘tegen agressie’ van Syrië.
Een verdediging die Nederland een paar jaar geleden nog deels voor haar rekening nam met de stationering van Patriot-raketten in Turkije…. Lullig genoeg was dezelfde CU destijds wel voor stationering van Patriot-raketten in Turkije, dit vanwege ‘dreigende’ Syrische agressie….. Voordewind, destijds de voorman van de CU, was zelfs blij met de stationering van Patriot-raketten in Turkije en wilde er meteen wat leveren aan Israël…… ha! ha! ha! ha! Terwijl Israël al bomvol stond met dat soort raketten, maar dat terzijde. Van agressie van Syrië tegen Turkije was toen geen sprake, zelfs niet van een dreiging daarmee……
Zoals gezegd, van die dreiging van Syrisch agressie tegen Turkije was geen enkel teken, maar toch stemde Nederland voor stationering van die raketten…… Des te vreemder, daar ook Turkije zich destijds als grote agressor gedroeg en zowel Irak als Syrië binnenviel als het haar zo uitkwam…… Deze feiten zetten ook achteraf nog grote vraagtekens bij het gezeur over artikel 5 van de NAVO: als een NAVO lidstaat wordt aangevallen, springen de andere lidstaten in de aanvalsmodus om dat land te verdedigen…….
Precies dat haalde ook Segers aan in zijn interview en hij stelde dat Turkije de grote agressor is in de regio, zo voert Turkije een smerige oorlog tegen de Koerden op Syrisch grondgebied…….. Vandaar dat Segers tegen verdere bijstand voor Turkije is.
Vreemd dat Segers zich nu hier over uitspreekt, blijkbaar is er weer sprake van een beroep op artikel 5 van de uiterst agressieve terreurorganisatie NAVO, terwijl zoals gezegd Turkije volkomen illegaal op Syrisch grondgebied een smerige oorlog uitvecht tegen de Koerden….. Dezelfde Koerden die NB met succes tegen IS hebben gevochten in Syrië, terwijl Turkije aangetoond olie heeft afgenomen van IS en deze terreurorganisatie van wapens en training heeft voorzien…….
Blijkbaar overweegt Nederland weer patriot-raketten in Turkije te stationeren, dat zou zonder meer op een schandelijke en ronduit valse voorstelling van zaken gebeuren, precies zoals Nederland dit een paar jaar geleden heeft gedaan (met ons belastinggeld en dan durven te zeuren dat we te weinig uitgeven aan defensie, terwijl volgens mij de eerdere stationering van raketten niet uit het defensie budget werd bekostigd, maar ik kan me vergissen, daar hier niets over te vinden is op het net…)…..
Segers sprak zich verder terecht uit tegen de verkeersborden in Nederland, die Turken de weg wezen naar de Turkse stembus in Nederland. Borden voor een verkiezing die niets meer met eerlijke democratische verkiezingen te maken hebben, daar de oppositie geen kans had om op radio, tv en andere media haar standpunten bekend te maken en de Turkse pers monddood is gemaakt door de zwaar corrupte regering Erdogan……
Volgens het meer dan waardeloze kabinet Rutte 3 is dat wat ‘we doen bij verkiezingen’, waar Segers (nogmaals) terecht stelde dat dit alleen het geval zou moeten zijn bij democratische verkiezingen, waar in dit geval geen sprake van was…… Ach ja, Nederland is de grootste EU handelspartner van de reli-fascistische Erdogan dictatuur…….
Het meest belachelijke wat Segers te berde bracht was wel dat hij niet wil dat Turkije uit de NAVO wordt gezet……. Dit terwijl hij, zoals hiervoor al gesteld, Turkije ziet als een dictatuur, die agressief (en illegaal) tekeer gaat in buurland Syrië…….. Ongelofelijk, al ziet Segers de NAVO ‘uiteraard’ niet als een agressieve organisatie, is de NAVO dat wel, alleen al door de deelname van Turkije aan dit bondgenootschap, om nog maar te zwijgen over de feitelijke baas van de NAVO, de grootste terreurentiteit op aarde, de VS (alleen deze eeuw begon de VS al 4 illegale oorlogen en intussen, heeft de VS, sinds het jaar 2000, al dik meer dan 2 miljoen mensen vermoord…)……
