President Trump yesterday claimed he would be leaving US troops in Syria to make sure no one takes the oil. Leaving aside who's oil it actually is (hint: it's in Syria), what are the logistics and what is the wisdom of leaving a couple of hundred US troops dispersed through Syria to guard oil facilities? Good move? Dumb move? Don't miss today's Liberty Report... read on...
The Courage Foundation, an international protection and advocacy group for whistleblowers, has published the findings of a panel it convened last week on the extremely suspicious behavior of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in its investigation of an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria last year. After hearing an extensive presentation from a member of the OPCW’s Douma investigation team, the panel’s members (including a world-renowned former OPCW Director General) report that they are “unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018.”
I’ll get to the panel and its findings in a moment, but first I should provide some historical background so that readers who aren’t intimately familiar with this ongoing scandal can fully appreciate the significance of this new development.
In late March of last year, President Trump publicly stated that the US military would soon be withdrawing troops from Syria, causing some with an ear to the ground like independent US congressional candidate Steve Cox to predict that there would shortly be a false flag chemical weapons attack in that nation. This was because the public had already been shown that highly suspicious chemical attacks tended to happen when the Trump administration begins pushing for a reversal of standing US Syria policy, as I noted in April 2017 immediately following the alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun. read on...
I was deeply shaken while witnessing Monday's events in Westminster Magistrates Court. Every decision was railroaded through over the scarcely heard arguments and objections of Assange’s legal team, by a magistrate who barely pretended to be listening. read on...
American taxpayers are now paying the salaries and expenses of dozens of Venezuelan opposition figures who have created a “shadow government” inside Venezuela and abroad. On October 8, USAID signed a bilateral agreement with the faction of the Venezuelan opposition led by National Assembly president Juan Guaidó (whom the Trump administration recognizes as the “interim president” of Venezuela) that includes $98 million in assistance for Venezuelans. A memo obtained by the L.A. Times reveals that USAID is diverting $41.9 million from aid for Central America and instead sending it “to Guaidó and his faction… to pay for their salaries, airfare, ‘good governance’ training, propaganda, technical assistance for holding elections and other ‘democracy-building’ projects.”
Elliott Abrams, the White House’s special envoy to Venezuela, said in an interview that the Trump administration wants to “pay for embassies, ambassadors [and] a National Assembly office in Caracas” for Guaidó’s team. At the signing of the USAID agreement, Carlos Vecchio, Mr. Guaidó’s representative in Washington, praised the agency for helping to “enhance our capabilities… in increasing our foreign service,” confirming that funds are going to the Guaidó team. With this public admission of financing, there is now no denying that the coup is orchestrated from Washington and that whatever authority Mr. Guaidó may have is only a function of his serving as a US proxy.
To date, no information has been made public as to whose salaries are being paid and how much they are being paid. What we do know is that the hard-earned dollars of American citizens are lining the pockets of Venezuelan politicians who have demanded an increasingly harder line against the Maduro government. This harder line includes brutal economic sanctions that amount to the collective punishment of ordinary Venezuelans and have led to the death of at least 40,000 people. read on...
President Trump announced this morning that the US would continue to withdraw from Syria and allow the countries in the region to solve their own border disputes. He claims the US was 100 percent responsible for the destruction of ISIS. He blamed the Obama Administration for not removing Assad, blaming him for gassing his own people. Is the war over? Watch today's Liberty Report... read on...
By a vote of 354-60 last week the US House of Representative proved that Imperial Washington is addicted to war, and that the level of ignorance, bellicosity and mendacity among the people's representative has reach appalling heights. read on...
While US President Donald Trump may be serious about pulling troops out of Syria, that doesn’t mean Washington intends to stop meddling there, as evidenced by taxpayer dollars he just sent to the fake rescue group “White Helmets.”
The White House announced a $4.5 million donation to the group on Tuesday, citing the “important and highly valued” work the group has done rescuing “more than 115,000 people” over the course of Syria’s 8-year conflict. Left unsaid was that the number comes from the White Helmets themselves; or that they were only set up in 2014; or that they only operate in parts of Syria controlled by anti-government militants, while the actual Syrian civil defense has been placed under US sanctions along with everyone else loyal to Damascus.
Mentioning any of those things would be introducing complications into the simplified morality play that has been sold to the American people since 2011, when US officials encouraged “Arab Spring” uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa – including Syria, where they turned into a brutal sectarian conflict. read on...
From the moment that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Davos) announced reluctantly that impeachment proceedings would begin against President Trump I knew this was about his shift in Middle East policy. read on...
Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange appeared yesterday before a UK judge to request more time to prepare his case against the US extradition request. Acting more like a Soviet tribunal, the judge went on to deny his every request. He is not allowed to prepare to fight his extradition. Even though Assange has served his time for "jumping bail" the British court ruled that he must remain in prison. His shocking mental and physical condition after being held for months in UK's notorious Belmarsh prison only confirms the UN torture official's assessment that he is being tortured by the US and UK governments. Why? For publishing the truth. The lesson to others is clear: challenge the global US military empire and you will be destroyed. Watch today's Liberty Report... read on...
There was what might be described as an extraordinary amount of nonsense being promoted by last week’s media. Unfortunately, some of it was quite dangerous. Admiral William McRaven, who commanded the Navy Seals when Osama bin Laden was captured and killed and who has been riding that horse ever since, announced that if Donald Trump continues to fail to provide the type of leadership the country needs, he should be replaced by whatever means are necessary. The op-ed entitled “Our Republic is Under Attack by the President” with the subtitle “If President Trump doesn’t demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office” was featured in the New York Times, suggesting that the Gray Lady was providing its newspaper of record seal of approval for what might well be regarded as a call for a military coup.
McRaven’s exact words, after some ringing praise for the military and all its glorious deeds in past wars, were that the soldiers, sailors and marines now must respond because “The America that they believed in was under attack, not from without, but from within.”
McRaven then elaborated that “These men and women, of all political persuasions, have seen the assaults on our institutions: on the intelligence and law enforcement community, the State Department and the press. They have seen our leaders stand beside despots and strongmen, preferring their government narrative to our own. They have seen us abandon our allies and have heard the shouts of betrayal from the battlefield. As I stood on the parade field at Fort Bragg, one retired four-star general, grabbed my arm, shook me and shouted, ‘I don’t like the Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!’” read on...
