Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Le Musée de l’Holocauste retire une étude sur l’inaction d’Obama en #Syrie | The Times of Israël
▻http://fr.timesofisrael.com/le-musee-de-lholocauste-retire-une-etude-sur-linaction-dobama-en-s

Le rapport [...] a déterminé qu’une intervention américaine après l’attaque chimique de 2013 contre Ghouta n’aurait pas réduit les atrocités dans le pays et aurait même pu y contribuer, selon Tablet.

Un message publié sur le site du musée indique que « la semaine dernière, le Centre Simon-Skjodt pour la prévention des génocides du Musée mémorial de l’Holocauste a publié une étude qui examinait plusieurs décisions prises pendant le conflit syrien. Depuis sa publication, plusieurs personnes avec qui nous avons étroitement travaillé sur la Syrie depuis l’éclatement du conflit ont fait part de leur inquiétude au sujet de cette étude. Le Musée a décidé de supprimer l’étude de son site internet le temps que nous examinions ces retours. »

Here Is the Syria Report the Holocaust Museum Unpublished
▻http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/here-is-the-holocaust-museum-syria-report.html

Le weekend arrive. C’est le moment pour perfectionner mon anglais.
Modern Newspeak Dictionary
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/21/modern-newspeak-dictionary

https://independentaustralia.net/_lib/slir/w600-h900/https://independentaustralia.net/i/article/img/article-6662-hero.jpg

Chaos, n.
Actual meaning: Functional.
Usage: We can either have a society in which the entirety of the legislative and juridical process is dominated by and functions to uphold the tiniest minority of the mega-rich at the expense of the other 99% of the population or we can have chaos.

Communist (1), n.
Actual meaning: Independent thinker.
Usage: If you think for yourself, the communists win.

Entitlement, n.
Actual meaning: Right.
Usage: We had to cut back on the amount of oxygen entitlements in the atmosphere in the name of maintaining a competitive economy.

Guilt, n.
Actual meaning: Self-awareness.
Usage: You and your endless guilt-mongering, I’m sick of being made to feel guilty for being a white middle class male who could time travel back 500 years and still move about freely without being molested or killed by Jim Crow, slave traders or witch hunters.

Jobs, n.
Actual meaning: Profits.
Usage: As everyone knows, the main reason anyone ever goes into business is because of the jobs motive.

Leftist, n.
Actual meaning: angry ghetto troll.
Usage: Don’t mind that angry ghetto troll, he’s just a leftist.

War (2), n.

Actual meaning: Turkey shoot.
Usage: The drone war in Pakistan killed tens of thousands of non-combatants and people who were determined to be terrorists after they were dead by remote controlled drones.

Work, n.
Actual meaning: Wage-slavery.
Usage: Entrepreneurs! Don’t tie up valuable capital in your slaves – lease them instead! Sick and tired of the hassles associated with having to feed, clothe and house your slaves? With our new system of wage labour, you can still exploit them, and with the fraction of the value they create you pay them in wages they can do the job themselves!

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/imagenes_sociopol/bigbrother_03.jpg

#anglais #orwell #novlangue #USA

An Idiot’s Guide to Why They Hate Us
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/22/an-idiots-guide-to-why-they-hate-us

http://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/dropzone/2015/12/shutterstock_321867671.jpg

“We lead the world,” presidential candidate Obama explained eight seven years ago, “in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good…. America is the last, best hope of Earth.” Obama elaborated in his first Inaugural Address. “Our security,” the president said, “emanates from the justness of our cause; the force of our example; the tempering qualities of humility and restraint”—a fascinating commentary on Fallujah, Hiroshima, the U.S. crucifixion of Southeast Asia, the “Highway of Death” and more.

#Etats-Unis

Destroying Syria to Create Sunnistan
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/09/destroying-syria-to-create-sunnistan

Commentaires par l’ultra-gauche US d’un édito assez fracassant de John Bolton, ex ambass de Bush en Irak si ma mémoire est bonne... En gros, l’idée de redessiner la carte du Moyen-Orient est toujours là, avec des forces « sunnites » pour remplacer celles de l’Etat islamique.... On en parle aussi dans la presse arabe, là ▻http://www.raialyoum.com/?p=358192 par exemple .

The message the US military is sending with these lethal attacks is that it wants to control the air-space over east Syria where it plans to remove ISIS and establish a de facto Sunni state consistent with its scheme to break Syria and Iraq into smaller cantons governed by local warlords, Islamic fanatics, and US puppets. A great deal has been written about this topic already, so we won’t spend too much time on it here. A recent op-ed in the New York Times by neocon John Bolton sums up the basic concept which appears to be supported by virtually the entire US political establishment. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“Today’s reality is that Iraq and Syria as we have known them are gone. ….. Rather than striving to recreate the post-World War I map, Washington should recognize the new geopolitics. The best alternative to the Islamic State in northeastern Syria and western Iraq is a new, independent Sunni state….

This Sunni state proposal differs sharply from the vision of the Russian-Iranian axis and its proxies (Hezbollah, Mr. Assad and Tehran-backed Baghdad). Their aim of restoring Iraqi and Syrian governments to their former borders is a goal fundamentally contrary to American, Israeli and friendly Arab state interests….

The new “Sunni-stan” may not be Switzerland. This is not a democracy initiative, but cold power politics. It is consistent with the strategic objective of obliterating the Islamic State that we share with our allies, and it is achievable.” (“John Bolton: To Defeat ISIS, Create a Sunni State“, New York Times)

Like we said, the Bolton piece is just one of many articles and policy papers that support the partitioning of Iraq and Syria and the redrawing of the map of the Middle East. ISIS, which is largely an invention of western Intel agencies and their Gulf counterparts, is a critical component in this overall plan.

Maybe We Should Stop Sending Weapons Where We Can’t Keep Track of Them
▻http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39474/yemen-lost-weapons

​I’m beginning to have serious doubts about the wisdom of our policy in the Middle East.

Hem... “Beginning” ?

The US: Feeding the War Machine
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/05/the-us-feeding-the-war-machine

This is not a new phenomenon; the U.S. is forever creating and arming deadly monsters, and then fighting them. This is excellent business for both U.S. weapons manufacturers, and undertakers around the world.

#Etats-Unis #Criminel

US Caught Faking It in Syria
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/12/us-caught-faking-it-in-syria

I don’t think it can get much clearer than that. The US-Israeli plan in Syria has never been about helping anyone in that country, but rather insuring its effective dismemberment so as to further the perceived “strategic interests” of the Jewish state.

As Tomás Alcoverro, the longtime Mideast correspondent of Barcelona’s La Vanguardia newspaper wrote on 9 October 2015, in reference to the combined Russian and Syrian government attacks carried out during the previous week: “If this joint offensive is successful, the US plan for continuing the war of attrition until both sides are exhausted will lie in ruins”.

Volkswagen and the Quandary of Hidden Code
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/01/volkswagen-and-the-quandary-of-hidden-code

http://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/dropzone/2015/09/vehicle_hacking-510x321.png

Though the media may be inclined to shine a spotlight on #Volkswagen and its systemic rigging of emission control systems the public record shows that the practice of secretly modifying technology to enable questionable features is fairly widespread. For example, accessing computers using hidden code is a mainstay of #NSA #surveillance and they’ve gotten so adept at it that plans have been drawn up to industrialize attacks against millions of machines at a time. (...)

#Hidden_code represents control, it represents power.

 Cessez de bombarder la Syrie !
▻http://www.info-palestine.eu/spip.php?article15645

De Couterpunch News Service

Nous sommes gravement préoccupés par la possibilité d’une décision parlementaire de bombarder la Syrie. David Cameron projette d’obtenir un tel vote à la Chambre des Communes dans un avenir proche.

Il s’engage dans cette voie alors que de nombreuses preuves indiquent qu’une telle action aggraverait la situation qu’elle est censée résoudre.

Déjà nous avons pu voir le meurtre de civils et l’exacerbation de la crise des réfugiés qui est pour une grande part le résultat des guerres en Syrie, en Irak, en Lybie et en Afghanistan.

Les Etats-Unis et leurs alliés ont déversé 20 000 bombes sur l’Irak et la Syrie ou cours de la dernière année, sans grand résultat.

Nous craignons que cette nouvelle extension de la guerre ne fasse qu’aggraver la menace du terrorisme, comme l’ont fait les guerres précédentes dans lesquelles le gouvernement britannique était engagé.

Cameron, utilise avec cynisme la crise des réfugies pour prôner encore plus de guerres.

On ne devrait pas le laisser faire !

– Mark Rylance
– Charlotte Church
– John Williams
– Mairead Maguire Nobel peace laureate
– Brian Eno
– Len McCluskey General secretary, Unite the Union
– Christine Shawcroft Labour NEC
– Diane Abbott MP
– Jenny Tonge
– Caroline Lucas MP
– Andrew Murray Chair, Stop the War Campaign
– Lindsey German Convenor, STWC
– Tariq Ali
– John Pilger
– Tim Lezard
– David Edgar
– Alan Gibbons
– Andy de la Tour
– Michael Rosen
– Eugene Skeef
– Victoria Brittain
– Anders Lustgarten
– David Gentleman
– David Swanson
– Gerry Grehan Peace People Belfast

28 septembre 2015 - Counterpunch - Vous pouvez consulter cet article à :
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09...
Traduction : Info-Palestine.eu - MJB

Israel, “Securocratic” Warfare and the #Pacification Industry
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/14/israel-securocratic-warfare-and-the-pacification-industry

http://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/dropzone/2015/09/halperwar.jpg

For 18 years Jeff Halper has been on the front lines of the Israel-Palestine conflict, helping to rebuild Palestinian homes in the occupied territories demolished by Israel. As he prepares to step down as head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), he is publishing a new book on Israel.

Halper’s main conclusion is disturbing. Israel, he says, is globalising #Palestine.

The former anthropology professor’s wide-ranging research has forced him into an expertise he is not entirely comfortable with: the global arms industry.

Halper argues that Israel is cashing in – both financially and diplomatically – on systems of control it has developed in the occupied territories. It is exporting its know-how to global elites keen to protect their privileges from both external and internal challengers.

In a world supposedly mired in an endless war on terror, we may all be facing a future as Palestinians.

#Israël #Israel #armes #contrôle #devenir_palestinien

The Myth of the Middle Class: Have Most Americans Always Been Poor?
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/28/the-myth-of-the-middle-class-have-most-americans-always-been-poor

A rational and historically informed response to the legend of the middle class is that this alleged stratum of the 1920s and the Golden Age existed for a mere 34 years of American history. Before the1920s just about all working-class peole were poor. Since 1974 then we have had 42 years of burgeoning inequality, un- and underemployment, growing poverty and steadily declining wages with no end in sight. The middle class was a departure from the historic norm of a materially insecure working class, the default position of industrial capitalism.

#mythe #classe_moyenne #Etats-Unis #précarité #salaires #capitalisme

Le plan de l’Institut Brookings pour liquider la Syrie:Qu’Assad ne gouverne plus
▻http://www.almanar.com.lb/french/adetails.php?eid=252701

A lire. Très intéressant même si un peu exalté.

Quand le régime reste au pouvoir mais perd sa capacité de gouverner. C’est l’objectif actuel de la politique des États-Unis en Syrie, détruire la capacité du président syrien Bachar al-Assad à gouverner le pays sans le chasser physiquement de son poste.

L’idée est simple : déployer des intermédiaires jihadistes soutenus par les États-Unis pour prendre et tenir de vastes régions du pays et, par là, mettre le gouvernement central dans l’impossibilité de contrôler le pays. C’est la façon dont l’administration Obama projette d’agir avec Assad, en le rendant superflu. La stratégie est expliquée très en détail dans un document établi par Michael E. O’Hanlon pour l’Institut Brookings et intitulé « Déconstruire la Syrie : une nouvelle stratégie pour la guerre la plus désespérée de l’Amérique ».

Trump’s Triumph : Billionaire Blowhard Exposes Fake Political System
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/07/trumps-triumph-billionaire-blowhard-exposes-fake-political-system

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FOX News Brett Baier (talking to Trump): Now, 15 years ago, you called yourself a liberal on health care. You were for a single-payer system, a Canadian-style system. Why were you for that then and why aren’t you for it now?

TRUMP: As far as single payer, it works in Canada. It works incredibly well in Scotland. It could have worked in a different age, which is the age you’re talking about here.

What I’d like to see is a private system without the artificial lines around every state. I have a big company with thousands and thousands of employees. And if I’m negotiating in New York or in New Jersey or in California, I have like one bidder. Nobody can bid.

You know why?

Because the insurance companies are making a fortune because they have control of the politicians, of course, with the exception of the politicians on this stage. (uneasy laughter) But they have total control of the politicians. They’re making a fortune.

Get rid of the artificial lines and you will have…yourself great plans…

BAIER: Mr. Trump, it’s not just your past support for single-payer health care. You’ve also supported a host of other liberal policies….You’ve also donated to several Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton included, and Nancy Pelosi. You explained away those donations saying you did that to get business-related favors. And you said recently, quote, “When you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”

TRUMP: You’d better believe it.

BAIER: — they do?

TRUMP: If I ask them, if I need them, you know, most of the people on this stage I’ve given to, just so you understand, a lot of money.

TRUMP: I will tell you that our system is broken. I gave to many people, before this, before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me. And that’s a broken system.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did you get from Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi?

TRUMP: Well, I’ll tell you what, with Hillary Clinton, I said be at my wedding and she came to my wedding. You know why?

She didn’t have a choice because I gave. ...

#Orwell,#Huxley and America’s Plunge into Authoritarianism
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/19/orwell-huxley-and-americas-plunge-into-authoritarianism

Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. … As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

The Shack Dwellers Movement in South Africa » CounterPunch
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/29/the-shack-dwellers-movement-in-south-africa

http://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/dropzone/2015/05/shack2.jpg

Hundreds of shack dwellers descended upon the Durban High Court in support of Abahlali baseMjondolo’s court appearance to defend their right to remain on state-owned land in the eThekwini (Durban) municipality.

#bidonvilles #afrique_du_sud #militer

Saudi Arabia’s Yemen Strategy: Divide and Destroy » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/03/saudi-arabias-yemen-strategy-divide-and-destroy

Saudi Arabia’s Yemen Strategy: Divide and Destroy
by MICHAEL HORTON

“Donkey breeders and solar panel dealers are the only one’s making any money at the moment,” says Salim, a resident of Sana’a. Salim is eluding to the fact that most of Yemen, a country of 26 million, is without gasoline and electricity. “We are back to using donkeys to move supplies but I guess the solar panels are a step forward,” he says with a laugh.

#yémen #arabie_saoudite

Why is Obama Goading China? » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/29/why-is-obama-goading-china

US powerbrokers know that bullying China involves significant risks for themselves and the world. Even so, they have decided to pursue this new policy and force a confrontation. Why? Why would they embark on a strategy so fraught with danger?

The answer is: They don’t see any way around it. They’ve tried containment and it hasn’t worked.

Pour la petite histoire:

Not surprisingly, the US is challenging China under the provisions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a document the US has stubbornly refused to ratify.

#Etats-unis #Chine #Force

America Breaks the Middle East » by #ANDREW_LEVINE CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/29/america-breaks-the-middle-east

America’s goals in the Middle East are clear: it wants Middle Eastern countries to serve the needs of American capitalists and to advance their interests; and it wants to impose a pax Americana, a stable regional order maintained under American domination.

It has been this way since even before the end of World War II.

[...]

For America’s part, it is not a case of malevolence for malevolence’s sake. The people who determine national interests in capitalist societies are seldom evil. But, in their world, what counts are oil, guns and money, not people – at least not people who are neither economically powerful nor politically connected.

America’s goals are clear; what is unclear is how to realize them, how to get from here to there.

Our foreign policy establishment has never been good at developing clear and coherent strategies. This is not usually a problem, the way it would be in other countries; the United States can throw its weight around enough to get by on force alone.

However, brawn cannot substitute for brains entirely – or forever. Even a country that strides the world like a colossus sometimes needs a plan.

[...]

The people running the show in the Bush-Obama War on Terror (or whatever the Obama administration chooses to call it) are inept and in way over their heads.

And so, the United States muddles along – from crisis to crisis. For at least the past decade, there has been no #coherence, and very little rhyme or reason, to any of it.

The last more or less coherent strategy America deployed was the neoconservative one that took hold in the first years of the Bush-Cheney administration. It was a disaster.

#Etats-unis (absence de) #stratégie

Why Iran Must Remain a US Enemy
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/04/why-iran-must-remain-a-us-enemy

Gareth Porter : du fait des énormes sommes d’argent en jeu pour les vendeurs d’armes étasuniens, les Etats-Unis ne sont pas prêts à conclure un accord avec l’Iran

Since the start of the US nuclear negotiations with Iran, both Israeli and Saudi officials have indulged in highly publicised handwringing over their belief that such a nuclear deal would represent a fundamental strategic shift in US policy towards the region at the expense of its traditional alliances with Israel and Saudi Arabia.

But the Obama administration is no more likely to lurch into a new relationship with Iran than were previous US administrations. The reason is very simple: The US national security state, which has the power to block any such initiative, has fundamental long-term interests in the continuation of the policy of treating Iran as an enemy.

[...]

Since 2002 the US Department of Defense has spent roughly $100bn on missile defence, most of which goes directly to its major military contractor allies. That bonanza depends largely on the idea that Iran is intent on threatening the US and its allies with ballistic missiles.

But an even bigger bonanza for the US arms industry is at stake. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf regimes in the anti-Iran alliance have been pouring big money into Pentagon arms contractor coffers for years. A deal with Saudi Arabia for fighter planes and missile defence technology first announced in 2010 was expected to yield$100-150bn in procurement and service contracts over two decades. And that tsunami of money from the Gulf depends on identifying Iran as a military threat to the entire region.

These sales are now integral to the health of the leading US military contractors. Lockheed, for example, now depends on foreign sales for as much as 25-33 percent of its revenue, according to the Times story.

So the Israeli and Saudi fear of a supposed Obama shift in alliances doesn’t reflect fundamental domestic US political realities that are not likely to change for the foreseeable future.

Biased Reporting on Syria in the Service of War » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
►http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/20/biased-reporting-on-syria-in-the-service-of-war

The HRW report relies heavily on testimony and video/photo evidence from a biased source known as “Syria Civil Defence”. This organization is not what one might assume. Syria Civil Defence was funded and created by UK and USA. Initial training was provided in Turkey by former British military officer and current contractor based in Dubai. In the past year Syria Civil Defence has been rebranded as “White Helmets” by “The Syria Campaign” which itself is the creation of corporate PR firm. Syrian Civil Defence (aka White Helmets) is heavily into social media and actively campaigning for a No Fly Zone. The HRW report does not include any of the preceding information on Syria Civil Defence, its origins and obvious bias. Shouldn’t “evidence” received from them be considered with a skeptical eye?

Via Angry Arab, tout l’article est très intéressant.

#syrie #manipulation #désinformation

Biased Reporting on Syria in the Service of War
►http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/20/biased-reporting-on-syria-in-the-service-of-war

8. The HRW report ignores the fact that Nusra rebels had control of the major chlorine gas producing factory and stockpile in northern Syria. As reported in a Time magazine article, the major chlorine gas producing factory in northern Syria was over-run and seized by Nusra rebels/terrorists in late 2012. The owner of the factory said “ if it turns out chlorine gas was used in the attack, then the first possibility is that it was mine. There is no other factory in Syria that can make this gas, and now it is under opposition control.” The factory owner reported there were about 400 steel cylinders of chlorine gas, one Ton each, captured by Nusra/Al Queda along with the factory.

The article included the following prescient comments, delivered when chlorine gas usage was first reported: “To Faris al-Shehabi, head of the Aleppo Chamber of Industry and a strong government supporter, it was obvious from Day One that the rebels had their eyes on the gas. “Why else would they capture a factory in the middle of nowhere? For the sniper positions?” he asks sarcastically while meeting TIME in Beirut, where he is traveling for business. “We warned back then that chemical components were in the hands of terrorists, but no one listened.”

Was HRW not aware of these important facts or did they think them not relevant?