organization:us state department

  • The New York Times and its Uyghur “activist” - World Socialist Web Site
    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/09/uygh-m09.html

    9 May 2019 - The New York Times has furnished a case study of the way in which it functions as the conduit for the utterly hypocritical “human rights” campaigns fashioned by the CIA and the State Department to prosecute the predatory interests of US imperialism.

    While turning a blind eye to the gross abuses of democratic rights by allies such as Saudi Arabia, the US has brazenly used “human rights” for decades as the pretext for wars, diplomatic intrigues and regime-change. The media is completely integrated into these operations.

    Another “human rights” campaign is now underway. The New York Times is part of the mounting chorus of condemnation of China over its treatment of the Turkic-speaking, Muslim Uyghur minority in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

    In an article on May 4 entitled “In push for trade deal, Trump administration shelves sanctions over China’s crackdown on Uyghurs,” the New York Times joined in criticism of the White House, particularly by the Democrats, for failing to impose punitive measures on Beijing.

    The strident denunciations of China involve unsubstantiated allegations that it is detaining millions of Uyghurs without charge or trial in what Beijing terms vocational training camps.

    The New York Times reported, without qualification, the lurid claims of US officials, such as Assistant Secretary of Defence Randall Schriver, who last Friday condemned “the mass imprisonment of Chinese Muslims in concentration camps” and boosted the commonly cited figure of up to a million to “up to three million” in detention. No evidence has been presented for either claim.

    The repression of the Uyghurs is completely bound up with the far broader oppression of the working class by the Chinese capitalist elites and the Chinese Communist Party regime that defends their interests. The US campaign on the Uyghurs, however, has nothing to do with securing the democratic rights of workers, but is aimed at stirring up reactionary separatist sentiment.

    The US has longstanding ties to right-wing separatist organisations based on Chinese minorities—Tibetans as well as the Uyghurs—that it helped create, fund and in some cases arm. As the US, first under President Obama and now Trump, has escalated its diplomatic, economic and military confrontation with China, the “human rights” of Uyghurs has been increasingly brought to the fore.

    Washington’s aim, at the very least, is to foment separatist opposition in Xinjiang, which is a crucial source of Chinese energy and raw materials as well as being pivotal to its key Belt and Road Initiative to integrate China more closely with Eurasia. Such unrest would not only weaken China but could lead to a bloody war and the fracturing of the country. Uyghur separatists, who trained in the US network of Islamist terrorist groups in Syria, openly told Radio Free Asia last year of their intention to return to China to wage an armed insurgency.

    The New York Times is completely in tune with the aims behind these intrigues—a fact that is confirmed by its promotion of Uyghur “activist” Rushan Abbas.

    Last weekend’s article highlighted Abbas as the organiser of a tiny demonstration in Washington to “pressure Treasury Department officials to take action against Chinese officials involved in the Xinjiang abuses.” She told the newspaper that the Uyghur issue should be included as part of the current US-China trade talks, and declared: “They are facing indoctrination, brainwashing and the elimination of their values as Muslims.”

    An article “Uyghur Americans speak against China’s internment camps” on October 18 last year cited her remarks at the right-wing think tank, the Hudson Institute, where she “spoke out” about the detention of her aunt and sister. As reported in the article: “I hope the Chinese ambassador here reads this,” she said, wiping away tears. “I will not stop. I will be everywhere and speak on this at every event from now on.”

    Presented with a tearful woman speaking about her family members, very few readers would have the slightest inkling of Abbas’s background, about which the New York Times quite deliberately says nothing. Abbas is a highly connected political operator with long standing ties to the Pentagon, the State Department and US intelligence agencies at the highest level as well as top Republican Party politicians. She is a key figure in the Uyghur organisations that the US has supported and funded.

    Currently, Abbas is Director of Business Development in ISI Consultants, which offers to assist “US companies to grow their businesses in Middle East and African markets.” Her credentials, according to the company website, include “over 15 years of experience in global business development, strategic business analysis, business consultancy and government affairs throughout the Middle East, Africa, CIS regions, Europe, Asia, Australia, North America and Latin America.”

    The website also notes: “She also has extensive experience working with US government agencies, including Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of State, Department of Justice, and various US intelligence agencies.” As “an active campaigner for human rights,” she “works closely with members of the US Senate, Congressional Committees, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, the US Department of State and several other US government departments and agencies.”

    This brief summary makes clear that Abbas is well connected in the highest levels of the state apparatus and in political circles. It also underscores the very close ties between the Uyghur organisations, in which she and her family members are prominent, and the US intelligence and security agencies.

    A more extensive article and interview with Abbas appeared in the May 2019 edition of the magazine Bitter Winter, which is published by the Italian-based Center for Studies on New Religions. The magazine focuses on “religious liberty and human rights in China” and is part of a conservative, right-wing network in Europe and the United States. The journalist who interviewed Abbas, Marco Respinti, is a senior fellow at the Russell Kirk Centre for Cultural Renewal, and a board member of the Centre for European Renewal—both conservative think tanks.

    The article explains that Abbas was a student activist at Xinjiang University during the 1989 protests by students and workers against the oppressive Beijing regime, but left China prior to the brutal June 4 military crackdown that killed thousands in the capital and throughout the country. At the university, she collaborated with Dolkun Isa and “has worked closely with him ever since.”

    Dolkun Isa is currently president of the World Uyghur Congress, established in 2004 as an umbrella group for a plethora of Uyghur organisations. It receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy—which is one of the fronts used by the CIA and the US State Department for fomenting opposition to Washington’s rivals, including so-called colour revolutions, around the world.

    Isa was the subject of an Interpol red notice after China accused him of having connections to the armed separatist group, the East Turkestan Liberation Organisation, a claim he denied. East Turkestan is the name given to Xinjiang by Uyghur separatists to denote its historic connections to Turkey. None of the Western countries in which he traveled moved to detain him and the red notice was subsequently removed, no doubt under pressure from Washington.

    Bitter Winter explained that after moving to the US, Abbas cofounded the first Uyghur organisation in the United States in 1993—the California-based Tengritagh Overseas Students and Scholars Association. She also played a key role in the formation of the Uyghur American Association in 1998, which receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Last year its Uyghur Human Rights Project was awarded two NED grants totaling $320,000. Her brother Rishat Abbas was the association’s first vice-chairman and is currently the honorary chairman of the Uyghur Academy based in Turkey.

    When the US Congress funded a Uyghur language service for the Washington-based Radio Free Asia, Abbas became its first reporter and news anchor, broadcasting daily to China. Radio Free Asia, like its counterpart Radio Free Europe, began its existence in the 1950s as a CIA conduit for anti-communist propaganda. It was later transferred to the US Information Agency, then the US State Department and before being incorporated as an “independent,” government-funded body. Its essential purpose as a vehicle for US disinformation and lies has not changed, however.

    In a particularly revealing passage, Bitter Winter explained: “From 2002–2003, Ms. Abbas supported Operation Enduring Freedom as a language specialist at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.” In the course of the interview with the magazine, Abbas attempted to explain away her involvement with the notorious prison camp by saying that she was simply acting on behalf of 22 Uyghurs who were wrongfully detained and ultimately released—after being imprisoned for between four to 11 years!

    Given the denunciations of Chinese detention camps, one might expect that Abbas would have something critical to say about Guantanamo Bay, where inmates are held indefinitely without charge or trial and in many cases tortured. However, she makes no criticism of the prison or its procedures, nor for that matter of Operation Enduring Freedom—the illegal US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq that resulted in the deaths of a million civilians.

    It is clear why. Abbas is plugged into to the very top levels of the US state apparatus and political establishment in Washington. Her stints with Radio Free Asia and at Guantanamo Bay are undoubtedly not the only times that she has been directly on the payroll.

    As Bitter Winter continued: “She has frequently briefed members of the US Congress and officials at the State Department on the human rights situation of the Uyghur people, and their history and culture, and arranged testimonies before Congressional committees and Human Rights Commissions.

    “She provided her expertise to other federal and military agencies as well, and in 2007 she assisted during a meeting between then-President George W. Bush and Rebiya Kadeer, the world-famous moral leader of the Uyghurs, in Prague. Later that year she also briefed then First Lady Laura Bush in the White House on the Human Rights situation in Xinjiang.”

    It should be noted, Rebiya Kadeer is the “the world-famous moral leader of the Uyghurs,” only in the eyes of the CIA and the US State Department who have assiduously promoted her, and of the US-funded Uyghur organisations. She was one of the wealthiest businesswomen in China who attended the National People’s Congress before her husband left for the US and began broadcasting for Radio Free Asia and Voice of America. She subsequently fled China to the US and has served as president both of the World Uyghur Congress and the American Uyghur Association.

    The fact that Russan Abbas is repeatedly being featured in the New York Times is an indication that she is also being groomed to play a leading role in the mounting US propaganda offensive against China over the persecution of the Uyghurs. It is also a telling indictment of the New York Times which opens its pages to her without informing its readers of her background. Like Abbas, the paper of record is also plugged into the state apparatus and its intelligence agencies.

    #Chine #Xinjiang_Weiwuer_zizhiqu #USA #impérialisme #services_secretes

    新疆維吾爾自治區 / 新疆维吾尔自治区, Xīnjiāng Wéiwú’ěr zìzhìqū, englisch Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

  • US cuts millions of dollars’ worth of aid to Palestinians
    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/08/palestine-us-aid-cuts-projects-economy.html

    The US State Department has announced plans to cut $200 million in aid for Palestinians this year. These funds are to be redirected to high-priority projects elsewhere, the State Department said, giving no further explanation.

    A senior State Department official told Reuters Aug. 24, “We have undertaken a review of US assistance to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with US national interests and provide value to the US taxpayer.”

    He added, “As a result of that review, at the direction of the president, we will redirect more than $200 million in [fiscal year] 2017 Economic Support Funds originally planned for programs in the West Bank and Gaza.”

    #palestine

  • US Condemns Syria’s Decision to Recognize 2 Breakaway #Georgia Regions | Asharq AL-awsat
    https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1284956/us-condemns-syria%E2%80%99s-decision-recognize-2-breakaway-georgia-regions

    The United States condemned on Wednesday the Syrian regime for recognizing two breakaway regions in Georgia and establishing diplomatic ties with them.

    “The United States strongly condemns the Syrian regime’s intention to establish diplomatic relations with the Russian-occupied Georgian regions of #Abkhazia and #South_Ossetia,” US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

    It added that it fully backed Georgia’s independence and reiterating its call for Russia to withdraw from the area.

    “_These regions are part of Georgia. The United States’ position on Abkhazia and South Ossetia is unwavering,” the statement said.

    On Tuesday [29/05/18], Georgia said it would sever diplomatic relations with Syria after Damascus moved to recognize the two regions as independent states.

    With this act the Assad regime declared its support for Russia’s military aggression against Georgia, the illegal occupation of Abkhazia and (South Ossetia) regions and the ethnic cleansing that has been taking place for years,” Georgia said.

    Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru previously recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which broke away from Georgia following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

  • Syria chemical attack: Scores killed in Douma, rescuers say | News | Al Jazeera
    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/suspected-chemical-attack-kills-dozens-syria-douma-180407202906316.html

    Vous n’êtes pas obligé d’y croire... #syrie

    http://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/syria-denies-chemical-attacks-on-douma/news-story/ddd7bfdc568594195f594f653ecab59f

    100 dead in suspected gas attack in Syria

    The US State Department says reports of mass casualties from an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria would, if confirmed

  • Has Kushner given Riyadh carte blanche? - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

    https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/en/originals/2017/11/jared-kushner-saudi-arabia-carte-blanche-destablize-region.amp.html

    WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have found themselves at odds of late with US State Department diplomats and Defense Department leadership, taking provocative actions by blockading Qatar; summoning Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Riyadh earlier this month, where he abruptly resigned; and blockading since Nov. 6 major Yemeni ports from desperately needed humanitarian aid shipments in retaliation for a Nov. 4 Houthi missile strike targeting Riyadh’s international airport.

    The State and Defense departments have urged Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to ease their pressure campaigns on Qatar and Lebanon and improve aid access in Yemen to avert catastrophic famine. But Saudi and Emirati officials have suggested to US diplomatic interlocutors that they feel they have at least tacit approval from the White House for their hard-line actions, in particular from President Donald Trump and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, who Trump has tasked with leading his Middle East peace efforts.

    Kushner has reportedly established a close rapport with UAE Ambassador to the United States Yousef al-Otaiba, as well as good relations with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with whom Kushner met in Riyadh in late October.

    But growing US bureaucratic dismay at perceived Saudi/Emirati overreach, as well as Kushner’s mounting legal exposure in the Russia investigations, has many veteran US diplomats, policymakers and lobbyists urging regional players to be cautious about basing their foreign policy on any perceived green light, real or not, from the Kushner faction at the White House. They warn the mixed messages could cause Gulf allies to miscalculate and take actions that harm US interests. And they worry US diplomacy has often seemed hesitant, muted and delayed in resolving recent emerging crises in the Middle East, in part because of the perceived divide between the State Department and the Department of Defense on one side and the White House on the other, making US mediation efforts less effective and arguably impeding US national security interests.

  • After PLO halts ties with US, Arab League steps in to salvage peace process
    Nov. 20, 2017 10:29 A.M. (Updated: Nov. 20, 2017 10:30 A.M.)
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=779498

    BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The Arab League has reportedly approached the United States government regarding its recent decision to punitively shut down the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Washington D.C, over the Palestinian leadership’s efforts to bring Israel before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

    Official Palestinian Authority (PA)-owned Wafa news agency reported on Sunday, shortly after the US State Department announced its decision, that the Arab League — a regional organization of 22 Arab countries — announced that its Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit approached the US President Donald Trump’s administration over the closure.

    The league is reportedly attempting to do damage control and resume US-led peace negotiations following the PLO’s reaction to the closure, in which the group’s secretary general, Saeb Erekat, threatened to “put on hold all our communications with this American administration" if the US did in fact close the PLO Washington office.

    According to Wafa, Aboul Gheit met with the league’s foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, where the two discussed the the official position of the PLO and the PA, “saying it will harm the peace process and the role of the US as peace broker.”

    The PLO announced in September its decision to submit a request to the ICC to investigate illegal Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

    Separately, four Palestinian human rights organizations submitted a 700-page communication to the ICC alleging that Israeli officials have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

    International media reported that the PLO’s plans would breach conditions previously imposed by US Congress on the PLO, preventing it from taking any cases to the ICC.

    The PLO office could allegedly be reopened 90 days after closure if Trump believes the PLO has entered into “direct, meaningful negotiations with Israel.”

    The events came amid weeks of speculation in Israeli and Palestinian media over the Trump administrations “ultimate peace plan” for the region, which is set to be presented soon.

  • #CIA killed first PM of #Pakistan | The Daily Star
    http://www.thedailystar.net/world/south-asia/cia-killed-first-pm-pakistan-1442917
    http://www.thedailystar.net/sites/default/files/styles/social_share/public/feature/images/pak_pm_killed_by_cia.jpg?itok=xgKW3c3y

    The United States assassinated Pakistan’s first PM, Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, more than sixty years ago, according to US State Department documents.

    Quoting the declassified State Department documents, Pakistan Today reported on Friday that Khan was murdered because of his refusal to use his office for securing oil contracts in neighboring Iran for US corporations.

    According to the report, Khan said he would neither use his friendship with officials in Tehran for dishonest purposes nor interfere in personal affairs of Iran.

    In addition, Khan also called on Washington to vacate air bases in Pakistan which US was using against the Soviet Union, upon which then-US President Harry S Truman threatened the PM with dire consequences.

    According to the documents, following these developments, the CIA began to search for an assassin to kill Khan.

    #etats-unis #assassinat

  • Joyce Karam, Writing In Abu Dhabi Daily, Fails To Mention #MEMRI VP Role For New Al-Hurra Head | The Mideastwire Blog
    https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/joyce-karam-writing-in-abu-dhabi-daily-fails-to-mention-memri

    A startling oversight by Joyce Karam: Her piece from the Abu Dhabi owned daily fails to mention that the new head of #Al-Hurra, Alberto Fernandez – who is supposed to save the station from irrelevancy despite hundreds of millions in US taxpayer support over the years – is the former VP of MEMRI.org, set up by the IDF colonel Yigal Carmen. MEMRI of course is an extremely polemical translation and opinion shop in DC that (as but one major problem) only translates the most violent things Arabs and Muslims say or the most pro-American things they say. Indeed, MEMRI’s harmful limitations – and its corrosive effects on Beltway thinking – are precisely why we started Mideastwire.com 12 years ago.
     
    She writes simply: “Alberto Fernandez, who arrived at MBN following three decades at the US state department, agrees that Al Hurra has an identity problem….”
     
    To not mention the central MEMRI.org connection – and the evident problem of having a MEMRI warrior now heading Hurra – when posing the central question of whether Fernandez can save Hurra is quite an omission for the unknowing reader. Fernandez, interestingly has at least one financial and political connection/limitation directly related to the Abu Dhabi daily for which Karam writes: He is also a Non-Resident Fellow in Middle East Politics and Media at the TRENDS research and advisory center in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates… which means owned and controlled by the royal court in AD.
     
    https://www.thenational.ae/world/the-americas/arabic-tv-station-al-hurra-should-have-rivalled-al-jazeera-but-has-yet-t

  • US threats and actions in Syria are those of a rogue state
    https://www.rt.com/op-edge/394811-syria-assad-us-war-regime

    “When Trump’s UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, asserts - as she did recently - that the US is sending “not only Assad” but also “Russia and Iran a message,” and that Washington is putting them “on notice,” she does so as the tribune of a rogue state.

    Haley issued her ‘warning’ on the back of the recent dubious claim that Washington had intelligence confirming Syrian forces were preparing a chemical weapons attack. The claim and resulting threat revealed that the US continues to arrogate to itself the status of the world’s policeman, with the right to act as judge, jury, and – as the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya have learned to their disastrous cost in recent years – executioner. It describes arrogance beyond measure, conforming to the worldview of an empire whose guiding mantra is “Rome has spoken; the matter is finished."

    Haley: ’Our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out,’ https://t.co/hVKLBMO8CP
    — RT America (@RT_America) June 28, 2017

    The “matter” so far as Syria is concerned is regime change, which it becomes increasingly clear is Washington’s primary objective going forward, using its military campaign against ISIS as a stalking horse to justify the build-up of its military presence in the country with this in mind. Seen in this light, the recent spate of US attacks on Syrian forces on the ground and in the air takes on an entirely different connotation – i.e. less to do with protecting US-backed ground troops, as claimed, and more to do with testing Russia’s response and resolve when it comes to supporting its Syrian ally.

    In the immediate and short term, the partition of Syria between east and west appears underway – at least if Washington has its way – evidenced by the recent visit to Syria by Brett McGurk of the US State Department. The stated purpose of his visit was to meet the “council planning to run Raqqa” after it is taken from ISIS. Thus here we have a US official visiting a sovereign state without the prior permission of said sovereign state’s legitimate government to discuss the administration of a part of its territory. This is imperialism by any other name, consonant with the actions of a country that is inebriated with that most potent of cocktails, unipolarity and might is right."

  • Chechens alienated amidst gay persecutions

    http://oc-media.org/chechens-alienated-amidst-gay-persecutions

    News of this April’s mass detentions, arrests, and murders of Chechnya’s gay and bisexual population has spread around the globe. While Chechen and federal authorities categorically deny all reports of this persecution, the mass media is filled with stories of men who managed to flee Chechnya. These events have pushed the Chechen people to contemplate the unstable place of their nation in the world.

    One gets the feeling that no moment in Chechnya’s history has been as roundly condemned by the world as this current human rights violation. The US State Department, the UN, and the majority of European governments have demanded an immediate cessation to the detention and execution of gay men. Chechens question both the scale of the repression and the very existence of queer people within the republic.

    #russie #tchétchénie #homosexualité #droits_humains #discrimination

  • US urges Israel to protect freedom of expression after Netanyahu attacks rights groups
    Oct. 18, 2016
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=773618

    BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The United States State Department defended Israeli human rights group B’Tselem in an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Monday, saying the US was “troubled” by the recent attacks on the group by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Meanwhile, the Israeli government has also recently come under fire for its targeting of foreign activists, and ongoing crackdown on freedom of expression through incarcerating Palestinians — including minors — over Facebook posts.

    US State Department Spokesman John Kirby told the newspaper that “the (US) administration values the information published by the two nonprofits about the situation in the West Bank,” referring to B’Tselem and Americans for Peace Now, two NGOs who spoke before the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Friday regarding illegal Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territory.

    #B’Tselem #Peace_Now

  • C’est pas compliqué, et le Département d’État va t’expliquer ça clairement : Iran is the main state sponsor of terror, US report finds
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-isis-terrorism-main-state-sponsor-of-terror-us-state-report-find

    Iran is the main state sponsor of terrorism, according to the US State Department’s annual survey of worldwide terrorism.

    The Islamic republic "remained the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in 2015, providing a range of support, including financial, training, and equipment, to groups around the world," the report said.

    It went on to highlight the group’s support for Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Palestinian groups such as Hamas and the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

  • Under pressure from Turkey, UN excludes PYD from Syria talks
    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/01/turkey-usa-syria-talks-ankara-won-batlle-against-pyd.html

    That sentiment — that the United States sold out the Kurds — is not completely off-base. I arrived in Brussels on Jan. 25 to attend the European Parliament’s annual conference on the Kurds, organized by its leftist party bloc, which includes Nobel laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ebadi of Iran and Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor, as well as controversial American scholar Noam Chomsky.

    I was a speaker on a panel with Selahattin Demirtas, Turkey’s popular pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) chairman, and Peter Galbraith, a former American ambassador considered a close friend of the Kurds because of the role he played in the struggles of Iraqi Kurds.

    PYD leader Salih Muslim was on the list of speakers for the second day of that conference. But when I arrived in Brussels, I was told Muslim had left for Geneva at the invitation of UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura. He would be back the next day and then would travel again to Geneva for the Geneva III talks, which were set for Jan. 29.

    Thanks to my Kurdish sources, who were in constant communication with Muslim, I learned that Galbraith had come to Brussels from Geneva, where he also had met with American officials working on the Geneva III talks. He had been told that the United States was keen on seeing the PYD at the table during the talks.

    On Jan. 26, before Muslim was back in Brussels, the news broke: De Mistura had issued invitation letters to the Arab members of the Syrian Democratic Council like Manna. It was assumed that Muslim would be returning to Brussels with his invitation letter in his bag.

    Instead, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who was in Strasbourg, Germany, said Turkey would boycott the Geneva talks if the PYD was involved.

    Some hours earlier, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, had said Turkey objected to the PYD’s involvement because it is a terrorist organization, but would not object if it was included in the Syrian government’s delegation.

    Galbraith was texting with Muslim, who informed him that de Mistura had not issued an official invitation to the PYD.

    Manna announced that if their Kurdish allies would not be at the talks, the other members of the Syrian Democratic Council would not be participating, either.

    The Kurdish sources in Brussels who were in constant contact with Muslim told me the morning of Jan. 27 that they had just spoken to Muslim, who was at that moment in a meeting with the Americans and that the PYD representation was still pending. He said everything would be clear by noon.

    By evening, word came from Washington. US State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner declared that the PYD will not be invited to Geneva.

  • Pando: #Tor Project: The super secure anonymity network that will definitely keep you safe (as long as hackers don’t break the rules)
    https://pando.com/2015/12/18/tor-project-super-secure-anonymity-network-will-definitely-keep-you-safe-long-hackers-dont-break-rules/c1b7de17171caa28f799fbab65bcd554d445c3dc

    There have been plenty of people dumb enough to believe Tor — (...) a sad example of what happens when you mix toxic libertarian ideology, military technology and the snake oil promises of techno-liberation.

    The Tor Project is looking to clean up its act by hiring a high profile executive director: Shari Steele, who ran EFF for more than a decade and is highly connected in Silicon Valley and Washington DC. But even this high level management shakeup won’t fix the core problem of the Tor Project: that it runs on deception, false promises and heaps of libertarian bullshit.

    #silicon_army

    • L’auteur du papier, Yasha Levine – qui prépare un bouquin sur ces histoires –, se dit victime de pressions :

      Tor military contractors try to shut down my reporting
      http://surveillancevalley.net/blog/tor-military-contractors-try-to-shutdown-my-reporting

      But some people have made it their stated goal this year to stop me from doing my job. An influential group of Internet activists at the center of this year’s 32c3 event has been making bizarre threats against me, in an attempt to intimidate me into changing my mind and not reporting on what they’re up to. For the past week or so, employees of the Tor Project — a military contractor funded by the Pentagon, US State Department and various intelligence agency cutouts — have been waging a social media mob campaign to prevent me from attending. Their aim is to prevent critical independent journalism from covering their insulated (and well-funded) ecosystem. And so over the past week I’ve been subjected to all sorts of crude bullying, smears, lies and even physical threats. There’s even talk of spiking my drink and covertly drugging me at the event. Lovely stuff, all drawn from the same ol’ playbook of dirty tricks.

      I’m a refugee from the Soviet Union. A few years ago, the newspaper I worked for in Moscow was shut down by Kremlin agents. So I’m no stranger to intimidation and threats, and I also know that you don’t take them lightly, because it takes a twisted mind and a twisted collective to threaten and intimidate a journalist from doing critical reporting. The Tor crowd may not be Kremlin goons — but their project is funded by the deadliest and most powerful military-intelligence apparatus in the world, so yeah, experience tells me I should take it seriously.

      Regardless of any of it, they won’t stop me from doing my work.

  • Migrant Crisis & Syria War Fueled By Competing Gas Pipelines
    http://www.mintpressnews.com/migrant-crisis-syria-war-fueled-by-competing-gas-pipelines/209294

    Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect recent Wikileaks revelations of US State Department leaks that show plans to destabilize Syria and overthrow the Syrian government as early as 2006. The leaks reveal that these plans were given to the US directly from the Israeli government and would be formalized through instigating civil strife and sectarianism through partnership with nations like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and even Egypt to break down the power structue in Syria to essentially to weaken Iran and Hezbolla. The leaks also reveal Israeli plans to use this crisis to expand it’s occupation of the Golan Heights for additional oil exploration and military expansion.

  • Obama must end support for Israeli apartheid against Palestinian scholars
    4 septembre | Radhika Balakrishnan et al |Tribunes

    US President Barack Obama, in a recent interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, reaffirmed his support and love for Israel because, as he claims, “it is a genuine democracy and you can express your opinions.”

    He further expressed his commitment to protecting Israel as a “Jewish state” by ensuring a “Jewish majority.”

    The US government’s support for the “Jewish state” has always been far more than rhetorical, backed by billions of dollars of military funding and consistent pro-Israel vetoes at the UN Security Council.

    We are a group of US-based academics, representing diverse ethnic, racial and cultural backgrounds, as well as a range of national origins, who recently visited Palestine. We were able to gain firsthand exposure to what Obama described in the interview as Israel’s “Jewish democracy” and to what kinds of infrastructure our tax dollars help to support — walls, checkpoints and modern weaponry.

    We had the privilege of traveling through part of the occupied Palestinian territories — the West Bank, including East Jerusalem — where we met with Palestinians.

    Double standards

    We feel compelled to share a few examples of what we witnessed during our visit with Palestinian scholars, policy makers, activists, artists and others working in the West Bank. We observed numerous double standards with regard to Palestinians’ rights that prompt us to question the claim that Israel is a genuine democracy.

    We believe that our government’s assertions that Israel is a democracy obscures the conditions it imposes on the Palestinian people through the occupation and beyond with conditions that amount to apartheid under settler colonialism.

    Our concerns began even before we arrived, as a search of the US State Department website for information about travel to Israel returned sobering results.

    The US government warns travelers to back up their computers because Israeli border control officials can erase anything at will. This indeed happened to one of us upon leaving Tel Aviv to return to the US.

    The site also warns travelers that their personal email or social media accounts may be searched, and so travelers “should have no expectation of privacy for any data stored on such devices or in their accounts.” Equipment may also be confiscated.

    The State Department further acknowledges that US citizens who are Muslim and/or of Palestinian or other Arab descent may have considerable trouble entering or exiting through Israeli-controlled frontiers. And this too happened to one of us who had mobile phone contacts searched immediately on entering Tel Aviv.

    Profiling

    Concerns in entering and exiting pale in comparison to the restrictions placed on US citizens of Palestinian origin, along with all other Palestinians who hold identification documents from the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

    Before traveling, most of us did not understand that for Palestinians under occupation, there are several types of identification and profiling and each comes with its own restrictions on mobility.

    Palestinians from Jerusalem have identification cards they must carry in a blue booklet while those living in the rest of the occupied West Bank hold an ID card in a green booklet, issued to them from the Palestinian Authority with the permission of the Israeli government.

    People possessing that identification generally cannot enter Jerusalem or present-day Israel without prior permission, even for a visa interview to attend an academic meeting in the US. Many people we met had only visited Jerusalem, home to many holy sites, once in their lives despite being mere minutes away by car.

    In the rest of the West Bank, a US citizen of Palestinian origin who wants to live there long term has to obtain a visa that says West Bank only. They are not allowed to travel in and out of the West Bank and are subject to the same checkpoints as other Palestinians. They cannot leave the occupied territories as a US citizen, as the State Department warns on its website.

    A Palestinian in the West Bank who holds US citizenship cannot simply catch a plane from Tel Aviv like any other US citizen simply because he or she is Palestinian and holds a Palestinian ID card. This fact is stamped into the US passport.

    They are not allowed to enter the checkpoints into Jerusalem or any other checkpoints as other people with a US passport can. This restriction is not at all applied to the Jewish settlers who are growing in number — thousands of them US citizens who are choosing to live in the occupied West Bank inside illegal settlements financed in part by US tax-exempt organizations.

    Academic freedom

    As scholars, among the many disturbing things we witnessed was the limited academic freedom and freedom of speech imposed on Palestinians (and many Israelis, whose travel in the West Bank is restricted) by the Israeli government.

    We learned that there is a prohibition on most books published in Syria, Iran and Lebanon even though Beirut is a central publishing hub of Arabic literary materials in the region. Regardless, banning books is, in our view, a profoundly anti-democratic act.

    Israel’s wall that surrounds the West Bank including Jerusalem — and which snakes deep inside the West Bank in many locations — also functions to limit academic freedom.

    One of the starkest examples is in Bethlehem, where the wall cuts through the city, making access to education at Bethlehem University very difficult for those who happen to be on the wrong side of the wall’s many twists and turns.

    Additionally, the Abu Dis campus of Al-Quds University is completely surrounded by the wall, making travel to and from the campus incredibly arduous despite it being in Jerusalem.

    An academic colleague described to us the difficulties she experiences getting to campus on a typical day. She must pass through roadblocks and endure searches and myriad forms of harassment by Israeli soldiers. In the West Bank, we were shocked to witness separate roads for Palestinians and Israelis based on the color of one’s license plate and identity card.

    In theory, these roads exist for the protection of Israeli settlers living on settlements built in the West Bank illegally according to international law. In practice, these roads create an apartheid travel system where Palestinians encounter several checkpoints on a given day, some of which may be mobile, unpredictably placed “flying checkpoints.”

    As our colleague explained to us, what used to be a very short trip between her village and the university now often takes more than an hour and a half and she is expected to cross through at least three checkpoints. She is often late to teach her classes and some days she is unable to make it to work or back home at all.

    Her students are often arrested and jailed using the legal cover of administrative detention — detention without charge or trial for an indefinite amount of time — for their participation in any political activities, or simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We heard that this process is intensified at exam periods.

    This creates an extraordinarily stressful academic environment when on any given day Israeli soldiers might detain students and faculty who are simply traveling to class.

    Impunity

    We recognize every people’s desire to be secure — and Israel’s supporters will defend its policies and actions in the name of its national security. What we witnessed during our visit is that “security” was offered as a rationale for almost any troubling behavior or policy.

    What we witnessed was a slow but deliberate expansion of Israel’s occupation, increased settlements, the taking over of agricultural land and the spread of industrial parks in the West Bank including substantial parts of East Jerusalem — all in the name of “security.”

    The United States, as a settler colonial state with its own occupations, police violence, carceral injustice, de facto apartheid and its own brand of border brutality — certainly has its own failings as a democracy, failings we continue to address in our intellectual and political work.

    We thus claim no moral high ground. But an ethnocracy is not a democracy ; the State of Israel imposes violent domination of the Palestinian people through colonialism, occupation and apartheid — three prongs of brutal oppression that are the very antithesis of democracy.

    As academics, watching attempts to stifle criticism of Israel — as in the case of our colleague, Professor Steven Salaita — and visiting the West Bank has prompted us to speak out publicly about Israel’s injustices. Doing so is imperative.

    We implore President Obama to reconsider his rhetoric and policies — and budget appropriations — that support Israel with impunity.

    Radhika Balakrishnan is professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University.

    Karma R. Chávez is associate professor of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

    Ira Dworkin is assistant professor of English at Texas A&M University.

    Erica Caple James is associate professor of Anthropology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    J. Kēhaulani Kauanui is associate professor of American Studies and Anthropology at Wesleyan University.

    Doug Kiel is assistant professor of American Studies at Williams College.

    Barbara Lewis is associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

    Soraya Mekerta is director of the African Diaspora and the World Program, and associate professor of French and Francophone Studies at Spelman College.

    http://www.aurdip.fr/obama-must-end-support-for-israeli.html

    L’AURDIP (Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine) est une organisation française d’universitaires créée en liaison avec la Campagne Palestinienne pour le Boycott Académique et Culturel d’Israël PACBI et avec l’organisation britannique BRICUP.

  • Four facts you might not know about housing demolitions by Israel

    JERUSALEM, 22 July 2015 (IRIN) - The small Palestinian village of #Khirbet_Susiya in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has been drawn into the international spotlight this week, as the US, the UK and the EU condemned plans by the Israeli army to demolish it. The US State Department said its destruction would be “harmful and provocative.”

    http://www.irinnews.org/report/101775/four-facts-you-might-not-know-about-housing-demolitions-by-israel
    #démolition #Israël #Palestine #Cisjordanie
    signalé par @albertocampiphoto

  • CIA interrogated suspects on Diego Garcia, says Colin Powell aide | World news | The Guardian

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/30/cia-interrogation-diego-garcia-lawrence-wilkerson

    The UK government is facing renewed pressure to make a full disclosure of its involvement in the CIA’s post-9/11 kidnap and torture programme after another leading Bush-era US official said suspects were held and interrogated on the British territory of Diego Garcia.

    Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to Colin Powell at the US state department, said the Indian Ocean atoll was used by the CIA as “a transit site where people were temporarily housed, let us say, and interrogated from time to time”.

    #états-unis #royaume-uni #rendition_programme #diego_garcia

  • Iran conservatives reject cooperation with US against IS - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/09/iran-rejects-us-is-coalition.html

    Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani became the latest Iranian official to speak in favor of cooperation between Iran and the United States on Sept. 8. When asked by Danish Channel 2 News reporters, who had accompanied the Danish foreign minister to a meeting with Rafsanjani in Tehran, about the matter, Rafsanjani said, “If America shows honesty, cooperation is possible.”

    However, during a press briefing on the same day, US State Department Spokesman Jen Psaki responded to a reporter’s question that Iran was not included in a 40-country coalition to fight IS.

    Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/09/iran-rejects-us-is-coalition.html#ixzz3DNv0lLrB

  • US State Department says boycott an “acceptable” tactic | The Electronic Intifada

    http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/us-state-department-says-boycott-acceptable-tactic

    The US State Department has endorsed boycott as an “acceptable” way for US citizens to express their views and take action over what they see as violations of human rights in other countries.

    The statement came during an exchange between State Department spokesperson Jennifer Psaki and journalists yesterday, over a boycott that has been launched by Hollywood stars against the luxury Beverly Hills hotel.

    The stars, including talk-show hosts Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres have called for a boycott of that hotel and other properties owned by the Sultanate of Brunei because of that country’s recent adoption of laws – misleadingly described as “Islamic” – calling for penalties including death by stoning for homosexuality and adultery.

    In addition to the celebrity-backed boycott, the Beverly Hills city council passed a resolution condemning Brunei, but, the BBC reports, “the meeting was divided on whether to boycott the hotel. Many disagreed with Mayor Bosse’s decision to no longer attend functions there.”

  • Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to discuss #peace_talks deadline
    http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israeli-and-palestinian-negotiators-discuss-peace-talks-deadline

    Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will meet on Wednesday to try to extend peace talks beyond an April 29 deadline, the #US State Department said on Tuesday. The two sides will meet despite Israeli anger at the killing of an off-duty Israeli policeman in the occupied West Bank on Monday on the eve of the Passover Jewish holiday. The policeman’s wife and a child were wounded. read more

    #Israel #Palestine #Top_News

  • Islamic Jihad blames Israel for Gaza escalation - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/01/escalation-gaza-israel-islamic-jihad-hamas.html

    The United States has added the deputy secretary-general of Islamic Jihad, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, to the list of “terrorist organizations and individuals,” according to a statement issued by the US State Department on Jan. 23.

  • Bombing Syria: A Running Guide to the Debate | Mother Jones
    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/syria-debate-congress-guide

    State Department’s list of countries publicly backing military intervention. On Thursday (September 3), the US State Department listed ten countries, including the US (the State Dept. did not state which nations have offered to assist in military action, however):

    The United States
    Australia
    Albania
    Canada
    Denmark
    France
    Kosovo
    Poland
    Romania
    Turkey

    “Additional countries.” On Sept. 6, the US issued a joint statement condemning the Assad regime and supporting reinforcement of the prohibition on chemical-weapons use. The list has grown, and, as of Monday, the countries formally signed on to the joint statement are:

    Albania
    Australia
    Canada
    Croatia
    Denmark
    Estonia
    France
    Germany
    Honduras
    Hungary
    Italy
    Japan
    Republic of Korea
    Kosovo
    Latvia
    Lithuania
    Morocco
    Qatar
    Romania
    Saudi Arabia
    Spain
    Turkey
    United Arab Emirates
    United Kingdom
    United States

  • Open Letter to the Tor Project: Where Does Your Money Come From and Why Do You Hide It From the Public? | Friends of WikiLeaks
    http://fowlchicago.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/open-letter-to-the-tor-project-where-does-your-money-come-fro

    From our rather cursory look into the Tor Project and its funding it appears that – in 2011 at least – the organizers of the Tor Project and their US Government “sponsors” attempted to hide the true sources of its funding from the public by utilizing the classic US Government cloak-and-dagger method of using “cutout” companies and NGOs to “pass-through” money from the US Defense Department and the US State Department to Tor – to the tune of over $730,000.00 – a huge chunk of their total funding.

    The Tor Project’s own “amended” financial document for 2011 which reveals these current relationships between Tor and the highest levels of the US Government, presented to Tor by their accountants in July 2012

    #Tor #DoD #silicon_army

  • Julian Assange: #Google ’Shit-bag’ and #NSA
    http://cryptome.org/2013/08/assange-google-nsa.htm

    Lisa Shields, the then girlfriend of Eric Schmidt, who does not formally work for the US State Department (...) was being used as a back channel for Hillary Clinton. This is illustrative. It shows that at this level of US society, as in other corporate states, it is all musical chairs.

    That visit from Google while I was under house arrest [ voir http://seenthis.net/messages/131933 ] was, as it turns out, an unofficial visit from the State Department. Just consider the people who accompanied Schmidt on that visit: his girlfriend Lisa Shields, Vice President for Communications at the CFR; Scott Malcolmson, former senior State Department advisor; and Jared Cohen, advisor to both Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, a kind of Generation Y Kissinger figure — a noisy Quiet American as the author Graham Greene might have put it.

    #silicon_army

    • Pour les sujets qui m’intéressent habituellement : « le rôle occulte de Google de fomenter des soulèvements » et auparavant, au Département d’État, « au Liban, travailler de manière occulte pour le Département d’État à établir un think-tank anti-Hezbollah » :

      In these internal emails, Fred Burton, Stratfor’s Vice President for Intelligence and a former senior State Department official, describes Google as follows:

      “Google is getting WH [White House] and State Dept support and air cover. In reality they are doing things the CIA cannot do... [Cohen] is going to get himself kidnapped or killed. Might be the best thing to happen to expose Google’s covert role in foaming up-risings, to be blunt. The US Gov’t can then disavow knowledge and Google is left holding the shit-bag.”

      In further internal communication, Burton subsequently clarifies his sources on Cohen’s activities as Marty Lev, Google’s director of security and safety and ... Eric Schmidt.

      WikiLeaks cables also reveal that previously Cohen, when working for the State Department, was in Afghanistan trying to convince the four major Afghan mobile phone companies to move their antennas onto US military bases. In Lebanon he covertly worked to establish, on behalf of the State Department, an anti-Hezbollah Shia think tank.