‘Libya in chaos, divided as never before’ [video]
Russia Today
October 18, 2012
In Libya, at least 11 people have been killed and scores wounded after militia linked to the defence ministry shelled Bani Walid – a former stronghold of late Colonel Gaddafi. The country remains close to chaos following the Western-backed armed rebellion last year that toppled the nation’s long-time dictator. RT talks to Libyan political activist Ali Alkasa.
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RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
Mali Refugees Spreading – Yahya [video]
108morris108
October 19, 2012
The aftermath of NATO’s assistance in North Africa is plenty of weapons in Mali, it is more Al Qaeda types who have taken control of Northern Mali. Now the French, the Algerians and the EU have all voiced support for a military intervention.
Which will probably happen quite soon from Western sponsored African forces.
A google search of Yahya Eromosele will bring up his FB and YT accounts
Missing in the Field: Russian journalist kidnapped in Syria [video]
Russia Today
October 13, 2012
READ MORE http://on.rt.com/vol0z6
The family of a journalist, who’s been helping Russian news outlets in Syria, has told RT that she’s been kidnapped near the city of Homs. The area is a scene of intense fighting between government forces and the opposition. RT’s correspondent in the region Irina Galushko is following the story.
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RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 500 million YouTube views benchmark.
EU Censors Alternative News in Bid to Dominate Narrative
Western media quietly attempts to censor growing global opposition, begins with Iranian media.
by Tony Cartalucci
October 16, 2012 – Iran’s Press TV reported in their article, “Press TV viewers slam EU move to ban Iran channels as illegal, hypocritical,” that “Press TV viewers have condemned as illegal and hypocritical the ban imposed by the European officials on the broadcast of several Iranian satellite channels.” Nearly no mention is made in the Western media regarding the blatant act of censorship – an act that runs contra to all perceived notions of “Western values,” and an act that directly undermines the narratives of the West supporting “freedom” and “democracy” around the globe.
Image: The West has spent billions trying to leverage “freedom of speech” and “human rights” as a means to undermine, destabilize, overthrow, and replace governments around the world, from the US-engineered Eastern European “color-revolutions” after the fall of the Soviet Union, to the latest US-engineered “Arab Spring,” and all across Southeast Asia. Now with the West pursuing its own campaign of censorship, it is clear that these “values” were merely selectively and opportunistically manipulated.
The news has been buried under reports regarding a new round of sanctions passed by the EU which was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize even while pursuing multiple wars across the globe, including continuing operations in Libya, the subversion of Syria, and a decade long occupation of Afghanistan which sees weekly civilian massacres by NATO air strikes on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border. In fact, the most recent NATO atrocity occurred not even a week ago, killing 3 children in the Helmand province. Of course this was absent in Western headlines, but it did make headlines in Iran’s Press TV, and indicates a more realistic explanation to the EU’s decision to ban the Iranian news service.
Clearly the EU has no qualms over endangering civilian lives – its concerns over “human rights” are a selectively applied value it uses against its enemies with demonstrably no intention of holding itself to similar standards. Now, the EU has applied this same selective application of supposed “Western values” to “freedom of speech,” curtailing it when that speech endangers its own interests, and pursuing “freedom” when it advances their agenda. And it is this hypocrisy that the increasingly popular Press TV news service has been illustrating, as a counterweight to the uniformly biased and compromised Western press.
It was US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who stated that censorship incurred “long-term economic and social costs,” with oppression leading to “civil unrest and not security.” Many Western politicians executing corporate-financier driven policy have stated that a regime’s pursuit of censorship was a sign of weakness and fear – an indicator that its opposition was gaining ground and that more overt, visible, even desperate measures needed to be implemented. Censorship, according to the West’s own narrative, is part of a self-defeating cycle where legitimacy and the mandate to lead increasingly is fading.
With that consideration in mind, the censorship of Iran’s Press TV should be a sign that Iran’s efforts to balance global public perception skewed by the vast resources of Wall Street and London are succeeding. Along with Russia Today (RT), Press TV has provided nations who aspire to live in a mulipolar world where the primacy of the nation-state prevails, a model to follow in combating the unwarranted power and influence of Western media houses.
Above all, it should be noted that a key contributing factor to Press TV and RT’s success is the growing alternative media – media by the people and for the people – whose legitimacy and reputation is measured in accuracy, consistency, and objectivity, not slick graphics, expensive suits, and million-dollar studios. The alternative media has provided content for growing national news agencies seeking to challenge the West’s hegemony over information, and while national news agencies ultimately pursue national agendas, the content they are drawing on generally come from people simply seeking the truth.
The EU’s act of censorship against Press TV is in turn a strike against the alternative media. Instead of being seen as a setback, it should be seen as a success and a signal to redouble our efforts as individuals to assert our own will and vision for the future over that of the miniscule global elite who have so far gone unchallenged in their designs and aspirations. The alternative media should be only the first in a series of people-driven alternatives systematically undermining and replacing existing corporate-financier dominated paradigms.
Washington’s Salafist Quagmire in Syria
by Christof Lehmann
nsnbc
October 14, 2012
The Obama administration and the Turkish government of Prime Minister Erdogan are faced with a Syrian quagmire that is prompting them to send a signal to Saudi Arabia. Riyadh´s support of fundamentalist Salafi Jihadi groups in Syria is becoming increasingly counter productive. Riyadh is not only creating a public relations dilemma for Washington and Ankara, the influx of fundamentalist Salafists which have been streaming to Syria over recent months is making it increasingly difficult, if not impossible to build a coherent and credible Syrian opposition that could be used as an argument for regime change.
Two defeated campaigns of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in June and July failed to secure the city of Aleppo and depleted the FSA of its best trained and best armed Syrian and foreign fighters. The defeat also made it impossible to emulate the strategy that had been successful in Libya. To secure Aleppo as a seat for a Transitional Syrian Government that could have called on the international community, that is the USA, NATO and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, to implement a No-Fly-Zone and to provide other military support.
The defeat of the campaign for Aleppo has changed both the military and political dynamics of the Syrian crisis. Saudi Arabia increased its support of fundamentalist Salafist groups to compensate for the FSA´s losses. Since the end of July and the beginning of August there has been a significant influx of Saudi sponsored foreign fighters and in particular an influx of fundamentalist Salafist fighters in Syria. A recent report issued by the International Crisis Group recognizes the influx and a cohort of both military, political and security problems it implies.
The problem for Washington and the pro-opposition coalition is that a coherent and political opposition has failed to manifest. The National Transitional Council of Syria has always been an incoherent group that was plagued by internal rivalries. Since the failed campaign for Aleppo it has more or less entirely collapsed. The influx of Salafist groups which are fighting in Syria has also led to, that ever more radical elements are demanding political influence, and Washington has difficulties to overtly negotiate with known terrorist groups about the future of a free and democratic Syria.
The lost battles for Aleppo and the subsequent influx of Salafists has also been noticed by prominent commanders within the Free Syrian Army. On 28 September the prominent FSA commander Captain Khaled Abdel Rahman al-Zamel, accompanied by ten other FSA officers, took part in a conference of Syrian opposition groups who are seeking a Syrian solution to the crisis and who are tolerant of the Baath Party and President al-Assad.
Syrians have closely followed the protracted civil war in Lebanon and the devastation of Iraq first by the USA and allies, and subsequently by religious fanaticism and terrorism. Both the military and the political Syrian opposition are becoming increasingly concerned about the prospect of Syria degenerating into a spiral of religious and ethnic violence.
Washington seems to have interpreted the trend correctly. Knowing that the influx of Salafists and other radicals is making it difficult to argue for the overt support of an almost non existing political opposition and to argue for a continuation of material support for known terrorist organizations it is asking Saudi Arabia to back off a little.
The recent aggravation of border incidents between Syria and Turkey could indicate a change of strategy. Lacking a credible political opposition to support and not being able to overtly support organizations that are otherwise designated terrorist organizations, it is not unlikely that a direct military confrontation between Turkey and Syria is the next best option. It is however, questionable whether Erdogans AKP government can rally the support of Turkey´s population behind a military campaign against Syria. An escalation of the border clashes into an full scale military confrontation would most likely be met with massive popular opposition that could lead to the fall of the AKP government. A subsequent military disengagement would be equivalent to a defeat of Turkey and NATO.
The Turkish parliament´s decision on 4. October to allow cross border military operations, after a mortar shell that was fired from within Syrian territory killed a Turkish family of four was met with massive protests and demonstrations in Ankara and in cities throughout Turkey. The Turkish population is becoming increasingly worried by the influx of Salafist and other extremist fighters who either use Turkey as base of operations or as transit for waging Jihad in Syria. Critique has further increased after it transpired that the mortar that was used in the attack is identical to a model Turkey provided for the FSA. Turkey has also been widely critisized for endangering air-safety by forcing a Syrian A-320 Airbus to land in Ankara.
Regardless whether the support of Salafists by Saudi Arabia continues overtly or covertly, it is presenting both Washington, Turkey and other ”Friends of Syria” with a serious quagmire.
There is no credible political opposition that supports the continuation of a military campaign, and a continuation of a military campaign with the help of imported extremists is likely to undermine both the political and the armed Syrian opposition.With winter approching, it looks as if the Arab Spring in Syria is turning into NATO´s Fall.
Christof Lehmann
14.10.2012
IRAN ‘RISK ASSESSMENT’ – Entree to a One World Order – Patrick Henningsen [video]
21stCenturyWireTV
October 10, 2012
What will a war with Iran look like? What will be the results of a unilateral attack on Iran by Israel and the US? Will it trigger multi-regional military conflict? 21st Century Wire geopolitical analyst, Patrick Henningsen, outlines possible outcomes, including the Hegelian outcome of a One World Order aka ‘New World Order’, in an exclusive, previously unreleased interview with domestic Russian television, filmed in London in Sept 2012.
http://www.21stcenturywire.com
Chossudovsky: Western Countries Sabotage Syria Peace Plans [video]
Global Research TV
October 11, 2012
US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says, if elected, he would work with the US allies to arm the insurgents fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
This comes as a group of Syrian political parties have held a forum in the country’s capital, Damascus, to discuss a peaceful solution to the unrest in the Arab state.
The participants of the meeting said political dialogue, national reconciliation and fighting terrorism are the sole means to restoring security.
The Syrian figures reiterated that their country is entangled in an international conspiracy by some Arab and Western countries, adding that the unity of the Syrians would foil any plots.
The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the insurgents are foreign nationals, mostly from Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, from Montreal, to further discuss the issue. The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: When Romney says that Washington’s ambition is to impose American values in Syria, what do you think American values imply exactly?
Chossudovsky: Well, I’m a little bit confused as to Romney’s interpretation of Western values. For me, Western values actually come from Mesopotamia. They come from the ancient Aramaic language which is still spoken in Syria.
That is the cradle of Western civilization. That’s where Christianity was born. That’s where both the New Testament and the Old Testament were written and formulated in Aramaic. And Aramaic is still spoken in Syria.
If Romney wants to support Western values, it’s not by channeling weapons to al-Qaeda and to an opposition which is integrated by terrorists and which, ultimately, these military formations reject what I understand as Western values — which are the values of the Western world but also of the Middle East.
Press TV: We’ve earlier discussed the possibility of a full-scale military intervention by NATO in Syria, starting off with Turkey first getting involved. We’re already seeing shelling across the border.
Right now, as these countries beat the drums of war against Syria, where is the UN Arab League Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi? Where is the so-called six-point peace plan that was put forth by Kofi Annan?
Chossudovsky: Well, it would seem that the same Western countries which have put forth these peace plans are now involved in, ultimately, boycotting or undermining these peace plans.
Turkey has threatened military intervention in Syria based on very tenuous evidence that Syrian armed forces shelled a border city inside Turkish territory. The New York Times says that there’s no evidence one way or the other as to who actually committed these acts of shelling.
Turkey is already within Syrian territory, supporting the rebels, providing them with weapons and so on. I should mention that there’s a lot of opposition inside Turkey to any kind of military adventure which could lead to a full-fledged war with Syria.
Press TV: Let’s hope cooler heads prevail.
Originally aired on PressTV, October 9, 2012
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/09/265761/west-sabotages-syrian-peace-plan/
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