PODCAST — Eva Bartlett reports on Syria and Palestine (Ep 121)
via 21WIRE
Feb 9, 2016
International journalist Eva Bartlett provides fresh coverage from on the ground in Syria and Palestine. We discuss what is happening there and why our mainstream news reports are misleading.
See Eva’s report: 21stcenturywire.com/2016/02/08/wher…-syria-lebanon/
The Sunday Wire with Patrick Henningsen broadcasts LIVE on Alternate Current Radio SUNDAY 5pm-8pm GMT, 12pm-3pm EST, 9am-12pm PST at alternatecurrentradio.com and thesundaywire.com.
Iran and Hezbollah Supported Demise of Gaddafi
via Non-Aligned Media
by Brandon Martinez
Oct 29, 2015
A little known fact that many in the “anti-imperialist” crowd would rather ignore is that Iran and Hezbollah both supported the rebel uprising in Libya and welcomed Gaddafi’s demise.
An August 2011 report from the International Business Times noted Iran’s embrace of the “National Transitional Council,” the rebel government seeking to oust Gaddafi:
Iran is now supporting the National Transitional Council, Libya’s rebel-lead interim government, severing its final ties with Moammar Gadhafi.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi spoke with N.T.C. Chairman Mustafa Abdul-Jalil over the phone on Tuesday, congratulating the rebels on their victory over dictatorship. He also invited Abdul-Jalil to Teheran on a state visit in order to deepen bilateral ties.
Earlier in the campaign, Iran sent aid and humanitarian assistance to the Libyan people. The country has been supporting the rebels since March and called the fight against Gadhafi an Islamic Awakening. However, Iran is wary of the West’s involvement in the revolution, and thinks that NATO’s presence in Libya may come with the cost of colonization.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah took a particularly strident anti-Gaddafi stance, praising the Libyan rebels as “revolutionaries” and wishing them victory over the “arrogant tyrant” Gaddafi. After Gaddafi was ousted and lynched in the streets by rebels, Nasrallah praised Gaddafi’s killers as “revolutionary fighters” and congratulated them on their “huge victory over the dictatorial regime of tyrant Muammar Gaddafi.”
Color Revolution 2.0 in Lebanon: From Piles of Trash to Piles of Rubble
via New Eastern Outlook
by
“Spontaneous.” “Genuine.” Defiant.” The US State Department’s marketeers have used these labels in attempts to differentiate its latest wave of global “color revolutions” from the now tired, ineffective, and familiar formulas used everywhere from the US-engineered “Arab Spring,” to the Euromaidan in Ukraine, to Bersih 4.0 in Malaysia.
The latest target is Lebanon where protests have begun in the streets of the capital, Beirut. Branded the “YouStink!” marches, the alleged provocation was dysfunctional municipal garbage collection services. However, very predictably, the protests have shifted quickly from what could have been perceived as legitimate demands to outright calls for regime change.
Color Revolutions 2.0
Just recently in Armenia, the US conducted what appeared to be a test run of its new and improved “color revolution” system of regime change. It attempted to create a movement with little if any initial political affiliation and with deeply hidden ties between protest organizers and their US State Department affiliations. Ultimately the so-called “Electric Yerevan” protests, whose alleged grievances were rising electric bills, spent so much time trying to convince Armenians and people around the world that they weren’t a US-backed mob, they never succeeded in building up sufficient momentum to move on to the next step.
The trick was to first use rising electrical costs as a pretext to stage the protests, then quickly swing them around to demand a change in government. Likely, provocations and violence were planned for later stages, as well as opportunities for America’s client opposition parties to take over and swell the ranks of street mobs with their supporters.
In Armenia, America’s next generation of color revolutions failed.
In Beirut, however, it seems that the protests have made it at least to the point where the alleged pretext – piles of garbage – have now been replaced with demands for regime change.
Despite the 2005 so-called “Cedar Revolution” being exposed as entirely US-engineered, paving the way for the expulsion of Syrian troops from Lebanon and an Israeli attack on the country the following year, many even in the alternative press have been taken in by what should be an obvious, albeit more carefully concealed, follow-up to 2005’s events.
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ISIS Home Base: Raqqa, Syria or Washington, D.C.?
by Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
Sept 30, 2014
While mainstream media outlets in the Western world continue to shill for the White House and NATO’s plans to destroy the Syrian state and oust its democratically elected president, one notable linchpin of propaganda involves the labeling of Raqqa province in Syria as the “home base” of ISIS.
For instance, in an article and video published by the Wall Street Journal , an attempt was made to present “what it’s like to live” inside the “home base” of ISIS. As one might expect, the video paints a terribly bleak picture of the life of women and Syrians in general. Yet the video, as it has been presented by many mainstream outlets, falsely refers to Raqqa as the “home base” of ISIS.
Still, in this video as well as other reports, ISIS is presented as a shadowy group that appeared out of nowhere. For instance, the WSJ states that Raqqa changed in 2014, when ISIS suddenly overran the city and made it “into their home base.”
Yet the reality is that, while Raqqa may have been overtaken by ISIS, it is by no means their “home base.” The truth is that the actual home base of ISIS is located much further away than Raqqa, Syria, or anywhere in Iraq. The reality is that the home base of ISIS is located in Washington, D.C., Langley, VA, London, and other NATO countries that have provided the funding, weaponry, and direction that ISIS has used to conquer Raqqa to begin with.
Who Is ISIS? An open source investigation
by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
September 6, 2014
The hysteria over the supposed threat posed by the Islamic State (IS) is now undeniable. Every day new stories emerge focusing on the group’s brutality, its resources, its capabilities and its intention to strike out at the West. The US Defense Secretary, Secretary of State, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and ranking Senators have all delivered somber assessments of the group’s evil aims in recent weeks, and have they been joined in that effort by a host of counterparts in foreign nations. The mainstream media, for their part, report these pronouncements without question, and with only a bare minimum of context to help their audience understand the group.
An open source investigation is desperately needed to sort through the hype to determine the facts behind this shadowy terror group. In this article we will examine the background, current status and future aims of the group, as well as the numerous facts that have been carefully omitted from the officially-sanctioned narrative of the group. In the comments section below, Corbett Report members are encouraged to contribute links, analysis and questions to further expand our understanding of the current situation and whether we are in fact heading toward a new false flag provocation like the September 11 attacks. [Not a Corbett Report member? Sign up today.]
Background – History of ISIS
The Islamic State is a caliphate established by a jihadist Islamic group in June 2014. Their expressed goal is to establish Salafist government over the Levant region of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Cyprus and Southern Turkey. The group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been declared caliph and “leader for Muslims everywhere.”
The Islamic State has gone through numerous name changes since its founding in Iraq in 1999. originally known as Jamāʻat al-Tawḥīd wa-al-Jihād (JTJ), (“The Organization of Monotheism and Jihad”), it changed to Tanẓīm Qāʻidat al-Jihād fī Bilād al-Rāfidayn (“The Organization of Jihad’s Base in the Country of the Two Rivers”) in 2004 after the group swore allegiance to Osama Bin Laden. During this period it was popularly known as Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). In 2006 it became the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), but changed again in 2013 after expanding into Syria. At that point it became Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Its latest moniker, the “Islamic State,” came about after the proclamation of a new caliphate on June 29, 2014.
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