Syrian Rebels’ Link with Al Qaeda Disclosed
Friends of Syria
October 20, 2012
The link between the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Al Qaeda terrorist group was unveiled after the FSA officially confirmed establishment of a group whose emblem is the flag of the Al Qaeda.
According to a report by the Syrian Truth (Haqiqah) website, the FSA, the main armed rebel group fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s government, has made a formal announcement about forming a group named “Al Mojahedin” under the flag of the Al Qaeda.
The announcement is seen as an official confirmation of ties between the rebel group and the Al Qaeda international terrorist organization.
Earlier this month, the FSA had also announced that it has set up two battalions called ‘Martyr Saddam Hussein’ in the cities of Idlib and Deir al-Zour in Syria.
In a blatant act of defiance and in a move aimed at provoking the feelings of Kurds in general and Syrian Kurds in particular, the FSA formed the two battalions.
Analysts believe that these acts, which are condemned and seen as worrisome by Kurds and all Syrians, might push the opponents to retract and backtrack on their moves against Bashar Assad’s government.
Naming the FSA battalions after Saddam Hussein was met with overwhelming outrage and condemnation by the Kurds.
Earlier reports also said that the FSA is building a military base for the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as the MEK, NCR and PMOI) in the bordering areas of Syria and Lebanon.
The announcement was made yesterday by Basam al-Dad, a spokesman of the terrorist Free Syrian Army. Al-Dad claimed that the group wants to enjoy the experiences and combat skills of the MKO in different battle fronts.
The MKO is blacklisted by much of the international community.
Lebanese Intel Chief Assassinated – Who did it? – Lebanese Girl [video]
108morris108
October 19, 2012
The man assassinated is associated with so many sides and controversies. He busted an Israeli spy ring – worked for the side trained by the Americans – was a bodyguard to the assassinated Hariri – but didnt go to work on the day of his assassination. Today 11 people were killed and 80 wounded in his assassination.
Israel, Syria, Iraq: Who benefits from the Beirut blast? [video]
Russia Today
October 19, 2012
At least eight are dead and 118 wounded after a car bomb rocked the Lebanese capital of Beirut. The attack in the majority Christian neighborhood killed a top-ranking security official.
RT crosses over to Beirut to talk to Ali Rizk – an expert on the Middle East.
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Amnesty International is US State Department Propaganda
Amnesty run by US State Department representatives, funded by convicted financial criminals, and threatens real human rights advocacy worldwide.
by Tony Cartalucci
Image: From Amnesty International USA’s website, “Free Pussy Riot.” “Help Amnesty International send a truckload of balaclavas to Putin.” This childish stunt smacks of US State Department-funded Gene Sharp antics – and meshes directly with the US State Department’s goal of undermining the Russian government via its troupe of US-funded “opposition activists” including “Pussy Riot.” That Amnesty is supporting the US State Department’s agenda should be no surprise, it is run literally by the US State Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations, Suzanne Nossel.
August 22, 2012 – Mistakenly considered by many as the final word on human rights worldwide, it might surprise people to know that Amnesty International is in fact one of the greatest obstacles to real human rights advocacy on Earth. In its most recent 2012 annual report (page 4, .pdf), Amnesty reiterates one of the biggest lies it routinely tells:
“Amnesty International is funded mainly by its membership and public donations. No funds are sought or accepted from governments for investigating and campaigning against human rights abuses. Amnesty International is independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion.”
This is categorically false. Amnesty international is indeed funded and run by not only governments, but also immense corporate-financier interests, and is not only absolutely entwined with political ideology and economic interests, it is an essential tool used for perpetuating just such interests.
Amnesty International’s Funding
Finding financial information on Amnesty International’s website is made purposefully difficult – specifically to protect the myth that the organization is “independent.” Like any organized criminal operation, Amnesty separates compromising financial ties through a series of legal maneuvers and shell organizations. Upon Amnesty’s website it states:
“The work carried out through Amnesty International’s International Secretariat is organised into two legal entities, in compliance with United Kingdom law. These are Amnesty International Limited (“AIL”) and Amnesty International Charity Limited (“AICL”). Amnesty International Limited undertakes charitable activities on behalf of Amnesty International Charity Limited, a registered charity.”
And it is there, at Amnesty International Limited, where ties to both governments and corporate-financier interests are kept. On page 11 of Amnesty International Limited’s 2011 Report and Financial Statement (.pdf) it states (emphasis added):
“The Directors are pleased to acknowledge the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Oak Foundation, Open Society Georgia Foundation, the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Programme, Mauro Tunes and American Jewish World Service. The UK Department for International Development (Governance and Transparency Fund) continued to fund a four year human rights education project in Africa. The European Commission (EuropeAid) generously awarded a multi-year grant towards Amnesty International’s human rights education work in Europe.”
Clearly then, Amnesty does take money from both governments and corporate-financier interests, one of the most notorious of which, Open Society, is headed by convicted financial criminal George Soros. In March, 2012, it was reported that a Bloomberg’s report, “Soros Loses Case Against French Insider-Trading Conviction,” indicated that an appeal based on a “human rights” violation against Wall Street speculator George Soros had been rejected by the “European Court of Human Rights.”
Soros, whose Open Society also funds Human Rights Watch and a myriad of other “human rights” advocates, literally attempted to use the West’s human rights racket to defend himself against charges of financial fraud in perhaps the most transparent illustration of just how this racket operates.
Soros, who was convicted and fined for insider trading in 2002 regarding French bank Société Générale shares he bought in 1988, has built an empire out of obfuscating global criminal activity with the cause of “human rights.” His support, as well as that of the British and European governments, of Amnesty International aims solely at expanding this obfuscating.
Amnesty International’s Leadership
Amnesty’s leadership is also telling of its true agenda. Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, for instance was drawn directly from the US State Department – again, utterly contradicting Amnesty’s claims of being “independent” of governments and corporate interests. Nossel continued promoting US foreign policy, but simply behind a podium with a new logo, Amnesty International’s logo, attached to it. Amnesty International’s website specifically mentions Nossel’s role behind US State Department-backed UN resolutions regarding Iran, Syria, Libya, and Cote d’Ivoire.
Image: Same lies, different podium. Suzanne Nossel previously of the US State Department, is now executive director of Amnesty International USA. Her primary function of dressing up aspirations of corporate-financier global hegemony as “human rights advocacy” has not changed.
It has been documented at great length how these issues revolve around a decades long plan devised by corporate-financier interests to divide, destroy and despoil these nations who are seen as obstacles to US global hegemony. In the case of Syria specifically, it was revealed that the current “human rights” catastrophe stems back to a malicious 2007 conspiracy documented by “New Yorker” journalist Seymour Hersh, between the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia which sought to purposefully fund, arm, and deploy sectarian extremists to undermine and overthrow the Syrian government – this knowing full well the human tragedy that would unfold.
Nossel’s “contributions” then are simply to dress up naked military aggression and the pursuit of global corporate-financier hegemony with the pretense of “human rights” advocacy.
A glance at AmnestyUSA.org reveals that each and every front the US State Department is currently working on and has prioritized is also coincidentally prioritized by Amnesty International. This includes rallies and campaigns to support US State Department-funded Russian opposition groups (currently fixated on “Pussy Riot“), undermining the Syrian government, toppling the government of Belarus, and supporting the Wall Street-London created Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (still called by its British Imperial nomenclature of “Burma” by Suu Kyi herself).
Amnesty International Betrays Real Human Rights Advocacy
Amnesty does indeed cover issues that are critical of US foreign policy, toward the bottom of their websites and at the back of their reports. Likewise, the corporate-media selectively reports issues that coincide with their interests while other issues are either under-reported or not reported at all. And it is precisely because Amnesty covers all issues, but selectively emphasizes those that are conducive to the interests of immense corporate-financiers that makes Amnesty one of the greatest impediments to genuine human rights advocacy on Earth.
Images: Manufacturing Dissent. “Free Pussy Riot” (above). Ironically, FIDH is directly funded by the US State Department via the Neo-Con lined US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as well as George Soros’ Open Society. “Russia: Stop Arms Transfer to Syria!” (below). If the US State Department wants it, be sure that US State Department-run Amnesty International will stage a demonstration for it – and regardless of size or legitimacy of the demonstration, expect the corporate-media to make it headline news.
Ordinary people are given the false impression that “someone is watching out” for human rights abuses, when in reality, all Amnesty and other organizations like it are doing, is managing public perception selectively of global human rights abuses, fabricating and/or manipulating many cases specifically to suit the agenda of large corporate-financier interests. This can be seen when entire reports out of Amnesty or Human Rights Watch consist solely of “witness reports” compiled from accounts of US-backed opposition groups.
In the rare instance that a report includes references to actual photographic, video, or documented evidence, such as Human Rights Watch’s 2011 “Descent into Chaos” (.pdf) report, deceptive language is intentionally included along with throwaway passages to enable selective reporting and spinning by not only the Western corporate media, but by a myriad of faux-NGOs funded and run by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch’s sponsors and affiliates. The Descent into Chaos report, regarding Thailand, was promply and amply spun and manipulated by US State Department-funded faux-NGO and “rights advocate” Prachatai.
When people erroneously believe that credible organizations are handling “rights advocacy” they will not only become complacent, they will become negligent of their own responsibilities to objectively examine potential abuses and speak out against them. Wall Street and London’s corporate-financier interests have filled a void – that should be occupied by their greatest opponents – instead with a large advocacy racket of their own creation. Not only are they given a free pass to abuse human rights globally, they’ve actually used their controlled opposition to attack their opponents.
It is clear that Amnesty International is by no means an “advocate” of human rights, but rather an affront to human rights advocacy. It goes without saying that it should be boycotted out of existence and at the very least, identified as illegitimate and fraudulent – from its funding to its compromised leadership.
Additionally, we the people must tackle real violations of each others rights at the grassroots – because it is absolute folly to believe that global spanning organizations, funded by corporate-financiers, echoing the agenda of governments driven by special interests has our best interests and rights in mind.
British Democracy: Living in Fear, Kept in the Dark
by Colin Todhunter
Global Research
October 17, 2012
Earlier this year, I watched the BBC’s main political debate programme that allows an audience of members of the public to put questions to a panel of politicians and so-called experts. Syria was on the agenda. A member of the panel referred to the Syrian rebels as ‘freedom fighters’. Within a few minutes, all panel members and the audience were using this term to refer to the rebels. It led me to ponder why so many people were willing to accept at face value an agenda that portrayed the insurgents in such a wholly positive light.
It also led me to conclude just how easy it is to manipulate ordinary people into backing imperialist ventures abroad, which are fought on behalf of rich interests. At a time of biting austerity and attacks on workers and the welfare state, well over a billion pounds of ordinary people’s money was used to fund the illegal bombing of Libya.
The justification sold to people for such militarism is that dictators are bad. The justification sold to people for attacking or destabilising countries resulting in mass death is that democracy must therefore be forced through by the barrel of a gun. Isn’t it terrible, the politicians and media say, that Assad is a brutal dictator who is preventing democracy by putting down the rebels.
The Assad regime undoubtedly has its faults, but nothing is ever said by the corporate media about the authoritarian ruling clique in Saudi Arabia, which has even given its name to that country (House of Saud). Nothing is ever said about a western backed dictator in Bahrain who has been in power for 52 years. Nothing is ever revealed about the brutal ongoing crackdowns on protestors and dissenters in those countries. When Bahrain used Saudi troops to put down uprisings in 2011, the resultant death toll was proportionally much larger than was the loss of life in Egypt during the uprising there. In fact, if the death toll in Bahrain were taken as a proportion of the population, the equivalent death toll for Egypt would have been 12,000.
Where was the outrage from the US and its client states? That’s right, there was none. The King of Bahrain was even invited to attend Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee celebrations atBuckinghamPalace.
As it did inLibya, repressive Saudi Arabia is playing a big role in facilitating the rag-tag rebels in Syria to destabilise a sovereign state that stands in the way of NATO and Israeli interests.
And far away, back inBritain, the public is being fed a pack of lies by politicians and the mainstream media about the situation in Syria, just as it has been over other military adventures over the past decade. The majority of Brits don’t have much of a clue about what is happening. They are unaware that Syria forms part of the greater game in the region. They fail to see the links between Syria, Pakistan, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, which are all part of a Washington-led wider geo-political strategy hell-bent on global domination, controlling the world’s mineral resources, pipeline routes and lining the pockets of western financiers and oil, armaments and logistics companies. Too many remain confused or ignorant thanks to duplicitous politicians and the corporate media.
The public cannot know the reality. They will not be allowed to know. They must be kept in fear and in the dark and deceived by politicians and the media that churn out increasingly tired-sounding clichés about a war on terror or humanitarian militarism to justify murderous brutality.
And the result is that too many people accept the lie that rag-tag forces made up of vicious, faction-ridden fighters, illegally armed by NATO terror governments and unelected regimes in Saudi and Qatar, are fighting for freedom and democracy. Those forces and nations wouldn’t know about freedom and democracy if they fell over it.
Sorry, my mistake, they would and they do. That’s why they seek to crush it when it appears. And that applies whether it appears within the borders of the US, Britain or Saudi, or elsewhere in places that are of strategic importance to them. The US track record of crushing democratic governments is well documented by the likes of Noam Chomsky and historian William Blum. And look no further to see the attacks on WikiLeaks or the Occupy Movement to see how democratic movements are treated at home. Look no further to see how democratic workers’ movements that took hundreds of years to build in Britain and elsewhere in Europe are under sustained attack.
Giving the people the opportunity to vote every four or five years, while in the meantime deceiving, misinforming and lying to them, has no more to do with democracy or freedom than what is happening in Syria right now.
If more ordinary folk were turn their attention away from glossy sports events, premiership football, cheap knockabout BBC political debate shows or all other forms of comatosing infortainment for one minute, they might well realise that the billionaire criminal elites that take their taxes and dictate national and foreign policy are in many cases a good deal worse than any number of the regimes they seek to demonise.
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Articles by: Colin Todhunter
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200 Armed Militia Occupy Tripoli Occupation Gov`t, List of Ministers Torn Up
Mathaba
October 5, 2012
More than a year after being swept to power by U.S.-led neo-colonialist imperialist crusader forces the occupation regime head-quartered in Tripoli is now even unable to defend itself against attack.
At least 200 militia forces from Zawia entered the so-called General National Congress to deliver a clear warning to the regime that it has no legitimacy and should give up its power attempts.
The Libyan people want to activate the popular congresses system which had become corrupted in recent years due to the imposition of returned stray dogs into seats of power.
Stray dogs were those Libyans who had been stripped of citizenship and forced to live a low life of indignity as hostile traitors in the care of Britain, the USA and other imperialist powers.
After the unpopular compromise reached without the Authority of the People to install stray dogs into key positions over the heads of the masses, the Jamahiriya became weakened from within.
[hat tip: What Really Happened]
Israeli terror drones pound besieged Gaza Strip
An Israeli Heron TP, also known as the IAI Eitan, drone ([PressTV] file photo)
October 17, 2012
Early on Wednesday, five remote-controlled Israeli assassination drones fired missiles at targets in the northern part of Gaza, injuring two people.
On Sunday, two people were killed and three others injured when Israeli fighter jets struck targets in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military frequently bombs the Gaza Strip, saying the actions are being conducted for defensive purposes. However, disproportionate force is always used, in violation of international law, and civilians are often killed or injured.
Gaza has been blockaded since 2007, a situation that has caused a decline in the standard of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty.
The apartheid regime of Israel denies about 1.7 million people in Gaza their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs that pay proper wages, and adequate healthcare and education.
MP/HGL
PN 