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"It's like a jail," An account of life in Lebanon's refugee camps as told by a Syrian-Palestinian refugee
Louisa Lamb
Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps have become more crowded since March of 2011, but in large numbers starting in mid-December 2012, when Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp was heavily bombed. Between 70,000 and 90,000 Syrian-Palestinians have entered Lebanon and are staying mainly in Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps. Most were forced out of Syria because of persistent and accelerating civil-sectarian war, while others have left because of the lack of resources.
This young American had the privilege of speaking with Wisam, who has been living as a refugee in Lebanon since 2012. Wisam was born in 1986 in Damascus, Syria. Unlike many Syrian-Palestinians, who are often born in refugee camps, he was born in a hospital in Damascus. He is the middle-child of five, with three brothers and one sister. His father worked a bureaucratic position in the Syrian government, and his mother stayed at home with the children at their two flats in Almshtel, near Seyeda Zeinab, south of Damascus. In Syria, Wisam did not face any discrimination for being Palestinian. He remembers being treated as an equal by Syrians and by governmental agencies. Like almost all Palestinians however, he did attend UNRWA schools and reminisced, with seeming nostalgia, about what he considers was a good education, reciting the general public view that UNRWA schools were often better Syrian state schools.
The Reversal of Kerry’s Ukraine Statement Came from Obama, Not Nuland
Eric Zuesse
When Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland on May 15th contradicted her boss John Kerry’s statement of three days earlier, in which Kerry had warned Ukraine’s President Petro Petroshenko not to violate the Minsk II agreement, and not to invade Crimea, and not to re-invade Donbass, the source of this reversal was actually U.S. President Barack Obama, and not Victoria Nuland (as the State Department had reported).
When I first noticed the contradiction as I reported on May 21st, Nuland’s statement on May 15th was being quoted by Ukraine’s Interfax News Agency, without any link to its U.S. source. I looked but didn’t right away find its U.S. source, but the official Ukrainian news agency would not quote a U.S. Government official falsely, and so I went with the story on that basis.
The Senate’s Patriot Act Betrayal
SARTRE
Watching the DC establishment respond to Senator Rand Paul’s efforts to sunset important aspects of the Patriot Act is like peeling back the skin of a decaying onion to expose the rot. Members of the Senate all take an oath to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution. Well those “public servants” who are doing their perfected “Potomac Two Step” would have the public believe that next week’s vote on some version of the House passed USA Freedom Act will halt the NSA from their systematic violation of 4th Amendment protections.
As expected the disinformation from the corporatist media, USA Today misleads as expected. “The Senate voted 77-17 to advance a bill that would end the National Security Agency’s controversial bulk collection of the phone data of millions of Americans not suspected of any terrorist activity.”
US Senate Lets Three Patriot Act Provisions Expire
by Stephen Lendman
On Sunday, Senate debate failed to extend three controversial Patriot Act provisions:
● Section 215 used as justification for bulk NSA phone, Internet and business records collection;
● the lone wolf provision amending the definition of a foreign power to include anyone allegedly "engag(ing) in international terrorism or activities in preparation thereof;" and
● the roving wiretap provision permitting "blank check" phone and Internet monitoring of individuals without identifying them by name or having justifiable probable cause.
● Unless changed by subsequent congressional action, monitoring henceforth requires "specific and articulable facts" showing targeted subjects may be foreign agents as defined under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Section 215 defenders lie claiming sunsetting the provision eliminates vital surveillance powers needed to protect against terrorist threats.
Revisiting Patriot Act Police State Legislation
by Stephen Lendman
Free and open societies don't enact police state laws like the USA Patriot Act - ever for any reason.
Lawyer Nancy Chang said earlier "(t)here's nothing patriotic about trampling on the Bill of Rights."
The legislation was written, on the shelf, ready to go long before 9/11 - awaiting an excuse to introduce and enact what no free society would tolerate.
Washington capitalized on a window of hysteria to grant unchecked executive powers. The legislation was congressionally passed and signed by George Bush on October 26, 2001 - 45 days after 9/11.
It state sponsored terror committed by the government of the United States against its own people. The mother of all Big Lies claims otherwise.
The Patriot Act’s text was 342 pages long. It controversially changed 15 US laws. It created the crime of domestic terrorism for the first time - defined as "acts dangerous to human life…that appear to be intended:
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping…"
In other words, anti-war or global justice demonstrations, environmental or animal rights activism, civil disobedience, and dissent of any kind may be called "domestic terrorism."
UN Report Accuses Israel of Crimes Against Children
by Stephen Lendman
Reuters obtained a confidential UN report indicating "an alarming number of child victims in last" summer's Israeli aggression on Gaza.
At the same time, the world body hesitates including Israel on a list of children's rights violators - because of heavy-handed US and Israeli pressure not to.
Israel's war murdered over 500 children and dozens of entire families. They were willfully targeted - a major war crime by any standard.
Reuters said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is "leaning against including Israel" on its list of nations violating children's rights - willful child killers and abusers.
A previous article discussed Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Leila Zerrougui calling for holding Israel responsible for "grave crimes against children" in last summer's Gaza war.
She accused its forces of willful attacks on schools, hospitals and UN shelters. Ban rejected her request. His spokesman Stephane Dujarric said he hadn't made a final judgment - despite overwhelming, indisputable evidence of Israeli high crimes, murdering over 500 Palestinian children in cold blood.
A late April UN report blamed Israel for seven attacks on UN schools in Gaza - used as safe haven shelters.
Sexual Exploitation by UN Peacekeepers in Haiti
by Stephen Lendman
UN Blue Helmets are supposed to restore order, maintain peace and security and help troubled nations transition to stability.
Instead, they operate as imperial enforcers creating more conflict than resolution - including committing horrific human rights abuses against vulnerable people they're mandated to protect.
Wherever they're deployed it's the same ugly story. After the Bush administration ousted democratically elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a ruthless, illegal MINUSTAH mission enforced coup d'etat authority.
Abuses against vulnerable Haitians from then to now include sexual exploitation, trafficking and rape. On June 9, AP News headlined "UN: Sex exploitation by peacekeepers strongly underreported."
Washington's Phony War on ISIS
by Stephen Lendman
The Big Lie explains everything about US policies on issues mattering most - especially geopolitical ones.
The New York Times operates as a virtual US government house organ. Many of its reports are little more than administration and Pentagon press releases.
On June 9, it headlined "US Embracing a New Approach on Battling ISIS in Iraq." The so-called new approach is the beefed up old one - providing more support for Islamic State fighters in Iraq, Syria and wherever else Washington deploys them. They're in Libya. Small numbers are in Gaza perhaps ahead of more to come.
Death squad diplomacy is longstanding US policy. Vietnam's Operation Phoenix became a prototype for today's wars. Tactics included intimidation, kidnappings, torture, and mass murder.
Obama Sidelines Kerry on Ukraine Policy
Eric Zuesse
On May 21st, I headlined "Secretary of State John Kerry v. His Subordinate Victoria Nuland, Regarding Ukraine,” and quoted John Kerry’s May 12th warning to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to cease his repeated threats to invade Crimea and re-invade Donbass, two former regions of Ukraine, which had refused to accept the legitimacy of the new regime that was imposed on Ukraine in violent clashes during February 2014. (These were regions that had voted overwhelmingly for the Ukrainian President who had just been overthrown. They didn’t like him being violently tossed out and replaced by his enemies.) Kerry said then that, regarding Poroshenko, "we would strongly urge him to think twice not to engage in that kind of activity, that that would put Minsk in serious jeopardy. And we would be very, very concerned about what the consequences of that kind of action at this time may be.” Also quoted there was Kerry’s subordinate, Victoria Nuland, three days later, saying the exact opposite, that we "reiterate our deep commitment to a single Ukrainian nation, including Crimea, and all the other regions of Ukraine.” I noted, then that, "The only person with the power to fire Nuland is actually U.S. President Barack Obama.” However, Obama instead has sided with Nuland on this.
German Banker: Obama Is Destroying Europe
Eric Zuesse
Interviewed on June 6th by German Economic News, the chief economist at Bremer Landesbank, Folker Hellmeyer, says that because of Obama’s sanctions against Russia, German exports declined year-over-year by 18% in 2014, and by 34% in the first two months of 2015 (no later figures), but he asserts that "The damage is much more comprehensive than these statistics show,” because those are only the “primary losses,” and there are in addition “secondary effects,” which get even worse over time.
For example: "European countries with strong business in Russia, including Finland and Austria, are economically hit very hard. These countries consequently place fewer orders from Germany. Moreover, considering that European corporations will circumvent the sanctions, to create production facilities at the highest efficiency level in Russia, we lose this potential capital stock, which is the basis of our prosperity. Russia wins the capital stock,” at the EU’s expense, even though the sanctions are targeted against Russia.
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