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France Votes
Stephen Lendman
A state of emergency exists, declared by outgoing President Hollande in November 2015 after the Paris Charlie Hebdo/kosher market false flag attacks.
At the time, Hollande called what happened “an act of war,” suspending constitutional rule, followed by lawmakers enacting France’s version of America’s Patriot Act.
He and parliamentarians exploited the incidents to crack down hard on civil liberties, human rights, and other democratic principles. Fear-mongering propaganda persists, convincing people to believe sacrificing fundamental freedoms protects their security.
Trump Trying to Force Putin to Capitulate
Eric Zuesse
The Trump Administration is demanding Russian President Vladimir Putin to abandon support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and has blocked at the United Nations an investigation-team's being sent to the alleged site of the alleged sarin-gas attack that the Trump Administration alleges was perpetrated by the forces of Assad. Instead of allowing an international team to investigate, President Trump’s team, on Monday April 24th, headlined that it "Sanctions 271 Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center Staff in Response to Sarin Attack on Khan Sheikhoun”, so as to "target the scientific support center for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s horrific chemical weapons attack on innocent civilian men, women, and children.”
Russian Television reported U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, on April 6th, two days after the alleged sarin attack, as essentially demanding Putin’s capitulation, regarding the Syrian war:
“'It is very important that the Russian government consider carefully their support for Bashar al-Assad.’ Tillerson added. Asked if the US will lead a regime change effort in Syria, Tillerson said that 'those steps are underway.'”
Russia and America: World’s Apart on Key Issues
Stephen Lendman
Trump promised improved relations with Moscow. Bilateral ones are dismal on his watch, US hostility worse than any time in recent memory.
Russia wants peaceful conflict resolution in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Ukraine and elsewhere. Washington wants endless wars, escalating ongoing ones, threatening North Korea and Iran.
Are Russia and China on its target list? Will unthinkable nuclear war erupt on the Korean peninsula, in the Middle East or elsewhere? Lavrov and Tillerson agreed on launching a joint working group to seek ways of improving bilateral relations, according to Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
Israel’s War on Syria
Stephen Lendman
Israel partners with America’s war on Syria, aiming for maximum slaughter, destruction, chaos, human suffering and regime change.
Netanyahu supports ISIS and other terrorist groups, supplying them with weapons, other aid, and medical care for their wounded fighters in Israeli hospitals.
The IDF terror-bombs Syria at its discretion, another incident on Friday. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said: “A military source announced on Friday evening that the Israeli enemy’s warplanes fired two missiles at 18:45 from within occupied territory at a military position in the surroundings of Khan Arnabeh in Quneitra countryside, causing material damage.”
US Provocation and North Korea: Pretext for War with China
James Petras
Introduction
US Empire building on a world-scale began during and shortly after WWII. Washington intervened directly in the Chinese civil war (providing arms to Chiang Kai Shek’s army while the Red Army battled the Japanese), backed France’s re-colonization war against the Viet Minh in Indo-China and installed Japanese imperial collaborator-puppet regimes in South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. While empire building took place with starts and stops, advances and defeats, the strategic goal remained the same: to prevent the establishment of independent communist or secular-nationalist governments and to impose vassal regimes compliant to US interests.
Bloody wars and coups (‘regime changes’) were the weapons of choice. Defeated European colonial regimes were replaced and incorporated as subordinate US allies.
Where possible, Washington relied on armies of mercenaries trained, equipped and directed by US ‘advisors’ to advance imperial conquests. Where necessary, usually if the client regime and vassal troops were unable to defeat an armed people’s army, the US armed forces intervened directly.
Imperial strategists sought to intervene and brutally conquer the target nation. When they failed to achieve their ‘maximum’ goal, they dug in with a policy of encirclement to cut the links between revolutionary centers with adjoining movements. Where countries successfully resisted armed conquests, empire builders imposed economic sanctions and blockades to erode the economic basis of popular governments.
Russia and Iran Committed to Combatting Terrorism in Syria
Stephen Lendman
Trump administration officials demand Russia and Iran stop supporting Assad’s battle against terrorist invaders or face harsh recrimination and further alienation from Washington.
They want their anti-terrorist operations halted, Assad ousted, replaced by a pro-Western stooge and Syrian sovereignty destroyed.
On Sunday, Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani discussed conditions in Syria. They called Trump’s aggression against a sovereign state a grave breach of international law, aiding terrorist groups instead of combating them, undermining peace talks instead of supporting them.
On Monday, Rouhani warned about further US aggression against Syria, saying it could endanger the entire region.
US War on Whistleblowers
Stephen Lendman
Truth-telling in America is endangered. Free and open expression is our most fundamental right, all others threatened without it.
Exposing government wrongdoing is courageous and essential. Obama waged war on press freedom and whistleblowing. Trump continues his outrageous agenda.
When governments consider truth-telling independent journalists and whistleblowers threats to national security, tyranny replaces freedom. In 2012, the Obama administration declared WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange an enemy of the state, forcing him to take refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy to avoid unjust arrest, extradition to America and imprisonment to silence him - not for any crimes. He committed none.
Terrorists Are Terrorists and Not Rebels in Syria
Stephen Lendman
Waging war depends on disinformation, deception and Big Lies - used to justify the unjustifiable.
Conflict in Syria isn’t civil. All anti-government forces are US-supported terrorists. Names of different groups don’t matter.
They’re all cut out of the same cloth. Their aims are pure evil. They can’t exist without foreign support. State actors bear full responsibility for turning Syria into a charnel house. After over six years of war, hundreds of thousands are dead, mostly defenseless men, women, children, the elderly and infirm - millions internally or externally displaced.
Should People Trust CBS, ABC, NBC, NYT, WP, WSJ, BBC, AP, etc.?
Eric Zuesse
The following facts were established and published in obscure places in 2002 (which will be documented here), well before the U.S. and UK invaded Iraq. But, did you know these facts, from the news-reports you encountered, at that time, before we invaded, on that day that will forever be remembered in infamy, as the precise date when America’s rabid dictatorship became clearly exposed, for all future history to contemplate, in horror, that cursed day being 20 March 2003 — the day of the invasion that is still destroying the Middle East, and worse? Did you know these facts, at that time? The New Rulers of the World John Pilger, 2002, Verso Books p.9:At the time of writing, Iraq is likely to be attacked by the United States. Using sections of the American and British press as ‘conduits’, US intelligence has successfully created what the CIA in Indochina used to call a ‘master illusion’. This is the threat of Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’. There is no proof or credible evidence of any such threat, which has been denied by numerous authorities, including the former United Nations inspector in Iraq, Scott Ritter.17 However, the Iraqi ‘threat’ is central to the Bush administration’s post-September 11 strategy of ‘total war p.152:
The most important ‘evidence’ of Iraq’s complicity with September 11 is that the alleged leader of the Twin Towers suicide hijackers, Mohamed Atta, was supposed to have met an Iraqi intelligence agent in the Czech Republic. In the British press, the intelligence agent was promoted from being ‘low level’ (The Guardian) to ‘mid-ranking’ (Independent) to ‘senior’ (Financial Times) to the ‘head of Baghdad’s intelligence services’ (The Times). Only the Financial Times questioned whether the ‘meeting’ took place at all, or had anything to do with the destruction of the Twin Towers.97 On the BBC’s Newsnight, Mark Urban, the Foreign Office correspondent, revealed that there was ‘secret information’ about ‘a missile Saddam Hussein was planning to launch’. He provided no evidence.
Turkey’s Constitutional Referendum Divides Country, Opposition Cries Foul
Stephen Lendman
On Sunday, Turks voted on whether to replace its parliamentary system with a presidential one - affording Erdogan virtual dictatorial powers.
He can now rule by decree, short of circumventing existing laws. He can declare emergency rule, appoint two vice presidents, ministers and regime officials, as well as dissolve parliament if he wishes and call new elections.
He has more control over Turkey’s courts. His power-grab prevailed on Sunday by a 51.3 - 48.7% margin. Reported turnout was 84%.
The referendum was held under state of emergency conditions, following last July’s failed military coup - tens of thousands imprisoned in its aftermath, over 130,000 purged from regime, academic and other public positions.
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