Secret HistoryS


Vader

SOTT Focus: 'Beacon of liberty': 10 years since Georgia attacked South Ossetia and Russia - not the other way around


RT
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 19:20 UTC
Children play with an empty grenade launcher
© Sergei Karpukhin / ReutersChildren play with an empty grenade launcher in Tskhinval on September 1, 2008
Wednesday marks exactly a decade since an ambitious Georgian leader shook world politics and ushered in a new era of antagonism between Russia and the West.

Ten years ago Western audiences learned about breaking news. Russia was doing it again - attacking its weaker neighbor Georgia with tanks and warplanes. Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili was giving exclusive interviews right and left, explaining how his country was being attacked because it wants freedom and how the battle was for values, nothing less. Anchors reminded viewers that Georgia provided troops to missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and wanted to be part of NATO.


On the same day Russian audiences learned that Saakashvili went on his latest military adventures, sending tanks and heavy artillery to shell the rebellious city of Tskhinval. Russian peacekeepers stationed there had been killed. President Dmitry Medvedev, visiting the Olympic Games in Beijing, ordered a military response to enforce peace in South Ossetia.

Comment: A nurse from South Ossetia, who rescued 19 people from a burning psychiatric ward in Tskhinval during the Georgian raid and spent days in a cellar with terrified mental patients, has recalled the tragic events of August 2008.
Irina Bibilova was on a night shift on August 8 when the Georgian forces launched a sudden, large-scale attack on the breakaway Republic of South Ossetia. Its capital Tskhinval immediately came under indiscriminate shelling, with a local psychiatric ward becoming one of the targets.

As the first explosions were heard, Irina and other medics decided to gather the patients on the first floor of the hospital. But they quickly realized that it wasn't safe there either and began evacuating the facility.

"Under the garage building [not far from the hospital] there was a trench to repair the cars. And they let us in and we stayed in that hole for 24 hours," Irina told RT's Ruptly video agency.
...
Irina recalled that she and other nurses even tried to extinguish the flames, saying: "Despite the shelling, we managed to get three buckets of water there, but, of course, we couldn't save our hospital."

"But, thank God, we managed to save the patients," Irina recalled, barely able to hold back her tears.
Ten years after Georgia tried to seize the breakaway region of South Ossetia by force, RT spoke to survivors about how they have coped with the mental and physical scars suffered in those few days.
From a boy who was born to a cannonade of Georgian shelling in Tskhinval, to a nurse injured while trying to treat Russian peacekeepers besieged by Georgian troops, to a Florida man, whose Ossetian wife was caught in the crossfire - thousands of people were affected by the August 2008 war.

RT's documentary tells the stories of ordinary people, and of the burdens they have been carrying, in an attempt to answer a question: Can there be lasting peace on the war-scarred land of South Ossetia?

Arsen turned 10 on August 8. When he was born, his home city was under heavy shelling by the Georgian troops. Doctors were preparing to assist with the delivery in a basement, which offered some protection from incoming projectiles and debris.

"An ambulance came to take me to the hospital," recalled Arsen's mother Shorena Kachmazova. "There was heavy gunfire. When I reached the city, it was burned out and lay in ruins. There were burnt-out cars everywhere. That's how I got to the maternity hospital."

"We delivered him as the shells came down!" said Nellu Khugaeva, a nurse. "It was terrifying! We were shaking!"

Arsen said he was told a grenade blew up outside the hospital just as he was born.


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Info

Sub­merged Stone Age set­tle­ment found in south­east Fin­land

Pia Purra
University of Helsinki
Mon, 06 Aug 2018 17:47 UTC
Lake Kuolimojärvi
© Pertti IkonenArchaeologists working on Lake Kuolimojärvi in Savitaipale.
The prehistoric settlement submerged under Lake Kuolimojärvi provides us with a clearer picture of the human occupation in South Karelia during the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic Stone Age (about 10,000 - 6,000 years ago) and it opens up a new research path in Finnish archaeology.

In the early Stone Age, the water levels in the small lakes located in the southern parts of what are today Lake Kuolimojärvi and Saimaa were several metres below the present levels. After this period, the water levels started rising as a result of uneven land uplift and the tilting of lakes and rivers. The rise in water levels ended with the outburst of River Vuoksi through the Salpausselkä Ridge about 6,000 years ago when water masses carved a new southeastern outflow channel towards Lake Ladoga.

With the rise in water levels, areas that were on dry land in the early Stone Age have been buried in the bottom of the lake and its littoral deposits.

The aim of the three-year study carried out by the University of Helsinki has been to find traces of early Stone Age settlements under water and from wetlands at lakes Kuolimojärvi and Saimaa.

"This means that there is a huge gap in our archaeological knowledge of this particular area because we have not yet found the earliest Stone Age sites," explains postdoctoral researcher Satu Koivisto who heads the project.

So far the oldest sites have been settled after the breakthrough of River Vuoksi (6000 years ago and onwards). However, there has definitely been human habitation in this area for thousands of years before that, as is shown by the traces of settlements of more than 10,000 years old discovered at Kuurmanpohja in Joutseno further to the south.
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Bomb

Edward Curtin: The satanic nature of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Edward Curtain
Off Guardian
Tue, 07 Aug 2018 20:39 UTC
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
© Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images
Ahab is forever Ahab, man. This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant; I act under orders." Herman Melville, Moby Dick
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid 'dens of crime' that Dickens loved to paint...But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice."C. S. Lewis, author's preface, 1962, The Screwtape Letters

Comment:

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Attention

The year was 1992, George H.W. Bush accused Bill Clinton of 'going Russian' but few remember it today

Adam Garrie
Eurasia Future
Sun, 22 Jul 2018 00:00 UTC
B.ClintonGHWBush
© Getty ImagesFormer presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush
When a former CIA director accused Bill Clinton of being in-league with the KGB

The 1992 US Presidential election was one that the incumbent George H.W. Bush was 'supposed' to win. After the former CIA director served as Vice President for eight years behind a personally popular Ronald Reagan, 1988 saw him enter the White House as President. A blitzkrieg style attack on Iraq in the First Gulf War gave Bush a chance to play the "war leader" card and therefore, putting some bandages on an ailing economy was all that stood before him and a second term.

That was the logic of the 1992 US Presidential election until two very capable candidates stood to oppose him. By the end of the 1992 election, Bill Clinton had gone from a little known governor of a materially impoverished state to a charismatic campaigner who countered Bush's often robotic mannerisms with a human touch. With a saxophone in one hand and cheeseburger in the other, Clinton's success at connecting with ordinary people very much changed the dynamic of the election. Then there was the appearance of the most successful third party candidates in decades - Ross Perot. Perot's economic and foreign policy platform in the 1990s was not dissimilar from Donald Trump's in 2016 and likewise, Perot's straight talking style also made him appear more direct than Bush.

Comment: Comparing the past and recent events, it's evident Killary Clinton never wastes a bad thing.

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War Whore

When Western 'democracies' orchestrate ethnic cleansing: Croatia celebrates the 1995 US-backed horrific genocide against Serbs

Miodrag Novakovic
Russia Insider
Sat, 04 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC
croatian genocide against serbs
Elderly Krajina’ resident murdered in his home by Croatian soldiers. His guilt- He was a Serb…
If there was a nation that could safely conclude from its own historical experience that "Crime Pays", than it must be the newest EU member, Croatia. In the modern history this tiny Catholic nation committed one of the most horrific genocides in WWII over Serbian Orthodox Christian population residing in Croatia and Bosnia, murdering at least one million people; and recently in 1995, Croatia conducted (under US supervision) the biggest and permanent ethnic cleansing "military operation" against its (again) Serbian population, expelling over 200,000 of them in just three days (the real number of ethnically cleansed Serbs from Croatia during the wars in 90ies, is at least twice larger)- unofficially becoming the most ethnic cleanse European state.

If you believe, that Croats "en masse", would be ashamed of such reputation, then you are dead wrong. Actually most of them are very proud, and for the last 23 years they are celebrating it very loudly, and doing everything in their power to prevent (after being pressured by the international community) the return of hundreds of thousands of Serbs to their ancient land, and to avoid returning of their stolen property, mostly (real estates, farm lands, etc.).


"We could not prevent the slaughter of the Serbs by the Croatians, including elderly people and children..." - UNPROFOR French Lieutenant-General Jean Cot

Comment: See also:

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Document

Rule of the few: A brief history of Oligarchy

Rosa Tressell and Dr. Leon Tressell
SouthFront
Sun, 05 Aug 2018 14:07 UTC
Oligarchy
© The Conservative Papers


This is the second part of a series prepared on the topic. The first part can be found here. The series will include four parts.

The word Oligarch, meaning rule of the few, came from the Ancient Greek civilisations that rose up in the millennia following the collapse of the mighty Egyptian Empire. The later period was named the Archaic and Classical periods which saw the emergence of Greek city states like Sparta which was founded about the 10th century BCE. Greece was the birthplace of Western philosophy and included the thinkers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. In the works of Plato's Republic, we can see the focus given to questions o f political governments.

Sparta was ruled, unusually at this time, by a group of 28 powerful men plus two kings. This group of thirty was called the council of elders, or gerousia, and they drafted resolutions that were put to the vote of an assembly of "free" men. A board of five overseers, or ephors, chosen from the "free" men, was used to counterbalance the council. These elected ephors were charged with maintaining law, even if that meant charging an Oligarch. Spartan citizens themselves spent their time hunting, fighting and politicking. The lower orders, the workers, were excluded from government. It was their regular uprisings that seriously undermined Sparta's fighting capacity. The Oligarchy is also a reason for Sparta's reputation as a conservative city state slow to make decisions. They can be contrasted to their main rival Athens, who were at this time experimenting with democracy.

Comment: See also: America's surge toward oligarchy? America was ALWAYS an oligarchy

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Fire

1911: When Britain boiled and society began to shift

Juliet Nicolson
Daily Mail
Sat, 04 Aug 2018 22:00 UTC
1911 heatwave UK
August 1911: A group of girls have waded into the Serpentine in London's Hyde Park to keep cool during the heatwave
During a steamy, record-breaking British summer, unease - even madness - filtered through the bright sunshine.

One sweltering August morning, it became too much for one man, who set off on the ten-mile walk from his Essex village to his office in the town of Braintree.

He had never known temperatures like it. After each mile, he removed a piece of clothing and hurled it into the hedgerow as he passed.

Hat, jacket, waistcoat, tie, shirt, trousers, all decorated the wilting hawthorn on his route. He was arrested as soon as he hit Braintree High Street, stark naked, semi-raving and certified by Braintree police as suffering from 'heat insanity'.

Then, like now, it was a summer of unprecedented heat lasting from May to September, as temperatures rocketed above 100F.

Comment: The aberrations in weather, in wealth disparity, social discord, in political scheming and establishment control, and in how (some) people viewed that time seemed to be "running out", is eerily similar to our own era. What followed 1911 were two world wars and unimaginable change so one wonders what our own future has in store:

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Binoculars

The truth about the Hamas Charter, its context and significance

Neil Godfrey
Vridar
Sat, 04 Aug 2018 16:02 UTC
Hamas
© Ibraheem Abu Mustafa / ReutersHamas militants
"Despite its militant extremism, the Islamist movement has shown that it can be pragmatic." - Roy, "Hamas and the Transformation(s) of Political Islam in Palestine," 13
Let's address head-on the Hamas Charter that denies Israel's right to exist. (We will leave aside in this post Israel's Likud Party platform that denies the right for a Palestinian state to ever exist.) I have tried to keep abreast of the makeup and intentions of Hamas for some years but confine myself in this post (or series of posts) on two relatively recent studies:
  • Baconi, Tareq. 2018. Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
  • Caridi, Paola. 2012. Hamas: From Resistance to Government. New York: Seven Stories Press.
The prevailing inability or unwillingness to talk about Hamas in a nuanced manner is deeply familiar. During the summer of 2014, when global news rooms were covering Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip, I watched Palestinian analysts being rudely silenced on the air for failing to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization outright. This condemnation was demanded as a prerequisite for the right of these analysts to engage in any debate about the events on the ground. There was no other explanation, it seemed, for the loss of life in Gaza and Israel other than pure-and-simple Palestinian hatred and bloodlust, embodied by Hamas. I wondered how many lives, both Palestinian and Israeli, have been lost or marred by this refusal to engage with the drivers of Palestinian resistance, of which Hamas is only one facet. I considered the elision of the broader historical and political context of the Palestinian struggle in most conversations regarding Hamas. Whether condemnation or support, it felt to me, many of the views I faced on Palestinian armed resistance were unburdened by moral angst or ambiguity. There was often a certainty or a conviction about resistance that was too easily forthcoming.

I have struggled to find such certainty in my own study of Hamas, even as I remain unwavering in my condemnation of targeting civilians, on either side. (Baconi, p. xi)
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SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: The Truth Perspective: Solzhenitsyn's Warning to the West: Why It's Still Relevant Today

Elan Martin, Harrison Koehli, Corey Schink
Sott.net
Sat, 04 Aug 2018 16:00 UTC
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Dead write: many of Solzhenitsyn's predictions for the future of Ukraine have come to a painful fruition
Shortly after being exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974, Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn gave a series of talks in the U.S. and UK. Those talks, including his Harvard Address of 1978, caused many in the West to turn against him. Once the hero of the anti-Communist movement in the West, his criticisms of Western culture, including its materialism, legalism, shallowness and cowardice, cut a little too close to the bone. His warning to the West - that we are in a weak enough state to be susceptible to the infection of totalitarianism - was stern. And while it did not come to pass - and the Soviet Union collapsed - his warning still applies.

Today on the Truth Perspective we discuss Solzhenitsyn's criticisms of the West, of Communism, and why his warning is still relevant. The problems he elucidated are not just still present, they have gotten worse. Solzhenitsyn worried that the West would have to learn through experience, and not through the example of those who had already suffered. It looks like he was probably right.

Running Time: 01:28:23

Download: MP3

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Archaeology

Ancient cities that are still inhabited

Michael Van Duisen
ListVerse
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 14:45 UTC
Even though much that links us to their founding years is gone, cities that reach back to the earliest human civilizations retain an undeniable allure. These 10 examples include some of the oldest cities in history, and people still call each one of them home.

Ife

Founded circa 350 B.C.
Yoruba carving
© Tropenmuseum
The Yoruba people consider Ife the mythical birthplace of mankind. Two of their deities are said to have created the first humans out of clay, with one of them becoming the first king of the Yoruba. By the 11th century, the city had become the capital of a kingdom, with its residents producing the region's famed terra-cotta heads during the following two centuries.

Nearly destroyed as a result of a late 18th-century war, as well as by decades of trauma related to the slave trade, Ife is now home to one of Nigeria's major universities, as well as the Historical Society of Nigeria. In addition, the spiritual leader of the Yoruba people, known as the Ooni, lives in a palace in the center of the city. Ife now has over 600,000 residents.
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