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U.S. special forces photographed with YPG insignia in Syria; Turkey isn't pleased


Moon of Alabama
Fri, 27 May 2016 16:20 UTC
special forces
© Delil Souleiman / AFP
Armed men in uniform identified by Syrian Democratic forces as US special operations forces are seen in the village of Fatisah in the northern Syrian province of Raqa on May 25, 2016.
Some 300 U.S. special forces illegally invaded Syria to support the Syrian Kurds of the YPG organization. The Turks see the YPG as a sister organization to the Kurdish PKK guerrillas in Turkey which are a designated terrorist organization while they are fighting for autonomy within Turkey. Only yesterday six Turkish security personal died during fights with the PKK. To Turks the YPG are terrorists.

Yesterday the U.S. special forces screwed up mightily by displaying the insignia of the "terrorists" while combating the Islamic State. Leading U.S. media though try to calm the situation down by misleading their readers.

To mollify Turkey over the cooperation with the YPG the U.S. attached some Syrian Arab mercenaries to the Kurdish units and designated the gang the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). A current operation, probably just a diversion, is to move these forces from the north-eastern Kurdish area of Kobani towards the Syrian capital of the Islamic State in Raqqa. The Kurds do not have any interest in taking Raqqa as they would be unable to hold it and the Arab attachment to them is way too small to give it a try. What the real target of this operation is, except the western public, is yet unknown.


Comment: If they are unable to hold it, is the following just bluster?
The Syrian city of Raqqa will become a part of the Federal Democratic System of Rojava and Northern Syria following its liberation from Daesh terrorists, a representative of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Iraqi Kurdistan, Gharib Hassou, said Thursday.
...
"Since the assault on Raqqa is carried out by the SDF, it makes sense that after its recapture, the city will become a part of the democratic federal system created by us in northern Syria," Hassou told RIA Novosti. The Syrian government cannot do anything to oppose the city joining the Kurdish federal system, as "the Syrian army failed to do something with the terrorists in Raqqa," Hassou said. He noted that the Syrian army was not taking part in the offensive to retake Raqqa.

Comment: RT adds:
The Post's Checkpoint blog confirmed the identification, noting that one of the images shows three men operating a 40mm Mk 47 automatic grenade launcher, a specialized weapon used by US Special Operations units.

There were more than a dozen US troops in the village, according to the photographer. The White House has admitted to the presence of up to 300 US operatives in Syria.
...
[Pentagon spokesman Peter] Cook also ducked repeated questions from reporters on whether the troops that were supposed to advise and assist the local militia were actually taking part in combat on the front lines. "They are not on the forward line. They are providing advice and assistance," Cook said, adding that their "advise-and-assist role has not changed."

Pressed to explain the distinction between the front line and the forward line, Cook replied, "I don't have a yardstick for you. This is a fluid situation."
...
Another controversy about the US troops' presence in Syria went unaddressed at the Pentagon briefing. While the Russian expeditionary force was deployed to fight IS at the official invitation of the Syrian government, no such invitation was extended to the US troops. Washington has refused any cooperation with Damascus, insisting on a change of government that would favor the rebels backed by US allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia.


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Bad Guys

More civilians in danger as US-backed forces mount offensives in Iraq and Syria

Bill Van Auken
World Socialist Web Site
Thu, 26 May 2016 00:00 UTC
US airstrikes Iraq
Aid groups are warning that at least 50,000 civilians are in danger of being "caught in the crossfire" in Fallujah as it is subjected to constant US-led air strikes along with artillery barrages, and forces loyal to the Washington-backed government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi along with Shia militias encircle the central Iraqi city.

The predominantly Sunni city, which is about 40 miles west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, has been occupied by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) since January 2014. It has now been targeted by the Iraqi government as part of a desperate bid to contain mounting political opposition from within Baghdad's impoverished Shia population as well as from militia groups, including those aligned with the Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr.

Within the last month, crowds numbering in the thousands have twice stormed Baghdad's Green Zone, the heavily fortified seat of the Iraqi government. On the second occasion, on May 20, security forces repulsed the protesters with live fire, killing four and wounding hundreds.

Along with denunciations of the government for rampant corruption and a failure to provide essential services, the protesters have condemned it for failing to secure the capital from terrorist attacks, which have killed at least 200 this month, most of them in poor Shia neighborhoods.
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Whistle

CIA-tortured Zubaydah to testify against Gitmo interrogation techniques


RT
Fri, 27 May 2016 02:45 UTC
Zubaydah
© Wikipedia
Abu Zubaydah is a citizen of the Palestinian territories held in Guantanamo Bay.
Captured and tortured by the CIA after 9/11, then locked up in Guantanamo Bay without charges, Abu Zubaydah is now being called to testify as a witness in a case against inhumane treatment at the US facility in Cuba.

Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the five defendants in the 9/11 war crimes case, has long accused Guantanamo, or Gitmo, guards of subjecting his cell in the high-security Camp 7 unit to constant noise and vibration, a method of a sleep deprivation meant to keep prisoners disoriented. In February, he testified to the military tribunal, where he specifically named Abu Zubaydah as someone who would back up his allegations.

Should Zubaydah, a Saudi-born Palestinian, answer the call to testify, it would be his first appearance in public since his 2002 brutal capture in Pakistan. "[Zubaydah]'s experienced the same kind of thing that Ramzi has with the noises and vibration," James Harrington, a lawyer for Binalshibh, told AP. However, the US military has been denying that the noise, if any, is intentional. As a prosecutor Clay Trivett suggested Binalshibh was "lying ... fighting the jihad against the guards in the camp."

The method that Binalshibh, a Yemeni suspected of financially supporting the German cell that went on to join flight schools in the US, described mirrors the sleep deprivation that some Gitmo detainees were allegedly subjected to as part of the CIA interrogation program. That program was launched after Abu Zubaydah's capture and, since the Senate Intelligence Committee report on it, is widely recognized as torture. According to the so-called "torture report" released in 2014, Zubaydah was the first prisoner to endure the harsh CIA interrogation program.

After Zubaydah was turned over to US custody, he was subjected to 83 waterboarding sessions, according to a CIA report. In addition to that torture technique, which creates the sensation of drowning, he was also placed in a coffin-size box for a total of 266 hours (11 days, two hours) over a 20-day period. Additionally, he was forced to remain in another small confinement box (21 inches wide, 2.5 feet in length) for 29 hours. Fourteen years ago, in Washington, Zubaydah was falsely believed to be a key Al-Qaeda leader in the lead-up to the September 11 attacks. Now, US documents have him as a "well-known al-Qaeda facilitator," according to AP.
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Cult

Architects, planners and supporters of disastrous and illegal Iraq war still at large

Neil Clark
RT
Mon, 16 May 2016 12:52 UTC
Iraq war
© Khalid al-Mousily / Reuters
Bombs going off in Iraq? Well, it happens all the time - what's there to see? Let's all move along shall we?

On Thursday, at least 13 people were killed in a ISIS attack on a café in Baghdad for the 'crime' of watching a football match. The day before at least 88 people were killed in three explosions across Baghdad; scores were injured.

Yes, these events got some coverage on Western news channels, but they weren't the main stories.

The neocon war lobby, who, remember, couldn't stop talking about Iraq in 2002/3, and telling what a terrible threat the country's WMDs posed to us, would of course like us to forget the country all together now. They've told us lots of times we need to 'move on' from talking about the 2003 invasion and instead focus on more important things - like how we can topple a secular Syrian president who's fighting the very same terrorists who are bombing Baghdad.

The next few months though are going to very tricky for the 'Don't Mention the Iraq war' clique. After years of delay, the Chilcot report into the war, is finally coming out in Britain in July.

There are legitimate fears, bearing in mind the composition of the panel, that Chilcot will seek to whitewash those who took us to war. Another Establishment cover-up certainly can't be discounted.
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Airplane

Close calls: US spy plane nearly hits two passenger jets near Russian border


Sputnik
Wed, 25 May 2016 22:41 UTC
Spy plane
© www.rt.com
US spy plane created real threat. Why?
On Sunday, US surveillance aircraft pilots flying on the eastern border of Russia put themselves directly in the flight paths of two passenger planes, risking catastrophe. [A] US spy plane near Russia's eastern borders over the Sea of Japan nearly collided with a passenger aircraft, according to a statement from the Russian Defense Ministry. The same US spy plane was involved in a second narrowly-avoided collision with another passenger plane a few hours later, according to a report by Interfax.

The dual incidents, in which an American spy aircraft imperiled the lives of airline passengers, calls into question the professionalism of US military surveillance, and asks whether the latest provocative exercise by Washington is aimed at baiting Moscow into conflict or simply an act of supreme incompetence.

Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov acknowledged that American spy planes conduct flights along eastern Russia daily, but "this time, while maneuvering along the international air route, the US spy plane created a real threat of collision for passenger aircraft, which could lead to catastrophic consequences." The spokesman criticized the American military for their "unprofessional actions" that threatened the lives of innocent civilians. The Russian Defense Ministry has summoned a US defense attaché and are calling for an immediate explanation of the incident.

The First Near Miss: Swiss Airlines

The first incident occurred as a US RC-135 spy plane, launched from Kadena Air Base, carried out a reconnaissance flight over the Sea of Japan at an altitude of 33,000 feet (10,000 meters). The pilots switched off their transponder, the device responsible for emitting an identity signal, and flew directly into an international air route traversed by KLM Dutch Airlines (Tokyo-Amsterdam) and Swiss Airlines (Tokyo-Zurich). At 5:41am Russian dispatchers provided last-second commands to a Swiss Airlines passenger jet to lower their altitude to prevent a collision. The instructions, provided by the staff at the Valdivostok regional air traffic control center, came after the Swiss crew radioed that they had made a visual observation of a four-engine plane moving toward them.

The Second Near Miss: KLM Dutch Airlines

The second incident forced Russian air traffic controllers to immediately change the flight path of a KLM Boeing-777 aircraft when an "unknown aircraft," now known to be the same US surveillance plane, encroached upon the passenger jet's flight path. Air traffic control detected the spy plane on radar at an altitude of 36,000 feet (11,000 meters). The US surveillance plane refused to respond to air traffic control demands that it evacuate the flight path and provide identification, reported Interfax. The passenger plane was forced to take evasive action lowering its altitude some 1600 feet (500 meters) to narrowly avert collision.

Comment: What was the point of 'playing chicken' at 33,000 feet/Swiss Air and 36,000 feet/KLM commercial passenger jets - placing hundreds of civilians at extreme risk - unless to strike fear, provoke a Russian military response, escalate global tension, imply no one is safe anywhere. Not just a whim of insanity by the pilots, it happened twice.

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War Whore

Child porn evidence thrown out of court - FBI refuses to divulge Tor hack code


RT
Thu, 26 May 2016 14:53 UTC
FBI porn investigation
© Jessica Rinaldi / Reuters
A US District court judge has thrown out evidence submitted by the FBI because they refuse to reveal exactly how they hacked into the servers of visitors to a child porn website.

In April it was revealed that a key Tor software developer was hired by the FBI, through a contractor, to create malware to help the FBI hack into a childporn website and spy on its users.

Tor software is a non-profit, anti-surveillance network that allows users to enter websites undetected by routing traffic through thousands of servers, and is a prerequisite for visiting hidden 'dark web' directories.

In February 2015, the FBI took over one of the internet's largest child porn websites, Playpen, and continued to run it for almost three months - infecting thousands of users who entered the site within that time with malware that revealed their identities.

Comment: Who might be protected by the FBI's actions? Or conversely, who might be being set up for blackmail?

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Info

Putin EU trip visits Greece ahead of Russia sanctions vote


RT
Fri, 27 May 2016 14:37 UTC
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras
© Alexander Zemlianichenko / Reuters
The Russian President makes his first EU trip in seven months with a visit to Athens on Friday. It comes just a month before Brussels decides on whether to extend EU sanctions against Russia.

Before the visit, Putin published an article in Greece's Kathimerini newspaper, where he spoke about the negative effect of mutual sanctions.

"These days, Greece is Russia's important partner in Europe. Unfortunately, the decline in relations between Russia and the European Union stands in the way of further strengthening our cooperation, with an adverse effect on the dynamics of bilateral trade that fell by a third to $2.75 billion as compared to last year. Particularly affected were Greek agricultural producers," Putin said.
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Snakes in Suits

Murdering ex-pilot Savchenko says ready to become Ukraine's president


ITAR-TASS
Fri, 27 May 2016 14:26 UTC
Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko and Nadezhda Savchenko
© Mikhail Palinchak/Ukrainian president's press service/TASS
Ukrainian pilot-turned-MP Nadezhda Savchenko, who was found guilty in Russia over killing of two journalists in Donbass and released from jail earlier this week, has announced that she is ready to become Ukraine's president.

"If you need that I become the president, well, I will be the president," Savchenko told a press conference on Friday.

Savchenko has played down her chances of being elected the president saying that she does not believe that "people have learnt to vote not for buckwheat." In Ukraine, "buckwheat" is a slang term meaning "bribing voters."

"I will work where Ukraine needs me," she said, not ruling out that she could again serve in the army.

Comment: More news on Savchenko:

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Radar

'Unprecedented steps': Russian military explores Kuril island chain as potential Pacific Fleet base


RT
Fri, 27 May 2016 14:16 UTC
Russian ships
© Vitaliy Anko / Sputnik
Russia might soon open a new naval base for its Pacific Fleet on one of the islands in the Kuril chain. A special military and geological commission is now assessing the infrastructure potential of Matua island, which Japan has also laid claims to.

Some 200 members of the joint expedition by the Russian Ministry of Defence and the Russian Geographical Society are currently on Matua reviewing the state of infrastructure on the abandoned Soviet military base there.

"The main goal of the expedition is to study the possibility of basing Pacific Fleet forces there," commander of the Eastern Military District, Colonel-General Sergey Surovikin said at a meeting with the district's senior commanders.

The expedition forces have built a mobile camp on Matua and are assessing three wartime runways to estimate the condition of the airfield and prospects of restoring them.
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Newspaper

Guardian admits reporter fabricated interviews


RT
Fri, 27 May 2016 14:05 UTC
Guardian newspaper office
© Suzanne Plunkett / Reuters
Britain's center-left Guardian newspaper has apologized after it emerged one of its reporters had been fabricating interviews and falsely claiming to have been at events he wrote about.

Joseph Mayton, a California-based freelancer who has been writing for the paper since 2009, was accused of making up quotes in some stories and filing interviews with people who later said they had never spoken to him.

The Guardian, which has been forced to make a large number of its reporters redundant in recent months owing to financial difficulties, published an apology to readers and to the "people whose words were misrepresented or falsified."

Guardian US editor Lee Glendinning said suspicions were raised in February when sources contacted the company to say they had not spoken to Mayton despite being quoted by him.

The journalist was "unable to provide convincing evidence that the interviews in question had taken place."
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