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Syria War: Lies the mainstream media tells about Eastern Ghouta

Rania Khalek
RT
Tue, 06 Mar 2018 16:48 UTC
east ghouta syria destruction
© Syrian Arab News Agency / Agence France-Presse
A general view of the destruction in the town of Al-Nashabiyah in the besieged Eastern Ghouta region outside Syria's capital Damascus, March 4, 2018
As Syrian government forces battle Jaysh al-Islam to retake Eastern Ghouta, Western media outlets have totally ignored the atrocities of the insurgents, preferring to blame all the violence on the "regime."

They're at it again, howling about a town in Syria that's being retaken by the government. This time it's Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus and one of the last remaining strongholds of the Islamist insurgency that has torn the country apart over the last seven years.

Before Eastern Ghouta it was Aleppo and before Aleppo it was Madaya and before Madaya it was Homs, and so on. All of these places were framed as though there were no armed insurgents present, and the Syrian authorities were just mercilessly massacring civilians out of cartoonishly villainous bloodlust. If the insurgents were mentioned, they were usually (and still are) presented by the western press as moderate rebels and freedom fighters.

So if your only understanding of Eastern Ghouta comes from the mainstream media, then you're left with the impression that there's a one-sided conflict taking place between the Syrian government and its civilians. But this war isn't so simple.
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Pirates

Maxine Waters thinks it's racist for Trump to question her intelligence

Tom Knighton
PJ Media
Tue, 06 Mar 2018 15:10 UTC
Maxine Waters
© Mike Segar/Reuters
Maxine Waters
Rep. Maxine Waters of California is one of President Donald Trump's most vocal critics. Whether or not she's an effective critic or not is something left to be seen, of course. But she certainly is vocal.

Since she's so vocal, it's not surprising that President Trump threw a few shots her way when he spoke at the Gridiron Club dinner, which is historically a time when presidents make lighthearted jabs at both friends and opponents.

Basically, he said Waters needs to immediately take an IQ test.

Waters, unsurprisingly, didn't like the joke.

Comment: It's quite understandable to question Maxine Waters' intelligence when she has such a massive track-record of saying the most ridiculous things:

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Hourglass

Labour's racist equality adviser steps down after facing widespread criticism


RT
Tue, 06 Mar 2018 16:48 UTC
Munroe Bergdorf
© Theo Wargo / AFP
A transgender model has quit her role as a Labour Party equality adviser due to "endless attacks" by the right-wing press. She had come under fire for her comments on white people and suffragettes.

Munroe Bergdorf was among several people appointed to advise Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary Dawn Butler on LGBT issues. Her appointment, however, sparked widespread outcry, as she had previously said "all white people" are racist. She had also branded suffragettes as "white supremacists."

In a Twitter post on Tuesday morning, Bergdorf wrote: "Following last week's exciting announcement that I had accepted a place on an LGBT advisory board assembled to offer counsel to Dawn Butler, the Labour Party's women and equalities minister, it is with great sadness that I have decided to step down. This is a decision that I've had to make due to endless attacks on my character by the conservative right-wing press and relentless online abuse.

Comment: Of course Bergdorf stepping down has nothing to do with her own racist and dividing statements. Bergdorf has demonstrated poor character, and stating so isn't abuse. It was her abusive comments that caused issue for so many!

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Star of David

Mush for brains: Schumer and co. at AIPAC - there's no peace because 'Palestinians don't believe in Torah'

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Tue, 06 Mar 2018 16:07 UTC
.
Schumer AIPAC

Sen. Chuck Schumer speaking at AIPAC, on March 5, 2018.
That orgy of elite devotion to Israel that is the AIPAC policy conference has featured one prominent Democrat after another seeking to outflank the Trump administration in their expressions of love for Israel.

Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer took the prize by slinging mud at Palestinians and Arabs as the reason there is no end to the conflict. Schumer said the problem is that the Palestinians don't believe in the Jewish Torah:
Now, let me tell you why - my view, why we don't have peace. Because the fact of the matter is that too many Palestinians and too many Arabs do not want any Jewish state in the Middle East. The view of Palestinians is simple, the Europeans treated the Jews badly culminating in the Holocaust and they gave them our land as compensation.

Of course, we say it's our land, the Torah says it, but they don't believe in the Torah. So that's the reason there is not peace. They invent other reasons, but they do not believe in a Jewish state and that is why we, in America, must stand strong with Israel through thick and thin...



Comment: Wow. 'Palestinians and Arabs don't believe in Torah'?? Of course they don't. Otherwise they'd be . . Jewish! The abysmal level of understanding of US politicians is terrifying.

And Chuckie managed to exactly set out the Palestinian position in one sentence without the import of it ever reaching hailing distance of the brain he theoretically has.


Comment:

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Star of David

Jared Kushner, Israel and Palestine

Robert Fantina
Counterpunch
Fri, 02 Mar 2018 16:16 UTC
Jared Kushner
© Photo by Chairman of the Joint Chief
The circus that came to town on January 20, 2017, continues to run amok. The starring buffoon, Donald Trump, garners most of the attention, and anything directed at any of the other acts reflects on him. Ringmaster John Kelly threw a hissy fit, and told high-wire acrobat Jared Kushner, balancing between Mexico, Israel, China and United Arab Emirates, that he must now only use the less-prestigious high wire, the lower one with the safety net. His wife, Ivanka, balancing on a giant ball while juggling both North and South Korea, seems to be teetering towards disaster. And, for added fun, the clown Trump, in his most comical way, is telling the audience that witches are out to get him!

So much information to comment on; so little time! For the sake of brevity, we will focus on just one of the current miseries self-inflicted on the Trump administration. We will look at Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

It is hardly worth mentioning that, by appointing Kushner and his annoying wife (Ivanka still addresses her father, publicly, as 'Daddy'), Trump violated government -issued nepotism rules, but he is, after all, 'The Donald'. His hotel in Florida is also benefitting greatly by his very frequent weekends there with the entourage that accompanies any president, so the rules apparently don't apply to him. But that is a topic for a different time. Kushner is our focus today.

It was bad enough that Trump appointed as one of his chief advisors, and by all accounts one that he trusts above most of the others, a man with no government or diplomatic experience. It's worse yet that Kushner was tasked with making peace between occupied Palestine and apartheid Israel, since he is a close, personal friend of Israeli Prime Murderer Benjamin Netanyahu, and has donated substantial amounts of money to support illegal settlements. An honest, unbiased broker, he's not. (At the risk of boring the reader, we will only mention briefly the fact that negotiations between Israel and Palestine are both unnecessary and impossible. Unnecessary, because all that is required is adherence to international law. Impossible, because the field on which the two countries play is not level).

Comment: For sure, Zionist Kushner was always a liability for Trump, not an asset.

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Bullseye

US and Europe turned Middle East into 'gunpowder depot,' Iranian FM tells French counterpart


RT
Tue, 06 Mar 2018 14:33 UTC
US Army base Mosul Iraq Middle East military vehicles
© Ammar Awad / Reuters
US soldiers gather near military vehicles at an army base in Karamless town, east of Mosul, Iraq, December 25, 2016
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the US has turned the Middle East into a "gunpowder depot." He was responding to his French counterpart, who accused Tehran of "destabilizing" the region.

France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrived in Iran on Monday to discuss the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement with top officials, including President of the Islamic Republic Hassan Rouhani, and the country's foreign minister.

Le Drian went on to accuse Tehran of applying a "destabilizing" influence in the region, apparently referring to the country's involvement in the Syrian crisis, as well as turmoil in Yemen, Lebanon, and Iraq. Firing back, Zarif reminded Le Drian that it was actually France's transatlantic ally that destabilized the Middle East by pouring arms into the war-ravaged region.

"The United States and other countries that have turned our region into a gunpowder depot by selling arms must stop such actions," Zarif said at the meeting, Iran's IRNA news agency reported.

Comment: The player that's missing in this picture is, of course, Israel:

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Israel is trying to 'suck America into' Iranian war that could lead to world war (VIDEO)

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Mr. Potato

No fact-checking: The New Yorker attempts but fails to boost the Steele dodgy dossier


Moon of Alabama
Tue, 06 Mar 2018 13:55 UTC
Christopher Steele
© Press Association
Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who set-up Orbis Business Intelligence and compiled a dossier on Donald Trump
Yesterday The New Yorker published a 15,000 word piece about Christopher Steele, the former British spook who created the "dossier" about alleged Russian interference with Trump. Written by Jane Mayer the piece is designed to let Steele shine in the very best light. A civil servant who only followed his conscience when he peddled his made-up dirt to the FBI, the media and Congress.

That a private investigator, highly paid by the Clinton campaign to find dirt about Trump, was acting out of decency, would be unbelievable in the best case. But the piece is way worse. There are at least six factual errors in it which anyone who has followed the affair can easily detect. Some new allegations in the piece are so thinly sourced that any decent editor would have thrown them out.

The first graph is already a mess:
In January, after a long day at his London office, Christopher Steele, the former spy turned private investigator, was stepping off a commuter train in Farnham, where he lives, when one of his two phones rang. He'd been looking forward to dinner at home with his wife, and perhaps a glass of wine. It had been their dream to live in Farnham, a town in Surrey with a beautiful Georgian high street, where they could afford a house big enough to accommodate their four children, on nearly an acre of land. Steele, who is fifty-three, looked much like the other businessmen heading home, except for the fact that he kept his phones in a Faraday bag-a pouch, of military-tested double-grade fabric, designed to block signal detection.

A friend in Washington, D.C., was calling with bad news: ...

Comment: It is amazing that after all this time and zero confirmation for the allegations in the 'dodgy dossier', people who call themselves journalists are still trying to make a case out of it. And by the way, did Jane Mayer miss the memo?

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Flashlight

East Ghouta is not what the media says it is (VIDEO)

Rania Khalek
In the Now
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 13:28 UTC

Comment: The West is trying really hard to discredit the efforts of Syria and Russia to liberate East Ghouta. More on the topic:

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Camcorder

Al Jazeera's undercover film on Israel lobby: Israel 'owns' Foundation for Defense of Democracies, smears BDS

Asa Winstanley
Electronic Intifada
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 12:45 UTC
Foundation for Defense of Democracies vice president Jonathan Schanzer
© CSPAN
Foundation for Defense of Democracies vice president Jonathan Schanzer testifies at a hearing in Congress.
The leading neoconservative think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies is functioning as an agent of the Israeli government, Al Jazeera's forthcoming investigation on the US Israel lobby will reveal.

According to a source who has seen the undercover documentary, it contains footage of a powerful Israeli official claiming that "We have FDD. We have others working on this."

Sima Vaknin-Gil, a former Israeli military intelligence officer, is said to state that the foundation is "working on" projects for Israel including "data gathering, information analysis, working on activist organizations, money trail. This is something that only a country, with its resources, can do the best."

Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, commonly known as FARA, US organizations and individuals who work on behalf of foreign governments are required to register with the counterintelligence section of the Department of Justice.

A search on the FARA website shows that the Foundation for Defense of Democracies is not registered.

Al Jazeera's film reportedly identifies a number of lobby groups as working with Israel to spy on American citizens using sophisticated data gathering techniques. The documentary is also said to cast light on covert efforts to smear and intimidate Americans seen as too critical of Israel.

Israel lobby groups have placed intense pressure on Qatar, which funds Al Jazeera, to shelve the film, fueling speculation it may never be aired.

Comment: Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, discussing the issue of Israel's push for an American war on Iran, recently mentioned the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies:
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, as the heir to the Project for a New American Century, Bill Kristol's Iraq-bound thinktank, leads that pack of wolves disguised as warmed over neocons lavishly funded by the likes of Paul Singer. It's even spawned the Institute for the Study of the War, a fascinating Orwellian title if there ever was one. It should be the Institute for War.

I've been asked why is it that you ascribe to the FDD and now the ISW such nefarious motives- I was asked this by the New York Times editorial staff when they published my op ed on Iran a few days ago. My answer is simple: Because that is precisely what FDD is attempting to do. Just as Douglas Feith, the under secretary of Defense for Policy, Office of Special Plans, did in 2002 and 2003 for Richard Bruce Cheney, to lead us into the war with Iraq.


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Map

Deterring China: US aircraft carrier arrives in Vietnam for first time since end of war


RT
Tue, 06 Mar 2018 11:46 UTC
U.S. Navy aircraft carrier
© Nguyen Huy Kham / Reuters
U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, docks at a port in Danang, Vietnam March 5, 2018
The arrival of an American aircraft carrier in Vietnam indicates Washington's intention to make the country a part of its new anti-Chinese block, which also includes Japan, Australia and India, an expert on Asia told RT.

USS Carl Vinson and two other US Navy vessels were greeted in the port of Danang on Monday, marking the largest American military presence in the country since the Vietnam War in 1955-1975.

The five-day visit of the 103,000-ton aircraft carrier is "a minor provocation against China...aimed at inciting or strengthening the anti-Chinese moods among the Vietnamese," said Yury Tavrovsky, a professor at the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia.

Comment: Further reading: Vietnam is Russia's key ally in Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)

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