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Raising the stakes: Putin slams U.S. nuke threat with ultimatum

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From Fort Russ

October 5, 2016 – Fort Russ –
– Rostislav Ishchenko, RIA Novosti –
translated by J. Arnoldski –
Following the president of the Russian Federation’s decree on suspending Russia’s compliance with agreements with the US on the disposal of weapons-grade plutonium and the submission of the corresponding bill to the State Duma, disputes have begun in the media on whether this is connected to the rupture of the Syria deal. The second stumbling block is a question: Why is Russia, having known that the US has not fulfilled its part of the deal, only reacted now after a few years?
Some nuclear experts argue that the deal was objectively beneficial for Russia. Maybe. I’m not an expert in this sphere and it’s difficult for me to say how objective they are. Moreover, that which is beneficial from the standpoint of the nuclear industry might be disadvantageous from the point of view of security.
In principle, I think that there were no particular security problems. Russia has a sufficient nuclear arsenal capable of inflicting a deadly blow on the United States. Washington recognizes this as well. There was also more than enough material for the production of new warheads. In the event of full-scale nuclear strike exchanges, the production of another batch of weapons would already be redundant and, indeed, physically impossible. The real problem would be physically preserving the remains of civilization at least at the level of the stone age.
As for the Syria, this is not the first time, and not only in Syria, that the US concludes agreements only to disrupt their fulfillment and then conclude them again. The form of the Russian reaction is clearly not comparable to Washington’s public rejection of cooperation which, in fact, it has yet to do.
I think that in order to understand the scale of this incident, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that Putin has not simply taken Russia out of a contract. He has announced the possibility of returning to it, but he has furnished certain conditions.
Let’s look at these conditions:
(1) the US must lift all sanctions against Russia;
(2) compensation should be paid not only for the losses from American sanctions, but also for the losses incurred by Russian counter-sanctions;
(3) the Magnitsky Act should be repealed;
(4) the US’ military presence in Eastern Europe should be sharply reduced; and
(5) the US should abandon its policy of confrontation with Moscow.
Only one word fits in determining the essence of Putin’s demands: “ultimatum.”
As far as a I remember, the last time that Washington was given an ultimatum was by the United Kingdom over the Trent vessel incident. And that was in 1861 during the American Civil War. Even then, in extremely difficult conditions, America agreed to partially meet British demands.
It should be noted that the British demands in  1861 did not contain anything humiliating for the US. The captain of a US Navy ship had indeed broken international law, arrested people on a neutral (British) ship, and thereby encroached upon the sovereignty of the UK, nearly provoking a war. Then America disavowed the actions of its captain and freed the prisoners, albeit refusing to apologize.
But Putin is not demanding any apologies or the release of a few prisoners, but for all of American policy to be changed, and still more for Russia to be compensated for losses due to the US’ sanctions. This is an unmeetable, humiliating demand. This demand essentially means complete and unconditional surrender in the hybrid war which Washington does not consider to be irreversibly lost. And there’s still all those indemnities payments and reparations.
Something similar was demanded from the US by the British Crown before the end of the war for independence, when the Americans were still King George III’s rebellious subjects. For the last 100 years no one has even imagined talking with Washington in such a tone.
And so, the first conclusion is: Putin has deliberately and demonstratively humiliated the US. He has shown that it is possible to talk tough to the US, even tougher than the US itself has gotten used to talking down to the rest of the world. 
How was this done? What did Putin actually react to? Did he actually think that the US would fulfill the Kerry-Lavrov deal and is now upset over what happened? Russia also knew that Washington has not been observing the plutonium deal for years, but Moscow has extracted serious profit from this for its nuclear industry by nearly becoming a global monopoly and is clearly not perturbed by the US’ technological backwardness preventing them from disposing of weapons-grade plutonium as stipulated in the agreement.  
Russia’s tough and almost immediate reaction followed the statements of the US Secretary of State’s spokesperson to the effect that Russia will have to start sending its troops home from Syria in body bags, is going to start losing planes, and that terrorist attacks will begin to plague Russian cities.
In addition, the State Department’s statement was immediately followed by the Pentagon’s announcement that it is ready to launch a preventative nuclear strike on Russia. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also reported that Moscow knows about the US’ intention to launch an air war against Syrian government forces, which also means against the Russian contingent legally stationed in Syria. 
What else formed the background for Putin’s ultimatum?: The exercises from six months ago involving air and missile defense and strategic missile systems which practiced repelling a nuclear attack on Russia and then launching a responsive counter strike. Add to this the other day’s emergency exercises involving up to 40 million Russian citizens that inspected the readiness of infrastructure and civil defense structures for a nuclear war and provided additional information to citizens on the plan of action in the cause of “X hour.”
If we take all of this together, then we can see that the US has long since informally frightened Russia with a nuclear conflict, and Moscow has regularly hinted that it is ready for such a turn of events and is not going to back down.
However, given the end of Obama’s rule and lacking absolute confidence in a Hillary Clinton victory in presidential elections, the Washington hawks have decided to raise their bets once again. And now things have reached an extremely dangerous limit in which conflict begins to reach the stage of developing independently. At this stage, nuclear Armageddon could begin over any kind of incident, including due to the incompetence of some senior Pentagon officials or White House administrators. 
At this precise moment, Moscow has seized the initiative and upped the ante, but by moving the confrontation onto another plane. Unlike America, Russia is not threatening war. It is simply demonstrating its capability of giving a harsh political and economic response which can, in the event of further inappropriate behavior by the US, realize just the opposite of Obama’s dream: tearing apart Washington’s economy and financial system.
In addition, with these actions, Russia has seriously undermined the international prestige of the US by showing the whole world that America can be beaten with its own weapons. The boomerang has come back. Given such dynamics and turn of events, we might see hundreds of representatives of the American elite at the dock in the Hague not only in our lifetime, but even before the next American president serves their first four-year term in the White House.
The US has been given a choice. Either it will carry through with its threats and start a nuclear war, or it will accept the fact that the world is no longer unipolar, and begin to integrate into the new format.
We don’t know what choice Washington will make. The American political establishment has a sufficient number of ideologically-blinded, incompetent figures who are ready to burn up in a nuclear fire with the rest of a humanity rather than recognize the end of US world hegemony, which has turned out to be short-lived, senseless, and criminal. But they have to make a choice, because the longer that Washington pretends that nothing has happened, the greater the number of its vassals (who are called their allies, but have long since been bogged down in dependency) will openly and explicitly ignore American ambitions and cross over to the other side of the new perspectives of global power arrangement.
In the end, the US could be faced with the status of one of the centers of the multipolar world no longer being available for it. Not only Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans, but also Europeans will gladly take revenge against the former hegemon for their former humiliation. And they are not so humane and peace-loving as Russia.
Finally, Putin’s ultimatum is a response to all of those who were outraged that Russian tanks didn’t take Kiev, Lvov, Warsaw, and Paris in 2014 and pondered over what Putin’s plan could possibly be. 
I can only repeat what I wrote back then. If you are going to confront the global hegemon, then you have to be sure that you will be capable of responding to any of its actions. The economy, army, society, and state and administrative structures should all be ready. If everything is not fully ready, then one needs to buy time and build muscle.
Now things are ready and the cards have been put on the table. Let us see what the US will respond with. But the geopolitical reality will never be the same. The world has already changed. The US has had the gauntlet publicly thrown down before it and they have not dared to pick it up right away. 
http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/10/raising-stakes-putin-slams-us-nuke.html

“Hotbeds of extremism”?: FBI’s new plan to spy on U.S. high school students

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From Project Censored: The top censored stories of 2015-2016

14. FBI’s New Plan to Spy on High School Students across the Country

October 4, 2016

Under new guidelines issued in January 2016, the FBI is instructing high schools across the country to report students who criticize government policies and “western corruption” as potential future terrorists, Sarah Lazare reported for AlterNet. The new guidelines also warn that young people who are poor, are immigrants, or talk about travel to “suspicious” countries are more likely to commit violence. As Lazare wrote, the FBI’s “Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools” guidelines combine “McCarthy-era theories of radicalization”—in which authorities monitor thoughts and behaviors suspected of leading to acts of violent subversion—with elements of a “widely unpopular” and “deeply controversial” British surveillance program, known as Prevent, that monitors Muslim communities and individuals.

The new guidelines depict US high schools as “hotbeds of extremism,” Lazare summarized. Claiming that youth “possess inherent risk factors,” the FBI guidelines describe high school students as “ideal targets” for recruitment by violent extremists. Educational materials prepared by the FBI for schools indicate that activities ranging from using “unusual language” or “private messaging apps” and encryption (“going dark,” in FBI speak) to playing online games outside of school could indicate that “someone plans to commit violence.”

The guidelines draw on a conveyor belt theory of extremism, which contends that extreme ideas lead to violence, a model tracing back to “the first red scare in America, as well as J. Edgar Hoover’s crackdown on civil rights and anti-war activists,” Lazare wrote. As Hugh Handeyside, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project told Lazare, by broadening the definition of violent extremism, “the FBI is policing students’ thoughts and trying to predict the future based on those thoughts.”

The guidelines “are almost certainly designed” to target Muslim-American students. “In its caution to avoid the appearance of discrimination,” Lazare wrote, “the agency identifies risk factors that are so broad and vague that virtually any young person could be deemed dangerous and worthy of surveillance.” Nonetheless, the guidelines’ repeated focus on “immigrant” and “diaspora” populations, as well as cultural and religious differences, reveal an underlying agenda. The FBI “consistently invokes an Islamic threat without naming it,” Lazare reported. Arun Kundnani, author of The Muslims are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror, about Islamophobia, told AlterNet, “In practice, schools seeking to implement this document will end up monitoring Muslim students disproportionately.”

Writing for Just Security, an online forum based at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law, Danielle Jefferis of the ACLU’s National Security Project reported that “the FBI’s request that school officials spy and report on students’ ideas and beliefs risks stifling curiosity and free expression, which corrupts the trust that should exist between teachers and students.” Though the FBI asserts that it does not want to limit students’ freedom of speech, the guidelines encourage school officials to identify students who “engage in communications indicating support for extreme ideologies” or who are “curious about” subject matter that could be deemed extreme.

In calling for schools to create threat assessment teams and to “enhance domain awareness,” the FBI engages in what Jefferis characterized as “fear mongering,” which “will almost assuredly ratchet up the pressure on school officials to go to law enforcement before seeking out alternatives.” This forces school principals with the false dilemma of choosing between keeping their schools safe or upholding students’ rights to freedom of expression and equal protection. Instead, Jefferis concluded, “Our kids are safer, and our communities are stronger, when we work to protect—not erode—our fundamental values and freedoms.”

Lazare’s AlterNet report was republished by Salon. PressTV, the Free Thought Project, MintPress News, and the Intercept subsequently ran stories on the FBI’s “Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools” guidelines, but US corporate news media appear not to have covered this story in any detail.

Sarah Lazare, “The FBI Has a New Plan to Spy on High School Students across the Country” AlterNet, March 2, 2016, http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/fbi-has-new-plan-spy-high-school-students-across-country.

Danielle Jefferis, “The FBI Wants Schools to Spy on Their Students’ Thoughts,” Just Security, March 11, 2016, https://www.justsecurity.org/29901/fbi-schools-spy-students-thoughts/.

Student Researcher: Brandy Miceli (San Francisco State University)

Faculty Evaluator: Kenn Burrows (San Francisco State University)

14. FBI’s New Plan to Spy on High School Students across the Country

Project Censored: News media cover-up of reason for war on Syria — a natural gas pipeline route

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Project Censored publishes a book annually of the top 25 unreported or under-reported news stories for the year. This year, the story of a major reason for the Syrian conflict was #8.

8. Syria’s War Spurred by Contest for Gas Delivery to Europe, Not Muslim Sectarianism

October 4, 2016

At least four years into the crisis in Syria, “most people have no idea how this war even got started,” Mnar Muhawesh reported for MintPress News in September 2015.

In 2011–12, after Syrian president Bashar al-Assad refused to cooperate with Turkey’s proposal to create a natural gas pipeline between Qatar and Turkey through Syria, Turkey and its allies became “the major architects of Syria’s ‘civil war.’” The proposed pipeline would have bypassed Russia to reach European markets currently dominated by Russian gas giant Gazprom. As a result, Muhawesh wrote, “The Middle East is being torn to shreds by manipulative plans to gain oil and gas access by pitting people against one another based on religion. The ensuing chaos provides ample cover to install a new regime that’s more amenable to opening up oil pipelines and ensuring favorable routes for the highest bidders.”

In 2012, the US, UK, France, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, along with Turkey, began to organize, arm, and finance rebels to form the Free Syrian Army, consistent with long-standing US plans to destabilize Syria. These nations formed a pact, “The Group of Friends of the Syrian People,” that implemented a sectarian divide and conquer strategy to overthrow President Assad. “It’s important to note the timing,” Muhawesh wrote. “This coalition and meddling in Syria came about immediately on the heels of discussions of an Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline that was to be built between 2014 and 2016 from Iran’s giant South Pars field through Iraq and Syria. With a possible extension to Lebanon, it would eventually reach Europe, the target export market.” As MintPress News reported, access to oil and gas—not sectarian differences—is the underlying cause of the violent conflict and humanitarian disaster in Syria. “The war is being sold to the public as a Sunni-Shiite conflict” by the Friends of Syria because, if the public understood the economic interests at stake, “most people would not support any covert funding and arming of rebels or direct intervention.”

Based on secret US cables revealed by WikiLeaks, Muhawesh reported that “foreign meddling in Syria began several years before the Syrian revolt erupted.” US State Department cables from 2006 documented plans to instigate civil strife that would lead to the overthrow of Assad’s government. The leaks revealed the United States partnering with nations including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt to fuel Sunni-Shiite sectarianism to divide Syria.

Although there is plenty of coverage in US corporate media about the violence in Syria and the refugee crisis that is sweeping Europe and reaching North America, this coverage has failed to address the economic interests, including control of potentially lucrative gas pipelines, that motivate the US and its allies.  (US corporate news coverage of the Ukraine crisis was comparable in that it too downplayed geopolitical oil interests as a source of tension among Russia, the US, and their respective allies, as Nafeez Ahmed has reported. See “US Media Hypocrisy in Covering Ukraine Crisis,”Censored story #9 from Censored 2015.) Instead, corporate news coverage has characterized the conflict in Syria as a battle for democracy that has been hijacked by Sunni-Shiite interests. For example, Oren Dorell of USA Today identified “a mind-boggling and dangerous stew of shifting and competing alliances” involved in the Syrian conflict—including groups categorized as progovernment, antigovernment, anti-Islamic State, and “other fighters”—but he did not address the gas interests that, according to Muhawesh’s reporting, ultimately underpin the conflict. Instead, much of what passes for news coverage in the corporate press adheres to a pattern that Muhawesh identified and critiqued as simplistic and “Orientalist,” framing conflict in the Middle East and especially Syria as sectarian in order “to paint the region and its people as barbaric.”

Mnar Muhawesh, “Refugee Crisis & Syria War Fueled by Competing Gas Pipelines,” MintPress News, September 9, 2015, http://www.mintpressnews.com/migrant-crisis-syria-war-fueled-by-competing-gas-pipelines/209294/.

Student Researcher: Salah Mouazen (Citrus College)

Faculty Evaluators: Andy Lee Roth and Lanette Granger (Citrus College)

8. Syria’s War Spurred by Contest for Gas Delivery to Europe, Not Muslim Sectarianism

To find out more information on this year’s stories and order the book: http://www.projectcensored.org

Intercepted calls – Proof of U.S. & ISIS coordination: Syrian MP goes public

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From Fort Russ

September 26th, 2016 – Fort Russ News –
– Sputnik Arabic and Al Mayadeen – translated by Marwa Osman –
Speaker of the People’s council of Syria, Hadiya Abbas, stated publicly that the Syrian Arab army intercepted calls between the US and Daesh just before the US raids against the SAA in Mount Altherdh in Deir Ezzor. The Syrian government said in related reports that it will make these intercepted calls public.
Syrian foreign minister, Walid Muallem, stated that the US air strikes on Syrian military positions in the Mount Altherdh in DeirEzzor, were not accidental fast strikes, on the contrary they came in coordination with “Daesh”, who immediately invaded the military site command of Deir ez-Zor Airport after the airstrike. Muallem said in an interview with Al Mayadeen Channel that the US air strikes on Syrian military positions in the Mount Altherdh came in direct coordination with the “Daesh” pointing out that they were not even fast strikes, rather they lasted for 50 minutes.
According to Al Muallem: “American Spy drones flew in the airspace of Deir ez-Zor two days before the US raid on the Syrian army positions” and he added that “what confirms that the US deliberately hit the SAA was that the military base had been there in Mount Altherdh for the past two years which debunks the US claim that it was an accident.”

The REAL Syria Civil Defence exposes NATO’s ‘White Helmets’ as terrorist-linked imposters — Part 1

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[Editor: I have divided this overview article into two parts]
By Vanessa Beeley
Global Research, September 24, 2016
21st Century Wire 23 September 2016

I am a director not only of a Syrian Civil Defence Unit, but of brave human beings, volunteers who risk their lives, despite the terrorism that is invading Syria, to maintain security for Syria. I give thanks from my heart for the courage of my men who have lost their comrades in terrorist attacks but they keep working despite the risks. They are true soldiers, their equipment and their spirit are their only weapons ~ Director of Tartous’ REAL Syria Civil Defence

Did I hear a pin drop?  The real Syria Civil Defence? Are the west’s iconized ‘White Helmets’ not the only emergency first-responders inside Syria?

For the REAL Syria Civil Defence you call 113 inside Syria.  There is no public number for the White Helmets.  Why not? Why does this multi-million dollar US & NATO state-funded first repsonder ‘NGO,’ with state of the art equipment supplied by the US and the EU via Turkey, have no central number for civilians to call when the “bombs fall”?

Before we introduce the real Syria Civil Defence, who are Syria’s real ICDO certified civil fire and rescue organisation, let’s first take a closer look at the imposters; terrorists in white hats, and agents of war – NATO’s pseudo ‘NGO’ construct, embedded exclusively in terrorist-held parts of Syria…

We’re told that the White Helmets routinely scale the walls of collapsed buildings and scrambling over smouldering rubble of bombed out buildings to dig a child out with their bare hands. Of course, never without a sizeable camera crew and mobile phone carrying entourage in tow.

white-helmet-camersss
Screenshot from one of the multitude of NATO’s White Helmets promotional videos, as per usual – with fans and camera crew in attendance.

So who, and what exactly are the White Helmets?

Founded in 2013, the White Helmets, officially called the Syria Civil Defense, are often the only emergency first-responders available in rebel-held areas of Syria and claim to have saved more than 58,000 lives. ~ The Slate

netflix-still2
White Helmets ‘Team’ Photo: Screenshot from Netflix promotional documentary.

jlm

British Military officer James Le Mesurier

The western media mythology goes as follows:

“They are made up of former bakers, builders, taxi drivers, students, teachers, pretty much anything apart from rescue workers,” according to the much repeated phrase used by their British ex-military, USAR (Urban Search & Rescue) trainer, James Le Mesurier who specialises in outsourcing warfare – the kind of private security operations exemplified by the likes of Blackwater (now known as Academi) and DynCorp, and other well-known global suppliers of mercenaries and CIA outreach assassination experts.

Running operations through Blackwater gave the CIA the power to have people abducted, or killed, with no one in the government being exactly responsible. ~ The Atlantic, 2012

White Helmets founder Le Mesurier, who graduated from Britain’s elite Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, is said to be an ‘ex’ British military intelligence officer involved in a number of other NATO ‘humanitarian intervention’ theatres of war, including Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq, as well as postings in Lebanon and Palestine. He also boasts a series of high-profile posts at the UN, EU, and UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Not to mention his connections back to the infamous Blackwater (Academi).

The White Helmet network showing primary funding sources and James Le Mesurier connections back to deep state  (Image: UK Column)

The streaming giant, Netflix, recently launched the documentary meant to elevate the White Helmets to a Hollywood level of Madison Avenue-styled demagoguery. As an interesting aside: a major shareholder in Netflix just happens to be the Capital Research Global Investors who hosts a number luminaries of the military industrial complex on its books including Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

netflix-final
Variation on the Netflix promotional poster for the NATO White Helmet documentary.
|Poster by: Cory Morningstar of WrongKindofGreen.

Later, in Part III of this article, we will go into depth concerning the recent awards, including an objectionable nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, that have been bestowed upon this group of US, UK, EU backed fifth columnists, or as they would have you believe, “first-responders.”

With over $60 million in their back pocket courtesy of USAID, the UK Foreign Office and various EU nations like the Netherlands, this group is possibly one of the most feted and funded entities within the west’s anti-Syrian NGO complex, a pivotal part of the clandestine shadow state building enterprise inside of Syria.

Like many other ‘NGOs’, the White Helmets have been deployed by the west to derail the Syrian state, first  by undermining existing civic structures and by disseminating staged PR to facilitate regime change propaganda, through western and Gulf state media outlets. Despite the fact that they were started, and are still generously funded by NATO members states, particularly from the US and UK, the White Helmets’ official statement still claims categorically that they are somehow “fiercely independent” and “have accepted no money from governments, corporations or anyone directly involved in the Syrian conflict“. This is both farcical and deeply misleading.

They claim they are not “tied to any political group in Syria, or anywhere else”, yet they are embedded with Al Nusra Front, ISIS and affiliated with the majority of US allied terrorist brigades infesting Syria.  In fact during my recent trip to Syria, I was once again struck by the response from the majority of Syrians when asked if they knew who the White Helmets were.  The majority had never heard of them, others who follow western media noted that they are a “NATO construct being used to infiltrate Syria as a major player in the terrorist support network.”

For further details on the White Helmets and their role in supporting US & NATO state-sponsored terrorism in Syria please refer to the compilation of articles contained in the 21WIRE article: WHO ARE SYRIA’S WHITE HELMETS?

For the rest of the article: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-syria-civil-defence-exposes-natos-white-helmets-as-terrorist-linked-imposters/5547528

US Congress seeks to steal 100,000 acres from native Americans in Utah

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The Utah Public Lands Initiative was proposed by Utah Congressperson Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz and seeks to “roll back federal policy to the late 1800s when Indian lands and resources were taken from tribal nations for the benefit of others.” — Ute Nation Business Council

By Telesur
Global Research, September 20, 2016
TeleSUR 19 September 2016

Two Republican congresspeople are seeking to pass a controversial bill through the U.S. House of Representatives that would seek the first land grab of Native American lands in 100 years, members of the Ute nation have warned.

The Utah Public Lands Initiative was proposed by Utah Congressperson Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz and seeks to “roll back federal policy to the late 1800s when Indian lands and resources were taken from tribal nations for the benefit of others,” the Ute Business Committee said in an article for the Salt Lake Tribune Saturday.

Bishop and Chaffetz will present the bill to the House in few weeks, and if passed it would see 18 million acres of public lands in Eastern Utah downgraded from protected lands and turned into oil and gas drilling zones that are exempted from environmental protections, Think Progress reported earlier this year when the bill was unveiled.

“The actions of Bishop and Chaffetz would seek to divest the Ute Indian Tribe of their ancestral homelands,” the committee added while also bringing back “failed policies of tribal land dispossession that have had a devastating and lasting impact upon tribal nations for the past century.”

The bill proposes to make more than 100,000 acres of the Ute reservation lands for the state of Utah. “This modern day Indian land grab cannot be allowed to stand,” the committee argued.

The nation further slammed the legislators for utterly failing to consult and work with leaders of the Native American community in drafting such a bill when it proposes taking away more than 26 percent of its lands.

“Representing more than a quarter of these eastern Utah lands, the tribe should have been a major participant in the development of any bill to address problems in federal land management. We were not,” the committee warned in their article.

The news comes as more than 100 Indigenous groups have been organizing major mobilizations against the Dakota Access pipeline which sparked a wave of international solidarity.

The US$3.8 billion pipeline would carry shale from the Bakken oil region in North Dakota to oil refineries on the Gulf Coast.

The original source of this article is TeleSUR
Copyright © Telesur, TeleSUR, 2016
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-congressional-bill-seeks-first-native-american-land-grab-in-100-years/5546799

An American says, “We Are the new Nazis…”

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By Peter White
Global Research, September 19, 2016
The Smirking Chimp 17 September 2016

After more than two decades of continuous war against countries we bombed with which we were officially at peace, and then invaded, and after millions have been killed and after billions have been spent to finance America’s illegal wars, we are no safer than we were before 9-11 and the world is facing the greatest refugee and worst humanitarian crisis since WW II. The United States is to blame for these wars of atrocity and the American political class that promulgated them are war criminals. In short, we Americans are the new Nazis of the world disorder.

Reports by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), Mother Jones, and Time put the costs of American adventurism at about $1.6 trillion dollars. Other reports have estimated the cost of US wars since 9/11 to be far higher, between $4 -$7 trillion. According to MJ, “a report by Neta Crawford, a political science professor at Boston University, estimated the total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as well as post-2001 assistance to Pakistan—to be roughly $4.4 trillion. The CRS estimate is lower because it does not include additional costs including the lifetime price of health care for disabled veterans and interest on the national debt.”

The U.S. is primarily to blame for the wars in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq which have killed thousands of people, most civilians, every year. The U.S. is complicit in proxy wars in Yemen, Sudan, Pakistan, Ukraine, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Congo, and Libya, which have claimed hundreds lives in recent years. Mexico, which suffered the fifth highest number of violent deaths in the world last year, is sort of a special case because the country is effectively a narco-state due to the violence unleashed by drug gangs. Afghanistan is also a narco-state but it is under occupation by American forces, which have not stopped, or even slowed much of the opium production in that country. U.S. agencies like the DEA, AFT, and FBI have been deeply involved in Mexico, as U.S. military forces are involved in Afghanistan, and those agencies were responsible for gun shipments to drug traffickers in Mexico. These facts are undisputed.

So while hundreds of armed conflicts are on-going around the world, the bloodiest conflicts are the ones where U.S forces are either directly or indirectly involved.

The American wars have led to famine and a refugee crisis which in turn is leading to the dissolution of the European Union and to new military and political alliances that will make the world a more dangerous place than it is now.

American exceptionalism that has guided the last three administrations was supposed to bring happy days of peace and security and democracy to the world but none of that has materialized and anybody who still thinks our militarism will accomplish those fanciful goals is drinking too much tainted Kool-aid.

In short, we Americans are like those good Germans who bought Hitler’s propaganda and enjoyed a better life for a while as German armies invaded their neighbors with whom they were officially at peace. History does have its lessons but we have not learned from it and are condemning ourselves by repeating it.

The U.S. is the Fourth Reich. God help us all.

Peter White is a writer and producer. He lives in Tennessee with his two sons and a dog, Ashes, who loves books. Ashes is not choosy about what she sinks her teeth into and her master is a regular contributor to the Nashville Public LIbrary.

The original source of this article is The Smirking Chimp
Copyright © Peter White, The Smirking Chimp, 2016

http://www.globalresearch.ca/we-are-the-new-nazis/5546623

U.S. bombed Syrian troops for nearly one hour, it was not a “mistake”, it was “intentional”: Bashar al-Assad

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By Press TV
Global Research, September 22, 2016
Press TV 22 September 2016

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said that US airstrikes on Syrian troops on Saturday were “intentional” and lasted for nearly one hour.

In an interview with the Associated Press conducted Wednesday, Assad said the attack targeted a “huge” area constituting of many hills, “so it was definitely intentional, not unintentional as they claimed.”

The US Central Command has said it may have unintentionally struck the Syrian airbase in Dayr al-Zawr while carrying out a raid against Daesh and that the strikes were stopped in less than five minutes when Russia called the US to halt it.

Daesh militants briefly overran government positions in the area until they were beaten back.

“How could they (Daesh) know that the Americans are going to attack that position in order to gather their militants to attack right away and to capture it one hour after the strike?” Assad asked.

“It wasn’t an accident by one airplane… It was four airplanes that kept attacking the position of the Syrian troops for nearly one hour, or a little bit more than one hour,” he said.

“You don’t commit a mistake for more than one hour,” Assad said in the interview.

US behind collapse of ceasefire

Assad also blamed the US for the collapse of a ceasefire deal brokered with Russia.

The strikes contributed to the collapse of the truce and cast serious doubt on chances for implementing an unprecedented US-Russian agreement to jointly target Daesh.

Assad said Washington “doesn’t have the will” to join the fight against Daesh, which the US, Turkey and their allies have cited as the reason for their military intervention in Syria.

Syrians who fled the country could return within a few months if the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar stopped backing militants, he added.

Assad said the war, now in its sixth year, is likely to “drag on” because of what he said was continued external support for Takfiri terrorists and numerous militant groups.

“When you talk about it as part of a global conflict and a regional conflict, when you have many external factors that you don’t control, it’s going to drag on.”

‘US lies’ about aid convoy attack

Assad also rejected accusations that Syrian or Russian planes struck an aid convoy in Aleppo and denied that his troops were preventing food from entering the militant-held part of the city.

“If there’s really a siege around the city of Aleppo, people would have been dead by now,” Assad said, asking how militants were able to smuggle in arms but apparently not food or medicine.

The attack on the aid convoy outside Aleppo took place Monday night, hitting a warehouse as aid workers unloaded cargo and triggering huge explosions.

US officials have oscillated between blaming the Syrian government and the Russian military for the attack. At one point, they have described a sustained barrage that included barrel bombs.

One Thursday, however, the AP quoted an unnamed “senior US administration official” who claimed a Russian-piloted aircraft carried out the strike.

Assad dismissed the claims, saying whatever American officials say “has no credibility” and is “just lies.”

Russia has called for an independent investigation into the attack and has published a footage from a drone which apparently shows a militant vehicle towing a mortar alongside the aid convoy.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said an armed US drone was in the vicinity of the humanitarian aid convoy that was hit by the airstrike.

War ‘savage’

Assad also brushed aside what is often described as eyewitness accounts to accuse the Syrian army, while acknowledging the war had been “savage”.

“Those witnesses only appear when there’s an accusation against the Syrian army or the Russian (army), but when the terrorists commit a crime or massacre or anything, you don’t see any witnesses.”

The original source of this article is Press TV
Copyright © Press TV, Press TV, 2016

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-bombed-syrian-troops-for-nearly-one-hour-it-was-not-a-mistake-it-was-intentional-bashar-al-assad/5547213

Military-style raid by police ends native prayer gathering against Dakota pipeline (VIDEO)

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By Telesur
Global Research, September 29, 2016
TeleSUR 28 September 2016

North Dakota police with military-style equipment surrounded Native Americans gathered in prayer against the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline on Wednesday, disrupting their plan to cross sacred and treaty-protected land in protest of a project they fear will destroy their livelihood.

“ND authorities deploy armed personnel with shotguns and assault rifles, military vehicles, and aerial spray on peaceful Water Protectors gathered in prayer,” wrote the Sacred Stone Camp, in a Facebook post.

Officers with military-style armored vehicles and shotguns threatened the protesters, who call themselves “water protectors” for defending the Missouri River from imminent pollution, reported Unicorn Riot. Up to 21 were arrested, the channel reported.

Witnesses filmed the crackdown but said their access their Facebook was blocked. One participant, Thomas H. Joseph II, posted a chilling video narrating the mobilization and his getaway. Helicopters are heard as he says that tear gas is being dropped, and an officer loads his gun as protesters, some on horseback, chant, “We have no guns.”

In the video, Joseph said that “one guy’s about ready to blast us” but later added that no fires were shot.

“We gathered in prayer un-armed, prayed, sang songs, and attempted to leave,” he later wrote in a Facebook post. “No threats, No vandalism, No violence was taken on our part.”

Police and private security personnel have been more aggressively cracking down on actions against the pipeline since the governor declared a state of emergency. The state is currently investigating an incident in which contracted private security film Frost Kennels unleashed dogs during a nonviolent direct action, ending with six bitten, including a pregnant woman and a child, according to organizers at the action.

Alternative media outlet Unicorn Riot previously accused Facebook of censoring its livestream of police repression, saying they received a popup security alert when they tried to post the video.

“We will not let them stop our mission to amplify the voices of people who might otherwise go unheard, and broadcast the stories that might otherwise go untold,“ they told RT.

The pipeline, expected to transport over half a million barrels of oil a day through four states, has united over 300 tribes in resistance. Several lawsuits are pending against the company, which has retaliated with restraining orders. The White House halted construction on federal land, which makes up three percent of the pipeline’s path, but has not issued any other statement against the pipeline—motivating Facebook users to demand a response after Wednesday’s crackdown.

President Barack Obama met with tribal representatives on Monday but only made an indirect reference to the historic native gathering: “I know that many of you have come together across tribes and across the country to support the community at Standing Rock,“ he said. “And together, you’re making your voices heard.“

The REAL Syria Civil Defence exposes NATO’s ‘White Helmets’ as terrorist-linked imposters — Part 2

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[Editor: I have divided this overview article into two parts.]
By Vanessa Beeley
Global Research, September 24, 2016
21st Century Wire 23 September 2016
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The REAL Syria Civil Defence

Let us now focus upon the very real heroes inside Syria, the real Syria Civil Defence that have been usurped by the NATO mountebank White Helmets who also call themselves the “Syria Civil Defence” – a mere simulacra of the REAL Syria Civil Defence who have been saving lives in Syria, and further afield for decades.

The REAL Syria Civil Defence was established as an organisation, in 1953, some 63 years before the White Helmets were a glimmer in the eyes of CIA and MI6 operatives.

The REAL Syria Civil Defence is a founding member of the ICDO (International Civil Defence Organisation). Other ICDO partners include the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Secretarian of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG), World Health Organisation (WHO), United Nations of Geneva (UNOG), Red Cross and the Red Crescent.

To our knowledge and according to the Head Quarters of the REAL Syria Civil Defence in Damascus, the White Helmets are NOT a member of the ICDO. The REAL Syria White Helmets have received awards for their participation in the training of other member states in USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) and for their contributions to the Civil Defence community, prior to the NATO dirty war on Syria that began in earnest, in 2011.

Later in Part II, we will go into further detail regarding this affiliation with the ICDO and the role the REAL Syria Civil Defence has played in global civil defence developments for the last 63 years – which is tremendous, and something the White Helmets could never lay claim to in reality, despite all the superficial accolades being rained down upon them by the US and NATO fueled organisations, foundations and cosmetic award bodies.

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This is an introduction to the unsung heroes who, unlike the counterfeit White Helmet, do truly risk their lives every day, working not only in government controlled areas, but forging deep into terrorist strongholds to rescue civilians living under the brutal US-NATO-backed terrorist siege and occupation that engulfs all of Syria.

When Syrian civilians are at risk, injured, or buried under the rubble of homes, schools and hospitals destroyed by terrorist mortar showers, it’s not Le Mesurier’s White Helmets who rush to their aid – it’s the REAL Syria Civil Defence, a real civic organization who, up until the publication of this article, have never been mentioned by any western media outlets.

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The REAL Syria Civil Defence, stationed in Syrian government held West Aleppo
(Photo: Vanessa Beeley August 15, 2016)

The REAL Syria Civil Defence: Aleppo

My first stop on my investigation to discover the REAL Syria Civil Defence units in as many Syrian governorates as I could during my time in Syria, was Aleppo. I focused on those units that were in closest proximity to the terrorist held areas of Syria, particularly, Aleppo and Idlib. Damascus which is the home and headquarters of the REAL Syrian Civil Defence was my last port of call, and is surrounded on two sides by Jaish Al Islam, another US-NATO protected terrorist clique.

Continue reading →