Cop Shoots Woman’s Dog, Department Apologizes by Filing Charges Against Her
By Carey Wedler | ANTIMEDIA | July 31, 2015
A woman in Clayton County, Georgia is facing charges after a police officer shot and killed her five-month-old puppy, who witnesses say was not a threat to him. The officer, who killed the dog in the presence of the woman’s children, has a history of aggressive misconduct and was suspended for his behavior once before.
Claudette Terry told WSB-TV Atlanta that she was in the process of moving into a new home in May when two police officers stopped to “check on” a man sitting in her driveway.
“My son opened the door [and] the dog ran out and kind of stood by me where the other officers were. He didn’t bark, growl or anything.”
She told the officers the man was a friend who was helping her move, but as she discussed the issue with them, Officer Water Dennard approached them to join the conversation—and kill her dog.
“He just shot the dog and stood there with no remorse, no regrets in front of her and her kids,” said Aijohli King, a neighbor who witnessed the shooting from her home across the street.
Dennard claimed in his incident report that the dog, named 8-Ball, lunged at him, but another witness account contradicts his version of events.
“He just took a step back and he just shot at the dog,” Brandon Smarr said. “And then he started laughing afterward.”
Dennard added literal insult to injury by firing another bullet into the wounded animal. “The dog was shaking on the ground,” Terry said. “And he walked up to the dog and shot it a second time. He walked closer and shot it a second time.”
The family is devastated by the loss of their dog, who was described as “friendly, according to friends, and well-loved, especially by Terry’s daughter.”
“Puppycide,” or police killings of dogs, is routinely covered in the news. The stories often follow a narrative similar to Terry’s, where an officer shoots a dog, claims it lunged at him, and is absolved of wrongdoing. Witnesses often contradict the officers’ accounts, but only in egregious cases—such as the Texas officer who made kiss noises at a friendly pit bull to lure it over and subsequently shoot it—are officers punished for their sadistic tendencies.
Though the Clayton County incident happened in May, Terry is now facing charges for failing to have her dog on a leash or show rabies paperwork.
The Clayton County police spokesperson for the Office of Professional Standards said it was conducting an internal investigation and could not comment on the case at this time. Dennard’s record shows multiple use of force complaints, including a suspension for tasing an individual in the neck.
In Under a Minute, this Cop Shows Exactly Why People are Losing Faith in Police
By Matt Agorist | The Free Thought Project | August 1, 2015
Wichita, KS — A deputy has been suspended after he was captured on video, in a sickening display of authoritarianism. Deputy Vance Williams is now apologizing to the community after this video was posted to YouTube.
According to KSN news, the deputy was called out to the town of Harper to investigate a dispute over property, between several people.
Jeff Jacobs, who recorded the video, simply tried to ask Williams a question, when Williams completely blew a fuse. Upon being asked a question the deputy begins a full on assault.
“I don’t need anything from you. This is not my f**king jurisdiction. You understand that,” said Williams.
Jacobs responds, “No, I don’t. I don’t have a clue. I don’t know what is going on.”
At this point, the public servant begins flexing his “authoritie” and demands Jacobs give him his ID. He then tells him to take off his sunglasses, his hat, and demands he sit down.
“Say something else to me, and we will see where this goes. Open your f**king mouth and say something else. This is not my, take your f**king sunglasses off now. Hat off. Give me your identification,” said Williams.
“You want to spend your night in the f**king poke (jail) because you can’t shut your f**king mouth. Walk! Enjoy your walk,” barks this tyrant cop.
Both Jacobs and Williams say that this video does not show the entire picture, however, Williams admits that Jacobs never antagonized him.
“All I did was ask him a simple question. I expected an answer, or a ‘hey man, it’s really none of your business,’” said Jacobs.
The department is standing by their officer in regards to his mistreatment of Jacobs, but they are upset about Williams’ choice of words.
“I believe the whole story wasn’t aired for everybody to see,” said Sheriff Tracy Chance. “As far as the language goes, yeah I don’t agree with it and I’ve dealt with that.”
Williams also issued the following canned apology for his actions.
“I unfortunately used language that I should never have used,” said Deputy Williams. “I apologize to our community, to our county, commissioners, and to our sheriff. He would never condone that behavior.”
Had this incident not been captured on video, you can rest assured that the apology and the suspension, would have never existed. This is why people are not happy with police in America today.
More Pinochet Soldiers Charged with Burning Chilean Teenagers
teleSUR | July 31, 2015
Five more former Chilean army officers have been charged for involvement in the burning of two teenage activists protesting against the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in 1986, bringing the total to 12 people.
Last week, seven former soldiers were charged for complicity in the incident in which photographer Rodrigo Rojas was killed and Carmen Quintana was severely disfigured after the two were doused in gasoline and set on fire.
After setting them ablaze, soldiers abandoned the two activists outside of the capital city Santiago, where they managed to get help to take them to a hospital in critical condition, where Rojas later died of injuries.
Carmen Gloria Quintana is seen near her home in Santiago in July of 1987. In 1986, when she was 18, she suffered severe burns on 65 percent of her body. She spent decades in treatment in Chile and Canada. | Photo: Reuters
The case, closed in the 1990’s after a single conviction of negligence and reopened in 2013 when relatives filed a new lawsuit, is considered among the highest profile among tens of thousands of dictatorship-era human rights abuses carried out during the 1980’s.
The arrests follow the recent conviction of 10 former army officers in the 1973 assassination of Chile’s well-known leftist political folk singer Victor Jara in 1973. Soldiers had cut off Jara’s fingers, broke his hands and wrists, and shot him more than 40 times.
The charges also come as part of a larger investigation into war crimes carried out during the 17-year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
Over 36,000 people were tortured and at least 3,200 killed or disappeared under the rule of the Chilean dictator.
Mercenary Drone Operators Kill Outside US Chain of Command
Sputnik – 01.08.2015
WASHINGTON — The US armed forces are using a growing number of mercenaries or contractors to operate lethal drone attacks as regular troops are increasingly unwilling to do so, experts told Sputnik.
“‘Private contractors’, mercenaries, have been involved in US drone surveillance and attack for some time, certainly with the CIA, and most probably not only in intelligence analysis, but also in the roles of pilots and sensor operators,” KnowDrones.com Coordinator Nick Mottern told Sputnik on Friday.
The sensor operators are the people who pull the trigger to launch Hellfire missiles and bombs, he said.
Mottern noted the need to hire mercenaries indicates that the US military is not able, for whatever reason, to find enough people within its ranks to do such work.
“This is… because it is involving an increasing amount of killing, and, I suspect, an increasing amount of PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder].”
The situation, Mottern continued, presents a major legal problem for the contracting companies and the military alike, because of the question who should be held accountable for the killing going on conducted by drones.
“[T]he critical decisions of identifying ‘the enemy’ are being made by civilians who are under no official chain of command,” he added.
All drone killing remains clearly in violation of international law and US domestic law against assassination, Mottern pointed out.
Yet, “here we have the US paying civilians to do illegal killing without even the legal accountability applied to the US military,” he said. “[T]he mercenaries are accountable only to their employers who most assuredly are encouraging high kill totals to ensure continued contracts. “
This lack of accountability and of any clear chain of command “obviously means dramatically increased jeopardy for the people under surveillance and drone attack; that is a dramatic increase in the number of people being killed and terrorized,” Mottern explained.
The unwillingness of the US military to comment on this situation is evidence of its illegality, the activist argued.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ), Mottern said, has documented up to nearly 6,000 people killed by US drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, not including those killed in Afghanistan before 2015, or those killed by drone attacks in Iraq, Libya or possibly Syria.
“The extent of drone surveillance, killing and terrorism going on is very likely far beyond what is documented by [the BIJ figures],” Mottern warned.
Upstate Drone Acton activist Ed Kinane told Sputnik on Friday that the scale of drone operations and the amount of carnage they will inflict looks likely to increase in coming months.
“The problem isn’t ‘lack of personnel’; the problem is an overabundance of opportunities for surveillance and killing — thanks to the US military’s drive for assassination, intervention and invasion,” Kinane said.
The continued and increasing cycles of war generate further profit for major defense contractors in the United States and its close allies, Kinane claimed.
“More war equals more profit, [therefore] perpetual war equals perpetual profit [and] more regional instability equals more opportunities to secure control over resources of fractured nations,” Kinane argued.
The intelligence analysts now employed by the Pentagon will likely eventually be involved in domestic police and intelligence work as well, Kinane predicted.
Lion lives matter. But what about Palestinian kids?
By John Wight | RT | August 1, 2015
Western liberals came out in their droves to condemn the slaying of Cecil the Lion in Africa. How many will now come out to condemn the savage slaughter of a Palestinian infant, Ali Saad Dawabsha, by Jewish terrorists in the West Bank village of Duma?
I think we already know the answer to this question. For such people the blood of an African lion is more valuable than the blood of a 18 month-old Palestinian child. We know this to be true because for decades Palestinian children, along with their parents and families, have been routinely slaughtered and/or terrorized by Israelis, whether through individual acts of terror committed by illegal settlers and religious fanatics, or as is more common by the state via the IDF, the most cowardly army in the world bar none.
The gall of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in describing this latest act of primeval violence against a baby as an “act of terror” when he has ordered the mass murder of babies and children in Gaza; when his government has created a culture of extremism in its consistent and determined policy to demonize and dehumanize the Palestinian people in order to justify their continued oppression, is off the scale.
As for the so-called “international community” – in truth the US and its allies – it is an accessory to this child’s murder with the political, economic, military and diplomatic support it provides the apartheid state of Israel, a state whose crimes, to paraphrase the Irish revolutionary James Connolly, would shame all the devils in hell. Indeed for your average Israeli the very word Palestinian is synonymous with subhuman, the product of a mindset encapsulated in the now infamous words of former Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, when she said, “There were no Palestinians.”
What Meir revealed was the status of ‘non-people’ that had long been ascribed to the Palestinian not by extremists but the political mainstream within this settler colonial state. Her words were not spoken as statement of historical fact but rather as a statement of intent. It is this intent that drives Israeli policy towards the Palestinian people to this day, whose suffering shames a world in which justice is a gift to be given instead of a universal right, as set out in the UN Charter.
Israel’s claim to victimhood throughout its existence is as hollow as it is perverse. It is a state founded on the mass ethnic cleansing of the land’s indigenous population, and a state that continues to exist at the negation of the remaining Palestinians every hour of every day.
The unfailing and ignoble pandering to Israel that informs the West’s entire policy with regard to the Middle East has only succeeded in creating a monster in the shape of the intransigent, rejectionist, and brutal political culture that now holds sway there, one that is underpinned by a flagrant disregard for international law and the human rights of some 3 million people in the occupied West Bank and 1.8 million in Gaza, which at time of writing remains a pile of rubble after Israel’s summer 2014 air, land, and sea assault in which over 2,100 Palestinians were slaughtered – around 500 of them children – and up to 10,000 injured or maimed, many of them permanently.
Gaza remains under siege, cut off from the outside world, its people and their suffering a symbol of the callous indifference of an international order in which Palestinian blood is not only cheap it is deemed worthless. Israel’s exceptionalism, on the other hand, remains sacrosanct.
Meanwhile the settlements continue to expand across the West Bank, despite their illegality. Over half a million illegal Jewish settlers now colonize land belonging to the Palestinians, who are subjected to daily acts of violence, intimidation, and terror at the hands of religious extremists. In this they are left exposed by an Israeli government that turns a blind eye to their treatment, and indeed arrests and imprisons those who dare complain or protest too vociferously.
There will be no justice for the Palestinians as long as organized hypocrisy continues to impersonate democracy in Washington and throughout European capitals with regard to their plight. Adding insult to grievous injury is how the Palestinians’ courage in resisting the juggernaut of oppression that has reduced their lives to misery is depicted as terrorism, thus used as justification for the status quo.
Those responsible for Ali Saad Dawabsha’s murder are the human product of the injustice that sits at the very foundations of a state that wears its brutality as a badge of honour. No state and no people can escape the crimes it commits, and no people can be forever denied justice on the altar of expediency and exceptionalism.
This is why the international campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel offers the Palestinians a lifeline of solidarity, providing them with a semblance of hope. Despite the supine disregard for their rights by political leaders in the West, more and more people are answering their cry for help. It is here, with this international solidarity campaign, where Israel is most vulnerable. Far greater than any economic or material impact the boycott campaign has had and is having, is the way it is slowly but surely chipping away at the moral foundations on which its system of apartheid rests.
Ali Saad Dawabsha was burned alive by animals who claim to be acting in the name of God and religion. This innocent child’s murder cannot be allowed to pass without a renewed determination to defeat the system of apartheid, siege, and occupation that nourishes the bigotry and hate that passes for democracy in Israel.
It has never been more important for all who care about justice to declare that we are all Palestinians.
Erodoğan and Netanyahu Declare War
By James Petras :: 07.31.2015
The rulers of the two most powerful authoritarian regimes in the Middle East are launching major wars to reconfigure the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has declared war by proxy on Iran, announcing full-scale military mobilization within Israel (July 27 -29) and organizing the biggest political campaign of ultra Zionist Jews in Washington.
The purpose of this two-pronged propaganda blitz is to defeat the recently signed US-Iranian agreement and start another major Middle East war. Ultimately, Netanyahu intends to take care of his ‘Palestinian Problem’ for good: complete the conquest and occupation of Palestine and expelling the Palestinian people from their homeland – the single most important foreign policy and domestic goal of the Jewish state. In order to do this, Israeli leaders have had to systematically campaign for the destruction of the Palestinians regional supporters and sympathizers – Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Iran.
Erodogan’ s Multiple Wars
At the same time, Turkish Prime Minister Erodogan has launched a major war against the Kurdish people and their aspirations for a Kurdish state. This has followed closely on several recent incidents beginning with the bombing (with cooperation from Turkish intelligence ) of a Kurdish youth camp, killing and wounding scores of young secular activists. Within days of the massacre of Turkish-Kurdish youth, Erodogan ordered his air force to bomb and strafe Kurdish bases within the sovereign territories of Iraq and Syria and Turkish security police have assaulted and arrested thousands of Kurdish nationalists and Turkish leftist sympathizers throughout the country. This has all occurred with the support of the US and NATO who provide cover for Erodogan’s plans to seize Syrian territory, displace Kurdish civilians and fighters and colonize the northern border of Syria – under the pretext of needing a ‘buffer zone’ to protect Turkish sovereignty. Such a massive land grab of hundreds of square kilometers will end the long standing support and interaction among Syrian, Iraqi and Turkish Kurdish populations who have been among the most effective opponents of radical Islamist groups.
Erdogan’s newly declared war on the Kurds has complex domestic and regional components (Financial Times 7/28/15, p 9): Within Turkey, the repression is directed against the emerging electoral-political power of the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party. Erodogan plans to discredit or outright ban this political party, which had won a surprising number of seats in the recent parliamentary election, call for new elections, secure a ‘majority’ in Parliament and assume dictatorial ‘executive powers’.
Regionally, Erodogan’s invasion of Syria is part of his strategy to expand Turkey’s borders southward and westward and to provide a platform from which Turkey’s favorite jihadi clients can launch assaults on the secular government in Damascus and Aleppo. The bombing of Kurdish villages and camps in Iraq and Syria are designed to reverse the Kurd’s military victories against ISIS and will justify greater repression of Kurdish activists backing autonomy in southeastern Turkey.
Erodogan is counting on Turkey’s agreements with the US and NATO for overt and covert collaboration against the Kurds and against Syrian national sovereignty.
Netanyahu’s Proxy Wars
Netanyahu’s multifaceted political offensive is designed to drag the US into a war with Iran. His strategy operates at many levels and in complex complimentary ways. The immediate target is the nuclear agreement recently signed between the White House and Iran. Part of the longer-term strategy to destroy Iran includes the formation of a coalition of Middle East states, especially Gulf monarchies, to encircle, confront and provoke war with Iran. This political-military strategy is being pushed by leading Zionists within the highest circles of the US Government.
All the major Israeli political parties, and most Israeli voters support this dangerous policy against Iran. The Presidents of the 52 Major American Jewish Organizations in the US have been mobilized to bully, bribe and bludgeon the majority of Congress into following Netanyahu’s dictates. Every US Congressperson is being ‘visited’ and presented with propaganda sheets by leaders, activists and full time functionaries of AIPAC, the Jewish Confederations and their billionaire political donors. All the major US press and TV media parrot Netanyahu’s call for ‘war on the peace accord’ despite massive US public opinion against any escalation of the conflict.
At the highest levels of US Executive decision-making top Zionist officials avoid association with AIPAC’s public polemics and thuggish bluster, all the while promoting their own political-military ‘final solution’ … for eliminating Iran as an adversary to Israeli-Jewish supremacy in the Middle East. In the State Department and Departments of Commerce, Defense and Treasury, US-Israeli agents acting as special Middle East advisers, ambassadors and insiders push Netanyahu’s policies to undermine any normalization of relations between the US and Iran.
A recent proposal written by Professor Phillip Zelikow in the Financial Times (7/23/15, p. 9 ) entitled “To Balance (sic) the Nuclear Deal, Defeat ISIS and Confront Iran” is chilling.
The former ‘Executive Director of the ‘9/11 Commission Investigation Report’, uber-insider Zelikow promotes the formation of an ingenious coalition, in the name of fighting ISIS, but whose real purpose is to “confront Iranian ambitions”. Zelikow’s “coalition” includes Turkey, which will be assigned to attack Iran’s regional allies in Syria and Lebanon (Hezbollah) – all in the name of “fighting ISIS”.
The bland, bespectacled and most respectable Professor Zelikow lays out Netanyahu’s own bloody hit list down to the most minute detail – but tidied up with a thin veneer of ‘confronting ISIS’ to obscure his real agenda. This is no blustering AIPAC thug or open Neo-Con war monger beating the drums…
Zelikow’s ‘anti-ISIS coalition’ will ultimately go after the Iraqi Shia militia and their main supporters among Iran’s Revolutionary Guard – hewing closely to Netanyahu’s strategy!
Zelikow was a major inside advocate of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Twelve years after the US invaded, occupied and destroyed Iraq, Zelikow pops up again to promote a policy of sending US combat troops to serve Israel’s regional interest. He writes, “The military side [of the ‘coalition’] will need more Americans on the ground to offer meaningful combat support among the coalition”. (FT ibid).
Zelikow is clearly aware of US public opinion in favor of diplomacy with Iran and against the US engaging in more ground wars in the Middle East, when he writes that a ‘military effort is not an alternative to diplomacy.” Zelikow and his bosses in the Israeli Foreign Office know any US military intervention with such a “coalition” would lead to the destruction of the US-Iran Agreement and another major ground war with US troops fighting for Israel once again!
Considering his position as a highly connected insider, Zelikow’s attempts to sabotage the Iran-US agreement presents a far greater danger to world peace than all the noisy lobbying by the 52 Zionist organizations active in Congress.
Zelikow has been a highly influential security adviser to the US Executive and State Department since the early 1980’s under Reagan. He was appointed ‘special adviser to the State Department’ in 2007, a position held earlier by Neo-Con operative Wendy Sherman and followed by war-monger, Victoria Nuland. In 2011 President Obama appointed him to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.
He came to national prominence when President Bush appointed him Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission where he directed the highly controversial (and highly censored) 9/11 Commission Report against much public opposition. The appointment was made after Bush first choice of Henry Kissinger had created a media storm – Kissinger was never a serious choice with an insider-gatekeeper like Zelikow waiting in the wings. He was a controversial choice because of his role as intimate advisor to Condaleeza Rice and his authorship of the notorious Bush national security strategy promoting pre-emptive war, published in September 2002.
Phillip Zelikow suppressed any discussion of Israel’s role as a major catalyst for US involvements in the Afghan and Iraq wars. As executive-director of the 9/11 Commission Report, Zelikow assumed the role of editor and censor. He ignored the history of Israeli Mossad operations in the US, especially in the run-up to the attack on September 11, 2001. The report made no mention the fake ‘moving’ van filled with Israeli spies arrested on September 11, 2001 while celebrating and photographing the destruction of the World Trade Center complex. Nor did he discuss the quiet ‘deportation’ of the Israeli agents. The report contains no discussion of the scores of phony Israel “art students” who operated in South Florida around US military installations and in the vicinity of the apartment of the alleged 9-11 hijackers. They too were quietly arrested and deported.
He also suppressed discussion of the Defense Department’s ‘Able Danger Project’, which showed US intelligence awareness of the hijackers presence and activities much earlier dating back to 1997.
In October 2001, the first ‘anthrax attack’ occurred – first sickening and killing a photojournalist at a scandal sheet in Florida. National news programs featured an interview with… the re-packaged ‘al Qaeda’ and ‘bioterrorism’ expert Professor Zelikow (his lack of Arabic and scientific credentials notwithstanding…) who declared the anthrax to be ‘weapons grade’ and ‘definitely from a state sponsored military lab’, implying Iraq. (He was correct in the ‘military lab’ part of his declaration – only the facility was the US Weapons Lab at Fort Detrick. Zelikow’s role in accusing the embargoed and beleaguered regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of the anthrax hysteria was crucial in the public build-up for the case to invade Iraq, echoed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s call for the destruction of Iraq. Master-performance complete, ‘scientist’ Zelikow’s interview (among others) has disappeared from the ‘web’.
Zelikow’s ‘expertise’ (such as it is) and usefulness to Israel derives from his articles on the political usefulness of ‘false flags’ and catastrophes – events concocted or instigated by imperialist powers to push a traumatized public into unpopular wars and draconian domestic police state policies. His work has centered on the manipulation and exploitation of ‘events’ to push public policy – and include the Cuban Missile Crisis, the re-unification of Germany, policing Northern Ireland, (but not Middle East studies or bio-weaponry’). His expertise is in the historical use of the ‘public myth’- whether the Riechstag Fire or Pearl Harbor. In Foreign Affairs, November-December 1998, he co-authored an article with the current US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, entitled Catastrophe Terrorism where a ‘watershed event’ could result in ‘horror and chaos’ pushing the US public to accept the destruction of ‘their civil liberties, wide-spread surveillance, detention and use of deadly force…’
Zelikow continues to push the “false flag” script: In 2001 with the “anthrax hysteria” and now with the “Iran threat hysteria” . . . What is not surprising is that in both instances he hews closely to Israel’s strategic goal of utterly destroying countries, which have opposed Israel’s dispossession, occupation and expulsion of Palestinians – Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon and now Iran.
Zelikow is a long-term, major asset for Israel, working quietly and effectively while the AIPAC bullies break down the doors of Congress. He never held a prominent position in the Cabinet or White House post like the brazen Zion-Cons Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby, Perle, Abrams and Levey who aggressively pushed the country into war with Iraq. Wolfowitz and company have scuttled back into obscurity under the cover of lucrative private positions while Zelikow continues to work inside pushing the Iran war agenda out of the limelight.
Zelikow’s role is far more discrete and important to Israel over the long haul than the loudmouths and thugs of AIPAC and other Zionist fronts. On the surface he pursues his academic and university administrative career (an excellent cover) while repeatedly inserting himself into crucial public discussions and quietly assuming strategic positions to advise on events or policies which have ‘turning point’ consequences and where his deep ties to Israel are never discussed.
Zelikow has one asset, which his bullying and blustering Zionist comrades lack and another which he shares with them. Zelikow is a great con-man – claiming knowledge about anthrax, Middle East relations, and military strategy. He spouts …. pure unadulterated rubbish with authoritative finesse!.. Claiming legal and investigative expertise he controlled the 9/11 Commission Report and denied the American people any open and relevant discussion of the event. He even likened the Commission Report skeptics to ‘an infection’ within American public opinion – apparently relying on his ‘expertise’ in biological warfare…
What Zelikow does have in common with the raging bulls of Zionism is his constant resort to vituperation against any country or movement identified as a target by Israel. He consistently refers to the secular government of Syria (under attack by jihadi terrorists) as a “terrorist regime”. He calls the Iraqi militia fighting ISIS “Shia torture squads”. This is part of a build-up to push the US into ground war for Israel against Iran and its allies.
Unlike Turkey’s Erodogan who uses his own armed forces to launch an all-out war to dispossess, terrorize and colonize ethnic Kurdish territories in Syria, Iraq and Turkey, Israel’s Netanyahu relies on his overseas (US) high level operatives to set in motion the wheels of war. Within days of attacks of September 11, 2001, Israel’s leading mouthpiece in the US Senate, Joseph Lieberman presented the roadmap for US wars for the next decade and a half – declaring that “the US must declare war on Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon and Iran”, despite the complete absence of these countries’ involvement in the event.
Is he a prophet or just a highly successful agent? Zelikow will push for a ‘coalition’ of Middle East dictators and monarchs to fulfill Israel’s dream as dictated by Joseph Lieberman in September 2001. This is a dream of waging devastating war against Iran leading to its partition, similar to the de facto partition of Iraq, Syria and Libya, resulting in a Middle East forever ravaged by sectarian strife, foreign occupations, balkanized and devoid of any possibility of regaining civilized life. Israel can then carry out its brutal final solution: the dispossession and expulsion of all Palestinians and establishment an expanded, purely Jewish state – surrounded by unspeakable destruction and destitution…
Conclusion
Erodogan expands ‘Turkoman frontier’ into Syria and Iraq – despite the fact that Turkey has never shown any interest in the Turkoman minorities. To that end, he allies with ISIS terrorists to uproot Kurds, everywhere extending into Turkey. Erodogan, like, Netanyahu, wants a ‘pure’ ethnic state – one Jewish, the other Turkish! Both brutal leaders have no regard for the sovereignty of neighboring states, let alone the security of their civilian populations. Both depend on the military support of the US. Both are in the process of igniting wider and more destructive wars in the Middle East. Netanyahu and Erodogan want to reconfigure the Middle East: Turkey seizes Kurdistan and Syria; Netanyahu expands military dominance in the Persian Gulf through the destruction of Iran.
These two leaders appear to hate each other because they are so similar in arrogance and action… But according to Professor Zelikow, the US will step in ‘god-like’ to ‘mediate’ the different power grabs among what he mindlessly refers to as the ‘partners of the coalition’.
US Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia Contributing to Conflict in Yemen
Sputnik – 01.08.2015
WASHINGTON — The United States’ weapons and logistical support for Saudi Arabia’s military campaign in Yemen signals that Washington is backing Riyadh’s goal to crush Houthi rebels despite UN calls for a political solution, experts told Sputnik on Friday.
The United States is providing intelligence and refueling support to enable a four-month-old Saudi-led air campaign against Houthi rebels and allied forces.
On Thursday, Washington decided to provide Riyadh with $500 million in ammunition to replenish stocks used up in the campaign.
“The Saudis want an extended war that leads to a Houthi defeat, and the United States is effectively backing that strategy with the arms deal,” Charles Schmitz, a specialist on Yemen at the Middle East Institute told Sputnik.
“The Saudis don’t want a political settlement; they want a Houthi surrender,” he added.
This week’s $500 million weapons deal, which includes ammunition, tracers, artillery shells and mines, is meant to resupply the Saudi military in its campaign against Houthi rebels, according to the State Department.
The sale was approved as Saudi Arabia has come under criticism for human rights abuses and violations of the international law of war by targeting and killing civilians in Yemen.
The conflict has claimed the lives of at least 1,900 civilians and has injured more than 4,000, according to the UN, while leaving 80 percent of the country in need of humanitarian assistance.
“The new sale by the United States of $500 million of munitions to Saudi Arabia is yet another example of how America is actually an active combatant in the Saudi war on the people of Yemen,” Haykal Bafana, Managing Director of Bafana Advisory, told Sputnik from Sana.
“Whether the US munitions are distributed by Riyadh for use by its Yemeni proxy forces or by the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] itself, the effect is similar: the United States is contributing actively to the deaths of more Yemenis,” Bafana added.
The multi-front war in Yemen pits Houthi rebels and loyalists of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh against ousted President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi’s Sunni forces, tribes and south Yemen secessionists based in Aden.
Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula and the ISIL have also taken advantage of the situation to strengthen their hold in Yemen.
Saudi trained Yemeni proxies loyal to former president Hadi have recently pushed Houthi forces from Aden as several humanitarian ceasefires and political talks have broken-down.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has delayed a pledge to provide $274 million in humanitarian aid to Yemen as the UN and Riyadh discuss the terms of the assistance, the UN’s humanitarian chief said this week.
Creditors offer Ukraine 5% debt write-down – media
RT | July 31, 2015
After months of stalemate, Ukraine’s international private bondholders have proposed a 5 percent debt relief for Kiev as concerns over the country’s economy grow. Last month Ukraine asked the creditors for a 40-percent cut.
The proposal was made this week by Ukraine’s largest creditor Franklin Templeton Investments which holds about $8.9 billion in bonds, the Wall Street Journal cited two people close to the negotiations Thursday. It was agreed by other members from the committee of the country’s major bondholders.
“As long-term investors in Ukraine, the committee has led efforts to ensure a rapid, mutually acceptable and sustainable debt restructuring, while also retaining the country’s vital access to capital markets,” one person said.
Ukraine recently indicated it is ready to agree to a less severe ‘haircut’ than it has previously asked for, according to the second person familiar with the talks. The country had asked for a 40 percent haircut worth about $15 billion.
“The creditors have bitten the bullet,” Jakob Christensen, an analyst at Exotix Partners in London told Bloomberg. “It’s give and take from here, so a compromise is probably the most realistic. I don’t think the IMF and the government will be satisfied with a small principal haircut. They will need more like 25 percent.”
Kiev has been trying to persuade foreign private creditors to make concessions as the country has to meet the conditions for the next $2.5 billion tranche of the IMF’s $17.5 billion loan. The fund will release money only if it’s satisfied with the economy, budget and monetary reforms in the country. The IMF board of directors is holding a meeting to discuss the issue on July 31.
The country’s GDP is expected to shrink 9 percent this year, with annual inflation expected to jump to 46 percent, the IMF warned. The debt will hit 95 percent of GDP this year, according to the National Bank of Ukraine.
Ukraine avoided a technical default earlier this month by making a $120million coupon payment on its Eurobonds. The next key bond payment of $500 million is due in September.
Payments on foreign debt should amount to $257 million this month. $98 million will be payments on official loans of $159 million from international financial institutions.
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Ukraine pays $120mn debt, avoids technical default – finance ministry
World Food Program halves food aid to Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon
Press TV – August 1, 2015
The World Food Program (WFP) has slashed by half its food assistance for Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon due to a funding crisis.
Muhannad Hadi, the WFP’s regional director for the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and Eastern Europe, announced the decision on Friday.
Hadi said the international community must help the food assistance branch of the United Nations to continue its drive to keep refugees from going hungry.
The WFP official further urged international donors to increase their contributions, otherwise “it will be only a matter of months before we face the same situation again.”
The WFP said that the most vulnerable of the Syrian refugees living outside camps in Jordan will receive USD 14 per person in August while the rest will get only USD 7 each.
The agency will also provide the Syrian refugees in Lebanon with USD 13.5 per month, which is half of their initial entitlement.
The development comes as the WFP is currently underfunded and needs USD 168 million to keep helping Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and Turkey through October.
Syria has been grappling with a foreign-sponsored crisis since March 2011. The violence fueled by Takfiri terrorist groups has reportedly left over 230,000 people dead so far.
More than 4 million Syrians have left their country since the beginning of the conflict, according to latest figures released by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Lebanon is home to 1,172,753 Syrian refugees while Jordan hosts more than 629,000 refugees, with about 100,000 housed in refugee camps and the rest living in Jordanian communities.
In a joint report published on July 23, the WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned of worsening food insecurity in the Arab country, saying that the ongoing crisis is pushing more people into poverty and hunger.
Approximately 9.8 million Syrians are estimated to be “food insecure,” with 6.8 million of them “severely food insecure,” according to the report.