So Trump is breaking Obama foreign policy gains vs Cuba and Iran. Replacing it with the U.S. axis of Salafists KSA/GCC with ally Israel. Bush wrecked Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama/Clinton did the same with Libya, Syria and Ukraine. Now Trump is ready to wreck Iran and like the presidents before him will bite off a chunk too large. Overextending the military might of America.
More Reasons Have Emerged To Doubt The Official Narrative About Syria
The highly decorated Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh is back again, throwing yet another monkey wrench in the propaganda narratives of the US war machine. [Pulitzer Prize winning report on the massacre by U.S. troops in Vietnam, My Lai]
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Hersh’s latest piece, titled “Trump’s Red Line”, was published in the German publication Welt am Sonntag, reportedly after London Review of Books backed out for fear that it would make them “vulnerable to criticism for seeming to take the view of the Syrian and Russian governments”. LRB’s decision is understandable in light of today’s fact-free McCarthyist feeding frenzy given the criticism they’d already received from establishment loyalists for publishing Hersh’s explosive 2013 report “Whose Sarin?“, which attacked establishment allegations of Assad having used chemical weapons that year. Their decision points straight at the invisible state censorship that goes on within the editorial boards of every western outlet and the self-censorship that goes on in the minds of every western journalist when confronted with these uncomfortable and seemingly unreportable truths. The ruling class can make life very difficult for you if you don’t sing their propaganda song.
Hersh’s central source, whom Welt reportedly was able to contact and confirm the veracity of, describes a US president hell bent on attacking Syria regardless of facts, evidence, logic, or what he was being told by his own advisors.
Interview with former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford by the Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq al-Awsat on June 20.
Robert Ford, who served as envoy to Syria under former President Barack Obama from 2011 through 2014, said during an interview with the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that “Obama did not leave the Trump administration many options to achieve its goal” of defeating the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) and curbing Iran’s foothold in the region.
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Ford spoke candidly about what he believed were serious errors made by Washington at the beginning of the crisis in Syria, in 2011. He recalled being deeply opposed to Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s decision to publicly call for Assad’s removal from power during a period of mass demonstrations against the Syrian government. He said he knew that U.S. approval for the political opposition would encourage certain elements to take up arms against the government, expecting the U.S. military to stage an Iraq-style intervention to aid them–which he did not believe the U.S. would carry out.When the opposition, which also received support from Turkey and Gulf Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, did launch a large-scale insurgency against the state, the CIA ultimately decided to train and equip certain rebel groups. After this policy came to light, Ford said in 2014 that the U.S. was “behind the curve,” as Russia and Iran were devoting extensive resources to defending Assad, much more than the U.S. was willing to devote to the insurgents, Many of the insurgents were later overtaken or absorbed by more radical Sunni Muslim militant moves such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
As jihadists climbed the ranks among Syrian rebels, the U.S. shifted the focus of its policy toward eradicating ISIS and began backing another faction, the Syrian Democratic Forces. Many Kurds were initially supportive of the uprising against Assad, hoping it would give them an opportunity to establish an autonomous Kurdish area in northern Syria, much like Iraqi Kurdistan. The mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, however, found themselves clashing with both ISIS and Syrian rebel groups backed by Turkey, which has long sought to quell Kurdish nationalism in the region.
Jared Kushner visits family friend Netanyahu and listened well …
○ Mahmoud Abbas infuriated by messenger boy from the White House
○ Wailing wall not for gender mix: Jerusalem
Two were former prominent journalists at the New York Times … reminds one of Iraq’s link to Al Qaeda, 9/11 and weapons of mass destruction written by Judith Miller [Pulitzer prize winner] with close ties to the IC at Langley, VA. A new age, different reporters, same old as from the McCarthy era of the 1950s …
○ Who Lied To Whom? | The New Yorker |
○ The Stovepipe by Seymour Hersh - Oct. 2003
How conflicts between the Bush Administration and
the IC marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons.
The New York Times has an history of being kind to the Jewish State of Israel …
○ Complying with Israeli Censorship Order, NYT Conceals Name of Soldier Who Shot Wounded Palestinian | The Intercept – 2016 |
○ How New York Times conceals Israeli violence against Palestinians | EI – Dec. 2014 |
○ ‘NYT’ abided by Israeli gag order even as `EI’ scooped it repeatedly| Mondoweiss – April 2014 |
○ Influential Seattle blogger inflames left and right alike about Israeli security issues | |Tikun Olam |
The ensuing packages, according to Silverstein, were raw transcripts of FBI wiretaps of Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C., and Chicago. They showed, Silverstein said, the Israelis’ secret efforts to boost public support for a potential war with Iran, and to monitor members of Congress who were considered unfriendly to Israel.
Among them was Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver, whom the Israelis appeared to monitor during his visit to Gaza in 2009, Silverstein said, relying on his memory of their contents.
“I rather assumed something like that was happening,” said Baird, who since has left Congress. “If we were indeed labeled anti-Israel, that’s unfortunate. There’s an attitude that anyone who questions Israel is anti-Israel. I find that anti-American.”
○ Risk of Military Conflict: Israel and Iran as regional rivals | RAND |
Posted earlier in my diary …
○ The Rise of the Neocons from Its Ashes
○ Reporter Scolds White House: Stop ‘Bullying’ the Media
○ How Trolling Journalists Harms Democracy | The Forward – OpEd | by Jane Eisner
An African-American columnist faced threats and intimidation after he wrote provocatively about race and the law. A white reporter was the target of a campaign to ruin her reputation, from a businessman who didn’t like what she wrote.
The safety and security of American journalists are being tested in new and horrifying ways, enabled by technology, and given social permission by a president who calls us “enemies of the people” and denigrates our work to “fake news” while leading a nation that cannot agree on the core pillars of democratic discourse.
This isn’t just a Jewish problem or a journalism problem. It’s a democratic problem. This is not just for newsrooms to address; it’s for America to confront.
That message was reinforced after I participated in a recent discussion hosted by the Committee To Protect Journalists , the first time the advocacy group has convened a meeting focused on threats to American media.
○ Thanks To Meryl Streep, A Quarter Million Dollars Pours In To Protect Journalists
○ CPJ Report Reflects Seriousness Of US Press Freedom Gaps – Oct. 2013
NYT again
“All the News the neocons see fit to print”