Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Rigged Elections Are An American Tradition

Dr Roberts is right. People (not just Americans) have short memory. Most Americans are still unaware or don't recall US Supreme Court is corrupt enough to steal Al Gore's victory and award the accolade to George Bush Jr by refusing to re-count votes in Florida where and when Jeb Bush was the governor !


Rigged Elections Are An American Tradition

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research, October 22, 2016
Paul Craig Roberts

Do Americans have a memory?  I sometimes wonder.
It is an obvious fact that the oligarchic One Percent have anointed Hillary, despite her myriad problems to be President of the US.  There are reports that her staff are already moving into their White House offices.
This much confidence before the vote does suggest that the skids have been greased.
The current cause celebre against Trump is his conditional statement that he might not accept the election results if they appear to have been rigged. The presstitutes immediately jumped on him for “discrediting American democracy” and for “breaking American tradition of accepting the people’s will.”
What nonsense! Stolen elections are the American tradition.  Elections are stolen at every level—state, local, and federal.  Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley’s theft of the Chicago and, thereby, Illinois vote for John F. Kennedy is legendary.  The Republican US Supreme Court’s theft of the 2000 presidential election from Al Gore by preventing the Florida vote recount is another legendary example. The discrepancies between exit polls and the vote count of the secretly programmed electronic voting machines that have no paper trails are also legendary.
So what’s the big deal about Trump’s suspicion of election rigging?
The black civil rights movement has fought vote rigging for decades. The rigging takes place in a number of ways. Blacks simply can’t get registered to vote.  If they do get registered, there are few polling places in their districts.  And so on.  After decades of struggle it is impossible that there any blacks who are not aware of how hard it can be for them to vote.  Yet, I heard on the presstitute radio network, NPR, Hillary’s Uncle Toms saying how awful it was that Trump had cast aspersion on the credibility of American election results.
I also heard a NPR announcer suggest that Russia had not only hacked Hillary’s emails, but also had altered them in order to make incriminating documents out of harmless emails.
The presstitutes have gone all out to demonize both Trump and any mention of election rigging, because they know for a fact that the election will be stolen and that they will have the job of covering up the theft.

 www.paulcraigroberts.org

The original source of this article is Paul Craig Roberts
Copyright © Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Craig Roberts, 2016
 
Check out this website:  http://www.oilempire.us/elections.html
 
 
What they said about US elections:
 
Yes there is a difference between Republicans and Democrats. One has no heart and the other has no has no spine. But they both work for the same crime syndicate. -- Joe Bageant, November 20, 2009, One party has no heart, the other no spine   www.joebageant.com/joe/2009/11/one-party-has-no-heart.html
 
Give the people a choice between a Republican and a Democrat who talks like a Republican and they'll choose the Republican every time. -- Harry S. Truman
 
Corrupted by wealth and power, your government is like a restaurant with only one dish. They've got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side. But no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen. -- Huey Long

It is my belief that since the JFK assassination the secret government, the CIA and the [Military Industrial Complex], have been running the show. They have not allowed anyone to become president, from either party, that was not under their control. -- Bruce Gagnon, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2008/07/jfks-conversion-from-war.html

The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they’re an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They’ve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They’ve got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying - lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.
But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers - people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they’re coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. -- George Carlin

History has shown that the Oliharchs, CIA and MIC work from behind to present fake contenders like Trump & Al Gore to give a false impression to the public that a real election competition has taken place just like the "serious" comedian George Carlin said above.


Election fraud did not start in Florida in 2000

1960: both sides tampered with votes in Illinois.
1964: the election was tampered with by the coup in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
1968: the election was tampered with by the killings of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and by Nixon's sabotage of the Vietnam peace negotiations.
1972: the Watergate scandal damaged democracy.
1976: the Carter campaign was in part an effort of the "Trilateral Commission" (a quasi-official transnational entity of elites).
1980: Carter's "Friendly Fascism" was sabotaged by the "October Surprise". ("On October 19, 1980, Bush was dealing with Khomeini") In most countries, that would have been called a coup d'etat.
1984: Reagan's re-election campaign was a "cake walk" over Mondale.
1988: Dukakis appeared to get "cold feet" (understandable) and chose to stay silent about Bush's crimes as Vice President. Iran-Contra and the October Surprise were not part of the campaign issues.
1992: Clinton was clearly the elite's choice. Clinton put the happy face on fascism and got a lot of the Reagan-Bush agenda passed -- NAFTA, GATT, WTO, gutting health, safety and environmental laws, abolition of welfare, doubling prison complex, etc. "Homeland Security" was started toward the end of Clinton's second term (around the time of the phony impeachment). Clinton had been involved in Iran-Contra while governor of Arkansas (much of the cocaine used to fund the contra war was flown into Mena, Ark.), and therefore was compromised and couldn't prosecute Bush for his crimes.
1996: Dole seemed to understand that his campaign was a token gesture - entertaining for him (and profitable), but not a serious effort to defeat Clinton.
2000: the whole world saw George W. Bush was not actually the winner. While vote fraud was not limited to Florida, that state became famous as the center for the election tampering.
2002: several elections - especially the Georgia Senate and Governor races - were flipped by electronic ballot machines. The plane crash of Senator Wellstone also was a factor in the shift of the Senate to the Republicans.
2004: Kerry won the election, but electronic ballot machines and voter suppression flipped several states in the Electoral College and shifted a few million votes to Bush.
2006: vote fraud was present in many Congressional races, but not enough to prevent the Democrats from taking both houses of Congress. But the establishment wanted the Democrats in 2006, which blocked Cheney and Rumsfeld and the rest of the neo-cons from attacking Iran (a new war that would be intensely counterproductive for US interests).
2008: Obama was chosen by elites as Bush's replacement. Wall Street gave more money to the Democrats than to the McCain campaign, and the Republicans self-sabotaged by selecting Sarah Palin as their Vice Presidential candidate.
2012: Romney was a token effort at opposing Obama's re-election, just like the 1996 Dole campaign.
2016: Trump is probably the only candidate who can make Hillary Clinton seem good in comparison.

Requirements for Free Elections:
  • impeachment of Cheney and Bush -- and prosecution at the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere (threatening war crimes in Iran and Syria is a crime)
  • a "truth and reconciliation" style investigation of 9/11 (similar to the commission that documented South Africa's crimes after apartheid), US foreign policies, and the plutocracy / kleptocracy that controls our country
  • abolition of electronic ballot counting machines-- the solution is paper ballots counted by hand
  • media reform to break up giant propaganda monopolies that are the most important ways that election campaigns are tampered with
For future "selections," assuming that this ritual will be maintained to preserve the illusion of democracy, it is incumbent upon progressive Democrats, Greens, Republicans with consciences, and others to focus on the myriad ways that elections are not free and fair: electronic voting machines that are made by Republicans, the role of the secret government (CIA, etc) and other related issues in addition to campaign finance reform. Otherwise, the Presidential sElections will be farces, not worthy of being considered "democratic."
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Had US elections always been transparent and fair?

The answer to that question is a resounding NO if you had taken the time to investigate.

Of course, many of Donald Trump's statements and personal attitude towards women are obnoxious, but that doesn't mean Hillary is a good fit to be groomed as the next President of the USA. Hillary's ugliness lies in her immoral and unethical character and dangerous attitude towards many national and international issues. While a bad boy Trump could be good to reign in the Cold War 2.0, Hillary, with instigation from Washington's warmongering neo-cons, is just waiting to unleash a nuclear showdown with Russia and military attacks on Syria and Iran. She has the strong financial backing from America's corrupt corporations and military-industrial complex.

US Election Potpourri: The Media “Presstitutes” Have Set Up “The Election To Be Stolen”

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research, October 25, 2016
Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy 24 October 2016
 
Over the course of its history, the New York Times has reported on many American elections that have been rigged or stolen or are suspected of having been being rigged or stolen. For example, as a supporter of the black civil rights movement, the NY Times has many stories in its archives of elections rigged by disenfranchisement of black voters.
But this was when the NY Times was an independent voice before it became a whore for the Oligarchs who rule America. When the NY Times reported that black Americans could have no confidence in the integrity of American elections, the NY Times did not denounce itself for delegitimizing American democracy.
The NY Times forgot all of this when it published Max Fisher’s article yesterday. Fisher fished up “scholars” among the Hillary advocates, and they obligingly told him that Trump’s questioning of the integrity of American elections were the tactics of a would-be dictator who is at work delegitimizing democracy so that he can take over.
What Fisher and his “scholars” overlook is that the US government is already delegitimized in the eyes of the American population, as well as foreign populations. If the US government was not already delegitimized, Donald Trump would not have been successful in what, despite Trump’s damnation by the presstitutes, was an easy sweep-aside of the Establishment’s candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.
...
But the NY Times is no longer a newspaper. It is a cog in the Ministry of Propaganda that works to create a Matrix in which brainwashed Americans accept the dictates of the Oligarchs.
The purpose of the Times’ article is to discredit in advance criticism of an election that the ruling Oligarchs intend to steal. If the Times believed that Hillary would have a clear election victory, there would be no point to Fisher’s article.
We see voluminous signs of the intended theft of the election. For example, Hillary’s lead in the polls is based on the pollsters skewing the affiliation of those polled to Democrats. The percentage of Democrats in the samples is far higher than their percentage of registered voters. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-23/how-wapos-latest-poll-give-hillary-12-point-advantage-over-trump 
It the past it was difficult to steal elections unless they were very close. Exit polls were a check on vote count, and the disenfranchisement of blacks could be risky if it attracted the attention of the US Department of Justice. The new method, which is unfolding before our eyes, steals the election in advance with the Oligarchs’ candidate far ahead in the polls (now by 12 points according to the latest fiction) and by making anyone who questions the faked results into a fascist dictator.
Obviously, if Hillary was really ahead by 12 points — a landslide — there would be no need for Fisher’s article or for the constant drumbeat against Trump.
Judging from the hysteria, as reflected in Fisher’s NY Times article, for example, the Oligarchs are aware that objections to their rule has elevated Trump. In order to hold on to power, the American Oligarchs must smash Trump and put their bought-and-paid-for-candidate, Hillary — whom the Oligarchs have provided along with Bill a personal fortune of $120 million and endowed the Clinton Foundation with $1,600 million — into the Oval Office.
Pollsters by nature of their business are unreliable. If truthful results offend the establishment political organizations, the pollsters are out of work. Polls have to serve the Oligarchs or the polling firms go down. Trump is an outsider toward whom the ruling Oligarchy is totally opposed, which is why Americans support him. Therefore, polling firms are adverse to betting their future on poll results favorable to Trump, especially when the whores who constitute the American print and TV media, such as the NY Times, are all out to put Hillary in the White House.
As Hillary’s public statements have made clear, Hillary is antagonistic toward Russia and the Russian government, calling the president of Russia “the new Hitler.” She promises conflict with Russia, which would certainly be nuclear and end life on earth.
Trump says in the face of contrary ruling neoconservative opinion that he sees no point in conflict with Russia and no point in NATO’s continued existence a quarter century after the purpose of NATO collapsed with the Soviet Union. Trump might not be successful in appointing a government that serves his instincts, but at least he gives us hope of avoiding military conflict with Russia and China. With Hillary there is no hope whatsoever. My opinion is that the world would not survive Hillary’s first term. I have known the neoconservatives since the 1970s. They are crazed fanatics, and they hate Russia. Hillary is their agent.
It is unclear that the Russian government understands, or takes seriously, the neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony. Putin’s hesitant, indecisive behavior in Syria has done more to set himself and Russia up for demonization than to defeat ISIS. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/10/24/by-cooperating-with-washington-on-syria-russia-walked-into-a-trap-paul-craig-roberts/ 
The Western world is corrupt and evil. The list of its victims is almost endless. What disconnect makes some Russians desire association with the Western world?
How the Media and Democrats Rig the Perception of Trump
The Orchestrated Trump-Putin Connection
Leaked emails prove that the Trump-Putin connection was orhestrated as campaign talk
to deflect attention from damaging content of Clinton’s released emails.
Integrity Of US Elections Among Lowest Of All Countries
According to Shyla Nelson, the co-founder of Election Justice USA, US elections are manipulated in many ways, including «voter suppression, unauthorized registration purges, district gerrymandering, gross exit poll variances, the privatization of voting machinery, and the lack of transparency in ballot processing – our elections will continue to rank among the lowest in the world in integrity.
US elections are so corrupt that the US has threatened Russian diplomats with arrest if they attempt to monitor the US November presidential election.
Bill Clinton’s Victims of Alleged Sexual Abuse (the ones we know about)
But we must not tolerate Trump’s lewd comments.
Bill and Hillary are lawless because they have never been held accountable. As the justice system has given Hillary a pass, will voters hold her accountable in November, or will the American public also give her a pass?
Hillary Has Never Been Held Accountable For Anything
What is worse, Hillary laughing about her success in getting a child rapist off or Trump’s lewd comments about women? Why is it that the TV women can’t come up with the right answer? How can democracy function when a propaganda ministry takes the place of the media?
A Comparison of Trump’s and Hillary’s Crowds
Trump’s crowds are hundreds of times larger than Hillary’s, so how is it that she is in the lead? We are being told lies in order to cover up the coming election theft.
Poll of Likely Voters Finds 53% Want Hillary Indicted
If 53% of voters want Hillary indicted, how can she be leading in the presidential race?
Which of the polls is wrong?
Rigged Elections Are An American Tradition
Stephen Lendman pleads: don’t let them steal the election, reject the presstitutes’ propaganda:
“November 8 isn’t election day. It’s orchestrated grand theft theater to anoint Hillary Obama’s successor. Americans are deluded to believe their vote matters.
This year’s outcome was decided well in advance, likely last year before aspirants announced their candidacy for the nation’s highest office.
Power brokers running America bear full responsibility for concocting a sham system, fantasy democracy, not the real thing.
Disgracefully one-sided pro-Hillary media scoundrels and corporate pollsters share blame for creating the impression of her unbeatability.
Press agent journalism proliferates. Biased corporate polls are easily manipulated to show what sponsors want. On Sunday, The New York Times virtually declared Hillary November’s winner and next president, saying she “has a 93% chance to win.”
The dirty game aims to discourage Trump supporters, convince them he has no chance to win, hoping many will stay home, while encouraging rank and file for Hillary to show up en masse.
Any number of dirty tricks can be used to assure she’s anointed president-elect. Stolen elections are a longstanding US tradition from the early days of the republic.
Now it’s done by methods explained above, electronic ease, voter roll stripping and other dirty tricks.
Paul Craig Roberts explains turnout for Trump stump speeches overwhelming exceeds what Hillary attracts.
So how come most polls show her leading, he asks? “We are being told lies in order to cover up the coming election theft,” he justifiably explains.
Want more evidence? Here it is. Citing an October 18 – 19, Rasmussen poll, RT International reported 65% of voters surveyed saying Hillary acted extrajudicially by storing classified State Department emails on her private server.
A 53% majority believe she should be indicted. When asked if Hillary’s email scandal was important in influencing their vote, 70% replied affirmatively – 49% calling it very important.
If Hillary wins as expected, around 70% of Republican voters believe it’s by election-rigging, according to a separate Reuters/Ipsos poll RT cited.
If most voters want her indicted, polls showing her leading Trump lack credibility.
She’s the establishment candidate, Wall Street’s choice, Trump an outlier, relentlessly denigrated, things rigged to assure he loses.
Democracy in America serves its privileged few alone — indifferent to the needs, rights and welfare of most others, especially the nation’s poor and vulnerable. (Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net).
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.
The original source of this article is Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy
Copyright © Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy, 2016
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Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Mosul and Aleppo: What’s The Difference?

The main difference lies in how the West and its MSM mouthpieces project the two scenarios...

Mosul and Aleppo: What’s The Difference? US-Saudi “Humanitarian Corridor” for the Terrorists

By Mehmet Ersoy
Global Research, October 24, 2016

In the previous week, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said Washington and its allies consider the Mosul offensive to be one of the turning points in the fight against the Islamic State.
It should be mentioned that Mosul has a lot in common with Syria’s Aleppo. Both cities with a population of more than one million are captured by terrorists, in both cases government troops are striving to free them.
But as for Aleppo, the US and its Middle East allies including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and Israel are attempting to do anything they can to curb the offensive of  Syrian government forces. In a twisted logic, Washington claims that Damascus is not attacking the terrorists but is deliberately targeting civilians. As far as Mosul is concerned, Americans are trying to portray the attack as a “Liberation”.
One may ask then: what’s the difference between Aleppo and Mosul? Why is the West once again implementing a policy of double standards?
As known, the Mosul “defenders” don’t include the so-called “moderate” opposition e.g. the US-backed militants. Meanwhile, in Aleppo the government troops have to fight the terrorists whom Washington keeps calling the “moderate” opposition.
However, can those rebels who routinely shell residential areas and prevent civilians from leaving the city be called “moderate”opposition?
Moreover, Washington keeps accusing Damascus and its allies including Russia that their planes are striking civilians. Along with this, the international coalition keeps bombing Mosul without paying attention to whether there are civilians among the victims. In fact, the US led coalition is protecting the terrorists.
Moreover, the Inside Syria Media Center earlier reported, that the US and Saudi Arabia have created a so-called “humanitarian corridor” for Mosul. But this corridors seems to have been created for ISIS terrorists to enable them to leave the city and move to Raqqa to fight against  Syrian government troops. [In other words, the humanitarian corridor was set up the facilitate the transfer of US-Saudi sponsored ISIS-Daesh terrorists from Iraq into Syria. M. Ch. GR Editor]
In turn, many experts think that the Mosul offensive and Liberation is an instrument of propaganda (launched by Obama) on behalf of the candidate of the Democratic Party in the US presidential elections.
That’s why, the West is attempting to portray two similar situations in different ways. What is abundantly clear is that the US is not fighting the ISIS-Daesh and other terror groups. It is coming to the rescue of the terrorists, who are fighting Bashar al-Assad and his allies.

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Mehmet Ersoy, Global Research, 2016
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Washington traps Russia into bogus "HR"/war crimes trap

Amazing how true was Dr Roberts on his warning!

Russian pulled out prematurely from the Syrian arena only to face renewed trouble now; Ceasefire was meant to regroup and re-arm West's proxy foot soldiers. The hypocrite West and its subservient MSM are crying foul about war crimes against Russia and Syria while keeping silent about the same in Yemen, Mosul and Afghanistan. Ball is now in Russia's court to play...

“More Dangerous than the Cold War”: By Cooperating With Washington On Syria Russia Walked Into A Trap

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research, October 24, 2016
Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy 24 October 2016


The consequences of this hesitation are now apparent:

1. A UN report orchestrated by Washington has accused Syria and Russia of war crimes in Aleppo. 
According to the report,

“indiscriminate airstrikes across the eastern part of the city by Government forces and their allies [Russia] are responsible for the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties. These violations constitute war crimes. And if knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against civilians, they constitute crimes against humanity.”

The UN Human Rights Council has now voted to start an “independent” investigation. The purpose of the investigation is to indict Russia and Putin as war criminals and to “bring to justice those responsible for the alleged abuses.” Moreover,
“the situation should be urgently referred to the International Criminal Court. Every party to this conflict must know that they will be held accountable for the international crimes they commit – all, without selective protection or discrimination.”
Keep in mind that Washington provides the largest share of the UN’s budget, and the UN will overlook that it was Washington that sent ISIS to Aleppo.

Obviously, neither Washington nor the UN will be able to drag Putin into the International Criminal Court, but a war criminal charge can serve Washington’s purpose by stopping Putin from traveling abroad and curtailing his diplomatic efforts.

The purpose of this orchestrated exercise is its propaganda value.

Among Washington’s many concerns is that some Eastern European countries, alarmed by the conflict that Washington is leading them into with Russia, will threaten NATO with a non-participation statement. If Russia is branded a war criminal, it becomes even more difficult for countries that foolishly and thoughtlessly joined NATO to extricate themselves from the consequences.

2. Washington has succeeded in bringing to power in Poland the far right-wing Law and Justice Party. These agents of Washington have re-opened the matter of the death of Poland’s President Kaczynski in a plane crash, making wild claims that the crash was a terror attack by Russia aimed at depriving Poland of its political leadership.
Despite massive and convincing evidence to the contrary, the Law and Justice Party’s claims will find traction thanks to the scary portrait of Russia painted by Washington’s demonization campaign. The intended result is to further blacken and isolate Russia and its government.

3. As the anointed spokesperson for the neo-conservative warmongers, Hillary wants Washington to enforce a no-fly zone in Syria. A no-fly zone would require Washington to attempt to prevent Syrian and Russian air strikes against ISIS positions. It seems clear enough that Syria and Russia would not accept any attempt to deny Syria the use of the country’s own airspace in the conflict against forces sent by Washington to overthrow the Syrian government, as happened to Gaddafi in Libya. Unless Russia and Syria surrender, Hillary’s no-fly zone would result in military conflict between Russia and the US.
To advance the no-fly zone proposal, the “use of chemical weapons” ruse has been resurrected. Fabricated reports are appearing that the Syrian airforce is guilty of dropping chemical weapons on the Syrian population. On October 22, the Indian Express reported that on October 21 the UN-Led Joint Investigative Mechanism informed the UN Security Council that the chemical attack on Omenas
“was caused by a Syrian Arab Armed Forces helicopter dropping a device from a high altitude which hit the ground and released the toxic substance that affected the population.”
The report concluded that three of the chemical attacks investigated were made by Syria and one by the Islamic State.
The fact that the Russians resolved the chemical weapons issue in 2014, a year before the alleged attack on Qmenas, by taking possession of the weapons and removing them from Syria means that the report has little credibility.
However, at no time during Washington’s 15-year-old attack on Muslim countries have facts played any role, and certainly facts have played no role in Washington’s demonization of Russia.

4. Diana Johnstone has concluded that Hillary intends regime change for Russia and will use the presidency for that purpose.
It is impossible to imagine a purpose more reckless and irresponsible. Many members of the Russian government have stated that Washington’s provocation and demonization of Russia have brought trust between the nuclear powers close to zero and that Russia will never again fight a war on her own territory. Sergey Karaganov told the German news magazine, Der Spiegal, that if Washington and NATO move from provocations to encroachments against Russia, a nuclear power, they will be punished.

Many foolish people believe that nuclear war cannot happen, because there can be no winner.

However, the American war planners, who elevated US nuclear weapons from a retaliatory role to a pre-emptive first strike function, obviously do not agree that nuclear war cannot be won. If nuclear war is believed to be unwinable, there is no point in a war doctrine that assigns the weapons the role of surprise attack.
The Russians are aware and disturbed that Washington has made the situation between the US and Russia more dangerous than during the Cold War. Vladimir Putin himself has stated that the West does not hear his warnings. In an effort to avoid war, Putin wrings everything possible out of diplomacy. He enters into agreements with Washington that he must know will not be kept.
So much has happened to teach him this lesson— the Washington instigated invasion of South Ossetia by Georgia while he was at the Beijing Olympics, Washington’s coup in Ukraine while he was at the Sochi Olympics, Washington’s abandonment of the Minsk Agreement, the advantage Washington took of the Syrian ceasefire agreements, the violation of Washington’s promise not to move NATO to Russia’s border, Washington’s sacking of the Anti-ABM Treaty, the orchestrated blame of Russia for MH-17, Hillary’s hacked emails, etc.
Washington clearly intends to use Russia’s military and diplomatic assistance to Syria to convict Russia in world public opinion of war crimes. It was Russia’s hesitancy in Syria that enabled Washington to recover from the defeat of its ISIS mercenaries and substitute control of the explanation for defeat on the ground.
Russia’s air assault on ISIS in Syria caught Washington off guard and quickly rolled up the Washington-supported ISIS forces, completely reversing the tide of war. Had Russia finished the job, Syria would have been cleared of hostile forces before Washington could catch its breath.
Instead, pressured by the Atlanticist Integrationist element in the Russian elite, the Russian government withdrew, announcing mission accomplished and relying on the Syrian Army to complete the job. This strategic error allowed Washington not merely to replenish the ISIS munitions that had been destroyed and to muster more mercenaries, but more importantly to come up with a plan for Russia’s and Assad’s undoing.
By the time that the Russian government realized that early withdrawal was a mistake and re-entered the conflict, Washington had decided that if Damascus could not be “liberated,” Syria could be partitioned and pressure kept on Assad in that way. Yet the Russian government continued to postpone victory by cease fire agreements that Washington used to rearm ISIS and as propaganda weapons against Russia.
Whatever the outcome of the military conflict in Syria, Russia faces a war criminal conviction by the Western media, if not by the UN Human Rights Council, and a no-fly zone in Syria if Hillary becomes president of the US.
This is the huge cost that Putin paid for listening to the unrealistic, American-worshipping Atlanticist Integrationists who are determined that Russia be accepted by the West even if it means being a semi-vassal.
If there is nuclear war, the Russian Atlanticist Integrationists will share the blame with the American neoconservatives. And all of us will pay the price for the disaster produced by these few, the neo-conservatives demanding war and the Atlanticist Integrationists demanding appeasement of Washington.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.
The original source of this article is Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy
Copyright © Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy, 2016

Over 80 NGOs call for Russia to be dropped from UN rights council over Syria

RT : 24 Oct, 2016
A number of human rights and aid organizations have urged the United Nations to deprive Russia of its seat on the UN's Human Rights Council (UNHRC), AFP reported on Monday.
More than 80 international organizations have signed the appeal, with such groups as Human Rights Watch, CARE International and Refugees International among them, AFP says.
The move was prompted by Russia's involvement in the anti-terrorist campaign in Syria.
The signatories asked the UN member states to "question seriously whether Russia's role in Syria which includes supporting and undertaking military actions which have routinely targeted civilians and civilian objects renders it fit to serve on the UN's premier inter-governmental human rights institution," AFP reports, citing the text of the appeal.
The appeal has been submitted ahead of elections to the UN's human rights body that are scheduled for Friday. The UN General Assembly in New York will be selecting members to fill 14 seats, with Russia, Hungary and Croatia running for two seats representing the Eastern European group at the council.
Saudi Arabia, China, Iraq, Brazil, Cuba, Egypt and South Africa are among the other countries vying for seats in various regional groups. The US and UK are seeking election to the two seats representing the Western Europe and Others group. Elected nations will be represented in the 47-nation council for three years, starting from 2017.
Russia is currently in the UNHRC, but its membership expires this year.
Last week, Britain and its Western and Arab allies introduced a resolution to the UNHRC demanding a review into alleged human rights violations in the Syrian city of Aleppo. The council then voted to start an independent special inquiry into the situation in the war-ravaged city.
Russia has been assisting the Syrian Army in fighting Al-Nusra Front terrorists in eastern Aleppo, which has become the militants' stronghold in Syria. However, the West has blamed Moscow and Damascus for most of the civilian casualties in the area.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has called the resolution's accusations "cynical" and "dishonorable."
The fighting has divided the city of Aleppo into two parts, with its western districts currently under government control and eastern parts held by rebels and Al-Nusra Front fighters. Although the militants have constantly attacked western Aleppo, resulting in numerous civilian deaths, last week Russia and Syria initiated a humanitarian ceasefire, giving people a chance to flee the battle scene.
But despite the hopes, civilians have not been able to leave the militant-held eastern Aleppo for days, with terrorists constantly bombing humanitarian corridors. The UN and other aid groups which were supposed to bring humanitarian aid through the corridors were unable to do so because of security concerns.
Investigative journalist Willy Van Damme, who has been closely following the Syrian conflict, told RT he was not surprised by the NGO’s move. “I haven't seen the list of all these 80 NGOs, but there are apparently a lot of NGOs involved in Syria exclusively... and they are financed by Saudi Arabia, United States, France, United Kingdom, Qatar… and repeat what their governments want them to say.”
“These organizations are not really dealing with human rights, they use human rights as an excuse to meddle in affairs of other governments,” he told RT.  “Double standard is the rule of the game in international diplomacy. The US has destroyed Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan... but these NGOs never talk about it, they don't make any reports on it. You could call them traitors of human rights.”
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Saturday, October 22, 2016

Syrian President gives fitting response to Swiss journalist

This eye-doctor president shows a journalist how to see things without spectacles...

Vicious, Shabby Interview by Swiss SRF-TV

By Bashar al Assad
Global Research, October 21, 2016
Syrian Arab News Agency 19 October 2016

Global Research Editor’s Note:
This interview by Swiss TV SRF Channel 1 is in many regards despicable, idiotic and unprofessional. 
The answers of president Assad fully reveal the lies and fabrications of the Western media.
This is Must Watch
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President Bashar al-Assad stressed that protecting civilians in Aleppo necessitates getting rid of the terrorists.
Speaking in an interview with the Swiss SRF 1 TV channel, the President said “Of course, it’s our mission according to the constitution and the law. We have to protect the people, and we have to get rid of those terrorists in Aleppo. That’s how we can protect civilians.”
He added that it goes without saying that the way to protect the civilians in Aleppo is to attack the terrorists who hold the civilians under their control and are killing them.

Following is the full text of the interview:

Journalist: Mr. President, thank you very much for having welcomed Swiss Television and our program Rundschau here in Damascus.
President Assad: You are most welcome in Syria.
Question 1: First, please, allow me to clarify one thing: may I ask you every question?
President Assad: Every question, without exception.
Question 2: I’m asking because one of your conditions is that interview is being broadcast in its full version. Are you afraid that we might manipulate your statements?
President Assad: You should answer that question, but I think we should build this relation upon the trust, and I think you are worried about the trust of your audience, so I don’t think so. I think you have good reputation in conveying the truth in every subject you try to cover.
Question 3: Do you see it as a lie, that the world considers you as to be a war criminal?
President Assad: That depends on what the reference in defining that word. Is it the international law, or is it the Western agenda or the Western political mood, let’s say, that’s being defined by vested-interests politicians in the West? According to the international law, as a President and as government and as Syrian Army, we are defending our country against the terrorists that have been invading Syria as proxies to other countries.
So, if you want to go back to that word, the “war criminal,” I think the first one who should be tried under that title are the Western officials; starting with George Bush who invaded Iraq without any mandate from the Security Council. Second, Cameron and Sarkozy who invaded and destroyed Libya without mandate from the Security Council. Third, the Western officials who are supporting the terrorists during the last five years in Syria, either by providing them with political umbrella, or supporting them directly with armaments, or implementing embargo on the Syrian people that has led to the killing of thousands of Syrian civilians.
Question 4: But we are here to talk about your role in this war, and the US Secretary of State John Kerry called you “Adolf Hitler” and “Saddam Hussein” in the same breath. Does it bother you?
President Assad: No, because they don’t have credibility. This is first of all. Second, for me as President, what I care about first and foremost is how the Syrian people look at me; second, my friends around the world – not my personal friends as President, I mean our friends as Syrians, like Russia, like Iran, like China, like the rest of the world – not the West, the West always tried to personalize things, just to cover the real goals which is about deposing government and getting rid of a certain president just to bring puppets to suit their agenda. So, going back to the beginning, no I don’t care about what Kerry said, at all. It has no influence on me.
Question 5: You’re the President of a country whose citizens are fleeing, half of your fellow citizens. The people are not only fleeing because of the terrorists, of ISIS, or the rebels, but also because of you.
President Assad: What do you mean by me? I’m not asking people to leave Syria, I’m not attacking people; I’m defending the people. Actually, the people are leaving Syria for two reasons: first reason is the action of the terrorists, direct action in killing the people. The second one is the action of the terrorists in order to paralyze the life in Syria; attacking schools, destroying infrastructure in every sector. Third, the embargo of the West that pressed many Syrians to find their livelihood outside Syria. These are the main reasons. If you can see that the second factor and the third factor are related, I mean the role of the terrorists and the West in undermining and hurting the livelihoods of the Syrians, is one and, let’s say, is commonality between the terrorists and Europe.
Question 6: When you speak of terrorists, who do you mean by that? Surely ISIS, but also the “Free Syrian Army” or the Kurds?
President Assad: What I mean is like what you mean as a Swiss citizen, if you have anyone who carries machineguns or armaments and killing people under any titles, and committed vandalism, destroying public or private properties; this is a terrorist. Anyone who adopts a political way in order to make any change he wants, this is not a terrorist. You can call him opposition. But you cannot call somebody who is killing people or holding armaments, you cannot call him opposition, in your country, in my country as well.
Question 7: Well, you don’t have any free opposition in your country.
President Assad: Of course we have, of course we have. We have real opposition, we have people who live in Syria, whom their grassroots are the Syrian people, they’re not opposition who were forged in other countries like France or UK or Saudi Arabia or Turkey. We have them, and you can go and meet them and deal with them with your camera. You can do that yourself.
Question 8: How do you explain to your three children what is happening in Aleppo? I’m sure that you are discussing about it at the family table.
President Assad: Yeah, of course if I’m going to explain to them, I’m going to explain about what is happening in Syria, not only in Aleppo, taking into consideration that my children are full-grown now, they understand what is going on Syria. But if you want to explain to them or to any other child what is happening, I’m going to explain about the role of the terrorists, about the role of Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia in supporting those terrorists with money, with logistic support, and the role of the West in supporting those terrorists either through armament or through helping them with the propaganda and the publicity. I’m going to explain to them in full what’s going on.
Question 9: Do you, as a father, also say that you have nothing to do with the bombardments of the hospitals in Aleppo?
President Assad: Look, when they say that we are bombarding the hospitals, it means that we are killing civilians. That is the meaning of the word. The question is why would the government kill civilians, whether in hospitals or in streets or schools or anywhere? You are talking about killing Syrians. When we kill Syrians, as a government, or as army, the biggest part of the Syrian society will be against us. You cannot succeed in your war if you are killing civilians. So, this story, and this narrative, is a mendacious narrative, to be frank with you. Of course, unfortunately, every war is a bad war, in every war you have innocent victims, whether children, women, elderly, any other civilian, any other innocent who is not part of this war, he could pay the price, this is unfortunately. That’s why we have to fight terrorism. When we don’t say that, it’s like saying – according to that question or that narrative, that you may reflect in your question – that the terrorists, Al Qaeda, al-Nusra, ISIS, are protecting the civilians, and we as government are killing the civilians. Who can believe that story? No one.
Question 10: But who else got airplanes or bunker-busting bombs besides your army?
President Assad: It’s like you’re saying that everyone who is killed in Syria was killed by the airplanes or aircrafts, military aircrafts! The majority of the people were killed by mortars shelled by the terrorists on them while they’re at schools, in their hospitals, in the streets, anywhere. It’s not related to the aerial bombardment. Sometimes you have aerial bombardment against the terrorists, but that doesn’t mean that every bomb that fell somewhere was by airplane or by the Syrian Army. If you are talking about a specific incident, let’s say, we have to verify that specific incident, but I’m answering you in general now.
Question 11: But you have the power to change the situation also for the children in Aleppo.
President Assad: Of course, that’s why-
Journalist: Will you do that?
President Assad: Exactly, that’s our mission, according to the constitution, according to the law; that we have to protect the people, that we have to get rid of those terrorists from Aleppo. This is where we can protect the civilians. How can you protect them while they are under the control of the terrorists? They’ve been killed by them, and they’ve been controlled fully by the terrorists. Is it our role to sit aside and watch? Is that how we can protect the Syrian people? We need to attack the terrorists, that’s self-evident.
Question 12: May I show you a picture?
President Assad: Of course.
Journalist: This young boy has become the symbol of the war. I think that you know this picture.
President Assad: Of course I saw it.
Journalist: His name is Omran. Five years old.
President Assad: Yeah.
Journalist: Covered with blood, scared, traumatized. Is there anything you would like to say to Omran and his family?
President Assad: There’s something I would like to say to you first of all, because I want you to go back after my interview, and go to the internet to see the same picture of the same child, with his sister, both were rescued by what they call them in the West “White Helmets” which is a facelift of al-Nusra in Aleppo. They were rescued twice, each one in a different incident, and just as part of the publicity of those White Helmets. None of these incidents were true. You can have it manipulated, and it is manipulated. I’m going to send you those two pictures, and they are on the internet, just to see that this is a forged picture, not a real one. We have real pictures of children being harmed, but this one in specific is a forged one.
Question 13: But it’s true that innocent civilians are dying, in Aleppo.
President Assad: Of course, not only in Aleppo; in Syria. But now you are talking about Aleppo, because the whole hysteria in the West about Aleppo, for one reason; not because Aleppo is under siege, because Aleppo has been under siege for the last four years by the terrorists, and we haven’t heard a question by Western journalists about what’s happening in
Aleppo that time, and we haven’t heard a single statement by Western officials regarding the children of Aleppo. Now, they are talking about Aleppo recently just because the terrorists are in a bad shape. This is the only reason, because the Syrian Army are making advancement, and the Western countries – mainly the United States and its allies like UK and France – feeling that they are losing the last cards of terrorism in Syria, and the main bastion of that terrorism today is Aleppo.
Question 14: Everything is allowed in this war for you.
President Assad: No, of course, you have the international law, you have the human rights charter, you have to obey. But in every war, every war in the world during the history, you cannot make sure a hundred percent that you can control everything in that direction. You always have flaws, that’s why I said every war is a bad war. But there’s difference between individual mistakes and the policy of the government. The policy of the government, to say that we are attacking civilians, we are attacking hospitals, we are attacking schools, we are doing all these atrocities, that’s not possible, because you cannot work or go against your interests. You cannot go against your duty toward the people, otherwise you are going to lose the war as a government. You cannot withstand such a ferocious war for five years and a half while you are killing your own people. That’s impossible. But you always have mistakes, whether it’s about crossfire, it’s about individual mistakes… bring me a war, a single war in the recent history, that it was a clean war. You don’t have.
Question 15: Do you have made any mistakes too in this war?
President Assad: As President I define the policy of the country, according to our policy, the main pillars of this policy during the crisis is to fight terrorism, which I think is correct and we will not going to change it, of course, to make dialogue between the Syrians, and I think which is correct, the third one which is proven to be effective during the last two years is the reconciliations; local reconciliations with the militants who have been holding machineguns against the people and against the government and against the army, and this one has, again, proven that it’s a good step. So, these are the pillars of this policy. You cannot talk about mistakes in this policy. You can talk about mistakes in the implementation of the policy, that could be related to the individuals.
Question 16: You still believe in a diplomatic solution?
President Assad: Definitely, but you don’t have something called diplomatic solution or military solution; you have solution, but every conflict has many aspects, one of them is the security, like our situation, and the other one is in the political aspect of this solution. For example, if you ask me about how can you deal with Al Qaeda, with al-Nusra, with ISIS? Is it possible to make negotiations with them? They won’t make, they’re not ready to, they wouldn’t. They have their own ideology, repugnant ideology, so you cannot make political solution with this party; you have to fight them, you have to get rid of them. While if you talk about dialogue, you can make dialogue with two entities; the first one, political entities, any political entities, whether with or against or in the middle, and with every militant who is ready to give in his armament for the sake of the security or stability in Syria. Of course we believe in it.
Question 17: There are news from Russia about a short humanitarian pause in Aleppo on Thursday, what does it mean this humanitarian pause, can you explain?
President Assad: It’s a short halting of operations in order to allow the humanitarian supply to get into different areas in Aleppo, and at the same time to allow the civilians who wanted to leave the terrorist-held areas to move to the government-controlled area.
Question 18: This is really a step, an important step?
President Assad: Of course, it is an important step as a beginning, but it’s not enough. It’s about the continuation; how can you allow those civilians to leave. The majority of them wanted to leave the area held by the terrorists, but they won’t allow them. They either shoot them or they kill their families if they leave that area.
Question 19: Russia is on your side, what does it mean for you?
President Assad: No, it’s not on my side. It’s on the international law’s side.
It’s on the other side which is opposite to the terrorists’ side. This is the position of Russia, because they wanted to make sure that the international law prevails, not the Western agenda in toppling every government that doesn’t fit with their agendas. They wanted to make sure that the terrorism doesn’t prevail in that area, that would affect negatively the Russians themselves, Russia itself as a country, and Europe and the rest of the world. That’s what it means for Russia to stand beside the legitimate Syrian government and the Syrian people.
Question 20: Mr. President, you use chemical weapons and barrel bombs in Syria against your own population, these are UN reports, you can’t ignore it.
President Assad: You are talking about two different issues. The chemical issue, it was proven to be false, and they haven’t a shred of evidence about the Syrian Army using chemical weapons, particularly before we give up our arsenal in 2013, now we don’t have it anyway. Before that, it was fiction because if you want to use such mass destruction armaments, you’re going to kill thousands of people in one incident, and we didn’t have such incidents. Beside that, we wouldn’t use it because you’re going to kill your own people, and that’s against your interest. So, this is a false allegation. We don’t have to waste our time with it. You live in Syria, there is a traditional war, but there is nothing related to mass destruction armaments.
Journalist: But the UN report is not a fiction.
President Assad: The UN report never has been credible, never, and because they put reports based on allegations, based on other reports, on forged reports, and they say this is a report. Did they send a delegation to make investigation? They sent one in 2013, and it couldn’t prove at all that the Syrian Army used chemical weapons. This is first. The second, which is more important, the first incident happened at the beginning of 2013 in
Aleppo, when we said that the terrorists used chemical weapons against our army, and we invited the United Nations to send a delegation. We, we did, and at that time, the United States opposed that delegation because they already knew that this investigation – of course if it’s impartial – is going to prove that those terrorists, their proxies, used chemical armaments against the Syrian Army. Regarding the barrel bombs, I want to ask you: what is the definition of barrel bomb? If you go to our army, you don’t have in our records something called “barrel bomb,” so how do you understand – just to know how I can answer you – what a barrel bomb is? We have bombs.
Journalist: The destruction… it’s the destruction, and it is against humanitarian law.
President Assad: Every bomb can make destruction, every bomb, so you don’t have bomb to make nothing. So, this is a word that has been used in West as part of the Western narrative in order to show that there is an indiscriminate bomb that has been killing civilians indiscriminately and that opposes the Western narrative, I’ll show you the contradiction: in other areas they say that we are bombarding intentionally the hospitals, and you mentioned that, and they are targeting intentionally the schools, and we targeted intentionally the convoys to Aleppo last month, those targets need high-precision missiles. So, they have to choose which part of the narrative; we either have indiscriminate bombs or we have high-precision bombs. They keep contradicting in the same narrative, this is the Western reality now. So, which one to choose? I can answer you, but again, we don’t have any indiscriminate bombs. If we kill people indiscriminately, it means we are losing the war because people will be against us; I cannot kill the Syrian people, either morally or for my interest, because in that case I’m going to push the Syrian community and society towards the terrorists, not vice versa.
Question 21: I would like to mention the subject of torture prisons, Mr. President. Amnesty speaks of seventeen thousands dead. Regarding the prison of Saidnaya, there are still horrible reports. When will you allow an independent observer into that prison?
President Assad: Independent, and Amnesty International is not independent and it is not impartial.
Journalist: ICRC?
President Assad: We didn’t discuss it with the Red Cross, we didn’t discuss it. It should be discussed in our institutions, if you want to allow… if there is allegation, it could be discussed. We don’t say yes or no, but the report you have mentioned, it was a report made by Qatar, and financed by Qatar. You don’t know the source, you don’t know the names of those victims, nothing verified about that report. It was paid by Qatar directly in order to vilify and smear the Syrian government and the Syrian Army.
Journalist: But there are a lot of eyewitnesses.
President Assad: No one knows who are they. You don’t have anything clear about that. It’s not verified. So, no.
Journalist: Then open the door for organizations like Red Cross.
President Assad: It’s not my decision to tell you yes or no. We have institutions, if we need to discuss this part, we need to go back to the institutions before saying yes or no.
Question 22: Why are you sure that you are going to win this war?
President Assad: Because you have to defend your country, and you have to believe that you can win the war to defend your country. If you don’t have that belief, you will lose. You know, part of the war is what you believe in, so, it’s self-evident and very intuitive that you have to have that belief.
Question 23: If you walk through Damascus, your picture is everywhere, in every shop, in every restaurant, in every car, a symbol for a dictator, is this your way to fix your power?
President Assad: There is a difference between dictator and dictatorship.
Dictator is about the person. I didn’t ask anyone to put my picture in Syria, I never did it. This is first. Second, to describe someone as a dictator, you should ask his people, I mean only his people can say that he is a dictator or he is a good guy.
Journalist: Thank you Mr. President for having answered our questions for Swiss Television and the Rundschau.
President Assad: Thank you for coming to Syria.

The original source of this article is Syrian Arab News Agency
Copyright © Bashar al Assad, Syrian Arab News Agency, 2016
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