Tag: the war of terror

Shattered Theory: the War on Terror and Western Impunity

The ICC request for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and others is only the beginning. Around the world evidence is being gathered and cases are being prepared, including against British, American and EU politicians and officials for complicity in genocide and other crimes against humanity.  This week the ICC received a request from jurists and human rights groups to investigate EU chief Ursula von der Leyen for complicity in genocide.

Tayab Ali, a human rights lawyer and director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians told journalist Owen Jones that a tremendous amount of preparation is underway out of sight of the public.  “I’ve spent a significant amount of time this year travelling the world meeting with heads of state, meeting with foreign ministers, meeting  with justice ministers, and I’ll tell you: the appetite, particularly in the global south, to prosecute people complicit in war crimes, is high.”  South Africa has been a leader in this regard.

The reality is Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe Biden are guilty of far worse crimes than Osama Bin Laden, Ismail Haniyeh, Marwan Barghouti or Nelson Mandela.  I don’t condone Bin Laden or minimise what he did; a good friend of mine John Lozowski was killed in the Twin Towers on 9/11.  He didn’t deserve to die.  The current US President and the PM of Israel, however, just happen to have murdered far more innocent men, women and children – and, unlike Bin Laden and the others, are clearly guilty of the crime of crimes: genocide.  The game changer, however, is the looming presence of the combined legal and moral authority of the ICC and ICJ. Bearing down like angels of justice, they will pursue Israel, and, ultimately even top US officials, to the ends of the earth.  In the case of the ICC, no signatory nation to the Rome Statute can provide a safe haven once the arrest warrants go out.

Which is why the ICC seeking Netanyahu’s arrest has triggered something approaching a nervous breakdown, a shattering of the psyche for the Western elites. Impunity is in the job description.

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GUANTÁNAMO PROSECUTORS ACCUSED OF “OUTRAGEOUS” MISCONDUCT FOR TRYING TO USE TORTURE TESTIMONY

IN A PRETRIAL HEARING Tuesday at the Guantánamo Bay military tribunal, Clive Stafford Smith, a lawyer for a potential witness in the war crimes case, accused government prosecutors of “outrageous” misconduct.

During the hearing for the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is charged with masterminding the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, Stafford Smith said the government attorneys had failed to release exculpatory information about Nashiri and made false statements in the course of their failure.

Stafford Smith, the lead counsel for Ahmed Rabbani, a former Guantánamo detainee who was tortured by the CIA, made the allegations after being called to the witness stand by Nashiri’s defense team.

Stafford Smith testified that the prosecutors had filed a brief that falsely said Rabbani had not recanted his initial testimony because, Rabbani said, it was made under torture. After raising the omission, Stafford Smith said, he felt it was not getting due attention and took the unusual step of reporting the prosecutors to their state bar associations.

“I’ve never, ever, in 40 years reported someone to the bar before this case,” Stafford Smith said in court. “I don’t like doing that, but I felt I was required to.”

In the court motion last year that set off Stafford Smith’s ethics complaints, the Guantánamo prosecutors said they had no knowledge of Rabbani’s recantation or claims the testimony in question were extracted by torture. (The chief prosecutor’s office declined to comment for this story.)

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MI5 to shift focus from terrorism

Britain’s MI5 counter-intelligence service has shifted its focus from potential terrorist threats to challenges posed by spies of near-peer adversaries, including Russia, China, and Iran, The Telegraph reported on Saturday, citing sources.

While the UK authorities still deem international and domestic terrorism a priority, the agency is now reportedly devoting more resources to counterintelligence efforts. MI5’s calculus has changed because of the Ukraine conflict and the West’s stand-off with Russia, China’s alleged massive espionage campaign, and Iran’s alleged push to recruit criminals to target those who oppose the government in Tehran, The Telegraph said.

”Counterterrorism has not been deprioritized but this has been prioritized alongside it,” a senior government source told the outlet, adding that MI5’s “workload has definitely shifted in that direction.”

The Telegraph also claimed that Britain’s support for Ukraine has led to increased spying by Russia. “The more you step out, the more you find yourself in their crosshairs,” one of the sources said.

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The real reason why U.S. and French troops have been in Niger for Years

In case there was any confusion over what NATO really stands for, the military alliance’s general secretary cleared things up with a bold tweet.

The U.S. military will pull all of its troops and assets out of Niger by mid-September, the Pentagon has announced, after days of talks with the country’s military junta finalized a timeline.

The Hill reports that a group of military leaders executed a coup in Niger last year, forming a military junta government that has geopolitically aligned with Russia. Talks of leaving Niger have lasted several weeks, with the timeline “finalized Sunday after four days of high-intensity negotiations,” according to The Hill, which adds:

“About 1,000 U.S. troops have been stationed in the country, for the purpose of counterterrorism operations against ISIS and al Qaeda-affiliated groups.”

That’s a big fat lie put out there by The Hill, a corporate media outlet based in Washington, D.C. But to be fair, the outlet did add this to its story:

“The Americans stayed on our soil, doing nothing while the terrorists killed people and burned towns,” Nigerien Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine told The Washington Post last week. “It is not a sign of friendship to come on our soil but let the terrorists attack us.”

But even this leaves a distorted view of the reality of why Americans and French are in Niger. The full story would be too harsh for the American masses to process but I’m going to give it to you because I know my audience can handle it.

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The Biden Effect: Al Qaeda Is Back

Almost three years after Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, a report to Congress from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) warns that al Qaeda has reestablished itself in the country.

The analysis from SIGAR states that al Qaeda maintains “a safe haven in Afghanistan,” including for “around a dozen senior al Qaeda leaders.”

The report further warns that there are now “up to eight new al Qaeda training camps, one stockpile weapons base, and five madrassas this quarter with help from al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent.”

In August 2021, Biden vowed to “reorganize” US assets to prevent a “re-emergence of terrorists” in Afghanistan.

In stark contrast, he actually left a power vacuum in Afghanistan aa well as untold amounts of weapons and tactical military equipment. 

That is the exact scenario that led directly to the rise of Osama Bin Laden, 9/11 and the catastrophic two decade long ‘war on terror’.

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Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: Infamous Terrorist And US Intelligence Asset

Ranked second only to Osama bin Laden, the US’s most notorious declared enemy during the so-called War on Terror was Jordanian jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).

But a closer examination of Zarqawi’s life and his impact on events in Iraq shows that he was likely a product and tool of US intelligence.

Neoconservative strategists within the administration of George W. Bush utilized Zarqawi as a pawn to justify the illegal US invasion of Iraq in 2003 to the American public.

Moreover, he was instrumental in fomenting internal discord within Iraqi resistance groups opposing the US occupation, ultimately instigating a sectarian civil war between Iraq’s Sunni and Shia communities.

Israel’s plan unfolds in Iraq

This deliberate strategy of tension in Iraq advanced Tel Aviv’s goal of perpetuating the country’s vulnerabilities, dividing populations along sectarian lines, and weakening its army’s ability to challenge Israel in the region.

It has long been known that the CIA created Al-Qaeda as part of its covert war on the Soviet Red Army in Afghanistan in the 1980s and supported Al-Qaeda elements in various wars, including in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Chechnya in the 1990s.

Additionally, evidence points to CIA support for Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups during the clandestine war in Syria launched in 2011 amid the so-called Arab Spring.

Despite this history, western journalists, analysts, and historians still take at face value that Zarqawi and AQI were sworn enemies of the US.

Without understanding Zarqawi’s role as a US intelligence asset, it is impossible to understand the destructive role the US (and Israel) played in the bloodshed inflicted on Iraq, not only during the initial 2003 invasion but in launching the subsequent sectarian strife as well.

It is also essential to understand the importance of current Iraqi efforts to expel US forces and rid the country of US influence moving forward.

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How CIA and MI6 Created ISIS

Within just 24 hours of the horrific mass shooting in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall on March 22nd, which left at least 137 innocent people dead and 60 more critically wounded, US officials blamed the slaughter on ISIS-K, Daesh’s South-Central Asian branch. For many, the attribution’s celerity raised suspicions Washington was seeking to decisively shift Western public and Russian government focus away from the actual culprits – be that Ukraine, and/or Britain, Kiev’s foremost proxy sponsor.

Full details of how the four shooters were recruited, directed, armed, and financed, and who by, are yet to emerge. The Kremlin claims to have unearthed evidence that Kiev’s SBU were the ultimate architects, which the agency denies, charging that Russian authorities knew about the attack and permitted it to happen, in order to ramp up its assault on Ukraine. It has been reported that the killers received funds from a cryptocurrency wallet belonging to ISIS’ Tajikistan wing.

Whatever the truth of the matter, it is certain that the four individuals responsible had no clue who or what truly sponsored their monstrous actions. Contrary to the group’s mainstream portrayal, as inspired by fanatic, extreme religious fundamentalism, ISIS are primarily guns for hire. At any given time, they act at the behest of an array of international donors, bound by common interests. Funding, weapons, and orders reach its fighters circuitously, and opaquely. There is almost invariably layer upon layer of cutouts between the perpetrators of an attack claimed by the group, and its ultimate orchestrators and financiers.

Given ISIS-K is currently arrayed against China, Iran, and Russia – in other words, the US Empire’s primary adversaries – it is incumbent to revisit their “parent” group’s origins. Emerging seemingly out of nowhere just over a decade ago, before dominating mainstream media headlines and Western public consciousness for several years before vanishing again, at one stage the group occupied vast swaths of Iraqi and Syrian territory, declaring an “Islamic State”, which issued its own currency, passports, and vehicle registration plates.

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72 Types Of Americans That Are Considered “Potential Terrorists” In Official Government Documents- You can now be considered a “potential terrorist” just because of your religious or political beliefs.

Are you a conservative, a libertarian, a Christian or a gun owner?  Are you opposed to abortion, globalism, Communism, illegal immigration, the United Nations or the New World Order?  Do you believe in conspiracy theories, do you believe that we are living in the “end times”?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you are a “potential terrorist” according to official U.S. government documents.

At one time, the term “terrorist” was used very narrowly. The official definition of terrorism is “The use, or threat, of force with the intention of achieving a political goal.” That makes it pretty clear what sort of people are covered, and for decades it worked well.  The government applied the label “terrorist” to people like Osama bin Laden and other Islamic jihadists.  But the Obama administration removed all references to Islam from terror training materials, and instead the term “terrorist” was applied to large groups of American citizens.

And if you are a “terrorist”, that means that you have no rights and the government can treat you just like it treats the terrorists that were being held at Guantanamo Bay.  So if you belong to a group of people that is now being referred to as “potential terrorists”, please don’t take it as a joke.  The first step to persecuting any group of people is to demonize them.  And right now large groups of peaceful, law-abiding citizens are being ruthlessly demonized.

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Orwellian Sydney Police: We Will Be the “Source of Truth”

Offering a fresh perspective on the fallout of a recent Sydney stabbing attack, residents have expressed their anger and mistrust toward the police who have insisted they alone should be the arbiter of truth in this incident. These sentiments stem from a press briefing given by New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb last Thursday.

Webb, who was sharing information about a 16-year-old male being accused of terrorism following the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel of Christ The Good Shepherd Church, asserted that the police will be the utterly reliable source of updates. She warned against “misinformation,” but decided not to elaborate on what she was alluding to.

“I also want to stress that there is misinformation being communicated across social media, and people should not share any of that information,” Webb said. “The source of information should be from police and law enforcement authorities. And if people have concerns they should check our websites, our socials, and any other direct news from law enforcement about current information. If we have current credible information about any risk or threat to the community, we will let them know, we will share that with the community. But please be assured that police will be the source of truth and not social media and misinformation.”

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Facebook designates Grayzone journalist Kit Klarenberg a ‘dangerous individual’

The notoriously intelligence-friendly social media network appears to have imposed a ban on posting a recent report by Kit Klarenberg, and is automatically restricting users who re-publish his work.

Multiple Facebook users have reported being banned, or having their posts censored, after sharing an investigation by The Grayzone’s Kit Klarenberg into CIA and MI6 involvement in the creation of ISIS. Readers who post links to the piece on the social network find themselves frozen out of their accounts, on the apparent grounds that Facebook has classified Klarenberg as a “dangerous individual.”

“I just shared this article from @Kit Klarenberg on Facebook and the post was immediately deleted,” wrote Ricky Hale, the founder of popular independent left-wing outlet Council Estate Media.

In a Substack article published April 5, Hale wrote that “the page was hit with restrictions and I was told I had shared a post from a dangerous individual or organisation.”

Hale was only able to regain control of his Facebook page, which boasts over 44,000 fans, by removing administrative privileges from the user who shared it — which happens to be himself.

Other restrictions imposed due to sharing Klarenberg’s work have not been lifted, and may well never be. Hale says he has been blocked from changing the page’s name, inviting people to join the page, or creating new Facebook groups. “Given Facebook had already reduced my page’s visibility for another absurd violation, I’m assuming my posts are going to be invisible,” Hale lamented. “This means a Facebook page with 44,000 users has been rendered useless because of state censorship that’s been outsourced to big tech. This is not how a free society operates.”

It was not the first time that Facebook censored one of its users for posting Klarenberg’s article. Hours beforehand, another social media user revealed the piece had been removed from her Facebook timeline mere “seconds” after it was posted.

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