CrossTalk: Israel Snubbed

Rys2sense

Chechen ex-militant: Georgia trained anti-Russian terrorists, then killed them in false flag op

Russia Today

 A former Chechen militant has accused Georgia of training a network of Islamic terrorists, claiming that a recent anti-terrorist mission on the border with Russia was in fact a pseudo-operation targeting Georgian-trained jihadists. Last month Georgia claimed its forces had killed 11 militants who infiltrated the country through the Russian republic of Dagestan in a special operation personally led by the Georgian interior minister.

But Khizri Aldamov, who was an emissary of Chechen militants in Georgia for 18 years, before switching sides and returning to the fold of Moscow loyalist Ramzan Kadyrov earlier this year, has now put forward a different version of events. In a recent video conference at Moscow’s Ria Novosti news agency, he claimed the people shot were recruited by Georgia to stir up Chechen separatism in Russia, and the whole operation was staged.

“Georgian President Saakashvili’s plan was to send his own guys across the border into Russia, not the other way round, and then shoot them. But there was no mission; this was a set-up,” Aldamov told RT.

He says the purpose of the operation was to frame Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, and present Georgia as an anti-terrorist force, while getting rid of those Aldamov says “knew too much” about the country’s Islamic training program. “Saakashvili is allergic to Russia, allergic to Putin, allergic to Kadyrov,” said Aldamov.

The two neighbors have been locked in a long-standing dispute over the two republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, whose independence Moscow supports, a conflict which escalated after the August 2008 war.

Along with some of the Georgian media, Aldamov questions some of the details of Tbilisi’s operation against the militants, the aftermath of which was shown on Georgian television.

“First of all, their weapons were American-made, second – none of them fired a single shot. That's not all; the uniforms of these so-called fighters were brand new,” he alleges.

Aldamov claims that in his role as a go-between for Georgia and Chechen separatists, he trained many Islamist recruits himself. The practice supposedly continues today in Georgia, through the official Counter Terror Center.

“Everything is still controlled by the center – all the Mujahideen are in its hands. Any Chechen who lives in Georgia and wants to study in an Islamic country has to go through the center, and there they recruit him.”

Aldamov’s allegations caused a stir, but have not received universal endorsement. Badri Nachkebia, a Georgian expert in conflict and political violence present at the conference, questioned whether Aldamov had a pro-Russian agenda after his sudden return to Chechnya. He also contradicted the assertion that the militants had been killed with one shot each – as if by their trusted allies – noting that three Georgian special services soldiers had been killed during the operation, and six more injured.

Meanwhile, political expert Nana Devdariani said that while the country may have harbored Chechen militants, it is unlikely that the operation was an inside job, or that there was a border crossing from Georgia into Russia, considering how well fortified the Russian side is.

On the official level, Georgian ministers insist there was a crossing from Dagestan, while Russian officials have categorically denied the claim.

In the clandestine circumstances of a simmering regional conflict where both sides have an agenda (not to mention that Georgia faces a national election next week), the truth will be hard to come by, and claims such as Aldamov’s may be impossible to confirm or deny.

Surreal: Clinton Pledges $45 Million in Aid to Al Qaeda in Syria

Land Destroyer
Tony Catalucci

US inundates terrorist legions with cash & support after regional embassy attacks and death of own ambassador.

September 28, 2012 -  US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the US would be providing an additional $45 million in "non-lethal aid" to the "opposition" in Syria, reported the Associated Press. The Western press chose their words carefully, ensuring that the term "civilian opposition" was repeatedly used to describe the armed terrorist forces attempting to violently overthrow the Syrian government.

Image: Libyan Mahdi al-Harati of the US State Department, United Nations, and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf)-listed terrorist organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), addressing fellow terrorists in Syria. Harati is now commanding a Libyan brigade operating inside of Syria attempting to destroy the Syrian government and subjugate the Syrian population. Traditionally, this is known as "foreign invasion." US aid is going to foreign terrorists, not a "civilian opposition."
....

In reality, the "opposition" in Syria constitutes foreign terrorist legions flowing across Syria's borders, and in particular, staging and crossing over from NATO-member Turkey. In fact, it was recently admitted by the terrorist legions themselves that their headquarters has been located within Turkish territory for the duration of the conflict. In a recent France 24 article titled, "Free Syrian Army move HQ from Turkey to Syria," armed militants claimed they had only just recently "moved from Turkey to within Syria."

Clinton's Aid is Going to Al Qaeda, Not a "Civilian Opposition."

While the Western media attempts to portray heavily armed foreign terrorists as "Syria's civilian opposition," it has been revealed that entire brigades are led by Libyan terrorists drawn from the ranks of the US State Department (#29), UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf), and UN-listed terror organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

The presence of LIFG in Syria was first announced by the Western press in November of 2011 when the Telegraph in their article, "Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group," would report:

Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, "met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey," said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. "Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there."

Photo: The face of Libya's "revolution" was literally Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda's LIFG commander, Abdul Hakim Belhadj, was NATO's point man in Libya and has now redirected his terrorist forces against Syria. LIFG commanders are now literally running entire brigades in Syria with Western diplomatic, logistic, and military support.
....

Another Telegraph article, "Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels," would admit Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya's new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested "assistance" from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.
"There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria," said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see."

New Yorker magazine editor says Netanyahu is 'arrogant and dangerous'

Haaretz

David Remnick accuses the Prime Minister of endangering Israel and making himself a factor in the U.S. elections.

New Yorker magazine editor and Pulitzer-Prize winning author David Remnick accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday of endangering Israel, interfering in U.S. elections and aligning with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in a "neocon strategy" against U.S. President Obama.

In a biting blog post in the magazine on Wednesday, Remnick accused Netanyahu of doing more “than any other political figure to embolden and elevate the reactionary forces in Israel, to eliminate the dwindling possibility of a just settlement with the Palestinians, and to isolate his country on the world diplomatic stage.”

Remnick highlighted the Prime Minister’s obstinacy and “innate distrust” of myriad Israeli military and intelligence experts who oppose a unilateral strike on Iran, as well as of President Obama, whom the PM attacked earlier this week for failing to present Iran with so-called red lines. This, despite the Obama's committment to preventing a nuclear Iran and the fact that defense cooperation between the two countries has never been stronger.

Netanyahu held an hour-long telephone conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama early Wednesday, calming things down following reports that Obama had rejected Netanyahu's request to meet when the prime minister visits the United States later this month.

Bibi’s Crazy UN Speech: Medievalist poses as champion of “modernity”

Sabbah
Justin Raimondo

It's no wonder the Israeli Foreign Ministry initially held back from releasing a transcript of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the UN General Assembly: Bibi's wackiness doesn't bear close scrutiny. Perhaps "wacky" isn't quite the right word for his 40-minute peroration, during which he pulled out a bomb "diagram" and a red marker to illustrate where he would draw a "red line" defining the outer limits of Iran's nuclear program. Cartoonish is more like it. The cartoonish quality of the bomb drawing underscored the content and tone of the speech, which was the jeremiad of a radical ideologue rather than anything one would expect from a statesman:

"Today a great battle is being waged between the modern and the medieval. Israel stands proudly with the forces of modernity. We protect the right of all our citizens, men and women, Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, all are equal before the law."

Israel, which privileges its priestly caste, has a state religion, and bases its national mythology on a "promise" from G-d, is as medieval as any of its neighbors. Aside from being a lie, however, this statement is interesting because it evokes the very same supremacist spirit that animates the controversial pro-Israel public relations campaign launched by the Jewish state's extremist American supporters. Posters in the public transport system, from New York to San Francisco, proclaim:

"In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad."

No wonder the Israeli consulates in New York and San Francisco won't disavow those vile subway posters: Pamela Geller is the new public face of Israel.

Yes, Israel protects the rights of all citizens - unless they're Palestinians who happen to own property coveted by the "settlers," in which case it doesn't. And the key word here is citizens: of course, the Palestinians in the occupied territories are not citizens, but helots, with no rights, and no protection from fanatical Jewish fundamentalists who have launched hundreds of attacks on their homes, and sought to displace them at every opportunity, with the active complicity of the Israeli government.

This idea that Israel represents "modernity" is rich, considering that every day Israeli society is sinking lower into the morass of religious and cultural fundamentalism, a regression that has not gone unnoticed in the West. Bibi opened his speech with biblical references, describing Jersusalem as the "eternal capital" of Israel and declaring that "the Jewish state will live forever." Yet as we secularists know, nothing lives "forever," and the idea of a city being the "eternal" capital of anything is a metaphor, at best, at worst a dangerous delusion. If this is the "modern" then one wonders how much it differs from the "medieval." But let's not linger too long over the obvious. Bibi rants on:

"Militant Islam has many branches, from the rulers of Iran with their revolutionary guards to al-Qaeda... but they're all rooted in the same soil. It's not whether this fanaticism will be defeated, but how many lives will be lost before it's defeated. Nothing could emperil my country more than arming Iran with nuclear weapons. To imagine what the world would be like with a nuclear Iran, imagine what the world would be like with a nuclear al-Qaeda. There's no difference."

The Israeli Prime Minister may have been addressing the UN General Assembly, but he was really talking to the Americans, whose fear and loathing of the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks can always be counted on to raise them to new levels of hysteria. Outside that context, however, equating the Iranians with Al Qaeda makes about as much sense as likening the late unlamented Saddam Hussein toOsama bin Laden - and, hey wait, didn't we hear that equation made endlessly in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq? Yet this was not a time for subtlety from the Israeli Prime Minister - the cartoon "bomb" ended all hope of that - but for the crudest sort of propaganda, which is, of course, war propaganda.

Imagine if Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who addressed the UN that day minutes before Netanyahu took the stage, had said: "Militant Judaism has many branches, from the Washington officesof AIPAC to the center of Jewish power in Tel Aviv - but they're all rooted in the same soil" of intolerance? Picture him conjuring images of violent Jewish "fanaticism" - not a hard task, given what is happening in Israel today. If he had done so, Abbas would have been denounced in every Western capital as the 21st century incarnation of Hitler.

Dollar Hegemony in the Empire of the Damned

Global Research
Colin Todhunter

Many commentators and economists wonder if the US is able to turn its ailing economy around. The reality is that it is bankrupt. However, as long as the dollar remains the world currency, the US can continue to pay its bills by simply printing more money. But once the world no longer accepts the dollar as world reserve currency, the US will no longer be able to continue to pay its way or to fund its wars by relying on what would then be a relatively valueless paper currency.

And the US realises this. Today, more than 60 per cent of all foreign currency reserves in the world are in US dollars, and the US will attempt to prevent countries moving off the dollar by any means possible. It seems compelled to do this simply because its economic infrastructure seems too weak and US corporate cartels will do anything to prevent policies that eat into their profits or serve to curtail political influence. They serve their own interests, not any notional ‘national interest’.

Pail Graig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, notes that much of the most productive part of the US economy has been moved offshore in order to increase corporate profits. By doing so, the US has lost critical supply chains, industrial infrastructure, and the knowledge of skilled workers. According to Roberts, the US could bring its corporations back to America by taxing their profits abroad and could also resort to protective tariffs, but such moves would be contrary to the material interests of the ruling oligarchy of private interests, which hold so much sway over US politics.

So, with no solution to the crisis in site, the US is compelled to expand its predatory capitalism into foreign markets such as India and to wage imperialist wars to maintain global allegiance to the dollar and US hegemony. And this is exactly what we are seeing today as the US strategy for global supremacy is played out.

Over the past two decades, the US has extended its influence throughout Eastern Europe, many of the former Soviet states in central Asia and, among other places, in the former Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria and Pakistan. But with each passing year and each new conflict, the US has been drawing closer and closer to direct confrontation with Russia and China, particularly as it enters their backyards in Asia and as China continues to emerge as a serious global power.

Both countries are holding firm over Syria. Syria plays host to Russia’s only naval base outside of the former USSR, and Russia and China know that if the US and its proxies topple the Assad government, Tehran becomes a much easier proposition. Ideally, the US would like to install compliant regimes in Moscow and Beijing and exploiting political and ethnic divisions in the border regions of Russia and China would be that much easier if Iran fell to US interests.

A global US strategy is already in force to undermine China’s growth and influence, part of which was the main reason for setting up AFRICOM: US Africa Command with responsibility for military operations and relations across Africa. But China is not without influence, and its actions are serving to weaken the hegemony of the US dollar, thereby striking at a key nerve of US power.

China has been implementing bilateral trade agreements with a number of countries, whereby trade is no longer conducted in dollars, but in local currencies. Over the past few years,China and other emerging powers such as Russia have been making agreements to move away from the US dollar in international trade. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China,South Africa) also plan to start using their own currencies when trading with each other. Russia and China have been using their own national currencies when trading with eachother for more than a year.

A report from Africa’s largest bank, Standard Bank, recently stated:

“We expect at least $100 billion (about R768 billion) in Sino-African trade – more than the total bilateral trade between China and Africa in 2010 – to be settled in the renminbi by 2015.”

Under Saddam, Iraq was not using the dollar as the base currency for oil transactions, neither is Iran right now. Even Libya’s Muammar Gadhaffi was talking about using a gold backed dinar as the reserve currency for parts of Africa. Look what happened to Libya and Iraq as a result.

In 2000, Iraq converted all its oil transactions to euros. When U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, it returned oil sales from the euro to the dollar. Little surprise then that we are currently watching the US attempt to remove the Iranian regime via sanctions, destabilization, intimidation and the threat of all out war.

In the meantime, though, Iran is looking east to China, Pakistan and central Asia in order to counteract the effects of US sanctions and develop its economy and boost trade. In order to sustain its empire, US aggression is effectively pushing the world into different camps and a new cold war that could well turn into a nuclear conflict given that Russia, China and Pakistan all have nuclear weapons.

The US economy appears to be in terminal decline. The only way to prop it up is by lop-sided trade agreements or by waging war to secure additional markets and resources and to ensure the dollar remains the world reserve currency. Humankind is currently facing a number of serious problems. But, arguably, an empire in decline armed to the teeth with both conventional and nuclear weapons and trapped in a cycle of endless war in what must surely be a futile attempt to stave off ruin is the most serious issue of all.

Originally from the northwest of England,  Colin Todhunter has spent many years in India. He has written extensively for the Deccan Herald (the Bangalore-based broadsheet), New Indian Express and Morning Star (Britain). His articles have also appeared in various other publications. His East by Northwest website is at http://colintodhunter.blogspot.com

Against All Logic: Iran Blamed by MSNBC for Cyber Attack on Bank Sites

This contrived bit of storytelling is an insult to the American public. Iran's motivation for conducting cyber attacks on banks somehow doesn't match the likelihood that the cyber attacks are MOSSAD operations. These events took place right after Senator Lieberman's appeal to Obama for an executive order to shut down the internet in the wake of a "9/11 style cyber attack". People have to suffer the inconvenience of accessing their bank accounts in a way that is slightly more irritating than having to sit through a commercial for "war with Iran" in a Hulu Plus transmission.

 

Video: Police Provocateurs Caught Inciting Violence In Spain

Daily Bail

Vote counting company tied to Romney

FreePress
Gerry Bello
Bob Fitrakis

Several Tanker trucks full of political ink have been spilled on Mitt Romney's tenure as a vulture capitalist at Bain Capital. A more important story, however, is the fact that Bain alumni, now raising big money as Romney bundlers are also in the electronic voting machine business. This appears to be a repeat of the the infamous former CEO of Diebold Wally O’Dell, who raised money for Bush while his company supplied voting machines and election management software in the 2004 election.

In all 234 counties of Texas, the entire states of Hawaii and Oklahoma, half of Washington and Colorado, and certain counties in swing state Ohio, votes will be cast on eSlate and ePollbook machines made by Hart Intercivic. Hart Intercivic machines have famously failed in Tarrant County (Ft. Worth), adding 10,000 non-existant votes. The EVEREST study, commissioned by the Ohio secretary of state in 2007, found serious security flaws with Hart Intercivic products.

Looking beyond the well-documented Google choking laundry list of apparent fraud, failure and seeming corruption that is associated with Hart Intercivic, an ongoing Free Press investigation turned its attention to the key question of who owns the voting machine companies. The majority of the directors of Hart come from the private equity firm H.I.G. Capital. H.I.G. has been heavily invested in Hart Intercivic since July 2011, just in time for the current presidential election cycle. But who is H.I.G Capital?

Out of 49 partners and directors, 48 are men, and 47 are white. Eleven of these men, including H.I.G. Founder Tony Tamer, were formerly employed at Bain and Company, and two of those men, John P. Bolduc, Douglas Berman, are Romney bundlers along with former Bain and H.I.G. manager Brian Shortsleeve.

Additionally, four of these men were formerly employed at Booz Allen Hamilton. Booz Allen, now owned by the Bush family friendly Carlyle group, also made voting machines for the United States military. Booz Allen was also the key subcontractor for the controversial PioneerGroundbreaker program, an NSA data mining operation that gathered information on American citizens until it was shut down and replaced with even more invasive successor programs like MATRIX and Total Information Awareness.

H.I.G. Capital employees have given $338,000 to Mitt Romney's campaign. That amounts to over $1500 per employee. Bain Capital, Mitt's former company, by comparison, only gave him $268,000. H.I.G. is the 11th largest donor to the Romney Campaign. Clearly they are working really hard for their man. It appears that they will work even harder on election night. Although not boisterously promising to deliver states where their machines are to Romney as Wally O'Dell of Diebold did for Bush in 2004, they can launder hundreds of thousands of votes and swing the vote in the crucial swing state Ohio.

Will Mitt's cronies steal our democracy the way they stole our jobs? Time will tell, but they have certainly positioned themselves to do so if they choose.

In our first investigative article Who owns Scytl? George Soros isn’t in the voting machines, but the intelligence community is.

the Free Press revealed that Scytl, a Spanish-based company now contracted to count 25% of the U.S. presidential vote, has ties to Booz Allen. Scytl's start up funding comes from three European Venture Capital Firms, Balderton Capital, Nauta Capital, and Spinnaker SCR. The director of Nauta's American operations is Dominic Endicott, who went from Cluster Consulting to Booz Allen Hamilton (NYSE: BAH) where he oversaw wireless practice. He then rejoined his former colleagues from Cluster Consulting at Nauta. In his capacity as a Nauta partner Endicott also sits on the board of CarrierIQ.

Scytl has emerged as the most mysterious election counting company in this presidential election. Scytl claims to have a Scytl USA division located in Glen Allen, Virginia. The following is a photo of the Scytl USA national corporate offices at 6012 Glen Allen Drive. The land deed records show that the ownership of the property at that address is Hugh Gallagher, now listed as the managing director of Scytl USA. The deed, which was prepared in Ohio by a relocation firm in 2002, pre-dates the creation of Scytl USA. A Scytl USA sales office is located in Baltimore, Maryland, and appears to be a Rent-an-Office, often referred to as a “virtual” office with a shared secretary that serves as a mail drop.



The ties of Hart Intercivic to Romney fund-raisers and Bain alumni should cause concern in the Obama re-election campaign. So, should the mysterious Spanish owned company, Scytl, with a U.S operation that seems to be an illusion. 

Greece joins Spain and Portugal in protesting austerity measures

SMH
Liz Alderman
Niki Kisantonis

Up in flames ... burning firebombs form a backdrop to a
riot officer during a demonstration in Athens on Wednesday.

After a period of relative calm, European markets shuddered once again as protests erupted across Greece and demonstrators surrounded the Spanish parliament for a second day to protest against the austerity program of the Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy.

Greek riot police clashed with hundreds of hooded youths hurling petrol bombs on Wednesday, as tens of thousands of striking workers rallied against a latest round of austerity measures in Athens.

On Tuesday in Spain tens of thousands of demonstrators besieged the parliament over the austerity measures. Last week more than half a million people marched in cities across Portugal to protest against an increase in social security contributions, and a million marched in Barcelona calling for Catalan independence.

The Greek clashes took place after more than 50,000 people marched to parliament demanding the government ignore the latest demands of the country's creditors for additional cuts to salaries, pensions and benefits. Riot police fired tear-gas and pepper spray against demonstrators who used marble stones and bottles as weapons and set fire to garbage bins and portable kiosks in central Syntagma Square.

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One group could be seen setting fire to trees in the National Gardens, causing flames and black smoke to fill the skies above the parliament.

The nationwide strike, called by the country's two biggest private and public sector unions, is the first such action since the country's conservative-led coalition government was formed in June.

The 24-hour walkout affected schools, pharmacists, customs workers, ports and government offices. Museums and major archaeological sites turned tourists away. Shops were closed and ferry services suspended. More than a dozen domestic and international flights were cancelled or rescheduled after air traffic controllers called a three-hour stoppage. Petrol stations remained shut for most of the day and hospitals operated on emergency staff as doctors joined the strike.

Among the strikers was Babis Vasiliadis, a hotel chef who was recently left unemployed. He said: ''This is not just about having a decent job and making enough money to feed your family - it is about the right of every citizen to live a decent life.''

Marching nearby, 58-year-old pensioner Stavroula Zervea, said she no longer can survive after her pension was slashed by more than a third. ''I suspect it will only get worse - but the question is how much more tax hikes can the Greek people handle?'' she said.

Hours before demonstrators hit the streets, the Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, and his Finance Minister, Yannis Stournaras, reportedly hammered out a deal on the $15 billion package of spending cuts, along with a further $2.6 billion in taxes, demanded by the country's international lenders, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The bulk of the cuts will affect wages, pensions and welfare benefits, putting renewed pressure on the country, which is in the fifth year of recession and has seen unemployment soar to more than 24 per cent.