From Lebanese protesters to Palestinian protesters

Today, Lebanese protesters sent their salutations to Palestinian protesters.  

Of course, US attack on a hospital in Kunduz was no affront for Afghans

"NYTimes: For Afghans in Kunduz, Taliban Assault Is Just the Latest Affront".

US-Israeli theft of Syrian property - This is why US-Israel helping al-Qaeda to destroy Syria

"A company drilling for oil on the Golan Heights claims to have found “significant amounts” in the plateau. “We’re talking about a layer 350 meters thick,” Yuval Bartov, chief geologist of Afek Oil and Gas, a subsidiary of the American company Genie Energy, told Channel 2."

British Ministry of Justice & crucifixion of Ali al-Nimr

"Ali al-Nimr was just 17 years old when he was sentenced to death by crucifixion in the wake of the Arab Spring pro-democracy uprising." "The British Ministry of Justice is bidding to provide support to the Saudi prisons service at the same time that they are planning to crucify Ali for protesting against the Saudi government."

Second Saudi juvenile faces beheading for protesting

"It's been revealed a second juvenile is facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, a day after David Cameron was confronted about the case of a 17-year-old sentenced to ‘crucifixion’ in the country. According to human rights organisation Reprieve, Dawoud al-Marhoon had his death by beheading sentence upheld by the Saudi Specialised Criminal Court." "Mr Cameron has also been criticised over a bid to build prisons in Saudi Arabia. Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve said it is “grossly hypocritical for David Cameron to say he opposes these sentences, while his government is bidding to support the very prisons service who will be responsible for carrying them out.” "

Wife may face jail for posting video of her Saudi husband abusing a maid

"A Saudi woman who posted footage online of her husband cheating on her with a family maid has been warned that she may face jail for "defamation". The housewife used her mobile phone to secretly film her partner as he made advances to a female servant in the kitchen of the family home. The video shows a man, dressed in traditional white robes of a Saudi male, apparently trying to kiss the maid as she attempts to pull away from him."

US-made warplanes bombed yet another Yemeni wedding

"Airstrikes by a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia hit a house south of the capital on Wednesday, killing at least 23 people who were attending a wedding party, said witnesses and a local medical worker. The attack was the second airstrike on a wedding in Yemen in a little over a week, and it added to growing criticism over the coalition’s air campaign, which has killed more than 1,100 civilians over the past six months, according to the United Nations. On Sept. 28, coalition warplanes bombed wedding tents on the Yemen’s Red Sea coast, killing at least 70 people." (thanks Amir)

A very short history of U.S. bombing civilians

"The U.S. purposefully targeted an air raid shelter near the Baghdad airport with two 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs, which punched through 10 feet of concrete and killed at least 408 Iraqi civilians."

Trevor Noah

I watched a segment of the Daily Show yesterday. My verdict: Trevor Noah is very unfunny.  And why is there little humor in late night US TV? It is now based on gags and pranks but not humor.

The audacity of the US

Having intervened militarily in the last few years only in Iraq, Mali, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria the US is not timid in objecting to the very principle of Russian military intervention in Syria.

PS As for as I am concerned, we need to call on Russia and US and all the others to butt out of Arab affairs.

Free Syrian Army

Basically, Free Syrian Army has become the Western code name for Nusrah front, the official Syrian branch of Al-Qa`ida.

Prince Claus award was awarded for this year

Prince Claus award was awarded to Nusrah front for this year. Congratulations.

Obama's apology about Kunduz

His apology was unprecedented in the context of imperialist arrogance and hubris.  But it was only delivered because MSF is run by white Europeans and some of the victims were European whites.  How many civilians in Asia and Africa have been killed by US bombs in the last few years and not one apology was ever delivered by US president.

Zayd bin Ra`d Al-Husayn: the Hashemite commissioner for human rights at the UN

Having served the Hashemite regime which is renowned for its attention to human rights, Zayn bin Ra`d Al-Husayn who owes his job at the UN to Israel and US, finally spoke about the US war crime in Kunduz. He said: "Mr. al-Hussein also said, “International and Afghan military planners have an obligation to respect and protect civilians at all times".  Notice he did not dare the US forces which actually committed the crime.

Saudi version of moderate Islam: "The Imam of the Holy Mosque in Mecca shoots artillery rounds towards Yemen"

How Israel rendered any act of resistance by Palestinians as anti-Semitism

So basically, according to US media, any attack by any Palestinian on any Israeli in the course of resisting Israeli brutality and occupation is an attack on that person because he is Jewish.  They imply that Palestinians seek them out because they are Jewish. So according to them, for the Palestinians to not be anti-Semitic, they need to seek out non-Jewish Israelis to attack them.  So basically, the only way Palestinians can prove that they are not anti-Semitic is by attacking Arab citizens of the state of Israel. Otherwise, they would be acting anti-semitically.  

US is very proud of its puppet Ashraf Ghani

"JUDY WOODRUFF: General Barno, we noticed that Afghan President Ghani doesn’t seem to be as critical as typically President Karzai has been in the past of the United States. How do you explain that?

LT. GEN. DAVID BARNO (RET.), Former Commander, Coalition Forces in Afghanistan:  And I think President Ghani, who realizes that President Obama here in the United States is about to make a critical decision about keeping American forces in Afghanistan or drawing them down to only several hundred, President Ghani is a little bit more cautious. He’s been more reserved. And I think he and many of his senior officials have already come out to say this is tragic, but we understand how this can happen and we look forward to the results of the investigation. His response has been very muted, and I think that’s been appropriate, given the investigation." (thanks Basim)

The US account has now shifted four times in four days

"The US account has now shifted four times in four days." “This attack cannot be brushed aside as a mere mistake or an inevitable consequence of war. Statements from the Afghanistan government have claimed that Taliban forces were using the hospital to fire on coalition forces. These statements imply that Afghan and US forces working together decided to raze to the ground a fully functioning hospital, which amounts to an admission of a war crime,” Liu said on Tuesday."

war crimes by US and Gulf allies

From a reader: "The London-based watchdog urged holding an "independent, effective investigation of violations" by the coalition, in which US allies the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are playing a key role. Amnesty's latest report "uncovers yet more evidence of unlawful air strikes carried out by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, some of which amount to war crimes," said Donatella Rovera, who headed the group's fact-finding mission to Yemen."

Photos of war crimes "

U.S. "liberals" won't tolerate pro-Palestine activists

"Pro-Palestinian activists were kicked out of a campaign event for US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in Boston, Massachusetts over the weekend, video footage posted on Monday showed." "MEE columnist CJ Werleman noted last month that Sanders "approved of Israel’s 51-day bombardment and invasion of Gaza. Sanders voted to allow Israel access to US weapons stockpiles in the middle of a siege where more than 80 percent of the casualties were civilians." "

Video: Israeli gunmen kidnap patient from Palestinian hospital

"This video shows Israeli undercover forces invading a hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus early on Sunday morning and kidnapping a Palestinian patient."

CAIR and other Islamist organizations in the US

CAIR and all the other Islamist organizations in the US are only fronts for Gulf regimes and they basically are extensions of the lobbying bodies of Gulf embassies. They are enthusiastic supporters of war in Syria and Yemen (by US and its GCC allies) but they don't dare call for a pebble to be pelted at Israeli occupation soldiers. Notice that they don't even dare speak about Palestine except in mumbo jumbo.  And they are honoring Tawakkul Karman, of the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood who is a clownish cheerleader for Qatari regime (all along) and of Saudi regime (as of this year).

Israeli soldiers kill a Palestinian child in Bethlehem

""The child, Abdul-Rahman Shadi Khalil Obeidallah, was shot with a live round in the chest, and died of his serious wounds shortly after being moved to hospital. The slain child was walking back home from school when the fatal Israeli round struck him. Medical sources said the child was short directly in the heart, by a sniper Israeli army fire."" (thanks Amir)

Russian intervention in Syria

I wrote it in Arabic: I am of a generation of Arabs who were pinned hope on the Soviet Union in the Middle East and were mightily disappointed.  Those Arabs who pin hopes on Putin's Russia will suffer a worse disappointment.  

the Saudi call for Jihad in Syria

Roots of terrorism: typically, Western media and governments ignored the call for Jihad in Syria by some 50-odd Saudi clerics and professors.

ISIS positions in Syria

Suddenly, Al-Hayat (the mouthpiece of Prince Khalid bin Sultan) started referring to ISIS sites in Syria as "opposition sites".  They were not "opposition sites" when the US and its allies were bombing right and left in Syria?

The real Henry Kissinger

The legacy of Kissinger in the Middle East.

Palestinian dying in "clashes"

From Alfred: "If the protests were "violent" and 456 Palestinians have been killed or wounded in "clashes", how come the Israeli government has NOT reported any Israeli security personnel INJURED?"

Why can't they interrogate Obama like this?

I can't see an American president ever be subjected to this line of questioning by an American reporter, ever

Who can disagree with the Uzbek president here?

"It therefore came as little surprise last week when the government banned the teaching of political science, on the grounds that it is a western pseudo-science that does not take the “Uzbek model” of development into account."

Freedom of the press in Lebanon

A Lebanese court ruled against me and fined me for criticizing the dead Za`im, Kamil Al-As`ad (one of the most corrupt Lebanese politicians ever).

Lebanese laws still operate by the dictum of the Sedition Act of late 18th century US, when it was illegal to "bring disrupte" to a government official. Kid you not.

U.S. government goes from denial to justification of war crime

"Oops: our bad. Fog of war, errant bombs, and all that. This obfuscation tactic is the standard one the U.S. and Israel both use whenever they blow up civilian structures and slaughter large numbers of innocent people with airstrikes." "As a result, we now have U.S. and Afghan officials expressly justifying the consummate war crime: deliberately attacking a hospital filled with doctors, nurses and wounded patients. And whatever else is true, the story of what happened here has been changing rapidly as facts emerge proving the initial claims to be false."

American masterminds of El Salvador's killing campaign

"Salvadoran soldiers killed tens of thousands of civilians during their scorched-earth campaign in the 1980s. The elite military unit that murdered the six Jesuits and carried out other notorious massacres was called the Atlacatl Battalion. It was created as a rapid-response counterinsurgency unit by American trainers at the US Army School of the Americas," "Those officers were pawns in a game directed from Washington. True justice would target the people who conceived, blessed, and financed El Salvador’s counterinsurgency campaign. Executioners’ faces are always well hidden, but in this case, they speak English, worked in Washington during the 1980s, and remain respectable cocktail-party guests."

Israelis wounded Al Mayadeen reporter

"Israeli troops wounded Al Mayadeen journalist Hanaa Mahameed Sunday, while she was attempting to report on the killing of a Palestine youth Fadi Alloun by Isreali forces." "After being shot 7 times, Alloun’s body was kicked and dragged by settlers, according to local media reports. The settlers also stormed Palestinian houses and properties in the area." (thanks Amir)

US foreign policy problems explained

"@Michele Bachmann: US turns its back on Israel, disasters following".  It sounds biblical.

US attack on hospital in Kunduz

Apparently, as US general explains, patients in the hospital requested that they be bombed by US as a special honor to their memory.

Physicians (or is it Doctors) without Borders

So after I posted yesterday, Doctors without Borders issued a statement.  The statement is lacking on various fronts:
1) it was late.
2) it called for an investigation when the reality warrants none: we know that it was US forces which attacked and US admitted so.
3) it basically diluted the statement by insisting on talking about "coalition" forces and Afghan forces when the war crime was committed by US forces.
4) it said that this was "unacceptable".  Why do I find this language unlike statements that MSF made about Syria?

Office 2016

By the way, for Word 2016, bold and italic don't work in Arabic.

Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch justifies and dismisses US attack on Kunduz but then deletes the tweet

Oil wealthy man is not happy with the leftist agenda of Corbyn

He threatens to punish Western voters for leftist choices.

Saudi Arabia is the biggest single purchaser of UK-manufactured arms

""Saudi Arabia is the biggest single purchaser of UK-manufactured arms. Its enormous multi-billion-pound Al-Yamamah contract is the largest single arms deal ever conducted by the UK with another country. The lucrative deal is swathed in secrecy and successive UK governments have taken unprecedented measures to block the release of information concerning it." "In addition to weapons, the UK has recently been marketing its experience in running prisons to the Saudis and other countries with poor human rights records.""

How is ISIS formed?

52 Saudi cleric and academics call for Jihad in Syria.

Israeli crimes

How US senators defend Saudi war crimes

"Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., spent the most time discussing the issue with me. But his answers were perplexing.

“They may be bombing civilians, which is actually not true,” McCain said, when asked about civilian casualties in Yemen.

“Civilians aren’t dying?” I asked.

“No, they’re not,” the senator replied. “Oh, I’m sure civilians die in war. Not nearly as many as the Houthis have executed,” McCain continued, referring to the Shiite militia waging an insurgency against the Sunni government in Yemen.

Asked about the recent reports of Saudi forces bombing a wedding party in Yemen, McCain said, “I’m sure in wars terrible things happen and the Houthis however are an extremist group backed by the Iranians who are slaughtering Yemenis.”

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has reported that more than 2,300 civilians have been killed in the Yemen conflict, and that both Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led forces share responsibility for the deaths. The UNHCHR spokesperson has told reporters, however, that the Saudi-led bombing campaign has caused most of the deaths.

I tried to ask McCain, who serves as chairman of the International Republican Institute, a U.S. government-backed human rights and democracy promotion nonprofit, if he had an opinion on the spate of executions in Saudi Arabia, which have averaged at a rate of one execution every two days.

“Of course I have always stood for human rights and will continue to keep standing for human rights,” he said."

Has the New York Times ever described a Palestinian victim as a "parent of children"?

Look at this headline: "Palestinian Gunmen Kill Israeli Parents of 4".  The paper never ever described Palestinian victims who were fathers and grandfathers and mothers and grandmothers this way.