U.S. is using white phosphorus that kills by burning to the bone

"Photos posted on a Pentagon-managed public affairs website show a U.S. Army artillery unit in Iraq using white phosphorous munitions, specifically M825A1 155mm rounds." "The United States has used white phosphorus in Iraq before, notably in the 2004 battle for Fallujah, when Marine artillery batteries were scrutinized for firing the munitions on entrenched insurgents. In Afghanistan, white phosphorus was used by U.S. troops, primarily in the country’s restive east. In 2009, NATO forces there were accused of burning an 8-year-old girl with the munitions."

On the Middle East

New York Times, Washington Post, Economist, the Nation Magazine, Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat and Al-Riyadh have all become indistinguishable.

NYT's support for wars

"However, it’s worth noting, The New York Times‘s editorial board has supported every single US war—Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Libya—for the past 30 years."

German-Israeli covert operations

"According to the documents — which were submitted for the trial of a former German spy — Western surveillance agencies, Israel likely among them, operated a tax-haven company to fund various security-related operations." "Mauss claims that the fund in question was opened in the mid-1980s in Panama by Western security services for various activities, and has served since then for covert security operations around the world."

Israel & Paraguay

"And while Paraguay stands little chance of ousting Colombia as Israel’s regional BFF — the current Colombian president has, after all, boasted of being “the Israelites of Latin America” — Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes has put a lot into the relationship, particularly during his recent visit to Israel." "Cartes himself, meanwhile, was described in a leaked cable from the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires in 2010 as the head of an “organization believed to launder large quantities of United States currency generated through illegal means, including through the sale of narcotics, from the TBA (Tri-Border Area) to the United States.” All the more reason, presumably, to shift the blame for illicit Tri-Border Area activity to other parties. Looks like Paraguay and Israel will make one hell of a team." (thanks Amir)

Facebook disables accounts of Palestinian editors

" “There has been no given reason for closing the accounts,” Quds’ al-Akhras said. “We believe this is the result of the agreement between Israel and Facebook. It is very strange that Facebook would take part in such an agreement, given that it is supposed to be a platform for free expression and journalism.” Al-Akhras said that it was particularly dismaying that Facebook would take this action as Quds got its start in 2011 as a Facebook-only platform." 

This is how the US ignited the Lebanese civil war

My weekly article in Al-Akhbar: "This is how the US Ignited the Lebanese Civil War: Secret Negotiations with Israel in the Administration of Franjiyyah."

Ian Black citing Faysal Qasim of Aljazeera

Faysal Qasim of Aljazeera has become known for posting the most sectarian, vulgar, sexist, and exterminationist posts about Syria (he used to be pro-Syrian regime by the way).  Ian Black is citing him below.  But in this week, I have noticed that most if not all Western correspondents on the Middle East have lost all sense of pretense of professionalism and are posting crude propaganda.
Ian Black (@ian_black)

9/24/16, 9:20 AM

‎Putin and friends who "kneel only before God״ ⁦‪twitter.com/kasimf/status/…‬⁩

John Kerry explains why the alliance between his "moderate" Syrian rebels and Jihadi terrorists is perfectly logical

"But, he said, “it’s very hard to separate people when they are being bombed indiscriminately and when [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad has the right to determine who he’s going to bomb, because he can, quote, ‘Go after Nusra,’ but go after the opposition all at the same time because he wants to. You create a confusion that is impossible to separate out.”"

Saudi rehabilitation of terrorists

In this interview with the mouthpiece of King Salman, Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat, an American official praises the Saudi program for the rehabilitation of terrorists, which recently produced the successor to Abu Muhammad Al-`Adnani.

This dude makes it sound as if 20 books per year is a lot of books

"Since we’re well aware of how much the president reads — something like 20 books a year, I’m told — it would be presumptuous of me to suggest anything to him."

When Nation magazine covers the Syrian war: Syrian writers against US and Russian military intervention in Syria

Is this a joke? I know that you can't trust anything on the Middle East from the Zionist Nation magazine but this is like a farce.  The signatories to this statement, like Sadiq Al-Azm, have been advocates of NATO intervention from the very beginning and most of the writers here work in Gulf regimes media, which have been calling for MORE--not less--US intervention in Syria.  Burhan Ghalyun is even one of the signatories.  Their protest is not against US military intervention in Syria but against US agreement with Russia over the cease-fire.  But those nuances are too inconvenient fro the Zionist policies of the Nation magazine.

When the Syrian rebels impose sectarian sieges: rarely in the US press: not in the WP or the NYT

"A punishing siege imposed by Islamist rebels has cut off these two sister towns in northwest Syria for the last 18 months, leaving them at the mercy of truck bombs, mortar barrages, and the terrifying staccato of sniper fire.

The two towns lie in Idlib province, a predominantly Sunni Muslim region southwest of Aleppo. In March 2015, the entire province was overrun by a powerful jihadist coalition known as the Army of Conquest.  The exception was Fuah and Kefraya, two Shiite villages whose roughly 17,000 residents have remained, even under a devastating blockade, loyal to the government. For most, there has seemed to be little choice: Shiite Muslims are seen as apostates by Islamist hard-liners, and the Army of Conquest has threatened to wipe them out.  “A massacre is inevitable — maybe not for everyone, but certainly for the young men. They are always sending them threats on walkie-talkies,” said Mohammad Hassan Taqi, head of the towns’ crisis committee. “But all the possibilities are there: killing, rape, imprisonment of some, to be used as bargaining chips with the government,” he said. The plight of these two Shiite towns says much about how Syria’s sectarian mosaic has been fractured since the onset of the war. In a country where Shiite and Sunni villages were once spread across the landscape in relative harmony, more and more Syrians are being uprooted into sectarian blocs, their borders becoming new fault lines in the greater Sunni-Shiite conflict. A key to the fate of Fuah and Kefraya — and one of the only things keeping the towns intact — is the Four Towns Agreement, a complex truce forged in September 2015 linking the fate of the two Shiite communities in Idlib province to that of Zabadani and Madaya, a pair of Sunni towns controlled by Syrian rebels near the capital, Damascus. Those towns have also been subjected to a relentless siege, in this case by pro-government forces, that has left residents on the verge of starvation."

U.S. forces will be in the Middle East long after ISIS, Carter says

"The Pentagon's two top leaders said Wednesday that the U.S. military will keep forces deployed to the Middle East long after the defeat of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria."

more U.S. soldiers sent to Iraq

"If President Obama signs off on the military’s plan for more troops, the number would rise above 5,000. There are other U.S. troops inside Iraq that the Pentagon claims are on “temporary” assignments, though some of these deployments last up to one year in country. Counting these troops, the new forces going to Iraq will push the unofficial number of American forces on the ground in Iraq to over 6,000 troops." (thanks Amir)

The politics of US aid to Israel

"Grants started to replace loans in 1974. The U.S. government shortly afterwards started to permit Israel to spend twenty-six percent of the annual military grant on purchases in Israel—a unique arrangement, since by law recipient countries must spend all of their Foreign Military Financing in the United States. The result of this has been the build-up of a large Israeli military industry. This industry often relies on U.S. technological inputs, and the United States forbids Israel from manufacturing crucial heavy weaponry, such as fighter jets, in order to maintain control over Israel.

It trusts Israel—a settler-colonial state—with its own weapons industry since the chances of a peoples’ revolt amongst the dominant Jewish sector of the Israeli population is slim-to-none; the weapons will not be turned against the Israeli elite, let alone the United States, as they might one day in Arab countries where revolt is more likely. But it trusts the Israeli elite only so far—for that reason it maintains a monopoly on many of the production lines the Israeli army needs, in order to maintain a veto over Israeli foreign policy.

Furthermore, as the Times suggests, public U.S. military aid can be embarrassing for the Arab states. Several of these states have pretended to be at war with Israel even while maintaining friendly terms with the United States, Israel’s main patron. Although this dynamic was less of an issue after the Camp David Accords with the Anwar Sadat dictatorship in Egypt in the ‘70s, the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan and increasing ties between Israel and the Gulf States, Israel’s colonial repression of the Palestinians continues to be an issue for the surrounding Arab populations. Hence the need for some subterfuge as to who’s actually building Israel’s weapons, and indeed for the United States’ commitment to the peace process—a shadow-play meant mainly for the consumption of the Arab popular classes.

Earlier U.S. military grants, in the 1970s, often went to subsidiaries of U.S. corporations based in Israel, which devoted a significant portion of its budget to developing a trained and educated work-force, capable of aiding in technological development and working in highly-skilled positions in the arms industry.

Later U.S. military grants to Israel were often a quid pro quo, as Israel increasingly took on the work for which the United States could not publicly take responsibility, given popular unease in the States over aid to fascist dictatorships. As the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network note in their well cited report, Israel’s Worldwide Role in Repression,

In the 1970s, Israel armed the brutal military regime of the Argentinian Junta that imposed seven years of state terrorism on the population, including the torture and “disappearance” of an estimated 22,000-30,000 left-wing activists, trade unionists, students, journalists and other alleged anti-regime civilians."

Selective definition of terrorism

"The US has spent the bulk of its war-on-terror existence raining terror on various parts of the globe - a factoid that should have by now become tiresome to repeat, save for the fact that it has not yet managed to cross the threshold of mainstream discourse. Even before the attacks of 11 September 2001, the US had already carved out a name for itself in the realm of extremely violent behaviour, ranging from more blatantly violent campaigns of indiscriminate bombing to the less overt starvation of an estimated half a million Iraqi children via sanctions."

Zionist and racial/ethnic purity

Max Blumenthal: "Explicitly racist and quintessentially liberal Zionist full page ad in NY Times by @AbrahamCenter warns of Israel's loss of ethnic purity"

The courageous George and Amal Clooney

"AMAL CLOONEY SAYS SHE AND GEORGE ARE 'AWARE OF RISKS' IN TAKING ON ISIS". And this man was the cheearleader for the creation of the war criminal state of Souht sudan.  I am not yelling but this headline came in capital letters and it makes me type in capital letters.  

The best summary of Jordanian election results

A reader summarized for me the results of the Jordanian elections: 2/3rd of the members were reelected, and the rest are Muslim Brotherhood and the filthy rich.  Congratulations. Give the King Mo' Money.

Israeli settlements and international law

see this file. (thanks Yasmine)

Zionist-Saudi Alliance

Joe Lieberman serves Saudi regime propaganda

Syrian rebels returning spies to Israel?

"Syrian Opposition forces will return the body of Eli Cohen, the Israeli spy who penetrated the Syrian regime during the early 1960s, the Lebanese news network LBC has reported."

Remember the articles in which Thomas Friedman was praising and his corrupt Kurdish tribal party? Super embezzler, Hoshyar Zebari, sacked

"Embattled Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari, facing accusations of financial and administrative corruption, was sacked Wednesday by Iraq’s Parliament. 

Zebari lost a vote of confidence 185-77, with 14 abstentions, Iraqi MP Baker Amin told Anadolu Agency.  Haitham al-Jubouri, an MP for Iraq’s State of Law coalition, has accused Zebari of allocating state funds for his personal use, including some $2 million for his personal security detail."

the risk to an American of being killed by a refugee in a terrorist attack is 1 in 3.64 billion

"The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, published a report last week finding that, each year, the risk to an American of being killed by a refugee in a terrorist attack is 1 in 3.64 billion — a far cry from the three-in-a-bowl notion expressed in Trump’s tweet."

Blame the US government for those innocent Iranian civilians who were killed in plane crashes in Iran

"Over the past four decades, hundreds of Iranians have died in crashes caused by malfunctioning or poorly maintained aircraft."

New York Times explains the rise of ISIS, Nusrah, and Ahrar Ash-Sham and various Islamist Jihadi variants in Syria

"Communities took up arms to defend themselves".  And where did those communities buy the arms from, and who funded the arms sales?

Ba`thist "elections"

Jordanian elections deserve the same respect that Ba`thist elections deserve. Do you respect Ba`thist elections? 

Understatement about Jordanian "elections"

"leaving the government firmly in control of an institution that has little real authority in this monarchy anyway."

Why US gives billions in aid to Jordanian regime

According to the Times it is for the refugee crisis: "Maintaining stability in Jordan is a top American priority in the region and the United States is providing $1.6 billion this year to help it cope with the crisis". Excuse me but Lebanon has also accommodated 1.2 million Syrian refugee and never got anything  near that figure from the US. Did you forget the payback for peace agreement with Israeli occupation state?

An American professor explains why US bombing of civilians is acceptable

"As long as there are airstrikes, “there’s always going to be some percentage of the strikes that are going to go awry,” said Robert Farley, a professor at the University of Kentucky who has written about the use of American air power."

Zionist “whitewash protocol.”

"Israeli and Palestinian rights organizations have challenged the credibility of Israel’s inquiries into possible military misconduct during the 2014 war in Gaza, with one group describing the internal legal process as a “facade” intended to try to stave off a war crimes investigation by the International Criminal Court.

In a report released on Tuesday, the group, B’Tselem, a left-wing Israeli organization that focuses on allegations of rights abuses against Palestinians in Gaza and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, characterized the military’s system of internal investigations as a “whitewash protocol.”

“The work of the military law enforcement system does nothing more than offer the illusion that Israel is fulfilling its obligations to investigate breaches of law,” the group said."

US-backed coalition air strike hit a house, killing 19 civilians

From a reader: ""At least 19 civilians were killed on Wednesday when a Saudi-led coalition air strike hit a house in western Yemen, according to residents, medics and a local official."

The victims

Yemen: On the brink of starvation

Physicians without Borders II

Physicians without Borders today declared that Saudi bombing of Yemenis have been good for the health of the Yemeni children.

Physicians without Borders

Physicians without Borders today declared the Saudi King as "the best Physician in the world".  

Senate tacitly endorses U.S. role in Yemen war

"The Senate overwhelmingly agreed to proceed with arms sales to Saudi Arabia on Sept. 21, in effect casting the first vote on US participation after 18 months of war in Yemen." "We now have a war in Yemen, and yes we are directly involved in that war," Paul said. "And yes, this is a vote not just about weapons; this is a vote about whether we should be at war in Yemen." "

Sen. Corker claims that U.S. weapons can help the Saudi monarchy "fight terrorism"

"Corker also claimed that U.S. weapons can help the Saudi monarchy “fight terrorism.” Saudi Arabia has, at best, a mixed record on terrorism. As the U.S. State Department and the European Parliament have both acknowledged, “Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” Moreover, Saudi Arabia has spent tens of billions of dollars exporting its fundamentalist state Wahhabi ideology — which is very similar to the ideology of ISIS and al-Qaeda — throughout the world, fueling extremist groups."

Repugnant Exploitation of the Holocaust is permitted by American Zionists if done by Zionists

" "[Think about if we] want to cut off military aid to [Iran] because of human rights violations when the people on the other side are watching Iran destroy the Mideast, threaten us and create the possibility of a second holocaust of the Jewish people," Graham said."

Israeli embassy in London linked to anti-BDS "black ops"

"The new director of the Jewish Labour Movement was an officer at the Israeli embassy in London for the past year, The Electronic Intifada can reveal." "In an August 2014 interview with Jewish News, when she was incoming president of the Union of Jewish Students, Ella Rose promised to “combat BDS.” "Recently, the director general of the Israeli government ministry charged with fighting BDS said the ministry was using its $45 million budget to wage a “battle” against BDS “with a lot of secrecy.” According to one veteran Israeli security journalist, the ministry is engaging in “black ops” against activists around the world, which may include “defamation campaigns, harassment and threats to the lives of activists” as well as “infringing on and violating their privacy.” "

Jordanian elections

I follow the Jordanian tribal-clannish-royal "elections" with the same zeal in which I follow the results of camel races of Gulf royals.

How many strongholds does Hizbullah have?

"Hezbollah has ramped up its influence from its stronghold in southern Lebanon, despite being classified as a terrorist group by various foreign states and despite its control of a militia." (thanks Basim)

You see, Saad Hariri is suffering from serious financial crisis

And Saudi royals are refusing to meet with him to bankroll his company, Saudi Oger.  So he is trying everything: including having people writes articles for him in praise of Saudi regime: "Contrast this with what Saudi Arabia has done for Lebanon. In the 1980s, while Iran was busy directing its proxy militias in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia helped the country reach a historic agreement to end its civil war."

This is hilarious. Look at the mild language director of HRW uses about (not against) Saudi regime

Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth)

9/22/16, 7:41 AM Saudis are now owning up to finding Islamic extremism in the past, but have they stopped? Very unclear. bit.ly/2d3uhuXpic.twitter.com/2Ay5RF10Ea

How Israel pressured US Berkeley to cancel a course in mid-semester

"According to an Israeli TV station, the Assn. of University Heads in Israel had "covertly" tried to stop the course. Administrators said the reason for pulling the plug was procedural — that proper approval had not been obtained."

Amos Oz issues a fatwa about anti-Semitism

"“But if they carry on saying that therefore there should be no Israel, that’s where anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism".  So if you say that there should be no Iranian Islamic republic or no Saudi kingdom, it means you are anti-Islam? Because I am against all three.

PS Of course, the article cites me to prove that the agenda of BDS is against the very existence of Israel--which is not, and I wish it is.