US Intelligence Report on Russian Hacking: Trolls did it

You have to say: for those who believe that Russian intelligence won the election for Trump, they really really have a very low opinion of the US political system.  What kind of an election and a democracy if the results of presidential elections can be swayed by trolling and hacking?  This report will be added to the history of embarrassing reports by the US intelligence agencies.  And since the report was listing the various "open sources" badmouthing of Hillary by Russian propagandists, why did the list miss the FBI director whose famous letter to US Congress did more to sway the voters in the last few days of the election than the Wikileaks releases.  The report is weak, particular when we saw at least twice that NSA had "moderate" confidence in certain assertions, in which CIA and FBI had "high" confidence.  Also, for a report carrying the fanfare it does (if you measure by newspapers headlines) it is rather weak and even contain the word "probably" (see image).  The case is basically a combination of secret sources (which we can't judge and we have to accept the veracity of the three (not 17) intelligence agencies, and the rest are basically trolls and RT news programs.  If the report lists (in absurd details) Russian TV programming about US elections as a factor in a report about Russian hacking, than US coverage of every election in every corner in the globe, specially if you factor in US propaganda outlets like Hurra TV or Sawa Radio, then US is guilty of worst crimes than Russia, especially if you factor in the scope of "open source" US favoring of candidates around the world.  This is a weak report which should be dismissed--barring any evidence which can be released to the public.  If you read the report, in its unclassified version, you come up with the conclusion that there was a desperate attempt to links evidence where links were not provided.  I mean, how do we know that the Russian TV programs (and even trolls) were linked to the Russian intelligence board orchestrating hacking? Finally, look at the chart below: I have been telling you for some time, that Russian propaganda TV, RT, is really growing--I know it is in the Middle East at least.

PS I swear: the New York Times is as loyal to the US intelligence-military apparatus as the Saudi mouthpieces of princes are loyal to the Saudi regime.  The New York Times calls this report "damning and surprisingly detailed" when I thought it was flimsy and surprisingly undetailed. And we read the same report.

PPS Also, if voters in the US are swayed by Russian propaganda, do you blame the voters or Russian propaganda? If voters are swayed by Al-Qa`idah propaganda, do you blame Al-Qa`idah or voters who are susceptible to Russian propaganda.  Also, the report talks about RT reports mocking the health of Hillary and her candidacy: as if Drudge Report and Fox News were not doing that--unless the classified version of the Intelligence Report also links those two entities to Russian intelligence.  

Obama's Legacy: "American Special Operations Forces Are Deployed to 70 Percent of the World’s Countries"

"SOCOM’s shadow wars against terror groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State (also known as ISIL) may, ironically, be its most visible operations. Shrouded in even more secrecy are its activities—from counterinsurgency and counterdrug efforts to seemingly endless training and advising missions—outside acknowledged conflict zones across the globe. These are conducted with little fanfare, press coverage, or oversight in scores of nations every single day. From Albania to Uruguay, Algeria to Uzbekistan, America’s most elite forces—Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets among them—were deployed to 138 countries in 2016, according to figures supplied to TomDispatch by US Special Operations Command. This total, one of the highest of Barack Obama’s presidency, typifies what has become the golden age of, in SOF-speak, the “gray zone”—a phrase used to describe the murky twilight between war and peace. The coming year is likely to signal whether this era ends with Obama or continues under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

“In just the past few years, we have witnessed a varied and evolving threat environment consisting of: the emergence of a militarily expansionist China; an increasingly unpredictable North Korea; a revanchist Russia threatening our interests in both Europe and Asia; and an Iran which continues to expand its influence across the Middle East, fueling the Sunni-Shia conflict,” General Thomas wrote last month in PRISM, the official journal of the Pentagon’s Center for Complex Operations. “Nonstate actors further confuse this landscape by employing terrorist, criminal, and insurgent networks that erode governance in all but the strongest states.… Special operations forces provide asymmetric capability and responses to these challenges.”

In 2016, according to data provided to TomDispatch by SOCOM, the United States deployed special operators to China (specifically Hong Kong), in addition to eleven countries surrounding it—Taiwan (which China considers a breakaway province), Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Laos, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan. Special Operations Command does not acknowledge sending commandos into Iran, North Korea, or Russia, but it does deploy troops to many nations that ring them.

SOCOM is willing to name only 129 of the 138 countries its forces deployed to in 2016. “Almost all Special Operations Forces deployments are classified,” spokesman Ken McGraw told TomDispatch. “If a deployment to a specific country has not been declassified, we do not release information about the deployment.”

SOCOM does not, for instance, acknowledge sending troops to the war zones of Somalia, Syria, or Yemen, despite overwhelming evidence of a US special ops presence in all three countries, as well as a White House report, issued last month, that notes “the United States is currently using military force in” Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, and specifically states that “U.S. special operations forces have deployed to Syria.”

According to Special Operations Command, 55.29 percent of special operators deployed overseas in 2016 were sent to the Greater Middle East, a drop of 35 percent since 2006. Over the same span, deployments to Africa skyrocketed by more than 1600 percent—from just 1 percent of special operators dispatched outside the U.S. in 2006 to 17.26 percent last year. Those two regions were followed by areas served by European Command (12.67 percent), Pacific Command (9.19 percent), Southern Command (4.89 percent), and Northern Command (0.69 percent), which is in charge of “homeland defense.” On any given day, around 8,000 of Thomas’s commandos can be found in more than 90 countries worldwide."

Commmander of the Faithful: King of Morocco

Muhammad bin Salman in Foreign Affairs

My question is this: if the Saudi regime were to produce a political advertisement would it be different than this, really?  "His command of the issues was solid, his delivery even better. His body language signaled confidence, even though he was the youngest and least experienced person in the room. He had charisma. But most important of all, he made a more powerful case for his country than any Saudi official had done before.The deputy crown prince’s commitment to meritocracy is real, and is completely antithetical to the country’s patronage-based gerontocracy. He recruits the best and the brightest, and those who underperform are either asked to pack up or offered early retirement plans..."

Non-Muslim origins of present-day terrorism of the Middle East

I wrote about this before, but as recently I have been writing about the Lebanese civil war the war crimes by Lebanese Forces, it can be safely ascertained that all the war crimes by ISIS and Al-Qa`idah were in fact pioneered and perfected by terrorist Zionist gangs in Palestine, and later by Phalanges and their allies in the Lebanese civil war.  You name it: beheading, burning of people alive, raping, enslaving, torture, etc.  

Number of US bombs dropped in 2016 on Arab and Muslim countries (partial list, of course)

Source

When Syrian rebels commit war crimes: how Western media service bombings by rebels

Look at the headline: 1) they mention the source in order to cast doubt on the credibility of the story, as if there is no other evidence of an explosion of a car bomb; they refer to "government-held" in order to rationalize the bombing and make it seem as a legitimate military target.  "Syrian state TV: Car bomb kills 10 in government-held town".

Saudi mouthpiece of Prince Khalid bin Sultan, Al-Hayat, portrays foreign workers as rats

What is happening in Qatif in Saudi Arabia?

There is a lot happening in Qatif in Saudi Arabia with no coverage by Western media.  Whole neighborhoods are being razed while populations are being moved. Here is an account which I received from my reliable sources in Qatif. It is too long for me to translate into English.

I know what it is about Megyn Kelly

If you spew right-wing propaganda while smiling to the camera, it is seen as a sign of moderation in US mainstream media.  

Trevor Noah

OK. At what point will it be decided that the guy is just not funny, and a search for a replacement should begin?

Jordanian chief-of-staff's remarks concerning coordination with the Syrian regime

This, of course, will go unnoticed in the Western press. Jordanian chief-of-staff made very favorable remarks about the Syrian regime and said that they are working together against a common enemy.

UAE ambassador in Russia predicts that Trump would be a "great president"

Do you notice that all Gulf regimes praise and groveling to Trump goes uncovered in Western media, which instead focuses on a distorted statement by Bashshar Al-Asad to show him as the only ally of Trump in the Arab world? Watch the ambassador's remarks here.

The economic war on ISIS: Washington Post US propaganda

ISIS enjoyed tremendous oil economy...until the Russians arrived into Syria. For the whole time when the US had free control of the skies, it barely caused a dent of damage. It is indubitable that the oil economy of ISIS, and the destruction of the fuel trucks, was in fact caused by Russian bombing and not US bombing. But for a propaganda account without any substantiation and logic, see this account in the Post.

The story of water cut-off in Damascus: or how Western media report war crimes by rebels

This is typical of Western media reporting about Syria.  There were stories two weeks ago of how the Syrian rebels poured diesel in the water going to Damascus and how they detonated the springs going go Damascus.  Some Syrian rebels supporters even did not deny it on social media.  Throughout that time, Western media strictly ignored the story of cut off of water to Damascus.  Wait. Until that is when the K street PR firms hired by US government to propagandize for the Syrian rebels came up with a story that Syrian regime caused the water cut off, and they produced "pictures" according to this silly New York Times propaganda account.  Or they hide behind: the picture is too murky for anyone to know the truth. But why is the picture always clear when Syrian regime commit war crimes, but the picture gets only conveniently murky when the rebels commit war crimes? Who will please my heart--as we say in Arabic--and teach the first course on Media and Propaganda in the Coverage of Syria war in Western media. Which university will host such a course?

Huston Smith, dead

As if observing the rituals of one religion is not difficult enough, this is a man who incorporated rituals of several religions in his daily worship.

The fact-checker of the Washington Post is becoming rather comical

"Hamas later seized control of Gaza and started raining rockets on Israeli towns.)"  Just like that. While poor defenseless Israel was as usual sticking to its non-violent principles, right?

Look at this guy: as if Obama made the world unsafe for dictators: he sold more arms to dictators than any president

Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth)

1/3/17, 6:33 PM Does Trump really want to be known as the US president who made the world safe for dictators? It's sad we must ask. bit.ly/2hNj8ydpic.twitter.com/5fWVH4VaII

The vulgar Orientalism of Adonis

Adonis studied at St. Joseph University.  He was not trained by erudite and knowledgeable Orientalists. Read his PhD dissertation to realize that it would not have passed the requirements in any US university.  Read this vulgar Orieantlist piece by him, in which he invokes crude Islamphobes.  

This clip by the Egyptian journalist, Ibrahim Issa, caused his dismissal

He attacks the Wahhabi Saudi clerics and Al-Azhar (which he accuses of being infiltrated by Wahhabis).

US Congress moves to No State for Palestinians

"Additionally, the Republican Party, in a platform revision this summer, removed explicit references to two states. The Republican fund-raiser who helped engineer that change, Jeff Ballabon, told BuzzFeed News over the long weekend that now, within the GOP, “you have to justify the notion of a two-state solution.” That might not be true yet, but the sponsors of the resolution competing with Royce’s is a who’s who of the party’s anti-establishment right wing. They have scored impressive wins in recent years, not least of which is backing the winning candidate for president. While the resolution disapproves of the U.N. resolution and the Obama administration’s abstention, it does not refer to the two-state solution. “Two states” was omitted, a Ross spokeswoman said, because the resolution was more narrowly focused. “The resolution is a very narrow response to the U.N.’s vote, specifically condemning President Obama’s instruction to abstain and abandon our closest ally,” Joni Shockey told JTA. Whereas the Royce resolution emphasizes backing Israel in its quest for peace, the Ross resolution stresses the alliance, saying that Congress “affirms its commitment to the State of Israel as our loyal friend and strong ally in the Middle East.”"

Zionism is always racism: "Netanyahu openly boasts of Israel’s war on Africans"

"10. Moshe Kaspi, university dean

In February, the dean of an Israeli university gave his students an exam that contained a question which implicitly compared African refugees to rats.  In the test authored and administered by Moshe Kaspi, a dean at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, engineering students were asked to calculate the cost of removing rodents from the Tel Aviv area, transferring them to a holding center in the south of the country, and then shipping them to Africa, where they would be experimented on."

Joseph Massad's Islam in Liberalism reviewed

"Massad’s contribution, in other words, is to posit Islam not as something in contention with liberalism — as a claim to a particularist set of values — but rather as formative of the liberal project itself. In this way Massad destabilizes a singularly European history of liberalism. An imagined Islam has always been present within this European project and any attempt to grapple with that project today must attend to the construction and elision of Islam at liberalism’s core." 

Flash: Saudi regime claims that Wikileaks on Saudi Arabia are "forged"--more than a year and a half after their release

So Saudi regime now denies the authenticity of Wikileaks document on Saudi Arabia.  

The Middle East's productivity growth

The Middle East's productivity growth is negative, income per head in 1980 was 40% higher than current levels. 
Reference: Goldman Sachs Research

Megyn Kelly

I never understood--and I will never understand--how it was decided (when I was not looking) that Megyn Kelly is a great reporter.

The horrible role of UNRWA and its use by the US government over the decades

In the new book by Salah Salah (former politburo of the PFLP) he talks about UNRWA, and if there is someone who knows the Palestinian refugee camps intimately it is Salah Salah and his wife Samira.  UNRWA has been a tool of the US government often used to spy on the Palestinian people and to mould and change their political culture. There are declassified US document in which the US even considered (in the late 1960s) using UNRWA as a "security" force against the Palestinian people and its rising armed resistance groups but the rejection by the general secretariat of the UN torpedoed the plan.  

Some of what Israel did to Palestinians in one year--or what US media don't cover

In one year, Israel killed 134 Palestinians, including 35 children.  Most were shot at checkpoints--the numbers of checkpoints increased to more than 472 in the West Bank.  There were licenses to 37335 settlement "units".  Settlement construction increased by 57 % last year.  As for land theft, Israel confiscated more than 12326 dunes of Palestinian lands in West Bank and Gaza (not counting Palestinian lands of 1948).  Israeli occupation destroyed 1023 homes and installation in the West Bank and Jerusalem.  Israeli also uprooted more than 6500 olive trees in Jerusalem and West Bank.  (Source Hani Hurani Center).

When it comes to corruption of Israeli leaders, the New York Times prefers the word "graft"

Change of title.

If this "Facebook Law" was in any other country in the world, it would have triggered outrage and condemnation--but this is Israel

"The Removal of Criminally Offensive Content from the Internet bill – dubbed the “Facebook bill” –  passed its first reading on Tuesday morning in the Knesset plenum. Social media platforms may be required by court orders to remove content deemed as criminal by the state.  The bill – which was drafted by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked – would empower Israeli Administrative Courts to issue orders to remove online content at the request of state prosecutors."  Can you imagine this Orwellian Zionist occupation entity? The length to which it goes to censor?  And notice that the persecution of Arab members of the lousy Knesset barely get any coverage in Western media.

Lebanese protocol

Look at this hall in the prime ministerial headquarters in Beirut.  They placed the prime minister in the corner of the hall.  He looks like a student who is serving a punishment.

US-backed coalition killed five family members in Yemen

"At least five family members were killed on Sunday, when Saudi-led warplanes struck a family home twice in Yemen's central province of Marib, residents and rescuers said. The father, mother and three of their children died, whereas three other children from the same family were critically wounded and were rushed to the nearest hospital for treatment, one of the rescuers told Xinhua by phone. Residents said the house belonged to citizen Mohammed Mohsen al-Mahboobi in the district of Serwah in Marib province."

Tunisian security complicit in Mossad crimes there

"To have genuine justice for the many Palestinians and Arabs who have been murdered in cold blood by the Israeli Mossad, we need to also “clean house” and expose and prosecute all those complicit in such crimes, especially those still in power."

anti-Semites for Zionism

"We are now approaching the centennial of the British Original Sin in this tragedy, the Balfour Declaration. The British role in Palestine was a case of ‘hit & run’: The Balfour Declaration, in which the British gave away other people’s land, was the hit; and thirty years later, Resolution 181—Partition—was the run, leaving the Palestinians abandoned in a ditch. Zionism was of course among the incarnations of racial-nationalism that evolved in the late nineteenth century. Bigots were Zionism’s avid fans—it was the anti-Semites who championed the Zionists." (thanks Amir)

The other Ambassador Ford from UK

"He said: "The British ForeignOffice to which I used to belong, I’m sorry to say has gotten Syria wrong every step of the way. "They told us at the beginning that Assad’s demise was imminent. They told us he’d be gone by Christmas. They didn’t say which Christmas, so they could still be proven correct. "But then they told us that the opposition was dominated by these so-called moderates. That proved not to be the case and now they're telling us another big lie – that Assad can’t control the rest of the country. Well I’ve got news for them – he’s well on the way to doing so." Mr Ford said that when the conflict started the UK should have either "put everything, including our own forces on to the battlefield, or if in our judgement – as it would have been my judgement – that was not realistic, refrain from encouraging the opposition to mount a doomed campaign." He claimed the UK’s tough talk on one hand, followed by little action to back rebels in Syria on the other had preceded a rebellion that had "only led to hundreds of thousands of civilians being maimed and killed"."

Notice that this discredited Human Rights person does not count terrorist attacks in Syria as terrorist attacks

Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth)

1/2/17, 1:13 AM The awful toll of terrorist attacks in Turkey over past year and a half. bit.ly/2hIjRFP pic.twitter.com/nI9qkB71Jr

Anti-democratic Israeli political culture

Look at this NYT reporter how he justifies the anti-democratic impulses of Israelis

Max Fisher ‏@Max_Fisher  2h2 hours ago

In Israel as in virtually all societies, skepticism of democracy is a lot more pronounced as a revealed preference than a stated preference

Ben Laden's mentor, `Abdullah Azzam, used to tour the US to mobilize Islamists on behalf of US-Saudi alliance

Those pictures were taken from a US-sponsored tour of Azzam in the US, on college campuses (and hosted by Saudi-supported Muslim Arab student association).

Where are the tears of Western correspondents in Beirut?

"U.S.-led strikes killed at least 188 civilians in Iraq and Syria, U.S. military says". So if this is the official number, it means you have to multiply it by a factor of two or three, at least.

From May 2013 in the New Yorker: so was this a government disinformation?

Now that we know the US was behind the shutdown of the internet in Syria, what do we make of this?  "WHY DID SYRIA SHUT DOWN THE INTERNET?"

A Zionist (David Brooks) explains obstacles to "peace" since 1948

"Now, the settlements are an obstacle to peace, but they might be the sixth or seventh most important obstacle to peace, the primary one being the legitimate fear of an ISIS in the West Bank, the existence of Hamas, which is in Gaza, which doesn't recognize the state of Israel." (thanks Basim)

Huffington Post Qatari regime: the official voice of misogyny

The Huffington Post Arabic (Qatari regime mouthpiece) is the most crude voice of misogyny.  Here is an article in which a male writer berates Syrian women (the headline of the article calls for the return of female infanticide):  "I say to you frankly: a day will come to you when the fire of sorrow will eat you heart out, after you reach spinsterhood big time...but regret shall never benefit you.  I really wonder why there are no societies for men's rights or is the man a couch and not a human with feelings and sentiments and rights.  In my name and the name of helpless youth, I call for the formation of a society for the right of men and his protection from the oppression of women and her tyranny".  

US administrations and UNSC resolution critical of Israel

The argument du jour for Syrian rebel supporters in the Arab media

Writers in Saudi/Qatari media never run out of arguments against critics and foes of the Jihadi Syrian rebels.  Every week, almost, there is a new argument. The most dominant argument has been that if you oppose Syrian Jihadi rebels then it means you are an Islamophobe.  But that argument did not stick. So they have a new one: those right-wing anti-leftists hacks stumbled lo and behold on class analysis (in Saudi media, mind you): they now say that if you oppose the Syrian Jihadi rebels it means that you are against the poor.  I kid you not.  Yes, class analysis and love of the poor is a feature of the political behavior of oil and gas princes.