When asked by Max Blumenthal in a public form at the Hariri-Saudi-funded Atlantic Council, Lister explains: yes, he did label the Zingi group as "moderate" and now he thinks that they are not moderate and that they are "disgusting". But the explanation is that the group changed: it was a moderate and secular and feminist and democratic group but something happened to it and changed. This is like when Saudi royals say that Bin Laden was a very nice guy but that he was corrupted by Ayman Adh-Dhawahiri, or when Western correspondents in Beirut say that the Syrian rebels were all secular and moderate and feminist but that when the regime shot at demonstrators they grew beard the next day and became Jihadis.
Friday, January 13, 2017
William Polk and the House of Saud
Former Middle East studies professor at Harvard and Chicago (and US government official), William Polk, is still alive. He recently received an invitation to visit Saudi Arabia from his friend, Sultan bin Salman, who he met in southern France. So Polk visited the Kingdom and came back with a glowing report which he circulated to some of his friends. One of them published in a Saudi newspaper. Don't you like experts on the Middle East when they praise the Saudi kingdom? I am sure it is based on "shared principles" and "love of knowledge".
Adam Shatz and the conventional wisdom about Obama
1) this is not true: "The Arab Spring stirred hopes of reversing this bleak trend, and Mr. Obama initially gambled on its success, defying old allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel and expressing support for pro-democracy movements in Egypt and Tunisia." Obama clearly favored the pro-US dictatorship and even tried hard to arrange that they stay in power and allowed them to use force to stay but when it became impossible for them to stay, he pretended that he was for democracy. If anything, Obama was a leader of the counter-revolution movement from day one.
2) Shatz faults Obama because he did not fight a bigger war in Syria. If he did, he would have been declared a man of peace by Shatz.
2) Shatz faults Obama because he did not fight a bigger war in Syria. If he did, he would have been declared a man of peace by Shatz.
How Syria is covered in Western media
So Western governments and even Western human rights organizations fund organizations in developing countries and then cite their reports as reliable information by natives. "The report from the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) found that Syrian regime helicopters dropped 12,958 barrel bombs in 2016 in total. The strikes resulted in the deaths of 653 civilians, SNHR found, including 166 children and 86 women. "
Notice: This guy never uses the word "slaughter" about US and its allies--but uses it daily about Syria and Russia
| Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) | |
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It's not just the Saudis. United Arab Emirates bombers also use Western weapons to kill Yemeni civilians. bit.ly/2ippvvh pic.twitter.com/sUpj8Q751k
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Zionist US media are allowed to cover Palestinian protests
But only if they are not against Israel. Daily protests and complaints by Palestinians are ignored but if one protest or demonstration is held against Hamas it is widely covered in the New York Times. Of course, the crisis should be first blamed on Israeli occupation and second on Hamas government. The size of the demonstration is inflated.
Corruption in Israel
So this Israeli writes in the New York Times to tell you that corruption and rape among politicians in Israel is not a big deal because Israelis do things differently and are cute about it. Just remember how US media came to Rabin's defense when he opened a secret bank account (against the law in the occupation state).
The Kerry tape: U.S., rather than fighting ISIS, used jihadists to pressure Assad
"Kerry and his associates said we and the Saudis and Qatar and Turkey had provided huge amounts of aid to the rebels, who unfortunately were sort of aligned with extremists." "Combine this with the wikileaks revelation that the US State Department and Hillary Clinton knew our Arab allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar were giving ISIS “clandestine financial and logistic support” as it swept across Iraq and Syria in 2014, and you have the anti-interventionist view of America’s role in the Syrian war all nicely set out by John Kerry and someone in the State Department: We and our Arab allies supplied weapons. This caused the violence to escalate. The good rebels “kind of” work with extremists, who get direct funding from our Arab allies. We thought the rise of ISIS would prove useful in pressuring Assad, but Putin intervened not because Russia wants to bomb civilians but because of the rise of ISIS."
First week of 2017: Israel demolishes homes of 151 Palestinians
"The number of Palestinian buildings demolished in the first week of January 2017 is almost four times as high as the weekly average for 2016: 20 structures. In 2015, the average was 10 structures a week, according to the records of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). In Area C, which is under full Israeli civil and security control, between Monday and Thursday the Israel Defense Forces’ Civil Administration demolished 65 structures in Palestinian communities, and seven rainwater cisterns. The Jerusalem Municipality demolished another two homes in East Jerusalem. Some 151 people, including 90 children, lived in the buildings that were demolished." (thanks Amir)
I don't like flags and I don't like nationalisms but...
Yes, because Obama and Kerry speak regularly to GCC regimes about human rights
| Ben Hubbard (@NYTBen) | |
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WaPo Editorial: Tillerson doesn’t seem to realize speaking up for human rights is part of the job wapo.st/2jf660Q
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Obama's defense of Sudanese dictatorship
In the name of a joint effort against "terrorism", Obama administration lifts sanctions against Sudanese dictatorship at the time when repression there has increased. This is also Obama Doctrine. This is what Human Rights Watch does not see.
Putin and the Far Left in the US
Regarding this article, while I don't agree with the thrust or orientation, I do believe that the far let has to be more critical of Putin and his policies and military role. We can criticize the military-intelligence apparatus and its endorsement of Hillary and its attack on Trump (not for the right reasons) while also maintaining a critical stance of Russian government. This of course should be done in conflict with the crazy mainstream media's coverage of Russia and its agitation for a return to the Cold War.
What is happening in Jordan: what Western media and human rights organizations ignore
There has been a strong and wide campaign on social media in Jordan against corruption in government. How has the royal regime responded? It has been issuing new laws and regulations banning criticisms of government and saying that they amount to "hatred culture" and "terrorism". i am not making this up.
Finally. New York Times persuasively explains why it considers Palestinian attacks on Israeli soldiers terrorism
"Asked by The Electronic Intifada to comment why The New York Times used that term to characterize an attack on soldiers, Jodi Rudoren, deputy international editor and former Jerusalem bureau chief, replied, “A truck ramming into a crowd felt like terrorism.”"
Thursday, January 12, 2017
In Defense of the Syrian Observatory: about civilian casualties in Syria
Göran sent me this (I cite with his permission): "I read your post on the Syrian Observatory and its suspicious statistics on Syrian war casualties. In this case, concerning the number of Islamic State fighters killed in a US raid on Deir ez-Zor.
I agree that this lone guy in the English countryside, with his secretive brotherhood of informers, on each and every side of the front lines, is simply not credible. The problem is who is credible?
You may be correct in your assessment of this specific incident. But this does not reflect the general tendency of SOHR. I haven’t found any clear signs of political agenda or bias in SOHR statistics. Apart from this early practice of counting Syrian rebel combatants as “civilians”. Mr. Abdel-Rahman’s sympathies are clearly on the opposition side. Yet his numbers consistently undermine many main themes of opposition propaganda.
When the Syrian regime (presumably) launched the Sarin gas attack 2013 on the Damascus eastern Ghouta suburbs, SOHR statistics showed only 502 deaths, about a third of the official American assessment. Abdel-Rahman commented: "America works only with one part of the opposition that is deep in propaganda."
We are often told that Russian air raid are solely focused on civilian targets (especially schools and hospitals) and conscientiously avoid hitting the Islamic State organization.
Not so, if we are to believe SOHR statistics. Since September 2015, 10,340 people have been killed in Russian air raids. 62 % of the casualties were combatants, almost equally distributed between rebels/islamists (3,068) and IS (2,887). The 38% civilian casualties presumably include both collateral damage and the Russian deliberate targeting of hospitals and schools.
We are also told that the Syrian army has collapsed and it is now mainly foreign “sectarian” militias doing the fighting for the regime side, while the opposition remains mainly Syrian.
Not so. According to SOHR statistics more than 90% of regime fatalities last year were Syrians (either army or domestic militia), while only 9% were non-Syrians, and that includes Palestinians. Only 1% regime side fatalities 2016 belonged to Hizballah.
On the opposition side (including rebels, islamists, Kurds and the IS), however, 62% of the killed last year were non-Syrians.
We are further told that the majority of the victims in the Syrian war are civilians.
Not so, according to SOHR. Of the total 49,742 killed in the Syrian conflict last year, only 27% were civilians and less than 10% were women or children. Which of course is terrible enough. But I would be surprised if any independent estimate of civilian casualties of an Israeli or American war has ever been this low.
According to SOHR statistics from the last month of the fighting in Aleppo city (Nov-Dec), a total of 993 were killed in east Aleppo, due to ground fighting, shelling and air bombardment, 45% of which were civilians. 56% were combatants from both sides. 130 were killed by rebel shelling of west Aleppo, 100% of which were civilians. Not a single combatant was killed.
Fatalities in Syria 2016
Civilians
|
13 617
|
27%
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Children
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2 885
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5.8%
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Women
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1 855
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3.7%
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Men
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8 877
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18%
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Total rebels
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21 467
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43%
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Syrian rebels
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8 170
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16%
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Foreign fighters
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13 297
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27%
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Total regime
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14 192
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29%
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Syrian army / militia
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12 886
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26%
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Foreign pro-gov't fighters
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1 306
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3%
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Unidentified
|
466
|
1%
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49 742
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100%
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I wonder: would Human Rights Watch dare say that about Hizbullah?
| Sarah Leah Whitson (@sarahleah1) | |
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.@hrw - Tillerson conflating Islamist political groups like Muslim Brotherhood w violent extremists like AQ is ignorant of facts, harmfulpic.twitter.com/0PyM9CKQrF
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Aloïs Brunner and the Syrian regime
This is a typical Zionist ploy: to talk about Nazi infiltration of Arab lands. Zionist hoodlums, especially official US Zionist organizations, were utterly silent about US recruitment and shipment of top Nazi scientists and intelligence terrorists who were recruited to work for the US military-intelligence apparatus. There were no cries and protests by those groups about US utilization of a large contingent of Nazis: they were in the hundreds. Yet, Israel and its supporters have for years peddled stories about Nazis in Arab governments. They did that about Nasser. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever about use of Nazis by Arab governments--nothing verifiable. Also, what was left of those Nazis when US took the bulk of them, and left what was left to the Soviet Union. Here is another story about Brunner: all the stories about him being in Syria are not in any way verifiable and not even proven. All are rumors which have been traced to Zionist organizations relying on the account of someone who told someone who told someone. Brunner would have been in his 70s in the 1980s, and yet they have him training Syrian regime about intelligence--when the regime had the use of East European regimes at the time. Notice that Zionists in the US never talk about the contacts between Saudi regime and the Nazi regime at its time. They never do.
Anti-BDS rules at a US IT company
Trump's pick for CIA: trained by Frank Gaffney
"Occasionally, Pompeo gestures at the idea that not all Muslims are the enemy, but he’s often quick to assign collective guilt. In June 2013, he took to the House floor to falsely accuse Muslim leaders of failing to condemn terrorism in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing. “When the most devastating terrorist attacks on America in the last 20 years come overwhelmingly from people of a single faith, and are performed in the name of that faith, a special obligation falls on those that are the leaders of that faith,” he said. Then he added: “The silence in the face of extremism coming from the best-funded Islamic advocacy organizations and many mosques across America is absolutely deafening. It casts doubt upon the commitment to peace by adherents of the Muslim faith.”
In 2014, Pompeo appeared on a Family Research Council podcast along with the group’s president, Tony Perkins. Both were indignant at Obama’s claim that America isn’t engaged in a clash of civilizations with the Muslim world. “It is in fact a clash of civilizations!” said Perkins. “This is exactly what we’re facing here, and if he is unwilling to acknowledge that, how in the world do you protect Western civilization?” Pompeo responded: “In Western thought, there is this idea that you can’t address an evil absent calling it by its name. President Reagan understood that. President Bush, although he did not complete the mission, I think he understood that deeply.” Perhaps someone in the Senate can ask him how he plans to complete George W. Bush’s mission when he gets to the CIA."
Zygmunt Bauman, dead: his "liquid" Zionism
Bauman has died and the obituaries in the West did not bother to mention his interesting views on Israel and Zionism. I don't support all his views on Israel: he refused the calls for boycott and gave lectures there in recent years. He also had family ties to Israel. He was in Poland a hard-core communist and he was expelled from Poland after his father visited the Israeli embassy and inquired about emigration to Israel. But when he moved to Israel he could not last: he said that he was escaping from nationalism. He famously in an interview in Polish compared Israeli racist separation wall with the Nazi wall around Warsaw Ghetto. That really infuriated Zionist hoodlums around the world. He later tried to "clarify" his remarks but then added: that if the Palestinians were to have ignited the wall, the Zionists would have been the first to draw that analogy. He was very critical of Israeli and Zionist political exploitation of the Holocaust for political ends. But he believed in dialogue and all that.
Cory Booker and the pathetic response of Muslim Americans and their lousy organizations
I understand that liberals are hoping for another national leader who can inspire them like Obama. They have now focused on Cory Booker: who has the charisma of Chuck Schumer. This is a man who can't inspire anyone even if his life depended on it. His understanding of the meaning of leadership is to reproduce Democratic cliches about politics. He is a fanatical Zionist who thinks that his fast rise in politics can be accomplished by serving the Zionist lobby with more enthusiasm than his colleagues. He spoke fiercely against the UN vote and cosponsored a resolution against it. Yet, Muslims in New Jersey honored this guy. But then again: Muslim American organizations invite humiliation and subjugation of Muslims. So I am not really surprised.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Arming the Palestinian people
Look. Most supporters of Palestinians agree: that the US and others who lecture the Palestinians about their primitive weapons, should lobby for US arming of the Palestinians with the advanced weapons available to Israel. That would make for a fair fight.
According to the New York Times and other Zionist media
So Palestinian children are terrorists, while Israeli terrorist soldiers are children.
Democratic posturing in Congress
I never take seriously when I read that Democrats will grill a Republican nominee. They never do. Democrats, unlike Republicans, rarely stand up for their principles and are always eager to compromise with the other side.
Wall in Israel and wall in US
American liberals are outraged about the impending Trump's wall with Mexico, but are not in anyway troubled about Israeli racist separation wall. On the contrary: US liberals who support Israeli separation wall, oppose Trump's wall with Mexico.
What do you want the Palestinians to do, really?
If Palestinians use violence that harms civilians, you tell them: you are terrorists. How can you harm civilians (as if Israel and US don't harm civilians in their many unending wars). And when Palestinians use violence strictly against Israeli terrorist soldiers, you tell them: you are terrorists. How can you harm Israeli civilians. What do you want the Palestinians to do? If they attack the Israeli racist separation wall, you call them terrorists. Tell them what you expect them to do other than total unconditional surrender.
What standards do you want to impose on the right of the Palestinians to resist occupation? Attacks on soldiers is terrorism?
There is no attempt anymore to try to introduce a working definition of terrorism which does not betray the political interests of terrorists and war criminals and occupiers. When I first came to US, Zionist mainstream media (and all mainstream media are Zionists as are non-mainstream media in this weird country) grudgingly accepted that terrorism really refers to attacks on civilians. This definition has been really discarded. The working US government and media definition of terrorism is now basically a reference to violence against soldiers or people we like, and that violence against civilians and soldiers we don't like is praiseworthy "struggle" or "revolution"--as in the case of Syria. So the attack in Jerusalem was directed against soldiers. How did the New York Times refer to the attack? "Israel buried its latest terrorism victims on Monday". No, notice how many times the Times referred to the armed terrorist soldiers as "children" and it gave their ages so that readers can sympathize with them. In the last year the ratio of death between Israelis and Palestinians was close to 1-14, in favor of Israelis. But those Palestinian unarmed victims are never regarded as victims of terrorism while armed Israeli terrorists are seen as victims of terrorism when they are targeted by the occupied. What I like about Zionists is that they are not even trying anymore. They are just plain propagandists in the US media. And whenever an Israeli is killed--no matter of the circumstances--the funeral pictures will appear the next day in the Times. Rarely if ever for Palestinian victims. How can anyone who has a sense of humanitarian concern and decency and who believes in human equality ever work for a paper like the New York Times. It is the paper where failed and inconsistent liberals can find their lousy refuge.
Politics promises to become more interesting
The war between US and Russian intelligence, and the war between US intelligence and the new president will make usher in a new political era, reminiscent of the interesting times of the Dulles brothers--war crimes and human rights violations by all notwithstanding.
More examples of crude Human Rights Watch propaganda against Russia
| Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) | |
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Unlike Trump, Trudeau names Canada foreign minister who sees Putin "careening towards a full-fledged dictatorship." bit.ly/2igvJNXpic.twitter.com/vQdotd5j7G
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Human Rights Watch is really intensifying the propaganda against Russia
| Sarah Leah Whitson (@sarahleah1) | |
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Would these allegations disqualify @realDonaldTrump for giving “aid or comfort to the enemies” under constitution?pic.twitter.com/nbTfxcXrKG
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What do FISA court and Arab tyrants have in common?
FISA court approved all government requests except 11 in 33 years, which is 99% of all government request, according to Snowden. And Arab tyrants who run for office also win with 99% of the popular vote.
This guy is freaking out in the wake Tillerson's talk about the defeat of ISIS
| Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) | |
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#Tillerson: “Defeating #ISIS must be our foremost priority in the MidEast.”
[= Tackling symptoms & leaving root causes to fester further] pic.twitter.com/LoTQwR8hb9 | |
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and its credibility
As is well-known, the UK-based (and GCC-EU-funded) Syrian Observatory has been the major more influential source on numbers and developments in Syria. Even when the director writes from his UK-home that he has "observed" use of chemical weapons by Syrian regime, his "observation" is reported worldwide. Look what happened this week: US special force raided a location near Dayr Az-Zur. Syrian Observatory immediately reported on the "success" of the raid and said that 25 "Jihadis" were killed. How did the Pentagon respond to this number? It said that it was exaggerated.
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Sulome Anderson using the journalistic techniques of Nicholas Blanford: a Hizbullah fighter tells her: Yes, we are disgusting
From Joe: "the entire article is stupid, but it has some particularly stupid hizbullah attributed quotes.
"In his hideout, Ali, the Hezbollah fighter, snorts when asked about his feelings on Assad’s government. “We and the Syrian regime often shoot at each other,” he says, laughing. “We don’t give a damn about the Syrians. We have no intention of giving up most of the territories we control in Syria. We are not in Syria because we’re in love with a person named Bashar al-Assad for his good looks. If you come to us and tell us tomorrow that the Syrian regime is coming back to [invade] Lebanon, we would fight them. We would kill them all. Fuck those sons of bitches. We’re only there for our own benefit. We’re defending our interests.” "
or
“Our Christmas day is when the Israelis come for a ground invasion,” the commander in Dahiyeh boasts. “Israel is just a big fuss for nothing. It is weaker than a spiderweb.” Can you imagine that this passes as US media coverage of the Middle East?or
Rafsanjani: Well, at least the New York Times admits that Western liberal economic polices are bad for the poor
"During his presidency, Mr. Rafsanjani faced the challenge of reconstruction after the eight-year war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. While his economic liberalism and privatization policies were popular among Iran’s entrepreneurial classes, many poor Iranians perceived no improvement in their plight." But this passage explains why Western government and media refers to this crook (the wealthiest Iranian) as "a reformer".
Who killed the Israeli military attache in DC in 1973? Who cares.
It is interesting that this writer admits that he is obsessed with dining the identity of those who killed the Israeli military attache in DC in 1973. Israeli kills a Palestinian almost every week, and no one in the West press gives a damn. But this assassination is still occupying the minds of journalists and FBI in DC. But the story by Carlos (who wanted to cash in by offering information in return of money) is not credible: "The bookstore’s owner put the Americans in touch with Kamal Kheir Beik, a suspected member of Black September. Mr. Beik met with the Americans at a cafe in the Latin Quarter of Paris sometime after 1970, Mr. Ramírez said. The Americans asked Mr. Beik, a Syrian, what they could do to further the Palestinian cause. Mr. Beik told them to kill Colonel Alon." Anyone who knows anything about Kamal Khayr Beir knows that he did not operate in this showy and clumsy manner. He would not recruit someone he met in a bookstore. That was not his style. And Kamal Khayr Beik (whose work remains secretive and left beautiful poetry) worked with Wadi` Haddad and not with Black September.
Elie Wiesel's celebrities
From Khelil: "The NY Times is so generous to this Zionist poseur Elie Wiesel, whom they think is a genius. Their headlines says “Celebrities to Gather for Reading of Elie Wiesel’s' Night’” to make it sound that major figures or great artists are enamored with his glib work, but then you learn that the “celebrities” are Geraldo Rivera and former. Sen. Joe Lieberman. "
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