Recent Appearances...

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Hello !
Recent Appearances...

-Obits-

Slain Hamas deputy chief buried in Palestinian camp in Beirut

2024-01-05

To be welcomed by Satan into Hell, surrounded by his fellows.

[GEO.TV] The slain deputy chief of Hamas, Saleh al-Arouri, was buried in the Palestinian camp of Shatila in Beirut on Thursday, amid throngs of mourners launching volleys of gunfire.

Arouri was martyred in a drone strike on Tuesday on the southern suburb of Beirut, a stronghold of allied Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, as he was meeting with a group of Palestinian and Lebanese men from factions allied to Hamas.

The attack was widely attributed to Hamas' sworn foe Israel. Israel, which has laid waste to the Gaza Strip in a war aimed at wiping out Hamas, has neither confirmed nor denied that it assassinated Arouri.

All seven people attending the meeting in Beirut were killed. The bodies of several, including Arouri, were blown into several parts by the strike, complicating preparations for the burial.

Two of the Palestinians — a member of Hamas's armed wing the Qassam Brigades and another Palestinian — who were martyred alongside Arouri were also buried in Shatila Martyrs Cemetery that is the graveyard for Palestinians, including civilians, political officials and combatants.

"Palestine and Lebanon bid farewell today, along with the people of the nation, to strong men who fought battles in all fields and directions," said Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in a statement from outside Lebanon.

Their coffins were draped in Palestinian flags and carried by men wearing green caps with "Hamas" written on the front. Heavy bursts of gunfire rang out for hours.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

15 missiles fired at US base near oil field in eastern Syria

2023-11-10

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] At least 15 rockets were fired in the early morning of November 9 at a US military base near the Al-Omar oil field in eastern Syria. The attack was reported by Al Mayadeen TV channel.

The Shiite movement Iraqi Islamic Resistance

...yet another of Iran’s sockpuppets...

claimed responsibility for the attack.

There is no information about the consequences of the attacks or details.

As Regnum reported , a powerful explosion was heard near the Al-Harir military airfield in Erbil province in Iraqi Kurdistan, where the forces of the American army are concentrated.

A drone again attacked the American military base of Ain al-Assad in Anbar province in western Iraq.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said the United States sees prospects for escalation and an increased risk of attacks on its forces in the Middle East region. He recalled recent drone attacks on US troops in Iraq and Syria, adding that the Pentagon is doing everything necessary to ensure US forces are ready and able to respond.

The Times of Israel adds:

Within the past day, Death Eaters have launched two separate attacks using multiple rockets against US and coalition forces operating at Green Village, Syria, and a one-way drone attack was launched against US and Coalition forces at Mission Support Site Euphrates, Syria.

There were three minor injuries reported in the Green Village attacks but all personnel returned to duty.

No other injuries or damage was reported in the strikes, according to defense officials who provided details of the attacks on the condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public.

According to deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh, US and coalition forces have been attacked 46 times since October 17, injuring 56 personnel. All have returned to duty, Singh says.

Link

-Great Cultural Revolution

Bernie Turned Progressive Movement Into ‘Rotting Corpse’

2022-11-20

This is what the left let happen to them. This was the only part of national politics that represented them, and what happened? Bernie and the Squad sold out. Shockingly cheaply. They joined the ~~Sith~~ DC establishment. The man should be asking "who paid you, Bernie?"

"There is always money for war. You never hear political leaders say they can't go to war because the country can't afford it. They claim not to have money for the poor, homeless and hungry, but war? It's never a problem."

-- David Icke

Space Lizardoid conspiracy theorist David Icke is a good match for Israel-hating Red Diaper Baby Norman Finkelstein, PhD, whose rant against Stalinist Bernie Sanders is much approved by Progressive comedian Jimmy Dore in this attack from the historically corrupt far left on the equally corrupt but slightly different far left. Enjoy — remembering along the way that Stalin partnered with Hitler to divide Poland before Stalin pivoted to partner with the Allies to divide Germany.

Point of information: I’m sorry that we lost half of your headline, Spike the Hairy6811, but for some reason Rantburg cuts off anything that follows a double quotation mark. Please use single quotes instead, or use two single quotes if you really like that look. If you put what it should have been in comments, one of the moderators will add it back.

—for the moderators,
trailing wife

Link

Africa Horn

Why Has Civil War Returned To Ethiopia?

2021-06-17

You could simply say 'because it's Ethiopia' and be done with it, but that would give these 2nd generation Robert Fisks at the Economist no chance to wonder aloud and broadcast their naivete.
[Economist] -

The Economist explains

Why has civil war returned to Ethiopia?

Ethnic divisions have thrown Africa’s second-most-populous country into renewed conflict

BY SOME RECKONINGS Ethiopia is the oldest independent country in Africa. For a short while, under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, it looked as if it might become one of the most democratic. Not anymore. National elections, scheduled for June 21st, no longer herald progress. Abiy, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, now draws more international condemnation than praise. For more than six months, his federal government has been engaged in a bitter war against the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which until recently controlled the northern state of Tigray and previously dominated national politics. The conflict has fanned tensions among Ethiopia’s 80-plus ethnic groups and taken a frightful human toll. Why has civil war returned to Ethiopia?

The TPLF fired the first shots on November 4th, when its fighters attacked a base housing federal troops—to pre-empt an imminent attack from federal forces and their allies, it argued. In response, Abiy ordered air strikes and sent in ground forces. For the first few months of the conflict, a communications blackout made it difficult to know what was happening. Gradually the scale of the horror has emerged. Atrocities have been committed by all sides. Thousands of civilians are thought to have been killed, and millions more have been displaced, many over the border to Sudan. The raping of women has been widespread. And hunger has returned to Tigray, the site of a devastating famine in the 1980s. War and the alleged deliberate blocking of food deliveries have driven 350,000 people to the brink of starvation.
That's all I can get that's not behind a paywall, but here's the tweet where some of the opinion pops out, a watered down version of 'they coulda been a contender with dat new Prime Minister'.

Link

-Obits-

Robert Fisk pegs out

2020-11-10

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The passing of veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk
...British journalist who is invariably on the other side of any question. The logic of his prose is so shaky, the ideas so predictable, that he has given his name to the process of mocking a piece of poorly reasoned hackery. He was once beaten up by an Islamic mob and decided they had every right to thump him because he was so Western...
this week prompted a mixed reaction from the public. Some celebrated Fisk’s award-winning career and varied life, while others saw him as an orientalist who ended his career as an apologist for Bashir al-Assad and the rest of the anti-Western dictator club.Fisk, who died aged 74, had acquired his fame covering the thorny and often dangerous politics of the Middle East, a career that led him to rub elbows with a range of leaders and often dictators of the region, ranging from Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to al-Qaeda leader, the notorious the late Osama bin Laden
...... who used to be alive but now he's not......
. For the Lebanese in particular, Fisk was someone who had covered the 15 years of their civil war (1975-1990) and was one of the first to uncover and publicize the Sabra and Shatila Paleostinian camp massacres that were carried out during the Israeli invasion of 1982.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

We should applaud the Syrian military's actions in Idlib, not deplore them

2020-02-28

Please keep headline length under 42 feet.
The US news media perversely view the prospective liberation of millions of Syrians from a Turkish-backed Al Qaeda tyranny in Idlib as a humanitarian tragedy, betraying their allegiance to Washington’s geopolitical agenda and its aim of dominating every country in West Asia without exception, even if it means relying on Al Qaeda to accomplish its goal.
Just yet another example of the media backing up the globalists in DC. Screw what's in the interest of Americans, let's keep innocent people under the boot of Al-Qaeda. Everyone knows the globalists allied us with headchopping Islamists in Syria, right? Because that's what happened.
Imagine journalists deploring the Allies’ liberation of Europe because the project created refugees, and you’ll understand the US news media’s reaction to the prospect of the Syrian military liberating Idlib from the rule of a branch of Al Qaeda. Implicit in the condemnation is support for the status quo, since any realistic attempt to end an occupation will trigger a flight of civilians from a war zone. What is in fact support for continued occupation by reactionaries, and their imposition of a terrorist mini-state on millions of Syrians, is slyly presented by the US news media as concern for the welfare of Syrian civilians.

On February 20, The Wall Street Journal ran an article on what it said could be the "biggest humanitarian horror story of the 21st century," namely, the advance of the Syrian military into Idlib, "backed by Russian airstrikes and pro-Iranian militias" which has "forced the flight of some 900,000 people" as Syrian president Bashar al-Assad vows "to retake every inch of Syria." [1]

To illustrate the so-called impending horror, Journal reporter Raja Abdulrahim follows "Amro Akoush and his family" as they flee "their home in northwest Syria with no time to pack a bag and no vehicle to escape the machine-gun fire and falling bombs." [2]

"I feel like this is the end, the army will advance and kill us all and that will be the end of the story," Abdulrahim quotes Akoush as saying. "We no longer have hope for anything other than a quick death, that's it. That's all we ask for." (3)

In Abdulrahim's narrative, Assad is a tyrant setting in motion a humanitarian catastrophe to satisfy his urge (are we to construe it as greed?) to "retake" every inch of his country (not recover or liberate it.) Assad's foil, his nemesis in this tale, is Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, presented as the personification of the calvary, rushing to the aid of hapless Syrian civilians, by dispatching tanks across the Turk-Syrian border.

Erdogan, Abdulrahim writes, "has threatened to launch a full attack on Syrian government forces if Mr. Assad doesn't halt the military offensive. Turkey has sent more than 10,000 troops and more than 2,000 pieces of artillery, tanks and armored vehicles into Idlib." (4)

It all seems fairly simple: Assad is a brute who has launched a military offensive "to defeat the remnants" of Syria's "armed opposition", sparking a humanitarian catastrophe in embryo, while Erdogan, our hero, acts to stay the tyrant's hand.

It's a good story, but wrong. The "armed opposition" is not a group of plucky liberal democrats fighting for freedom, but Al Qaeda; Turkey is not the calvary, but a foreign aggressor with designs on Syria that has long backed Al Qaeda as its proxy in Idlib; and Erdogan's goal isn't to rescue Syrians from a tyrant, but to impose a Turkish tyranny by proxy on Idlib. All of this has been reported previously in the US news media, including in Abdulrahim's own Wall Street Journal, but has since been lost down to the memory hole. Additionally, other realities have been minimized, including the continued Al Qaeda attacks on the Syrian military and Syrian civilians.

In early March, 2015 Erdogan flew to Riyadh to meet Saudi Arabia's recently crowned King Salman, to agree on a new strategy to oust Assad. Both leaders were keen to see Syria's Arab nationalist republic dissolved. Erdogan, an Islamist with connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, objected to Syria's secularism and long-running war with the Muslim Brotherhood. Salman, a misogynistic, democracy-abominating monarch backed to the hilt by Washington, objected to Syria's anti-monarchism, Arab nationalism, and insistence that the Arab world achieve independence from US domination–ideologies which threatened his family's rule over the Arabian peninsula and its vast oil resources.

To overcome the Syrian menace, Erdogan and Salman agreed to establish a joint command center in Idlib in order to coordinate the activities of Al Qaeda (operating in Syria at the time under the alias Jabhat al-Nusra.) Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups had taken up the Muslim Brotherhood's struggle against the Assad government's secularism and Arab nationalism. The jihadists were threatening to seize control of all of Idlib, and the Turkish Islamist and Saudi despot were eager to lend a hand. [5]

Erdogan wanted to run Idlib through his Al Qaeda proxies to gain leverage in order to shape the outcome of post-conflict talks on a new political arrangement for Syria. [6] This would allow him to further his Islamist agenda in a neighboring country‐he had taken numerous steps to Islamize his own country‐and to acquire profit-making opportunities in Syria for Turkish business people.

Erdogan's plans were soon brought to fruition. By February, 2018, Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the US campaign against ISIS, could call Idlib "the largest al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11." [7] The veteran foreign affairs correspondent Robert Fisk would refer to the Syrian province as a territory teeming with "the Islamist fighters of Isis, Nusrah, al-Qaeda and their fellow jihadists." [8] In September, 2019 The New York Times' Eric Schmitt said that Idlib province contained "a witch's brew of violent Islamic extremist groups, dominated by the larger Qaeda-linked organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly the Nusra Front." [9] Hayat Tahrir al-Sham would control 99 percent of Idlib and surrounding areas. [10], creating what Cockburn dubbed an "al-Qaeda-run mini-state" [11]‐behind which sat Erdogan, on the Sultan's throne.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Al Qaeda are one and the same. After undergoing a previous rebranding as Jabhat al Nusra, Al Qaeda's Syrian branch morphed once again, this time into HTS. As the Syrian delegate to the United Nations, Bashar Ja'afari, explained to the UN Security Council in May,

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham … is the Al-Nusra Front, which itself is part of Al-Qaida in the Levant, which in turn is part of Al-Qaida in Iraq, which in turn is part of Al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Therefore, we are all talking about Al-Qaida, regardless of its different names; all are designated by the [UN Security] Council as terrorist entities. [12]

The Washington Post described Hayat Tahrir al-Sham as "an extremist Islamist group that began as al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria and has tried to rebrand itself several times during the war." [13] The New York Times says Hayat Tahrir al-Sham "is affiliated with Al Qaeda," [14] while The Wall Street Journal lists the group as "a branch of al Qaeda." [15]

But of Western mainstream journalists, Cockburn perhaps describes the group best. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, he wrote in early 2019, is "a powerful breakaway faction from Isis which founded the group under the name of Jabhat al-Nusra in 2011 and with whom it shares the same fanatical beliefs and military tactics. Its leaders wear suicide vests studded with metal balls just like their Isis equivalents." [16]

HTS's size is a matter of dispute. Cockburn estimates that it "can put at least 50,000 fighters into the field" [17] while The New York Times puts the number closer to "12,000 and 15,000 fighters." [18] The Syrian government says that the group has "tens of thousands of foreign terrorists, including 15,000 Europeans." [19]

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has "centered its agenda on combating the government of Mr. al-Assad, with no interest in conducting attacks abroad, according to a recent United Nations assessment." [20] This makes the Al Qaeda group acceptable to the United States, and, in train, to the US news media. It also explains why an organization seen as terrorist outside of Syria, is often described by US new media in neutral language when it operates in Syria, like "armed opposition" and "rebels." Following this convention, we could talk of the "armed opposition" and "rebels" who attacked the United States on 9/11, and Washington's 19 year war on Al Qaeda as the war on "the armed opposition to the US regime."

"In September 2018, Russia and Turkey brokered a cease-fire agreement for Idlib to forestall a military offensive," explained The Wall Street Journal. "The deal required that" Al Qaeda fighters "withdraw from a demilitarized buffer zone along the front line." [21] Rather than withdrawing, Al Qaeda expanded areas under its control. [22] while continuing to carry on its fight against the Syrian military. The jihadists attacked Syrian army positions, targeted the Russian airbase at Khmeimim, and shelled towns and villages, "killing civilians and forcing more than 10,000 to flee," according to the United Nations. [23] Turkey stood by while its proxies violated the cease-fire, failing "to meet its commitment to disarm" its fighters. [24]

In response, the Syrian army, backed by its Russian and Iranian allies, launched an offensive to liberate Idlib. It has done this because Al Qaeda's attacks have never stopped and because the government of Syria has an obligation to protect its citizens and control its own territory.

When Ja'afari addressed the Security Council in May he asked:

When will it be recognized that the right we are exercising is the same right others have exercised in confronting terrorist attacks against the Bataclan theatre and the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, as well as terrorist acts in Niece, London, Boston and other cities? The terrorists that members have confronted in their own countries were not equipped with Turkish rocket launchers and tanks. [25]

Apart from glossing over such inconvenient facts as the true character of the "armed opposition" and Erdogan's connection to it, the US news media have failed to address a number of key questions.

First, is it legitimate for a government to use force to recover territory occupied by an armed enemy, even if the use of force endangers civilians or sparks their flight? If the answer is no, then the Allies acted illegitimately during World War II in liberating Europe from Nazi occupation, for their project was impossible without endangering some civilians and creating refugees.

Moreover, if civilian casualties and their displacement were acceptable consequences of US forces taking Raqqa from ISIS‐the US defense secretary at the time, James Mattis responded to concerns about the effect of the US siege on civilians by noting that "Civilian casualties are a fact of life in this sort of situation" [26]‐how is it that they are unacceptable in the case of Syrian forces liberating Idlib from Al Qaeda?

A still more basic question is, Is it acceptable to respond in force to attacks from an enemy? The answer is obvious, which may be why it is never asked, for if asked, Syrian military operations against continued Al Qaeda attacks would have to be accepted as legitimate, rather than falsely portrayed as acts of aggression against Syrian civilians.

Third, is Turkey's presence on Syrian soil legitimate? The answer is categorically in the negative. The invasion of Syria by Turkey and the occupation of part of Syrian territory by Turkish forces is no different in law, politics, or morality than the Nazi invasion of Poland, France, the low countries, the Soviet Union, and so on. It is clearly illegal, and an affront to the ‘rules-based international order' to which the United States, Turkey, and other NATO countries so conspicuously and hypocritically profess allegiance. The invasion and occupation have been carried out in defense of Turkey's Al Qaeda proxy, and to advance the interests of Turks and Islamists against the interests of Syrians and secularists. Erdogan is no hero, but a villain, whose hands are as maculated by the blood of Al Qaeda's Syrian victims as are those of his Al Qaeda proxies.

Finally, what are the costs of Al Qaeda's continued rule over millions of Syrians in Idlib? Are they greater than the costs in civilian casualties and displacement of bringing that rule to an end? The US news media have been generally supportive of the immense costs in blood and treasure Washington has incurred to wage its war on Al Qaeda in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen. While noting the civilian cost of driving ISIS from its strongholds in Iraq and Syria, the US news media have never denounced the US war on ISIS as a humanitarian horror story, a term it uses to denounce Syria's war on Al Qaeda. Instead, ISIS itself is portrayed as a humanitarian horror story, and efforts to undermine and defeat it are welcomed. This should be true too of Syria's war on Al Qaeda. It is Al Qaeda that is the humanitarian horror story and it is the actions of the Syrian military in undermining and defeating it that ought to be welcomed and met with approbation.

The Syrian military advance to recover Idlib and liberate it from Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization which has imposed a harsh regime of religious intolerance and Islamist despotism on millions of Syrians, has not been welcomed by the US news media. Although the campaign is praiseworthy on multiple levels‐it recovers national territory held by proxies of a foreign aggressor, and aims to liberate millions of people who have been tyrannized by a rule imposed on them by an organization made up of thousands of foreign fighters‐US media, betraying their commitment to US geopolitical agendas, portray the commendable as indefensible. We ought to applaud the actions of the Syrian military, along with those of its Russian and Iranian allies, not deplore them. These actions are blows against reaction, oppression, and foreign aggression, and in defense of democracy on an international level, as well as in the furtherance of the welfare of the Syrian people.

1. Raja Abdulrahim, "'I feel like this is the end': A million fleeing Syrians trapped by Assad's final push," The Wall Street Journal, February 20, 2020.
2. Abdulrahim, February 20, 2020.
3. Abdulrahim, February 20, 2020.
4. Abdulrahim, February 20, 2020.
5. Desmond Butler, "Turkey officials confirm pact with Saudi Arabia to help rebels fighting Syria's Assad," AP, May 7, 2015.
6. Carlotta Gall, "Syrian attacks draw Turkey deeper into Syrian war," The New York Times, February 12, 2020.
7. Sune Engel Rasmussen and James Marson, "Syrian offensive creates new frictions among foreign powers," The Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2018.
8. Robert Fisk, "To unlock the diplomatic mysteries behind the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, take a look at Syria," The Independent, November 22, 2018.
9. Eric Schmitt, "U.S. Officials Warn of Rising Threat From Qaeda Branch in Northwest Syria." The New York Times, September 29, 2019.
10. Kareem Fahim and Sarah Dadouch, "Russian-backed Syrian offensive kills dozens, displaces tens of thousands," The Washington Post, December 25, 2019; Vivian Yee and Hwaida Saad, "Syrian forces move into strategic town, tightening grip on rebels," The New York Times, August 20, 2019; Patrick Cockburn, "Trump says Isis has been defeated, but he is ignoring the bigger and much more worrying picture," The independent, February 8, 2019; Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia, 553rd meeting of the United Nations Security Council, June 18, 2019.
11. Patrick Cockburn, "Trump says Isis has been defeated, but he is ignoring the bigger and much more worrying picture," The independent, February 8, 2019.
12. Mr. Ja'afari (Syrian Arab Republic) United Nations Security Council, 8535th Meeting, May 28, 2019.
13. Kareem Fahim and Sarah Dadouch, "Russian-backed Syrian offensive kills dozens, displaces tens of thousands," The Washington Post, December 25, 2019.
14. Vivian Yee and Hwaida Saad, "Syrian forces move into strategic town, tightening grip on rebels," The New York Times, August 20, 2019.
15. Raja Abdulrahim, "Syrian government captures strategic town in last opposition stronghold," The Wall Street Journal, August 20, 2019.
16. Patrick Cockburn, February 8, 2019.
17. Patrick Cockburn, February 8, 2019.
18. Eric Schmitt, "U.S. Officials Warn of Rising Threat From Qaeda Branch in Northwest Syria." The New York Times, September 29, 2019.
19. Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari, 553rd meeting of the United Nations Security Council, June 18, 2019.
20. Eric Schmitt, "U.S. Officials Warn of Rising Threat From Qaeda Branch in Northwest Syria." The New York Times, September 29, 2019.
21. Raja Abdulrahim, February 20, 2020.
22. Raja Abdulrahim, February 20, 2020.
23. Vivian Yee and Hwaida Saad, "Syrian forces move into strategic town, tightening grip on rebels," The New York Times, August 20, 2019; Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia, 553rd meeting of the United Nations Security Council, June 18, 2019.
24. David Gauthier-Villars and Nazih Osseiran, "Turkish troop losses mount after clash with Assad forces," The Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2020.
25. Mr. Ja'afari (Syrian Arab Republic) United Nations Security Council, 8535th Meeting, May 28, 2019.
26. Raja Abdulrahim and Nour Alakraa, "Civilian casualties mount as coalition moves to oust ISIS in Raqqa," The Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2017.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Sharmine Narwani exposes the fabricated media narrative on Syria

2019-04-26

[SALON] The reporting over the Syrian war these last 8 years has been an interesting masterclass in how to manufacture a narrative. The amount of reporting generated by journalists who never set foot in the places that they reported from was almost unprecedented. During these 8 years only a tiny handful of journalists actually travelled to syria to report on what was going on. Among these are Robert Fisk, Sharmine Narwani, Vanessa Beeley, Carla Ortiz, Eva Bartlett and Elijah Magnier. It's interesting to observe how radically different the reporting from these handful have been from the vast quantities of bullshit provided by the major media outlets.
Fisk and "Journalism" in the same paragraph. Riiigghhht
In the interview linked before, Narwani goes into some detail on what she personally observed and discovered on the ground in Syria, covering western support (including US, UK, French and Israeli support), the violence of the opposition protests from day 1, the propaganda instrument that was the white helmets, the discovery of a chemical weapons factory run by one of the opposition groups, and how the FSA was essentially indistinguishable from al-qaida in syria, and more.

These are not new reports, and elements have been brought to light over the years, some of it by the small list of journalists mentioned above, but this gives a great overview of how western media organisations were, at best willingly duped and at worst knowingly complicit in fabricating a totally false narrative in one of the most deadly wars in the last 2 decades.

This is part 1 of a two part series. Part 2 coming soon.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Here We Go Again - NYT Hit Piece On Jared Kushner's 'Tax Returns' - Another Fisking

2018-10-14

Got the ol' Robert Fisk pic going this time, Besoeker!

This is similar to the NYT 'story' on Trump's 'tax returns' that I fisked into a bloody pulp last Wednesday. In order to avoid redundancies, I will largely ignore the NYT's examples of slanted / misleading language ('loopholes', significant depreciation, etc., that y'all can spot by now) and focus on a few things where it differs from last week's story the Times tried to pass off as some grand revelation.
[Zero Hedge] - Less than two weeks after the NYT released what a massive 12,000 words "bombshell" report on the "fraudulent" tax dealings of Trump's father, and which promptly got swept away by the non-stop news cycle, on Saturday the NYT has come back with part two, this time dissecting the the tax records of Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, highlighting that he paid almost no federal income taxes in several recent years despite a net worth that soared to $324 million in 2016 from $106 million in 2011, and billions of dollars spent building his real estate empire.

Citing the leaked tax documents it obtained, or as it called them, "confidential financial records", the Times reported that Kushner, a real estate investor and senior White House adviser, for years minimized his tax bills by booking heavy losses on reported depreciation of his real estate holdings that overwhelmed his reported income. And since this is an all too often used loophole of the US tax code, the Times noted that nothing in the documents indicate that Kushner or his company broke the law.
But we're gonna run with the story anyway...
The records, which were given to the NYT by "a person who has had financial dealings with Kushner and his family", describe Kushner’s business dealings and finances from 2009 to 2016. They were drafted with Kushner’s help as part of a review of his finances by potential lenders and contain information from his federal tax filings in addition to other data provided by advisers, according to the report. Reviewed by "more than a dozen tax accountants and lawyers" the records indicate that Kushner paid little or no federal income taxes in five of the last eight years.
Behold: presentation-wise, the saddest looking balance sheet I've ever seen. This tell me that it's for internal use; otherwise you'd see something much more professional looking and with GAAP-adherent terminology and classifications (current assets, long-term / fixed assets, current liabilities, current portion of long-term debt / liabilities, long-term liabilities, etc.). That tells me the financial information wasn't leaked by someone at the lenders who financed his main building, 666 Fifth Avenue when he bought it in 2007 (UBS and / or Barclays), which is linked to below. The lenders would be getting audited financial statements, not that piece of shit balance sheet in the ZH article. You could also eliminate the brokers in this deal - generally speaking they wouldn't be reviewing Jared's finances, only the lenders would.
The Times reported that in a 2015 example, Kushner booked $8.3 million in losses driven by "significant depreciation" of real estate owned by Kushner and his company. The loss offset Kushner’s income of $1.7 million in salary and investment gains.

A spokesman for Kushner’s attorney told the Times that Kushner followed the advice of attorneys and accountants, and filed and paid all taxes due required by law. The spokesman also said he wouldn’t respond to assumptions taken from documents that offer an incomplete view of Kushner’s finances.

Kushner’s losses, stemming in large part from the depreciation deduction, appeared to wipe out his taxable income in most years covered by the documents.
Note the intentional uncertain language that's been employed - 'significant', 'in large part' and 'appeared to' are in no way quantitative measurements and are indica of an incomplete financial picture. I could argue a certain single deduction is 'significant' even if, for example, it comprised 10% or 15% of total expenses.

Then again, after reading this article on the Kushner flagship property, one might reconsider the parameters for 'significant', etc. Too bad the NYT doesn't grant Jared Kushner the same courtesy.

I'm going to skip over most of the rest of the ZH article (primarily the class warfare bullshit where they focus on 'cash generation' and conveniently ignore cash outflows like interest on the loans and the principal payments thereon) because there's only one real thing to discuss, and that of course is what the NYT omits from all this in order to paint the most negative portrayal of real estate companies. The depreciation deduction is not a 'loophole'; it is a long-standing accounting concept. The specific thing not mentioned is this - a taxpayer (any taxpayer) who uses physical / capital assets in the course of business is allowed a depreciation deduction, which is a gradual, annual reduction of the cost basis of that asset, so when you eventually sell / dispose of that asset, your taxable gain on that asset is increased by two things - the increase / appreciation in market value of the asset and the accumulated depreciation on that asset between the time you buy it and the time you sell it. That number can be 'significant', if I may ape the NYT's terminology! Eventually you pay the piper but depreciation allows you to delay the inevitable. Essentially, the real estate business is a calculated gamble on a) the increase in rents you can derive from a rental property and b) the appreciation of that property.

A brief note on all this, which includes many of the previous stories on Trump's properties over the past forty or so years. The tone is this - when Trump loses money on a real estate or other business deal, it's reported that he's a bad / stupid businessman; when Trump makes money on a real estate or other business deal, it's reported as nefarious activity that takes advantage of tax 'loopholes' and all the rest. Ever notice that? I bet you did!

Now for the fun / speculative part:
The outcome is apparent in Jared Kushner’s tax returns, which were summarized in the documents reviewed by The New York Times. Here’s an example from 2015.

Income

W-2 income: $198,000.
Taxable interest: $536,000.
Dividends: $1,000.
Capital gains: $974,000.

Deductions

Tax losses from real estate and other partnerships: $3.5 million.
Tax losses carried forward from previous years: $4.8 million.

Total adjusted gross income

Negative $6.6 million.

Tax refund

$4,000.
Do you notice a few things missing from here and / or something else which would make you scratch your head? Let's start with the W-2 - $198K. Unless Jared made the very unusual W-4 (employer withholding tax form employees file when hired) choice / election of 'Exempt' (no Federal withholdings, which is foolish but you can choose to do, but Social Security & Medicare taxes are still withheld by statute), his Federal tax withheld on that W-2 is in the $35K to $38K range, which tells me that Jared did in fact pay Federal taxes that year. If he owed $31K for a Federal liability and $35K in Federal tax was withheld, there's your '$4,000 refund'. And by the way - how likely is it that a refund is exactly $4,000? I would make an attempt to reproduce this situation with my tax software but there are too many unknowns, the large ones being the composition of that NOL - it's most likely the (active) real estate loss but he could have other carryforwards like a capital loss (which is used against the aforementioned $974K capital gain; he could even have a charitable contribution carryforward, which would be the amount disallowed on the prior year's return because it's limited ion certain cases. For that matter, note how all the other numbers are rounded, most likely an effort by the NYT to a) avoid being sued for disclosing confidential information if they gave exact figures or b) they're pulling number out of their asses again.

To summarize, it's another piece of shit hit job by the NYT, but you knew that already - I'm just making it official.

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Terror Networks

Abbottabad dossier: Curious case of links between Fisk and bin Laden’s letters

2017-12-12

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] As the Abbottabad
... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden....
documents continue to reveal more of the inner-workings of al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Ladin, the letters found in his Pakistain compound in 2011 show how the criminal mastermind behind the September 11 attacks took such care of his portrayal throughout the West by focusing on British journalist Robert Fisk

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-Short Attention Span Theater-

Robert Fisk: There are no good guys

2015-10-08

World famous journalist, the man who is the epitome of "Fisking" -- Robert Fisk -- weighs in on the Syrian War now that the Rooshuns have weighed in.
[Independent] The Russian air force in Syria has flown straight into the West’s fantasy air space. The Russians, we are now informed, are bombing the “moderates” in Syria – “moderates” whom even the Americans admitted two months ago, no longer existed.

It’s rather like the Isis fighters who left Europe to fight for the “Caliphate”.Remember them? Scarcely two months ago, our political leaders – and leader writers – were warning us all of the enormous danger posed by “home-grown” Islamists who were leaving Britain and other European countries and America to fight for the monsters of Isis. Then the hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees began trekking up the Balkans towards Europe after risking death in the Mediterranean – and we were all told by the same political leaders to be fearful that Isis killers were among them.

It’s amazing how European Muslim fighters fly to Turkey to join Isis, and a few weeks later, they’re drowning in leaky boats or tramping back again and taking trains from Hungary to Germany. But if this nonsense was true, where did they get the time for all the terrorist training they need in order to attack us when they get back to Europe?

It is possible, of course, that this was mere storytelling. By contrast, the chorus of horror that has accompanied Russia’s cruel air strikes this past week has gone beyond sanity.

Let’s start with a reality check. The Russian military are killers who go for the jugular. They slaughtered the innocent of Chechnya to crush the Islamist uprising there, and they will cut down the innocent of Syria as they try to crush a new army of Islamists and save the ruthless regime of Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian army, some of whose members are war criminals, have struggled ferociously to preserve the state – and used barrel bombs to do it. They have also fought to the death.
The Russians also slaughtered a fair number of bad guys, not just innocents. As for war criminals: it depends on who wins as to who is a war criminal. If Assad and the Rooshuns win, nothing they did will be prosecuted as a war crime.
“American officials” – those creatures beloved of The New York Times – claim that the Syrian army does not fight Isis. If true, who on earth killed the 56,000 Syrian soldiers – the statistic an official secret, but nonetheless true – who have so far died in the Syrian war? The preposterous Free Syrian Army (FSA)?

This rubbish has reached its crescendo in the on-again off-again saga of the Syrian “moderates”. These men were originally military defectors to the FSA, which America and European countries regarded as a possible pro-Western force to be used against the Syrian government army. But the FSA fell to pieces, corrupted, and the “moderates” defected all over again, this time to the Islamist Nusrah Front or to Isis, selling their American-supplied weapons to the highest bidder or merely retiring quietly – and wisely – to the countryside where they maintained a few scattered checkpoints.

Washington admitted their disappearance, bemoaned their fate, concluded that new “moderates” were required, persuaded the CIA to arm and train 70 fighters, and this summer packed them off across the Turkish border to fight – whereupon all but 10 were captured by Nusrah and at least two of them were executed by their captors. Just two weeks ago, I heard in person one of the most senior ex-US officers in Iraq – David Petraeus’s former No 2 in Baghdad – announce that the “moderates” had collapsed long ago. Now you see them – now you don’t.

But within hours of Russia’s air assaults last weekend, Washington, The New York Times, CNN, the poor old BBC and just about every newspaper in the Western world resurrected these ghosts and told us that the Russkies were bombing the brave “moderates” fighting Bashar’s army in Syria – the very “moderates” who, according to the same storyline from the very same sources a few weeks earlier, no longer existed. Our finest commentators and experts – always a dodgy phrase – joined in the same chorus line.

So now a few harsh factoids. The Syrian army are drawing up the operational target lists for the Russian air force. But Vladimir Putin has his own enemies in Syria.

The first strikes – far from being aimed at the “moderates” whom the US had long ago dismissed – were directed at the large number of Turkmen villages in the far north-west of Syria which have for many months been occupied by hundreds of Chechen fighters – the very same Chechens whom Putin had been trying to liquidate in Chechnya itself. These Chechen forces assaulted and destroyed Syria’s strategic hilltop military Position 451 north of Latakia last year. No wonder Bashar’s army put them on the target list.

Other strikes were directed not at Isis but at Islamist Jaish al-Shams force targets in the same area. But in the first 24 hours, Russian bombs were also dropped on the Isis supply line through the mountains above Palmyra.

The Russians specifically attacked desert roads around the town of Salamia – the same tracks used by Isis suicide convoys to defeat Syrian troops in the ancient Roman city of Palmyra last May.

They also bombed areas around Hassakeh and the Isis-held Raqqa air base where Syrian troops have fought Islamists over the past year (and were beheaded when they surrendered).

Russian ground troops, however, are in Syria only to guard their bases. These are symbolic boots on the ground – but the idea that those boots are there to fight Isis is a lie. The Russians intend to let the Syrian ground troops do the dying for them.
Not quite true. There are Russian volunteers fighting for Assad deep in Syria, and talk around the water cooler is that no more than a brigade of Russian heavy infantry -- about 5,000 troops including support troops -- are to be deployed to Syria soon, to guard an expanded Russian air campaign.
No, there are no good guys and bad guys in the Syrian war. The Russians don’t care about the innocents they kill any more than do the Syrian army or Nato. Any movie of the Syrian war should be entitled War Criminals Galore!
There are never any good guys in war, unless the Americans are fighting. Then Americans are always the good guys.

Don't forget the Israelis. They're good guys, too.

But for heaven’s sake, let’s stop fantasising. A few days ago, a White House spokesman even told us that Russian bombing “drives moderate elements… into the hands of extremists”.

Who’s writing this fiction? “Moderate elements” indeed…

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Terror Networks

From Al-Qaeda to IS, familiar games and known players

2014-08-30

[ARABNEWS] Those who cannot remember the past, cautioned George Santayana, are condemned to repeat it.

Those who think in cliches are bound to repeat them.

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but the scepter of IS -- and all such groups -- is evidently a grand conspiracy against Islam and its followers, just as Al-Qaeda had been. And you see the fingerprints of CIA, Mossad and their willing collaborators all over this baby.

So Barack ObamaI think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody...
, who stood against Bush's wars and his apocalyptic visions of a world divided between Us and Them, is not just back bombing Iraq -- fourth US president to do so -- he seems to read from the self-same script.

"No just God would stand for what they (IS) did yesterday, and for what they do every single day," the US president declared, responding to the slaying of US journalist James Foley in Syria.

When was the last time you heard this invocation of the divine and the whole business of civilizational conflict, the good versus evil? We have been here before, and not long ago either.

Obama may not exactly envision himself on a 'divine mission' to save the world, as his predecessor did, but he has ended up doing just about the same. Only the pretext seems to differ.

Then it was supposedly to rid the world of Saddam Hussain's mythical weapons of mass destruction or to confront him on his support to Al-Qaeda in planning 9/11, as Bush claimed.

Now it is to save the Christians and Yazidis from the clutches of the IS bigots. Truly touching the lengths America goes to every time to save the wretched world.

Taking Obama's lead, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and even cousins across the pond have gone all hyper screaming: "Apocalypse Now . . . end-of-days . . . We must prepare for everything . . . an imminent threat to every interest we have . . . This is beyond anything we have seen . . . "

In the words of Robert Fisk

...British journalist who is invariably on the other side of any question. The logic of his prose is so shaky, the ideas so predictable, that he has given his name to the process of mocking a piece of poorly reasoned hackery. He was once beaten up by an Islamic mob and decided they had every right to thump him because he was so Western...
, Hagel and Dempsey were pure Hollywood. It only needed Tom Cruise at their presser to utter the words "Mission impossible. " David Cameron
... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ...
, in the great tradition of Tony Blair who swore the UK was just 45 minute away from an Iraq WMD strike, sees the IS unleashing its terror on the UK streets. For years one saw such exaggerated nightmarish scenarios regularly spawned by the West vis-a-vis Al-Qaeda and of course Iraq and Iran.

Alas, Al-Qaeda has nearly been wiped out; Saddam and Bin Laden have been eliminated and Iran has been suitably neutralized.

So the world needed, or rather the mighty military industrial complex that drives the US economy needed, a new enemy to keep its good, old wars going. And the fearsome IS chief Abubakr Al-Baghdadi with his black, murderous mobs and their blood-curdling acts of casual brutality is perfect for the job profile. Even Al-Qaeda, or what remains of it, seems to be fearful of and is shocked by their viciousness and sheer savagery.

The tales of mass murder, rapes and abductions of Christians, Yazidis and even Moslems by the hordes of the IS or Islamic State, as it absurdly likes to call itself now, already seem to be the stuff of legends. Not surprisingly, they have shaken and outraged people around the world-- the Moslems more so. The IS and the so-called caliphate it promises is like our worst nightmare come true.

It materialized out of thin air, like clouds of locusts, taking over the vast swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory. As Yvonne Ridley reasons, IS has achieved in a matter of weeks what the US and its allies failed to do in 10 years of occupation. This hasn't happened by accident; military victories on this scale take strategic planning and inside help.

So who, exactly, is behind IS? More importantly, who stands to benefit from this carefully calibrated mayhem in the heart of the Middle East? The same folks who created Al-Qaeda and used it ingenuously and effectively for years until Osama and his baby had exhausted their uses and were past their sell-by date.

Look at the uncanny similarity in the methods used by Al-Qaeda and IS -- from the chilling murder of Daniel Pearl to the barbaric beheading of James Foley this month, both US journalists incidentally.

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but the scepter of IS -- and all such groups -- is evidently a grand conspiracy against Islam and its followers, just as Al-Qaeda had been. And you see the fingerprints of CIA, Mossad and their willing collaborators all over this baby.

As author Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya argues, the targeting of Christians and other minorities in Iraq and Syria and attempts to remap the Middle East are aimed at paving the way for the clash of civilizations that the likes of Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis have obsessed over for years.

So it is good that Arab and Moslem states seem to be waking up to the monster that is staring them in the face. The recent Arab ministers' brainstorming in Jeddah and the Saudi-Iran confabulations seeking a common front against IS are welcome. So are the strong denunciations by top Islamic scholars and ordinary Moslems.

The Moslem world has never in its long history faced a greater challenge. Doubtless, IS is a clear and present danger. And it wouldn't, most probably, have come into existence if it had not been for the spectacular lies and crusades of Bush and Blair. The Israeli crimes against humanity and relentless persecution of its helpless victims have also helped radicalize generations of Arabs and Moslems -- even those born in Western climes, as is apparently the case with the alleged British killer of James Foley.

One can just hear it whispered among the grander wives of Saudi Society, as they discuss the latest exploits of what now calls itself the Islamic State. "Parvenus!" they hiss, and "Nouveau riche upstarts! How dare they act just our illustrious ancestors did only a century or two ago, and claim to be equal!"

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Home Front: WoT

NSA, FBI spying shows US 'is no longer a free country': Journalist

2014-07-10

[Iran Press TV] Newly disclosed documents that show the US government spied on several prominent Moslem-Americans for years demonstrate that America is "no longer a free country," an American former university lecturer said.

The National Security Agency (NSA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) covertly monitored the emails of five Moslem civil rights activists, academics and lawyers, according to a report published Tuesday by journalists Glenn Greenwald

...who some think ranks up (or down) there with Robert Fisk in the quality journalism department. Others, of course, disagree...

Someone would need to beat the living crap out of Greenwald in order to be on par with Fisk.
and Murtaza Hussain

Who?

in The Intercept, citing leaked NSA documents provided by Snowden.

The five individuals appear on an NSA spreadsheet in the Snowden archives called "FISA recap"—short for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The spreadsheet shows 7,485 email addresses, mostly of foreigners, that were monitored between 2002 and 2008.

"The United States is no longer a free country and it won't be free until we rise up in another American revolution, hopefully a non-violent one, and reinstate our Constitution," said Kevin Barrett, who's also a journalist, radio host and activist in Madison, Wisconsin.

Really, I simply must spend the time to learn who actually is who among those activist types...

Barrett is a Mooselimb and a Moonbat.
"The American people are now just complete sitting ducks for this kind of NSA spying and government blackmail, Barrett told Press TV in an interview on Wednesday.

*waves to the nice people at the NSA who just want to catch bad guys*

"Any American can be targeted, any American can be manipulated and controlled through this message," he added.

"They're being manipulated by the NSA so that they would be forced to cooperate with the FBI. This is a common tactic that's been used against the Moslem community," Barrett said.

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