Focus: Syria - Jan 11, 2017
US State Dept: Syrian Kurds a force on the ground and must be in peace talk ‘at some point’ - Rudaw
No room for ‘terrorist’ Kurdish YPG at Syria talks, says Turkish deputy PM - hurriyetdailynews.com
Turkey expects US solidarity on terrorist YPG, FETO: FM - aa.com
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF): We are not PKK - Rudaw
Interview with Kurdish PYD leader Salih Muslim - ekurd
Two Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fronts meet northwest of Raqqa, continue push for city - Rudaw
ISIS counter-attacks against US-backed YPG forces near Raqqa - southfront.org
Kurds arrest ISIS supporters northeast Syria - ARA News
I Fought ISIS with the Kurds in Syria. This is what it was like - The Tower
Syrian women speak of ISIS atrocities in Manbij - ARA News
French Security Council calls liberation of Syria's Raqqa national priority - Sputnik
---------------------------------------------------
Tillerson: US must prioritize defeating Daesh (ISIS) in Syria before dealing with Assad - Sputnik
French presidential hopeful Fillon considers dialogue with Assad to resolve Syria crisis - Sputnik
Iraq PM Al-Abadi sends message to Assad about the war on terrorism - AWD News
Improved U.S.-Russia ties positive for Syria, Assad says - Bloomberg
Assad welcomes French presidential candidate Fillon’s views on Syria - France 24
VIDEO: Bashar al-Assad answers French media questions - YouTube
TRANSCRIPT: Bashar al-Assad answers French media questions - Syrian Arab News Agency
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Focus: The Pentagon - Jan 10, 2017
DOT&E FY2016 Annual Report: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter - DOT&E
F-35 delayed — again — despite CEO's promise to Trump - Washington Examiner
Letter of Sen. McCain to Lockheed Martin CEO on the new F-35 delay - mccain.senate.gov
The Navy's F-35 may need a new landing gear - popularmechanics.com
Recent F-35 fire unrelated to previous problems: General - Defensetech
Could Trump really replace the F-35 with a Super Hornet? - popularmechanics.com
Super Hornet ‘not interchangable' with F-35, says US Air Force Secretary - defensenews.com
F-35 pilot: 'Preposterous' to think an F-18 could do the the F-35's job - Business Insider
This is how the F-35 is being tested against Russian and Chinese air defenses - wearethemighty.com
Marine Corps deploys first F-35 squadron to Japan: 'A true force multiplier' - Washington Times
Marine Corps F-35B integrates with NIFC-CA - Intercepts cruise missile target - Scout
Lockheed Martin's F-35: The U.S. Navy's secret missile defense system? - The National Interest Blog
America's military has a big problem: It's dead broke - The National Interest
Appeals court rules no transparency on Pentagon's top contractors - yahoo.com
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Tomgram: Rebecca Gordon, The Best Defense
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Democratic hysteria: Liberal Democrats Claiming a Russian Hack of the Election and Putin Control Over Trump are the New ‘Birthe
By Dave Lindorff
Talk Nation Radio: Millions Lose Their Minds Over Russia
https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-millions-lose-their-minds-over-russia
This week on Talk Nation Radio: millions of Americans lose their everloving minds over unproven accusations against Russia, the ACLU and CAIR publish claim that war on Iraq has been to protect the U.S. Bill of Rights, and a torture report gets buried.
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download from LetsTryDemocracy or Archive.
Pacifica stations can also download from Audioport.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Please embed the SoundCloud audio on your own website!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://TalkNationRadio.org
The Yanks Are Coming -- Unwanted
Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, How We Got Here
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week,
Focus: Russia - Jan 8, 2017
McCain, Graham still have questions about Tillerson - POLITICO
VIDEO: Full Interview: Lindsey Graham and John McCain On NBC's 'Meet The Press' - YouTube
McConnell: Trump's Russia hopes will quickly be dashed - Washington Examiner
VIDEO: Devin Nunes full Interview on 'Fox News Sunday' - YouTube
Pentagon chief Carter: Russian efforts in fight against ISIS 'virtually zero' - TheHill
VIDEO: Ash Carter interview On NBC's 'Meet The Press' - YouTube
Reince Priebus says Trump accepts Russia is to blame for election-season hacking - slate.com
Daniel Ellsberg hopes Trump, Putin can avoid doomsday scenario - San Francisco Chronicle
Russia election hack update: WikiLeaks will respond to CIA report Monday - ibtimes.com
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Note: Senators McCain, Graham and Klobuchar trip to Ukraine, the Baltics states and Georgia during the New Year 2017 holidays.
U.S. Senators vow no 'Faustian bargain' with Russia, pledge to target Putin ‘harder' - rferl.org
VIDEO: Interview with senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Aimee Klobuchar - YouTube
VIDEO: Sen. McCain in Donetsk region, Ukraine: Putin, we will defeat you in 2017 - YouTube
VIDEO: Poroshenko gives John McCain and US senators tour of Donetsk frontline on NYE - YouTube
VIDEO: Poroshenko awards Orders of Ukraine to US Senators McCain and Graham - YouTube
McCain calls for permanent US troops in Baltics - AFP
VIDEO: Senator McCain wants permanent US military presence in the Baltics - YouTube
US Senator McCain meets Lithuanian Prime Minister, reaffirms NATO support - Sputnik
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Allegations Against Russia Less Credible Every Day
The U.S. government has now generated numerous news stories and released multiple "reports" aimed at persuading us that Vladimir Putin is to blame for Donald Trump becoming president. U.S. media has dutifully informed us that the case has been made. What has been made is the case for writing your own news coverage. The "reports" from the "intelligence community" are no lengthier than the New York Times and Washington Post articles about them. Why not just read the reports and cut out the middle-person?
The New York Times calls the latest report "damning and surprisingly detailed" before later admitting in the same "news" article that the report "contained no information about how the agencies had collected their data or had come to their conclusions." A quick glance at the report itself would have made clear to you that it did not pretend to present a shred of evidence that Russia hacked emails or served as a source for WikiLeaks. Yet Congresswoman Barbara Lee declared the evidence in this evidence-free report "overwhelming." What should progressives believe, the best Congresswoman we've got or our own lying eyes?
Focus: NATO and Russia - Jan 6, 2016
VIDEO: US military shipment arrives in Germany, ahead of NATO exercises - YouTube
NATO and Russia in game of cat and mouse in Baltic skies - AFP
NATO: Russian aircraft intercepted 110 times above Baltic in 2016 - newsweek.com
Germany continues augmenting Baltic air policing - NATO HQ Aircom
US sends elite commandos to reassure Baltic states while NATO beefs up defenses - Daily Mail Online
This is how NATO members are preparing for a possible Russian aggression in Baltic Sea - ibtimes.com
ISIS jihadist admits: 'We want to attack Incirlik airbase' - pjmedia.com
In Turkey, US hand is seen provoking nearly every crisis - The Boston Globe
---------------------------------------------
AUDIO: Senator Cardin details bill on Russian sanctions - WBAL Radio 1090 AM
Key Senate Republicans hesitant about Russia sanctions - Washington Examiner
Kerry: 'Very dangerous' for Trump to reverse sanctions on Russia - TheHill
Report: Anti-Russian sanctions annihilated 400,000 jobs in Europe - Fort Russ
New satellite evidence of Russian Iskander M Missile deployment in Syria - Defense Update
Duterte hopes Russia will become Philippines' ally and protector - Reuters
Philippines’ Duterte open to Russian navy joint drill - newsweek.com
VIDEO: Duterte tours Russian warship: Come to Philippines more often - YouTube
Russian warship visit to Philippines part of broader pivot to Asia: analyst - ABS-CBN News
Russia's economy may be weak but its military is on a spending spree - afr.com
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
More Clapp-trap: Senate Hearing on Russian Election Mischief Again Fails to Prove Anything
By Dave Lindorff
The Russian hacking hysteria in the US media and, surprisingly, among educated liberals (who should know better after years of government lies and deceit, particularly about foreign affairs), is becoming increasingly embarrassing.
Why Release the Torture Report Now
A young man was tortured in Chicago this week. It wasn’t an act of the Chicago police. It was live streamed on Facebook. And the President of the United States declared it an horrific hate crime.
The President did not advise “looking forward” rather than enforcing the law. Nor did he hold open the possibility that the crime might have served some higher purpose. In fact, he didn’t excuse the crime in any way that might help recommend it for imitation by others.
Yet this same president has forbidden the prosecution of U.S. government torturers for the past 8 years and has now seen fit to keep a four-year-old Senate report on their torture secret for at least 12 years more.
Big win for Hep-C infected inmates: Federal Judge Orders Pennsylvania to Provide Anti-Viral Hep-C Treatment to Mumia Abu-Jamal
By Dave Lindorff
In a stunning conclusion to a year-and-a-half legal drama, a federal judge in Scranton, has ordered the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to quit stalling and to begin treating prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal with the latest available and highly effective anti-viral drugs for curing him of a raging and life-threatening case of Hepatitis C.
Tomgram: Nick Turse, Special Ops, Shadow Wars, and the Golden Age of the Gray Zone
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Tomgram: Engelhardt, It Can Happen Here (In Fact, It Did!)
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Nobel Laureates Urge President Obama to Bring Justice to the Exiled Chagossian People before Leaving Office
Washington, DC, January 5, 2017 -- Seven Nobel Laureates, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, are urging fellow Nobel Laureate President Barack Obama to use his last days in office to help end five decades of exile suffered by the Chagossian people, who were displaced from their homes on the British-controlled island of Diego Garcia by a U.S. military base.
“Only you now have the power to help the Chagossians return to their ancestral homeland” in the Indian Ocean, the Laureates tell President Obama. By helping the people return home, Obama can “cement [his] legacy as a defender of human rights,” the Nobel winners’ letter points out (full text below).
The Chagossians are descendants of enslaved Africans and indentured Indians whose ancestors lived on Diego Garcia and in the rest of the Chagos Archipelago since the time of the American Revolution. The Chagossians have been living in impoverished exile since the U.S. and U.K. governments forcibly removed them between 1968 and 1973 while establishing the U.S. base on Diego Garcia. For almost 50 years, the two governments have refused Chagossian demands to go home. In signing the letter, Archbishop Tutu described the people as “marginalised and ill-used children of God.”
Yes, Positivity, Pangloss, Partisanship, Propaganda, and Populism
Eight years ago Yes! Magazine published a political platform of progressive policies, along with polling showing strong majority support for each proposal. Now, eight years later, we can show almost total failure to advance any of the proposals, most of which were focused on the U.S. federal government.
Where there have been any small successes, they have mostly come at the state or local level or outside the United States. New York State just took a step toward free college and Washington State toward shutting down fossil fuels while everyone was watching Donald Trump's twitter feed. Most of the world's nations are working on a new treaty to ban nuclear weapons from the earth, while Obama's government has invested heavily in new nukes and (far more offensively, I'm told) Trump has tweeted about them.
The general federal-level failure in the United States is very clearly because the U.S. government in Washington D.C. is a financially corrupted and anti-democratic structure, and because the U.S. public is generally disinclined to hold it accountable. The United States enjoys remarkably less activism than many other countries, and suffers as a result.
A huge reason for the activism shortage is partisan loyalty. Of that minority of people who will do anything at all, many will only make demands of or protest members of one political party. For the other party all is forgiven. And most policy positions are utterly expendable at the slightest shift in the party line. Witness the current Democratic fever for believing the CIA on faith and desiring hostility toward Russia.
On No-Guts-Obama Leaving Behind an Imperial Graveyard in Afghanistan
Obama’s Deadly Afghan Acquiescence
From his first days, President Obama showed a lack of guts when confronted by powerful insiders. He backed down even when that meant squandering U.S. soldiers in the futile Afghan War “surges,” says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
By Ray McGovern.
Occasionally a New York Times writer like Mark Landler will be permitted to step up to the plate and write a sensible article about President “No Guts Obama” and how he caved in to folks whom he lacked the political courage to cross.
Talk Nation Radio: Dave Webb on Keeping Weapons and Nuclear Power Out of Space
Dave Webb is a member of the World Beyond War Coordinating Committee and chair of the UK Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and well as Vice President of the International Peace Bureau (IPB) and the Convenor of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space: http://space4peace.org
Webb is an Emeritus Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Leeds Beckett University (previously Leeds Metropolitan University). Webb has been involved in the campaign to scrap the UK Trident nuclear weapons system and has also focused on campaigning to close two U.S. bases in Yorkshire (where he lives) – Fylingdales (a missile defence radar base) and Menwith Hill (the huge NSA spy base).
We discuss the upcoming 25th Annual Global Network Conference & Protest: "Pivot Toward War: US Missile Defense & the Weaponization of Space" to be held on April 7-9, 2017, in Huntsville, Alabama: http://space4peace.org
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download from LetsTryDemocracy or Archive.
Pacifica stations can also download from Audioport.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Please embed the SoundCloud audio on your own website!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://TalkNationRadio.org
The Democratic Party Line That Could Torch Civil Liberties… and Maybe Help Blow Up the World
By Norman Solomon
Many top Democrats are stoking a political firestorm. We keep hearing that Russia attacked democracy by hacking into Democratic officials’ emails and undermining Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Instead of candidly assessing key factors such as longtime fealty to Wall Street that made it impossible for her to ride a populist wave, the party line has increasingly circled around blaming Vladimir Putin for her defeat.
Of course partisan spinners aren’t big on self-examination, especially if they’re aligned with the Democratic Party’s dominant corporate wing. And the option of continually fingering the Kremlin as the main villain of a 2016 morality play is clearly too juicy for functionary Democrats to pass up -- even if that means scorching civil liberties and escalating a new cold war that could turn radioactively hot.
Focus: Russian Hacking - Jan 2, 2017
According to both private cybersecurity firms and US intelligence agencies, there is no doubt that Russian group "Fancy Bear" (also known as Sofacy, APT 28, Sednit, Tsar Team or other names) hacked the Democratic party. Is Fancy Bear an agent of the Russian military intelligence service? I believe it is. Fancy Bear is well known by the cybersecurity experts and has been studied in the past at length. Since 2007, targets of Fancy Bear’s hacking have been Georgia and the Caucasus, Eastern European governments and militaries, Ukraine, US, Germany, UK, NATO, OSCE, Soros, etc. Lately it hacked the World Anti-Doping Agency in response to the WADA's recommendation to ban all Russian athletes from the Olympic games in Brazil. While China hacking conducts intellectual property theft, cybersecurity firm FireEye found that Fancy Bear 'has been targeting privileged information related to governments, militaries and security organizations that would likely benefit the Russian government.’ Another cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike states that Fancy Bear’s profile "closely mirrors the strategic interests of the Russian government."
During the years Fancy Bear’ hacking activity has grown in size, sophistication and scope. FireEye reports that Fancy Bear has continuously evolved its malware "using flexible and lasting platforms indicative of plans for long-term use and sophisticated coding practices;" it also uses obfuscation techniques to hide or disguise the code's true purpose and to prevent it from being detected. CrowdStrike has shown that Fancy Bear has the ability to run multiple and extensive intrusion operations concurrently; while it was hacking US political organizations was at the same time involved targeting European military organizations. CrowdStrike on Fancy Bear and another Russian hacking group "Cozy Bear": "Their tradecraft is superb, operational security second to none and the extensive usage of 'living-off-the-land' techniques enables them to easily bypass many security solutions they encounter. In particular, we identified advanced methods consistent with nation-state level capabilities including deliberate targeting and 'access management' tradecraft — both groups were constantly going back into the environment to change out their implants, modify persistent methods, move to new Command & Control channels and perform other tasks to try to stay ahead of being detected." This is not lone wolf or kiddie stuff. This level of activity requires a complex structure that only the Russian government can provide. The New York Times reports that Russian officials recruit programmers "placing prominent ads on social media sites, offering jobs to college students and professional coders.” Fancy Bear developers use the Russian language and operate during business hours consistent with the time zone of Russia’s major cities.
Also Cozy Bear was involved in the hacking of the Democratic party. Recently, after the American presidential elections, it attacked several Russia-focused think tanks in Washington DC who advise the US government. Crowdstrike said Cozy Bear has also been in the past behind attacks against the White House, State Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff. For convenience, here I only focus on Fancy Bear. Enclosed is publicly available documentation. Additional classified material may be in the hand of the US intelligence agencies.
In September 2015 Obama signed an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping in which both countries agreed not to hack the other’s private sector firms. After that there was a dramatic drop in Chinese state-sponsored hacking; around 90 percent of the cyber attacks disappeared in 2016. CrowdStrikes calls those Chinese hacking statistics "the biggest accomplishment we’ve had in the cyber domain in the last 30 years." Hopefully Trump will be able to do the same with Putin cutting down the Russian hacking. To this end, opening a friendly dialogue and establishing cooperation with Moscow will certainly help. Russians feel threatened by the West and their fears are the root causes of their cyberspionage surge.
REPORT: Bears in the Midst: Intrusion into the Democratic National Committee - CrowdStrike
Findings from analysis of DNC intrusion malware - Threat Geek
Russian-linked group leaks US lawmakers’ phone numbers, emails - Nextgov.com
ThreatConnect follows Guccifer 2.0 to Russian VPN Service - ThreatConnect
Faketivists: Fancy Bears in disguise - ThreatConnect Blog
How hackers broke into John Podesta and Colin Powell’s Gmail accounts - Motherboard
Threat Group-4127 (Fancy Bear) targets Google accounts - SecureWorks
Russian hackers of DNC said to nab secrets from top NATO general, Soros - Bloomberg
Fancy Bear tracks Ukraine troop movements via trojanized app - Infosecurity Magazine
Fancy Bear hack of Ukrainian artillery fighters shows future of war - Motherboard
REPORT: Danger Close: Fancy Bear Tracking of Ukrainian Field Artillery Units - CrowdStrike
Experts: Same Russians hacked World Anti-Doping Agency, Democrats - NBC News
REPORT: ThreatConnect Identifies FANCY BEAR World Anti-Doping Agency Breach - ThreatConnect
Fancy Bear hackers use a new Mac Trojan against aerospace industry – Cyber Defense Magazine
Fancy Bear goes all out to beat Adobe, MSFT zero-day patches - Ars Technica
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FBI-DHS report provides insight into Russian malicious cyber activity - eweek.com
REPORT: GRIZZLY STEPPE – Russian Malicious Cyber Activity - us-cert.gov
Critiques of the DHS/FBI’s GRIZZLY STEPPE Report – Robert M. Lee
Meet Fancy Bear, the Russian group hacking the US election - BuzzFeed News
All signs point to Russia being behind the DNC hack - Motherboard
Russian government likely to be behind APT 28 (Fancy Bear): Bitdefender - scmagazineuk.com
How Russia recruited elite hackers for its cyberwar - The New York Times
Obama curbed Chinese hacking, but Russia wont be so easy - WIRED
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
Fantasies About Russia Could Doom Opposition to Trump
To many Democrats for whom killing a million people in Iraq just didn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense, and who considered Obama's bombing of eight nations and the creation of the drone murder program to be praiseworthy, Trump will be impeachable on Day 1.
Indeed Trump should be impeached on Day 1, but the same Democrats who found the one nominee who could lose to Trump will find the one argument for impeachment that can explode in their own faces. Here's a "progressive" Democrat:
"In his dalliance with Vladimir Putin, Trump’s actions are skirting treason. ... By undermining further investigation or sanctions against the Russian manipulation of the 2016 election, Trump as president would be giving aid and comfort to Russian interference with American democracy."
There's a bit of a nod there -- in the word "investigations" -- to the lack of any evidence that Russia manipulated any U.S. election, yet that manipulation is stated as fact, and a failure to support further sanctions as punishment for it becomes "aid and comfort." What level of punishment exactly constitutes the absence of aid and comfort? And how does that level of punishment compare with the level likely to produce war or nuclear holocaust? Who knows.
Failure to sufficiently punish a foreign government, even for an actual proven offense, has never been a high crime and misdemeanor. The United States is in fact bound by the Hague Convention of 1899, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, and the United Nations Charter to take any such dispute to arbitration and to settle it by pacific means. But that would require producing some evidence rather than mere allegations. Lawless "punishment" is much easier.
But further evidence can emerge to counter the claim. The lack of evidence for the claim can weigh ever more heavily on public opinion. And the dangers of creating further hostility with Russia can enter the consciousness of additional people.
Meanwhile, we have a man planning to be president later this month whose business dealings clearly violate the U.S. Constitution in terms of not only foreign but also domestic corruption. That's a perfectly overwhelming case for impeachment and removal from office that doesn't require opposing a single incident of mass murder or offending a single Pentagon contractor.
Beyond that, Trump is becoming president after election day intimidation, the partisan-based removal of voters from the rolls, and opposition to attempting to count paper ballots where they existed. He's arriving with the stated policies of unconstitutionally discriminating against Muslims, murdering families, stealing oil, torturing, and proliferating nuclear weapons.
In other words, Donald Trump will be from Day 1 an impeachable president, and Democrats will have already spent months building their campaign around the one thing that won't work. Imagine what will happen after all their hearings and press conferences, when their supporters find out that they aren't even accusing Vladimir Putin of hacking into election machines, that in fact they are accusing unknown individuals of hacking into Democrats' emails, and that they are then vaguely speculating that those individuals could have been sources for WikiLeaks, thereby informing the U.S. public of what was quite obvious and ought to have been widely reported for the good of the U.S. government, namely that the DNC rigged its primary.
By the time the Democrats beat themselves to the floor with this charade, more facts will likely have come out regarding WikiLeaks' actual source(s), and more hostility will likely have been stirred up with Russia. The war hawks have already got Trump talking up nuclear escalation.
Luckily there is an ace in the hole. There is something else that Democrats will be eager to hold Trump accountable for. And give Trump a month and he'll produce it. I'm referring, of course, to that greatest fear of Our Beloved Founding Fathers, the ultimate high crime and misdemeanor: the presidential sex scandal.
New poem by ThisCantBeHappening! resident poet Gary Lindorff: 'Endless war'
my mother
my child
green clay
my way
Nine Years of Challenging Obama Policies at His Hawaii Vacation Home
By Ann Wright
Its been nine Christmas and New Year’s holidays that we in Hawaii have been challenging policies of the Obama administration—beginning in December 2008 before President-elect Obama was sworn into office-- on the issue of his silence on the 27-day Israeli attack on Gaza that killed 1400 Palestinians.
The vigil has continued for the each of the past nine holidays with members of social justice organizations in Honolulu including Veterans for Peace, Hawaii Peace and Justice and World Can't Wait have come to President Obama’s holiday home.
The signs that have been carried in the back of my car to the vigils over the years reflect the variety of issues about which we have expressed our concern. The posters “Close Guantanamo,” “Stop Torture” and “Help Gaza” are tattered and worn after nine years of use. “Stop Assassin Drones,” “Drones Kill Kids” and “Fire Liar John Brennan” signs are not quite so worn, but do reflect the horrific extrajudicial murders authorized personally by President Obama beginning early in his administration.
Photo by Ann Wright
After three years in which he was in pre-trial confinement, the “Free Bradley Manning” signs changed to “Clemency for Chelsea Manning” after Manning was tried by military courts martial and announced her gender transformation the day after her conviction.
“End Illegal Government Surveillance,” “Stop the War on Whistleblowers,” “Free Julian Assange,” “Listen to Edward Snowden” and signs for whistleblowers Jon Kiriakou and Jeffery Sterling imprisoned by the Obama administration’s war on whistleblowers have been held in front of Obama’s motorcade as it left the presidential compound in Kailua, Oahu, Hawaii.
“Close U.S. Bases in Okinawa,” “Stop Construction at Henoko and Takae,” “Save Article 9-NO WAR, ”Stop Osprey Widow maker,” “No more Rapes in Okinawa” are signs for campaigns in solidarity with people in Okinawa.
ACLU & CAIR Use Gold Star Father to Claim War on Iraq Was for Bill of Rights
Are you old enough to remember when liberal groups openly admitted that the war on Iraq was illegal and fraudulent, based on oil and profit and sadism?
Well, can you recall when the proponents of the war claimed it was a defense against nonexistent ties to terrorists and nonexistent weapons?
Even if you've wiped those memories, let me assure you, NOBODY ever claimed that attacking and destroying Iraq was necessary to protect civil liberties in the United States (which have been seriously eroded during the course of the war).
Yet, in recent months the generic defense of murdering large numbers of people far away has taken over as the explanation for the war on Iraq.
The ACLU on Friday used the voice of my fellow Charlottesvillian Khizr Khan to claim that attacking Iraq was done "in defense of our country's ideals."
John Kerry’s finest hour: Obama Team Labels Israel an Outlaw Nation
By John Grant
Hallelujah!
Focus: Syria - Dec 29, 2016
Syrian government and rebels sign cease-fire deal, says Russia - LA Times
Russia to cut military presence in Syria: Putin - TASS
Syria ceasefire deal — the draft text - TRT World
POLL: Putin’s approval rating hits 2016 record-high of nearly 87 percent - TASS
Lavrov hopes Trump administration will join efforts on Syria peace talks - TASS
Two parallel talks on Syria settlement might be held in Astana - Sputnik
Assad believes agreements on Syria lay grounds for stabilization 'for first time ever’ - TASS
Syrian foreign minister sees 'real chance' for political settlement - Reuters
FSA says Syria ceasefire agreed, reveals details - orient-news.net
"Nor did Nour al-Din Zinki sign the agreement” - Sami on Twitter
Turkey says Lebanon's Hezbollah should leave Syria - The Times of Israel
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US State Dept 'welcomes' Syria cease-fire, sees it as 'a positive development' - Washington Examiner
Graham fears Syria truce a ‘capitulation’ to Russia, Iran - TheHill
US supplies weapons to YPG terrorists in Syria, period, Turkey FM says - Daily Sabah
Kurdish PYD says not invited to join Syrian ceasefire deal - Sputnik
Syrian Kurdish groups, allies say approve blueprint for federal system - Reuters
Syrian Kurdistan drops Rojava (Western Kurdistan) word in its draft constitution - Rudaw
To contact Bartolo email peaceloverblog[at]yahoo[dot]com (replacing [at] with @, [dot] with .)
