Franklin Lamb

Wadi Al Nasera, (Valley of the Christians), Syria

Wadi al Nasera (Valley of the Christians) encompasses approximately 40 picturesque Christian hamlets in western Syria, located amidst the green plush rolling hills between Homs and the Lebanese border. Thirty of its villages are Christian, four are mainly populated by Alawi Muslims and one, Al Qalaa (aka Hosn village), just under the Crak des Chevaliers medieval fortress, was Sunni Muslim. It was literally pulverized by heavy and sustained government forces aerial bombardment once it became a supply base in 2013 for rebels inside the medieval crusader fortress.

I spent the past week visiting some of the oldest Wadi al Nasara Christian villages which include Marmarita, Al-Hwash , Zweitina, Muzina, Nasra, Mqaabra, al Mishtiaya, Blat,Tanurin, Anaz, Joir al-Afes, Hab Nimra, `Ash al-Shuha, `Amar al-Husn, `Ayn al-Barda, `Ayn al-Ajuzi, `Ayn al-Ghara, Kafra, Mashta Aazar, Al-Qllatia, Kayma, Masraa, Muklous, Bahzina, Joineyat, Al-Talla, Daghla, Amar, Mishtayeh and Rabah, agrees with many who come to Wadi al Nasera (Valley of the Christians) that the valley is most beautiful and welcoming area of Syria or of anyplace in the Middle East that he has visited. Its people who include Syrian Orthodox, Syrian Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholics and Armenian Orthodox among others, add to its splendor. Some visitors come repeatedly, others annually for summer holidays or to experience one or more of the valleys seasonal cultural festivals that makes this part of Syria a major tourist attraction.

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Eric Zuesse

One of my recent articles at several sites, "Jimmy Carter Is Correct That the U.S. Is No Longer a Democracy” generated many reader-comments (such as here) saying things like, "The US has always been a republic. There are no true democracies in the modern world.” This will be my response to all who expressed that view:

You miss the point that Carter made, and that I there documented to be true, which is no semantic issue (“democracy” versus “republic”), but which instead concerns the basic lie about what the United States of America really is now:

Is this a representative democracy, such as its Founders intended and such as it was famous and honored throughout the world for being, until at least around 1980? Or, is it instead a nation that’s ruled by a tiny elite, an aristocracy, which in this country consists of its 500 or so billionaires, who buy the politicians whom ‘we’ ‘elect’?

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by Stephen Lendman

Violence and/or vandalism committed by extremist Israeli settlers against West Bank Palestinians occur almost daily. They’re not isolated incidents.

Nor are multiple daily Israeli security force attacks - breaking into homes pre-dawn, terrorizing families, making lawless arrests, other times attacking peaceful protesters threatening no one.

These are systematic acts of racist hate - along with Israel asserting its ruthless might, maintaining militarized occupation harshness long ago declared illegal.

International law requires occupying powers to ensure the security, safety and welfare of populations they control. Israeli soldiers, police and other security forces ignore their responsibility. When violent incidents occur, rare investigations follow. When conducted, they’re nearly always whitewashed.

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by Stephen Lendman

Naftali Bennett is a Netanyahu coalition partner. He heads the fascist Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) party. He’s ideologically over-the-top.

He deplores political activism and rule of law principles. He wants truth and full disclosure suppressed. He supports denying Palestinians their international law guaranteed rights.

He wants unlimited settlement expansions on stolen Palestinian land - an ethnic cleansing policy for exclusive Jewish development. Earlier he was Netanyahu’s chief of staff. He co-founded My Israel with with notorious Arab hater/current justice minister Ayelet Shaked. It’s an ultra-right-wing extra-parliamentary movement endorsing Zionist extremism.

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Eric Zuesse

Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was asked by an interviewer last week, “On the question of Syria, have you seen changes in the attitude of Russian President Putin?” and Erdogan replied: "As compared to the past, there is a much more positive attitude by Putin towards Syria. He is no longer approaching the matter like he used to. No longer is it, ‘We’ll stand with Assad till the end.’ I expect that he will abandon Assad.”

Erdogan is constantly in touch with both of the principals who will be determining the future of Syria, Barack Obama who wants Islamists to take the country over, and Vladimir Putin who wants the existing secular regime to stay in power. Obama supports and is supported by the Sunni Muslim Erdogan, and Putin supports and is supported by Shiite Muslim Iran.

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by Stephen Lendman

Rogue states maintain power by intimidation, repression and controlling the message - suppressing anything challenging their authority.

Ukraine is an illegitimate US-installed fascist police state - a rogue regime opposed to fundamental freedoms. It’s waging war on its own people.

Its human rights record is horrendous. Even the State Department admits it harasses and discriminates against ethnic minorities, makes arbitrary arrests for political reasons, abuses individuals in custody including torture, engages in human trafficking, operates a corrupt judicial system, denies due process, commits violence against women, abuses children, uses forced labor, and severely limits the right of workers to strike.

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by Stephen Lendman

Medical ethicists call the practice barbaric, tantamount to torture. The World Medical Association (WMA) calls it “inhuman and degrading treatment.”

Israeli Medical Association (IMA) chairman Leonid Eidelman denounced the practice. Force-feeding prisoners against their will is "unethical," he said.

In a letter to Israeli authorities, he explained the IMA would "order doctors to act solely according to the rules of ethics, and not feed or nourish hunger strikers against their will."

In 2014, IMA issued guidelines for treating hunger strikers - saying all treatment must be carried out “in accordance with the patient's free will…(G)enerally accepted ethical principles in Israel and abroad (prohibit) forced medical treatment, including force-feeding…”

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by Stephen Lendman

Pope Francis will address the world body in New York on September 25 - a day after he becomes the first pontiff to address a joint congressional session, then meet with Obama at the White House.

The US president and Vladimir Putin will address the General Assembly on September 28 - the Russian leader’s first time since 2005.

Obama’s 2014 world body address was one of his worst - painful beginning-to-end demagogic listening. He ignored America’s killing machine - rampaging globally against one country after another.

He irresponsibly bashed Russia - baselessly accusing Putin of aggression in Ukraine - the same Big Lie repeatedly blasted worldwide, media scoundrels reporting it like administration press release handouts, gullible Western audiences believing it.

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Zahir Ebrahim

| Project Humanbeingsfirst.org

First, one must comprehend the theory behind fomenting controlled chaos of “revolutionary times” by supporting both sides of the conflict. The concept of Insurgency and counter-insurgency as a war paradigm for sustaining “imperial mobilization” under the cover of controlled chaos is explained in: “Insurgency vs. Counter Insurgency”. Fomenting “revolutionary times” with self-inflicted terror is explained in “Understanding Self-Inflicted Terror”.

The new militant “Islamic State” with “caliphate” galore is only the manufactured progression of going from empire's own stateless antediluvian actors playing their scripted “Taliban - Al Qaeda terrorist” role as public enemy number one of the United States and the civilized world, to antediluvian stateful actors playing their scripted “ISIS - terrorists' expansionist” role as public enemy number one of the United States and the civilized world. Twenty-first century barbarians being brought to power to foment not just the “Clash of Civilizations”, as the erstwhile Jewish political theorist Samuel Huntington at Harvard University, and still ever present “foremost Western scholar of Islam”, Jewish prof. Bernard Lewis at Princeton University had formulated it in the 1990s, but the “Clash between the Civilized World and Barbarians” as Daniel Pipes more accurately couched the empirical manifestations of “militant Islam” after 9/11.

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Eric Zuesse

TIME has posted the transcript of the August 6th Fox News Channel Republican Presidential candidates’ debate, and there are a number of interesting features in it that have not generally been covered in the press:

1: After introducing all the contestants in this the first of the Republican Presidential candidates’ debates, FNC’s Chris Wallace turned to FNC’s Brett Baier and said, with no explanation "I think you would call that a home field advantage.” This constitutes subtle acknowledgment that Fox News Channel is, and prides itself on being, the Republican Party’s television network (thus “home field”). Mr. Baier’s reply to that was equally opaque: "It might be. We’ll see,” as if that statement meant something. 2: The first question in the debate was from Baier, and (as Ezra Klein aptly noted) it was specifically selected in order to shame one specific candidate, Donald Trump, who is the only candidate who has not promised to endorse whomever wins the Republican nomination:

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