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Gaza War Postmortems
by Stephen Lendman
Israel's Operation Protective Edge (OPE) was well-planned premeditated aggression.
It had nothing to do with Hamas rockets. It wasn't about crushing Palestine's legitimate government.
Israel needs enemies. When none exist, they're invented. They're blamed for Israel's crimes.
OPE was about preventing Palestinian self-determination. It was to maintain occupation harshness. It was to keep stealing Palestinian land.
It was to expand settlements exponentially. It was to control all valued parts of Judea and Samaria.
It was to keep Palestinians confined on isolated bantustans on worthless scrubland. It was to steal their resources.
Ukraine: US-EU Puppet Regime in Free Fall
The Saker
(Image: U.S. Asst Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, and President Petro Poroshenko in happier days. Creative Commons US Dept of State)
Reposted from Vineyard of the Saker (with permission)
The Ukrainian civil war has reached a turning point and a lot of separate facts point to this conclusion:
Military situation on the ground
The Ukies are losing, badly. All the reports from Novorussian sources agree that the Ukie forces are either surrounded or in full retreat. But Ukies sources also confirm this. In Kiev, angry demonstrations by nationalists accuse the military high command of minimizing the real casualty figures, of having abandoned the forces fighting in the Donbass. Even Oleg Liashko has stated that the Ukie forces have been "betrayed". Demonstrations have taken place in front of the Ukie General Staff. Many Right Sector protesters are demanding the creation of a "generals battalion" which would be formed of only generals who would be sent to fight personally (an excellent idea, which I fully approve of!). Others are also demanding the resignation of the Ukie Minister of Defense. Ukrainian woman are regularly stopping military convoys on the roads, often by standing or lying down in front of trucks, to prevent their men from being sent to death.
Targeting Syria
by Stephen Lendman
On Tuesday, Obama addressed the American Legion's annual convention in Charlotte, NC. More on his speech below.
The next day, the so-called UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria (COI) issued its latest anti-Assad report.
Its mandate is investigating human rights abuses. It's a pro-Western imperial tool. Paulo Pinheiro heads it. His reports bear testimony to his bias. He largely blames Assad for Western-sponsored crimes.
Last summer, Syria's permanent UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari addressed the General Assembly, saying:
"The Commission of Inquiry on Syria is still deliberately blowing things out of proportion when displaying its findings, also fully disregarding or downplaying core issues.
The Russians Are Coming Big Lies
by Stephen Lendman
Anti-Russian lies keep repeating. So many proliferate, it hard keeping up. The latest is over-the-top and then some.
It accuses Russia of launching a major offensive against Ukrainian forces.
Accusations without evidence are made. Kiev sources are cited. They've been caught red-handed lying many times.
Nothing they say is credible. It doesn't matter. Major media scoundrels repeat their rubbish like gospel. More on this below.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki claimed unsubstantiated reports "indicate a Russian-directed counteroffensive is likely underway in Donetsk and Luhansk."
Could Obama's Legacy Be Destroyed by His Ukraine Policy? What to Do About It --
Eric Zuesse
The Ukrainian Government that the Obama Administration installed after Obama’s successful coup d'etat in Ukraine is now crashing and burning in the process of the newly installed Government’s ethnic-cleansing program to get rid of the people in Ukraine's southeast, the area of Ukraine that had voted overwhelmingly for the President whom the Obama Administration (the State Department and the CIA) had overthrown in February. The residents there rejected this new Government; this new Government is trying to exterminate them; and the local rebel-fighters against that are winning, and are decimating thousands of troops who were sent in to kill them and their families, and are shooting down many of the bombers that have been sent in to bomb them.
It’s time for a post-Piketty vision of shared wealth
Adam Parsons
Thomas Piketty
The latest bestseller in economics has done a great deal of service to progressives in highlighting the imperative of shared wealth. But given the social and ecological limits to economic growth, this emerging conversation on global sharing has to get a lot more radical.
There is no doubt that Thomas Piketty’s best-seller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, has done a great deal of good in highlighting the urgency of tackling spiralling levels of global inequality. But could his main policy prescription – an annual global tax on capital - lead to a genuine sharing of wealth within and across societies?
The Guardian columnist George Monbiot is one of the latest commentators to add his voice to the debate, outlining the importance of Piketty’s analysis and conclusions. Central to these conclusions is Piketty’s critique of the Kuznets curve graph, which in the 1950s appeared to show that inequality automatically declines as a society advances through increased economic growth and industrialisation.
Washington Sabotages Russian/Ukrainian Summit
by Stephen Lendman
Washington wants control over all former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact countries.
It wants pro-Western governance replacing sovereign Russian independence.
It's part of its longstanding world dominance agenda. It wants all challengers eliminated.
On Monday, Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko met in Minsk. It was their first official bilateral meeting. They discussed relevant geopolitical issues. Key is resolving Southeastern Ukraine's ongoing conflict.
Putin urges doing it peacefully. Poroshenko's continues war without mercy. He deplores democracy.
He wants freedom fighting self-defense forces crushed. He wants unchallenged hardline rule.
Gaza Ceasefire: Hold the Cheers
by Stephen Lendman
On Monday, both sides agreed to open-ended ceasefire terms. Peace talks will resume in Cairo within a month.
Terms agreed on include opening border crossings, "enabl(ing) the rapid entry of humanitarian aid," as well as construction supplies for rebuilding.
Monitoring will ensure reconstruction is solely for civilian purposes.
Israel's blockade has nothing to do with security. In June 2010, McClatchy newspapers headlined "Israeli document: Gaza blockade isn't about security," saying:
Effective immediately, coastal fishing waters will expand from three to six nautical miles. They'll gradually increase to 12 miles by yearend.
Israel agreed to halt targeted assassinations. Days earlier, Netanyahu called Hamas leaders legitimate targets.
Update to Resistance Turning Tide in Eastern Ukraine
Michael Collins
UPDATE to Resistance Turning Tide in Eastern Ukraine 8/27
The Colonel Cassad blog provides a detailed follow up to the breaking news post reported in my article yesterday at 2:40 AM. The description and analysis with maps and photographs documents the remarkable turnaround by the Donbass resistance in eastern Ukraine:
"In recent several days we are witnessing an epic and a historic event of its own kind. The Ukrainian regular army and punitive battalions are suffering a catastrophic defeat to the south of Donetsk. Even a short time ago the republics were in dire straits, the DPR was actually hanging by a thin supply thread , which was attempted to be cut near Shakhtyorsk and Krasnyi Luch, the summit of Saur-Mogila was abandoned, Bolotov's counteroffensive didn't bring decisive successes. Many thought that the militia was pressed against the rope and that it was about to break, which would lead to the collapse of Novorossia and the military victory for the fascist junta. However, the militia managed to withstand the most severe blow, which the junta dealt with all forces available to it in the first half of August." The Collapse of the Southern Front, Colonel Cassad - English, August 26
Climate Crisis Connects Us, Climate Justice Demands Unity
By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese
What do rigged corporate trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Treaty, an international climate agreement to be signed in 2015, have in common? They are both tools being pushed by the power elite to rip away our hopes for democracy and to commodify all things to monetize them for profit.
It is this drive by multinational corporations to patent and control even living beings such as plants and animals and to privatize even elements that are essential to life such as water which connects all human beings on the planet. We are in a global battle of the people versus the plutocrats and this battle has a ticking timer called the climate crisis.
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