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The SakerA bird's eye view of the vineyard
Public InquiryInterested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
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international / anti-war / imperialism Sunday August 12, 2012 - 12:35 by pat c
 14 comments (last - tuesday august 21, 2012 - 10:29)
The threat level of Imperialist attack on Syria rises as the US and Turkey threaten to impose unilateral no-fly zones. Full text at link. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu are considering implementing no-fly zones for Syria after holding Saturday talks in Istanbul.. According to Reuters, Clinton said that Ankara and Washington need to plan ways to assist the rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad – including possibly implementing a no-fly zone. ... read full story / add a comment
international / rights, freedoms and repression Saturday August 11, 2012 - 21:23 by pat c
5 comments (last - friday december 07, 2012 - 19:50)
The conditions under which Bradley Manning was held in didn't just originate with low level guards, the orders came from the top. But from Private to General they all collaborated in the maltreatment of Bradley Manning. Full text at link. An order to submit WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning to harsh and allegedly illegal treatment in prison apparently came from the upper echelons of the Marine Corps. According to military e-mails released to Manning’s defense, a three-star general was the force behind the marching orders to hold Manning as a maximum-custody detainee under prevention-of-injury watch, or POI — orders that resulted in severe conditions at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia, that left Manning isolated and repeatedly mistreated by his guards. ... read full story / add a comment
international / anti-war / imperialism Thursday August 09, 2012 - 11:23 by pat c
2 comments (last - thursday august 16, 2012 - 08:39)  2 images
Mike McNair writes about the ongoing threats to Iran, the development of US military policy since the defeat in Iran and the relationship between US military adventures and economic crises over the last 30 years. Full text at link. For some years now the USA and its allies have been carrying out a blockade, or siege warfare, against Iran, under the euphemistic name of ‘sanctions’. In July, the sanctions siege was significantly intensified and alongside it the US and Israel have been organising semi-clandestine sabotage operations (most notably the Stuxnet computer virus) and assassinations. ... read full story / add a comment 
international / anti-capitalism Wednesday August 08, 2012 - 19:51 by pat c
2 images
In this in-depth investigative analysis, Ewan Robertson evaluates the advances and setbacks of the worker control movement in Venezuela, and what Venezuela's experience in worker control means for the Bolivarian revolution and movements for radical social change worldwide. Full text at link. The struggle for worker control in Grafitos began in early 2009, when the former boss refused to negotiate a new collective contract with the workers’ union and tried to close the factory, taking the machinery with him. In response, the workers began a factory occupation which lasted eight months. For economic reasons many workers had to abandon the struggle, with only 18 remaining in occupation when the Venezuelan government intervened in favour of the workers. The Venezuelan labour ministry released a “decree of temporary occupation for the reactivation of the company”, which in effect awarded the factory to the workers to manage as they saw fit. ... ... read full story / add a comment
international / anti-war / imperialism Tuesday August 07, 2012 - 18:56 by pat c
1 comment (last - tuesday august 07, 2012 - 20:03)
Turkey is massacring Kurdish resistance fighters yet at the same time it is shedding crocodile tears over potential massacres in Aleppo. Its threat to invade Syria to deal with Kurds is a cover for a NATO invasion of Syria. Full text at link. On the eve of an expected major offensive in Aleppo by the Syrian regime, Turkey has threatened to invade Syria, using the pretext of Kurdish groups seizing control of northern border areas. Such a move could pitch Ankara directly into war against Syria, after it has long sought to dictate events through control of the opposition Syrian National Congress and Free Syrian Army. This would be done with the full support of the United States. ... read full story / add a comment 
international / rights, freedoms and repression Monday August 06, 2012 - 21:38 by pat c
4 comments (last - friday august 10, 2012 - 21:16) 2 images  1 video file
Wade michael page, was ex-military and a neo-nazi. Page fronted a white supremacist rock band called End Apathy, according to watchdog group the Southern Poverty Law Center. SPLC also determined that in 2000, Page attempted to purchase goods from the neo-Nazi group the National Alliance, described as America's then "most important hate group." In 2010, Page gave an interview to white-power website Label 56. Page wrote songs with titles like "Self Destruct" and "Usefull [sic] Idiots." This part is interesting, a demoted drunken, obstreperous soldier appointed to psychological operations. Was it a real demotion or a psychological operation itself? Page, 40, served in the Army from April 1992 through October 1998, during which he was demoted from sergeant to specialist. While in the Army Wade served in Ft. Bliss in Texas and at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina. Wade's job was as a Hawk missile system repairman, and he then became a psychological operations specialist, defense official confirmed to ABC news. ... read full story / add a comment
international / crime and justice Sunday August 05, 2012 - 19:51 by pat c
Reminds me of how Andreas Baader committed suicide in his prison cell by shooting himself in the back of the head. Full text at link. A 21-year old man was fatally shot in the head while handcuffed in the back of a police car in Arkansas. The police claim it was a suicide but victim's family has a hard time believing it. Chavis Carter was arrested by two officers for carrying marijuana, after being detained at a traffic stop last Saturday. The officers say they searched him twice before placing him in the back of a police car wearing “double locked” handcuffs. Carter allegedly called his girlfriend while at the traffic stop, telling her he’d call later from jail. But shortly thereafter, the young man was found slumped over in the back of the police car with a fatal gunshot wound to the head. The officers claim they were nowhere near the car when the gun was fired. ... read full story / add a comment
international / anti-war / imperialism Saturday August 04, 2012 - 13:03 by pat c
The UN General Assembly has denounced Syria and blamed Assad for the fighting: “the first step in the cessation of violence has to be made by the Syrian authorities.” It denounced “the increasing use by the Syrian authorities of heavy weapons, including indiscriminate shelling from tanks and helicopters, and the failure to withdraw its troops and the heavy weapons to their barracks.” Thus they demand that the Syrian Government commit political suicide, by unilaterally disarming in the face of an international Islamist insurgency armed, financed, and organized by the US and its allies. Full text at link. ... read full story / add a comment
international / anti-war / imperialism Friday August 03, 2012 - 13:23 by Yassamine Mather
4 comments (last - tuesday august 07, 2012 - 19:05)
Romney and Obama attempt to surpass each other in their threats against Iran and their obsequious support for Israel. Yassamine Mather looks at this, the effect of sanctions and how to respond to the CIA-funded Iran Tribunal. Full text at link. It is mid-summer in an election year, so we should not be surprised by the hawkish statements regarding Iran coming from the US - not just from the Republican contender, Mitt Romney, but also the current US president. However, even when we take into account the timing, some of the statements Romney has just made in Jerusalem are more than worrying - and they have been matched by Barack Obama’s promises to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on the despatch of bunker-buster bombs to the Gulf region.1 According to the Financial Times, in a keynote speech delivered in Jerusalem, Mitt Romney stated that the US has a “moral imperative” to stop Iran - the “most destabilising country in the world” - from developing nuclear weapons.2 Earlier in the day one of Romney’s advisors, Dan Senor, had said: “If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing that capability, the governor would respect that decision”.3 ... ... read full story / add a comment 
international / rights, freedoms and repression Friday August 03, 2012 - 12:54 by pat c
5 comments (last - friday october 05, 2012 - 23:41) 7 images
Where are the United Nations? Where are the EU sanctions? Why is repression ok in Bahrain? Full text at link. Bahraini riot police have fired tear gas and stun grenades at hundreds of demonstrators attempting to block a highway. Frequent antigovernment protests have wracked the country since February 2011. Protesters and police clashed in several Shiite villages late Thursday and early Friday, witnesses told AFP. The recent protests are a move by Bahrain’s opposition to spark further street demonstrations in the country. The ongoing uprising by the country’s Shiite majority, which claims systematic discrimination on the part of Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy, has weakened after multiple mass arrests. At least 50 people have been killed and many more detained since protests began 18 months ago. ... read full story / add a comment 
national / crime and justice Friday August 03, 2012 - 12:14 by lefty
2 comments (last - monday august 06, 2012 - 14:41) 1 image
Ooooops!...Judge Mary Devins, notorious judge in many cases against shell to sea activists, is finally seen for the right wing racist she is as she trips over her own bigoted remarks ... read full story / add a comment
international / anti-war / imperialism Tuesday July 31, 2012 - 12:04 by pat c
7 comments (last - saturday august 04, 2012 - 01:26)
Even US media groups like CNN are admitting that foreign jihadists, particularly Libyans, are flocking to Syria. Writing in the New York Times, Vali Nasr, Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies, warns that if Assad should fall from power, over 100 different opposition groups inside Syria would continue to fight for power with each other and with members of the Alawite, Shiite, Christian, and Druze religious minorities, threatening to turn Syria into “a larger version of Lebanon in the 1970s … There would be ethnic cleansing, refugee floods, humanitarian disasters and opportunities for Al Qaeda.” Full text at link. The Gulf sheikhdoms, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have supplied millions of dollars’ worth of weapons to the Syrian opposition and pledged to pay salaries to “rebel” fighters. While Washington has claimed that it is providing “non-lethal” supplies to the opposition, such as night vision glasses and communications equipment, teams of CIA operatives are acknowledged to be working inside Turkey to coordinate the distribution of money and arms to the various militant groups. ... read full story / add a comment
international / anti-war / imperialism Friday July 27, 2012 - 20:34 by Yassamine Mathe
5 comments (last - monday july 30, 2012 - 12:35)
Yassamine Mather writes on the Sunni Islamist fundamentalist onslaught in Syria. An attack funded and backed by Imperialism. She analyses what has brought Syria to this situation and exposes the massacres carried out by the fundamentalists. Full text at link. It may only be a matter of time before the Assad regime in Syria collapses and Sunni Islamist fundamentalists backed by the US/UK, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and others are in power in Damascus. If that happens, the Shia states of Iran and occupied Iraq, which have backed Bashar al-Assad, would have lost a close ally. ... Non-Arab Iran remains Assad’s main ally, but Assad’s downfall would create an upheaval that would shift the balance of power in the region in favour of Iran’s enemies: the Sunni Gulf states (the main supporters of the Syrian opposition). Tehran’s Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, now the most powerful military and political force in Lebanon, would also be weakened. ... ... read full story / add a comment 
national / crime and justice Tuesday July 24, 2012 - 23:52 by lefty
4 comments (last - friday august 03, 2012 - 12:55) 1 image
Fintan O'toole penned a rather interesting piece in the times regarding the privileged treatment of Sean Quinn who was imprisoned for contempt for 3 months. However evidently prison has a slightly different meaning for Mr Quinn and his ilk compared to the rest of us...plus ca change! ... read full story / add a comment 
international / anti-war / imperialism Tuesday July 24, 2012 - 13:17 by pat c
25 comments (last - monday july 30, 2012 - 16:32) 2 images 1 video file
A new coalition of thw willing is being prepared by the US to wage war on Syria. That includes the EU as a whole, the EU have imposed sanctions on Syria and sanctions are war by another means. Full text at link. Following its failure to ram through a resolution against syria at the united nations security council last week, the administration of barack obama has intensified its preparations to gather a “coalition of the willing” to oust the government of syria and install a us client regime. The resolution would have imposed new sanctions against damascus under chapter 7 of the un charter, which authorizes the use of military force. The last such resolution by the council was used by the us and nato to justify their war for regime-change in libya. ... read full story / add a comment
international / miscellaneous Monday July 23, 2012 - 02:00 by Gearoid O Loingsigh
A comment on the latest indigenous revolt in Colombia, where the indigenous have expelled troops from their areas. ... read full story / add a comment
international / eu Monday July 23, 2012 - 00:04 by T
1 comment (last - thursday december 26, 2013 - 23:13)
As reported by the financial blog The Automatic Earth written by Nicole Foss, she has reported that the German magazine Der Spiegel dropped a bombshell this morning in an article that the IMF plans to dump Greece in September. So far the Der Spiegel article is in German. Normally they will eventually publish articles in English. "Griechenland könnte schon im September pleitegehen. Der Internationale Währungsfonds hat nach Informationen des SPIEGEL der Brüsseler EU-Spitze signalisiert, dass er sich nicht an weiteren Hilfen für das Land beteiligen werde." Greece could go bankrupt as early as September. Spiegel has obtained information that the IMF told the Brussels leadership it would not make more money available for help to Greece. ... read full story / add a comment
international / anti-war / imperialism Friday July 20, 2012 - 23:34 by Yassamine Mather
1 comment (last - saturday july 21, 2012 - 09:01)
Yassamine Mather examines the excuses used by ‘leftwing’ supporters of the Iran Tribunal and finds them wanting. In particular she finds their comparison the Lenin and the Bolsheviks agreeing to board a German sealed train for Petrograd in 1917 to be risible. Lenin got on that train to Finland station in order to help lead a working class revolution, not to further German war aims. Full text at link. Debates about the Iran Tribunal - convened to put the Islamic regime in the dock for its massacre of 5,000-10,000 political prisoners in 1988 - continues to occupy a prominent place in the publications and websites of the Iranian left, both in exile and to a lesser extent inside Iran itself. In a sense it is true that, given the current situation in Iran - not least the disastrous consequences of what the US calls “comprehensive sanctions” - this is a small, irrelevant issue. After all, this week alone another 400 workers lost their jobs in Iran’s main car manufacturer, Iran Khodro, as a direct consequence of sanctions: Malaysia, under pressure from the US, pulled out of a contract. It is also true that sanctions are not the same as cluster bombs, but their effect on the Iranian working class can be devastating nevertheless. ... read full story / add a comment
international / anti-war / imperialism Friday July 20, 2012 - 01:09 by pat c
3 comments (last - friday july 20, 2012 - 16:56)
The Israelis were quick to assert that Iran and Hezbollah were responsible for the Bulgarian bombing.But now it emerges that Mehdi Ghezali, a jihadist who spent two years in Guantanamo was the likely culprit. But things are murky. Who was he really working for? CIA? MOSSAD? Don't rule out a false flag operation with Mehdi thinking he was working for a Jihad group when in fact his masters were really CIA/MOSSAD. Fulltext at link. Bulgarian media have reportedly identified the man responsible for blowing up the bus with Israeli tourists on Wednesday as Mehdi Ghezali, a jihadist who spent two years in Guantanamo. US officials responded there is “no evidence” that it was him. Ghezali’s name was revealed by Times of Israel newspaper, who cited local Bulgarian media sources. But later the story grew murkier, with ABC reporting that Bulgarian officials denied that Ghezali was behind the attack. Swedish agency TT says it has received similar refutals from security services in Stockholm. NBC later said that US officials also had no information linking Ghezali with the terrorist act. None of the countries have issued an independently verified statement. ... read full story / add a comment
international / anti-war / imperialism Friday July 20, 2012 - 00:33 by pat c
11 comments (last - monday july 23, 2012 - 11:57) 1 image
Bill Van Auken reports on the suicide bombing in Damascus which killed leading members of Assads Cabinet. The bombing may have been carried out by fundamentalists but it was inspired by Israel or the US. Full text at link. A suicide bomber's attack on a meeting of cabinet ministers and senior security officials claimed the lives of at least three senior members of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday. Syrian state media confirmed Wednesday that Defense Minister Dawould Rajha, his deputy, Assef Shawkat, the brother-in-law of the president, and Hasan Turkmani, Assad's security adviser, were killed in the morning blast, which occurred during a top-level meeting held in the tightly secured National Security Building in the Rawda district of central Damascus ... read full story / add a comment |
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