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1 of indy - Mon Apr 24, 2017 10:42
To help highlight the case of the Jobstown 18 we are republishing an open letter by Irish Writers.
We write as writers concerned with the impact of proposed jury restrictions in the case of the Jobstown 18 on freedom of expression in Ireland.
To help highlight the case of the Jobstown 18 we are republishing an open letter by Irish Writers.
Related Links:
Stand With Jobstown - Sat 6th May @ 2pm in Tallaght |
'March for Justice' in solidarity with the Jobstown Not Guilty campaign - Apr 22nd |
Violence And The Jobstown Anti-Water Charges Protest. |
Free the Jobstown 4! - Socialist Party Press Release |
Hundreds protest conviction of Jobstown teen following Burton sit in |
These three proposed restrictions from the DPP are particularly objectionable in this regard:
1 of Indymedia - Thu Nov 24, 2016 02:56
Original article by Stephen Donnelly TD
We are republishing this article by Stephen Donnelly TD who has been doing great work in exposing how Fine Gael have gone out of their away to facilitate vulture funds who are now preying on ordinary people by charging exorbitant rents and fueling the current property and are replacing the English absentee landlord of centuries past, with ruthless vulture funds capitalists of this era and essentially introducing a form of neo-fuedalism as increasing huge swaths of the population are either priced out of buying homes, or are signing up for debt that last close to a lifetime.
We are republishing this article by Stephen Donnelly TD who has been doing great work in exposing how Fine Gael have gone out of their away to facilitate vulture funds who are now preying on ordinary people by charging exorbitant rents and fueling the current property and are replacing the English absentee landlord of centuries past, with ruthless vulture funds capitalists of this era and essentially introducing a form of neo-fuedalism as increasing huge swaths of the population are either priced out of buying homes, or are signing up for debt that last close to a lifetime.
Related Links: Stephen Donnelly, TD submission for a detailed proposal to target ?20bn in future avoided taxes. | Update on the work of NAMAleaks.com
Proposed new tax breaks in the Finance Bill will fuel an existing commercial property bubble in Dublin.
1 of Indymedia - Wed Jun 22, 2016 23:18
People's News - No. 148 12 June 2016 Issue -covering Brexit and TTIP
The People's Newsletter from the People's Movement in their bi-monthly newsletter carry an article on Brexit which is topical given that the British go to the polls on it this Thurs 23rd June. The various opinion polls show it to be relatively close.
The article here from the People's Movement puts forward good Left wing arguments why Britain should leave and they are good reasons for Ireland to leave too. The impression given is that the Brexit referendum was agreed to because of political pressure from the people. It is likely though that there are considerable powerful interests within the elite want to leave as they see their chances to be better off in the long run, yet those arguments not discussed here would be more issues within national capitalist faction.
The other article in this months newsletter is
The People's Newsletter from the People's Movement in their bi-monthly newsletter carry an article on Brexit which is topical given that the British go to the polls on it this Thurs 23rd June. The various opinion polls show it to be relatively close.
Related Links: Latest PEOPLE?S NEWS covers TTIP and Brexit | 10 Reasons Irish People in the North of Ireland, & Britain, Should Vote "Leave" | People Before Profit Call for Left Exit from EU | WSM: Observations on Brexit and Lexit in the UK EU membership referendum | Socialist Party: Brexit: Reject this club of bosses & bankers
PEOPLE?S NEWS - News Digest of the People?s Movement
From: Socialist Party: Brexit: Reject this club of bosses & bankers ....this sums up the EU nicely .....
Could we not stay in and reform the EU?
The EU has almost no mechanisms of democratic accountability, with central decision making in the hands of the European Council ? the heads of government of the 28 member states ? and an increasingly powerful, unelected European Commission. Those running them are contemptuous of democracy. Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström?s attitude to anti-TTIP campaigners sums this up: ?I do not take my mandate from the European people.?
The elected European Parliament is little more than a rubber stamp without the ability to initiate legislation. The majority of MEPs are at the beck and call of an army of 20,000 corporate lobbyists.
T - Sun Mar 27, 2016 00:23
On the centenary anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising it is worth reflecting on what has happened since then and the aspirations of the proclamation to guarantee equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens and cherishing all of the children of the nation equally.
The Rising itself was doomed to failure from the start but as with life itself often the most unpredictable and unexpected things happen because despite the lack of initial public support, after the executions sympathies swung the other way and as they say the rest was history and the ripples spread out, because it has been said the fight for independence of India was inspired by the Irish Rising.
External Related Links:
See also:
1916, left republicanism, anarchism and class struggle | Revolutionary Experiments In Ireland 1917-1923 | Reclaim the Vision of 1916 |
Ireland 2016 | Official Centenary Programme
POBLACHT NA hÉIREANN
T - Wed Feb 24, 2016 17:26
Ask candidates about TTIP agreement. It is a corporate agreement which will lead to mass privatisation and gutting of our social and environmental protections
The election cycle has come around yet again it is time to take a look at some of the issues being discussed and more importantly those not discussed and have a quick look at the economy.
For this election there are more independents going up than ever before, although people should be warned that a certain fraction of them are closet FFers and FGers so if it is change you are looking for, they may not be the candidates to vote for. Sometimes people seemed to assume Independents tend to be more to the Left. There is no inherent reason this should be the case and statistically one would expect them to evenly spread to the Left and Right. So if voting for an Independent then be sure you have checked what they really stand for and their previous record if any.
The election cycle has come around yet again it is time to take a look at some of the issues being discussed and more importantly those not discussed and have a quick look at the economy.
Related Links:
TTIP is a full frontal assault on democracy |
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Signed in New Zealand amid Mass Protests |
Co. Clare TTIP Free Zone! |
Over 2 million People sign European Citizens? Initiative against EU-US TTIP trade deal |
Galway meeting highlights the insidious agenda of TTIP |
Lacking Trasparency: The Transatlantic Trade And Investment Partnership (TTIP) |
Wikileaks Publishes Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) |
connolly group TTIP video |
Investor-State Attacks: Empowering Foreign Corporations to Bypass our Courts, Challenge Basic Protections |
Blog of ISDS Case Summaries |
Top 10 Most Pernicious Investor-State Dispute Settlement Lawsuits |
Sean Kelly (FG) MEP has betrayed his responsibility to defend the interests of the Irish people - Liadh Ní Riada MEP
TTIP is the greatest single threat to our
democracy. Both FG and FF support it.
It is a EU-US wide corporate power grab.
Find out more before you vote !!
Probably the most important thing looming over this country and all of Europe too is the secret negotiations on the EU-US TTIP treaty. It is by far the most undemocratic power grab ever seen and yet none of the mainstream parties are talking about it. It will set up corporate courts allowing corporations to sue States presided by corporate lawyers and held in secret with no right of appeal. The decisions will be binding and will overrule national law. It will allow corporations to force the privatisation of water, resources, health, education and anything else. It will be used to attack workers right, like sick pay, benefits like health and pension and reduce and eventually eliminate holidays by forcing an 'equalisation' of standards. This means we could end up with the same working conditions as people in Vietnam or Mexico who are signatories to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) agreement which if TTIIP is passed with be cross linked to it. Fine Gael (FG)and Fianna Fail (FF) are strongly in favour of TTIP and these ISDS courts. If you value your freedom, do not vote FG or FF!
Fine Gael's betrayal of the Irish People by their support for TTIP and ISDSA statement from Deirdre Clune's (FG) website:
MEPs Seán Kelly, Mairead McGuinness, Brian Hayes and Deirdre Clune support the negotiations between the EU and US which aim to establish a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
From MEP Seán Kelly FG Press Release 6th May 2015 showing that Kelly is either clueless or is a complete corporate shrill who has absolutely no regards for the people of this country.
FF Support TTIP too but pretend to have some doubts but ideologically they are completely for it.From Séamus Kirk (Louth, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas Jan 21st 2016:
I am pleased to have an opportunity to contribute briefly to this most important debate. The Fianna Fáil Party supports the principles of the TTIP......
The FF strategy then would be to raise some objections but still let it through. They would have no hope of getting any changes and the party whip would lash them all into line anyhow. It's just a way of covering themselves.
Across the country there are 40 constituencies down from 43 in 2011 with some changes in constituency boundaries. There are 13 3-seaters, 16 4-seaters and 11 5-seater constituencies . The 3 seaters tend to favour the larger parties because you need 33% of the vote whereas for a 5-seater you only need 20%. So for example a party with 10% or even 15% of the national vote might never get a seat if they were all 3-seaters. So you can end up with a situation for all of the smaller parties, the number of seats they get is, in percentage terms of seats, less than their vote while for the larger parties they can and often do have more seats in percentage terms than their vote nationally.
The number of Dail seats up for grabs this election is down from 166 to 158 seats. The breakdown of candidates by party or alliance attempting to get in are:
Despite what either FG or FF are saying, if they need the numbers FF and FG will go into coalition. And the reason is simple, they are the two main capitalist parties, their policies differ very little and they are completely subservient to corporate power, influence and it's dictates. Currently FF are running a fairly populist strategy, appearing to have shifted to the Left slightly but this is change is very shallow and there would be no actual commitment to following a policy of running the country for the benefit of the people. Anyone who thinks Fianna Fail have changed just because they have got rid of most of the old crowd and have a whole new bunch of fresh faces are forgetting that it is the policies of the party and what it stands for determines what they do and the party whip is there to enforce the core values of running the economy for the capitalist elite. The party whip has been used extensively and will continue to be to basically whip TDs into line. It is a form of party dictatorship and acts to nullify what the mandate to candidates from the people. FG are the same in this regards but even more so obedient to the interests of the wealthy elite. In some ways the rising popularity of Independents who are not under the control of a party whip reflects this concern amongst the people.
As for the election promises from any of the status quo parties (FF, FG & Lab), one should completely ignore what they are saying because they will either flat out do the opposite or there is a catch. FG are saying they will get rid of the USC but are shy about saying they will increase PRSI and other taxes instead.
As we can see from the last 4 years, Labour were a sellout. They have done the same numerous times over the past four decades, each time they have suffered massively at the polls and it takes years to build up their support only to do it again.
Sinn Fein, having not being in power yet in the South remain a promising prospect for many SF voters. However it would be worth examining how they were forced to go along with austerity in the North. So this does not bode well although perhaps they would still be better than either FF or FG assuming for a moment they became the party with the largest share of the vote even though it is unlikely but there is still an outside chance they could end up in coalition. Given the year in it and the huge positive role Gerry Adams had in the peace process, it would be fitting if he was Taoiseach just in time for Easter 2016.
All that can be said of ReNua is that they appear to be very right wing at their core once you look at the heart of their policies which is the ridiculous flat tax proposal of 23% across the board. They probably belong in the libertarian right wing end of the spectrum where the Progressive or should that be Regressive Democrats used to live.
The Green Party are too small in terms of percentage of national vote to have any major influence. Their main problem is that they tend to promote some small green initiatives with little to say on the big issues of economy or social policies. Since the shift of the party to the Right in the last decade signalled quite well with the departure of Patrica McKenna, they have completely sold out to corporate/free market thinking and are hostages to it. During the Bin Tax campaign a decade ago, they foolishly were on the side of bin charges thinking it was about polluters pays when they completely failed to push for a tax on excessive packaging which is where the chain of waste really starts. With the recent announcement that we will have to pay for getting rid of recyclable waste which is likely to cause a huge drop in recycling and the diversion of the same waste to the massive incinerator now under construction in Ringsend Dublin, it just shows how hollow and naive their strategy was. They were completely duped. You would expect the Greens to be constantly driving home how the structure of our economy is the problem in terms of sustainability but they only talk of tweaking around the edges. Never anything radical that challenges the status quo. And any discussion of the economy that asks for change would need to address social and justice issues, but again this Left thought process has long vacated the party.
Direct Democracy Ireland don't seem to have got much attention or support they have interesting things to say in their manifesto and most importantly are against TTIP and other corporate influences like the push for water privatisation. Also good on the environment and our civic rights. In terms of the political spectrum they are more to the middle as the candidates themselves are quite diverse. If there is no actual Left candidate in your area then they're strongly worth considering.
The Workers Party who were at their height in the late 1980s then suffered the split to Democratic Left which long since merged with Labour. In recent years the party has been reviving slowly and also have their LookLeft magazine. They are have good Left policies on the important issues of banking, water, housing, health, education and the environment where in the latter they strong oppose Fracking which wrecks the environment. They are rightly against TTIP seeing it for what it is. However they have only 5 candidates so need all the support they can and if they got 1 or 2 TDs would help build up the Left block.
The Social Democrats were propelled into the limelight with Catherine Murphy's defense of the citizens against the antics of Denis Oligarch Tax Exile O'Brien. Stephen Donnelly has been doing well and seems to really understand finance and banking and would be a welcome match against bankers and their elk. The party has the haven for a few of the candidates who fled Labour once they started going against their own ideals. There is a good mix in this new group and would definitely make a change. They are against TTIP and Water charges.
People Before Profit (PBP) and the Anti Austerity Alliance (AAA) both are strong on Left policies being both against Water charges, both oppose TTIP, strong on housing and health. On the environment they oppose Fracking. At this point PBP are probably the bigger grouping of the two, fielding more candidates. In the Dail Richard Boyd Barret has had a good track record and among many things successfully via campaign opposed the sell-off of our forests to vulture funds -at least for now.
Both PBB and AA have formed a voting pact and it will be interesting to see how many seats they do get. They form the core of the real Left in Ireland and have become more visible since the collapse of the economic bubble. It is probably too much to ask or hope that they do extremely well and in conjunction with the Social Democrats and Sinn Fein form a government along with various independents like Clare Daly and Mick Wallace. Supposing this did actually happen then the question becomes would they deliver and stick to their policies and would the range of capitalist forces put pressure on them. If such a coalition were to ever get into power you could safely bet the O'Brien media via its key mouthpiece the Independent relentlessly attack it. This would be joined by various think tanks and neo-liberal economic lobbies, the billion oligarchs, bankers, bondholders, bailed out developers, the legal profession, and many others from the top 10% to 15% of the population who own the vast majority of the wealth and control the resources to shape the economy and mould public opinion.
It is worth reminding ourselves the legacy of the FG/Lab government and of FF before them and some of the changes since then.
FG have decided they are going to get back into power by sticking to the mantra of a recovery. There is a recovery alright and it is for corporate and banking profits and for probably the top 20 to 25% of the population. It has barely trickled down to the rest and once outside Dublin there is now much evidence. In fact for any gains people might have made, it has been soaked up through increased rents. Much of the statistics in the national figures are a bit cooked and distorted. For instance last year NAMA decided to sell off huge tranches of their property portfolios to vulture funds who bought up thousands of commercial and residential units and have either resold them for a tidy profit or are renting them at exorbitant rates. The word on the street is that the property rental market is now being controlled by these large real-estate owners and they are forcing prices up. Ireland has already headed back to a modern day form of neo feudalism where people cannot afford property and are at the mercy of property owners.
A couple trying to buy a home today are not competing against people like themselves in the so called 'free' market. They are competing against huge financial firms with hundreds of millions to billions of Euro behind them and what's more these firms have all sorts of tricks for tax write offs on their own loans and expenses and no doubt pay little if any tax. What has happened in the last 8 years is that you the tax payer have subsidized via NAMA the transfer of vast amounts of property to faceless capitalist enterprises who are now preying on large swathes of the population many of whom are permanently trapped renting as they have zero chance of ever saving enough to get out of it. For that you can thank FF, FG and Labour.
So where is it all going next? By far the biggest elephant in the room is the Transatlantic Trade in Partnership (TTIP) agreement between the EU-USA. It is a supposed to be a so called free trade agreement but is nothing of the sort. It is by far and away the most undemocratic corporate power grab ever witnessed and it is no exaggeration to say it literally threatens to roll back all the social, environmental and legal gains of the past 100 years are more.
None of the status quo parties talk much about it and when they do they imply it is just about jobs and economic growth and are very much for it. The talks for TTIP have been going on for a few years and all the discussions are in secret and the contents of the agreement although WikiLeaks revealed some of it and it wasn't pretty. It is a corporate wish list and essentially the idea is reduce standards, tariffs and social, economic, legal and environmental protections to that of the lowest player. The TTIP agreement will join up with a version for the Pacific region countries called TPP and another called for CETA for Canada. It means if some country has really lax standards for workers rights or environmental protection, TTIP can say it's uncompetitive to have the stronger ones and enforce the lowest standard. It gets worse though because a central plank of TTIP is something called Investor State Dispute Mechanism ISDS which is a corporate court, presided by corporate lawyers and it is proceedings are secret and, there is no recourse for appeal, ordinary people cannot use the court only corporations and it's finding are legally binding on all TTIP members and above the law of all countries. In others the Supreme court cannot even challenge it, let alone reverse or affect any of its' decisions. Oh and corporations can take member states to these courts to sue them for things like environmental or social protection laws that interfere with corporate profits.
What most people do not know is that ISDS has already been introduced or should I say sneaked in undemocratically into some countries and there have been around 500 cases. In every case the corporations won and in many of them this result hundreds of millions and billions have been handed over from cash strapped states to corporate coffers.
In the UK, groups who got access to the secret text of TTIP and analyzed it have come to the conclusion that TTIP would result in the end of the National Health Service (NHS) and lead to complete privatisation. The same would happen throughout all other spheres such as education. And the exact same would happen here. This is why FG and FF are reluctant to hold a referendum over keeping Irish water as a national resource in the public domain yet they say they will not privatise it. The reason is that ISDS through the TTIP agreement will take the decision out of their hands and force it's privatisation. They know that. Actually FG are such a sellout and really should be tried for treason because they actually want to have the ISDS courts in Ireland. Our sovereignty would be zero!
The take home message then is: Ask any and all of your candidates about TTIP and see if they know anything, what their position is and see what lies they tell you. Don't vote for FF or FG because they strongly support TTIP.
How ISDS has already been used to challenge legislation on land and water contamination, nuclear power, fracking and public healthA number of existing bi-lateral agreements already have ISDS in them. TPP (Pacific region) and the EU-US TTIP contain ISDS. These examples only cover up to 2013. Its got worse.
Vattenfall vs Germany: In 2009, Swedish energy company Vattenfall started an ISDS procedure against Germany, based on the Energy Charter Treaty, an international agreement protecting investments in the energy sector. Vattenfall had engaged in the construction of a coal fired power plant in Hamburg-Moorburg, located on the Elbe river. When Hamburg?s Environmental Authority issued a licence imposing quality standards for the waste waters released by the power plant, Vattenfall claimed that those standards made the investment project unviable. Using ISDS provisions, the company asked Germany for compensation totalling ?1.4 billion. Vattenfall and the city of Hamburg eventually settled the case with an agreement that foresaw the issuing of a ?modified water use permit?, which lowered the environmental requirements previously set by the Hamburg Environmental Authority.
Vattenfall vs Germany II: In May 2012, Vattenfall initiated a second international arbitration under the Energy Charter Treaty, this time asking for financial compensation with respect to Germany?s decision to immediately close its oldest nuclear power plants and gradually shut down the remaining ones by 2022. This decision was taken in response to public concerns about the health and environmental risks of nuclear energy that followed the Fukushima accident in Japan. According to press sources, the claim for compensation by Vattenfall could amount up to ?3.7 billion.
Lone Pine vs Canada: Based on provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico, US company Lone Pine Resources Inc. is asking for financial compensation from Canada following Québec?s introduction of a moratorium on fracking. The moratorium introduced in May 2013 responded to concerns about the environmental and health risks posed by the new extraction method. The claim by Lone Pine amounts up to US$ 250 million (?191 millions). The case is still pending.
Chevron vs Ecuador: After years of litigation in Ecuador?s national courts, Ecuador?s indigenous people and farmers won a historic victory over Chevron (the court ruling requested that Chevron pay back US$18 billion to clean up the contamination of land and water that resulted from its operations). The company then turned to the investor-state mechanism under the US-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty to overturn the national judgement and evade compliance. That arbitration tribunal ordered the President of Ecuador to block enforcement of the previous court orders. Subsequent rulings repeated this demand, arguing that Ecuador had violated the treaty further by allowing plaintiffs to try to seize Chevron?s assets through courts in Argentina, Brazil and Canada. These rulings set a dangerous precedent, allowing corporations to challenge the functions of a country?s domestic court system and the decisions of its duly-appointed judges ? and it could violate Ecuador?s constitutional separation of powers.
Occidental vs Ecuador: Ecuador terminated the contract of an oil concession with Occidental after Occidental sold 40% of its production right to another company without complying with its obligation to seek governmental approval for doing so, as specified in the concession contract. Occidental then challenged the decision, again under the ISDS provisions in the US-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty. This resulted in the highest compensation ever awarded to an investor (US$1.77 billion), and demonstrates the vast power that tribunals wield.
Pacific Rim Mining Corp vs El Salvador: After failing to complete the environmental protection steps required to obtain a mining permit in El Salvador?s main watershed region, Canadian gold mining company Pacific Rim Mining Corp. reincorporated a Cayman island subsidiary in Nevada and then filed an investor-state suit against El Salvador under the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The company is now claiming several hundred million dollars in compensation for its =lost profits?, challenging El Salvador?s national mining laws. As an imminent jurisdictional ruling drags out, violence and threats against local environmentalists in the region where Pacific Rim wants to run a cyanide-leach gold mine continue.
Philip Morris vs Uruguay: After having transferred its international headquarters from the US to Switzerland for legal reasons, tobacco giant Philip Morris initiated a case against Uruguay in 2010 under the Switzerland- Uruguay bilateral investment treaty. In spite of the fact that this treaty stipulates that it shall not be used to challenge public health measures, Philip Morris has used the agreement?s ISDS to challenge several provisions of the recent Uruguayan tobacco regulations. The company has questioned health warning requirements for tobacco packages (including the graphic and size requirements) as well as the provision that prohibits marketing more than one tobacco product under each brand. While the case is still pending, it is a good example of the use of investment rules and ISDS as part of a strategic drive to oppose restrictions on tobacco marketing.
Philip Morris vs Australia: In 2011, Philip Morris Asia used the ISDS mechanism in the bilateral investment treaty between Australia and Hong Kong to challenge Australia?s newly introduced tobacco regulation (the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011). The tobacco giant has claimed that the new legislation deprives it of the real value of its investments in Australia and that Australia is treating them in an unfair and inequitable way. Philip Morris has demanded that Australia be ordered to suspend the enforcement of the plain packaging legislation and provide the company with billions of dollars of financial compensations for the losses incurred. The case, which is still pending, could have detrimental impacts on regulatory efforts to curb the lethal effects of smoking well beyond Australia. For example, the EU, which is cur
TTIP and ISDS will permanently force privatisation of the National Health System (NHS) in UK. Same could happen here.Read this below carefuly because what is it saying is US 'Health and Social Care Act' effectively through TTIP will mean it is binding on all members and therefore it will force the complete and permanent privatisation of the Irish health system. FF & FG strongly support TTIP! In this article from the NewStatesMan Benedict Cooper says:
A key part of the TTIP is 'harmonisation' between EU and US regulation, especially for regulation in the process of being formulated. In Britain, the coalition government?s Health and Social Care Act has been prepared in the same vein ? to 'harmonise' the UK with the US health system.Full text available at New States Man at: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/12/how-eu-making-nhs-privatisation-...
There are other agreements which will all interlock. The main two are CETA and TTP. TTP is The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the signatories are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States and Vietnam.
CETA is The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union and can be thought of as a fail safe option if they can't get TTIP through. CETA is to be signed this year and should also be stopped.
T - Tue Feb 02, 2016 22:11
Alternative Analysis and Conclusions to the Report of the Joint Oireachtas Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis By Joe Higgins TD
Forget the official Banking Inquiry report because Joe Higgins has written a much more better one and it asks the rights questions and gets to the heart of the matter by putting the whole saga in its proper context -something which the official report couldn't thing as it would mean asking fundamental questions. Indeed the inquriy itself and official report have been steeped in controversary with allegations of coverup because of numerous reports of key officials and whistleblowers in the regulator office and central bank were ignored and their evidence never making into the inquiry. The whistleblower made a formal complaint under the Protected Disclosures Act and (Village Magazine) "outlining a range of detailed concerns about how the Central Bank and some of its legal representatives were omitting huge swathes of vital documents, redacting many of the most crucial pieces of evidence, and delaying release of vital material until it was too late to use them in briefings for public hearings ? in at least one case handing them over 24 hours before a scheduled interview about them."
Forget the official Banking Inquiry report because Joe Higgins has written a much more better one and it asks the rights questions and gets to the heart of the matter by putting the whole saga in its proper context -something which the official report couldn't thing as it would mean asking fundamental questions. Indeed the inquriy itself and official report have been steeped in controversary with allegations of coverup because of numerous reports of key officials and whistleblowers in the regulator office and central bank were ignored and their evidence never making into the inquiry. The whistleblower made a formal complaint under the Protected Disclosures Act and (Village Magazine) "outlining a range of detailed concerns about how the Central Bank and some of its legal representatives were omitting huge swathes of vital documents, redacting many of the most crucial pieces of evidence, and delaying release of vital material until it was too late to use them in briefings for public hearings ? in at least one case handing them over 24 hours before a scheduled interview about them."
Related Links: Joe Higgin's Banking Inquiry Report - Jan 2016 | VillageMagazine: Cover-up upon cover-up. Banking Inquiry to be blown apart | Joe Higgins website | Indy Links: The Fake Banking Enquiry. More Cynical Theatre For The Downtrodden Irish Masses? | Inside the Anglo Irish - The secret tapes | Audio from Conor McCabe on Banker and Rancher Interests in the Modern Irish Economy
There was also reports of PR firms hired to coach officials on how to avoid difficult and probing questions and phrase answers for damage limitation. It seems there were also key legal firms guiding the whole process. The Village magazine (http://www.villagemagazine.ie/) last month reported on much of this.
And rather than paraphrase the report here are some important extracts.
Witness after witness at the Banking Inquiry, including bankers and developers themselves, attested to the kind of cut throat competition between them for profit that drove the reckless lending practices that inflated the property/banking bubble and led to the disastrous economic crash. Dermot Gleeson, the Chairman of AIB from 2003 to 2009 testified as to how his bank aped the methods of Anglo Irish Bank which was lending recklessly to developers and raking in major profits. He maintained that they had a problem of: Anglo being held up to us as an exemplar?Commentators in Ireland and abroad repeatedly said,
The Reckless Behaviour that inflated the bubble and caused the crash should have been criminalised
Banking & Home Provision should not be subject to exploitation and profiteering but should be public services
The soft landing alibi - a big lie
Our Analysis and Conclusions Causes of the Crisis - International context, Chapter 1
Contents of the Report
And From - Chapter 2 ? The Bubble and the Banks
The full PDF Report is attached at the end of this article or alternatively is also available here:
See also Village Magazine for Jan 12th
Cover-up upon cover-up. Banking Inquiry to be blown apart
1 of Indymedia - Thu Jan 28, 2016 19:38
March from Liberty Hall to Moore Street - #SaveMooreStreetfromDemolition
#SaveMooreStreetfromDemolition This is an important call to you to take part in this crucial show of support of the 1916 Moore Street Markets Battlefield site, on this Saturday. We are asking people to come in 1916 uniform or clothes, to bear one of the flags of the 1916 Easter Rising, to tell and bring your friends and comrades. #SaveMooreStreet Please share this post.
The march assembles at Liberty Hall at 1pm on Sat 30th and then proceeds to Moore Street.
Government sides with Corporate Creed to wipe out our revolutionary memory for good. Later this year or next they will sign away ALL our sovereign rights via the EU-US TTIP treaty
#SaveMooreStreetfromDemolition This is an important call to you to take part in this crucial show of support of the 1916 Moore Street Markets Battlefield site, on this Saturday. We are asking people to come in 1916 uniform or clothes, to bear one of the flags of the 1916 Easter Rising, to tell and bring your friends and comrades. #SaveMooreStreet Please share this post.
Related Links:
Ministerial Direction. -No Access to Moore Street |
Save Moore Street Campaign Facebook |
Save Moore Street From Demolition - Twitter |
Minister officially refuses to give independent conservation experts access to inspect Moore St. terrace |
Moore Street dispute erupts |
?We want the Republic?: Rally to support Occupy Moore Street protesters |
Minister's Moore St plan does not protect entire historic 1916 terrace
We urge as many people as possible to attend to event because this probably the last chance we have not to turn this into another Wood Quay episode where our history was destroyed and concreted over. A huge shopping centre is planned for the Moore Street site by developers -the same kind of people who helped wreck the country and put their own greed and profit first and they are being facilitated by the FG government who for once and for all want to bury any memory of the rebels and their revolutionary ideas.
Pentagon rejects that Turkey supports ISIS despite comprehensive proof of them helping sell ISIS stolen oil.
T - Sun Dec 13, 2015 22:43
For the past year, there have been numerous reports that ISIS have been transporting the oil they have stolen from Iraq and Syria, to Turkey and this has been greatly facilitated by the Turkish state at the highest levels. It is widely known the oil was being sold and exported by BMZ Ltd owned by Bilal Erdogan, President Erodgan's son. It is extremely unlikely that they are doing this for nothing and tens of millions have probably been siphoned off by the Erdogan family and other key officials and the Turkish economy has no doubt benefitted from an injection of cheap stolen oil sold below world market rates. The Russian Defense Ministry on Dec 2nd revealed the vast scale of the oil smuggling operation which somehow was missed by the NATO/US in the past 2 years.
For the past year, there have been numerous reports that ISIS have been transporting the oil they have stolen from Iraq and Syria, to Turkey and this has been greatly facilitated by the Turkish state at the highest levels. It is widely known the oil was being sold and exported by BMZ Ltd owned by Bilal Erdogan, President Erodgan's son. It is extremely unlikely that they are doing this for nothing and tens of millions have probably been siphoned off by the Erdogan family and other key officials and the Turkish economy has no doubt benefitted from an injection of cheap stolen oil sold below world market rates. The Russian Defense Ministry on Dec 2nd revealed the vast scale of the oil smuggling operation which somehow was missed by the NATO/US in the past 2 years.
Related Indymedia Links:
Syrian Refugees, ISIS / Al Nursa Butchers and Their Not So Secret Backing by Western Powers | The Paris Attacks -What's Going On ? | The French Republic taken hostage
Less well known is that Erdogan's daughter Sümeyye supervises a secret hospital setup by Erdogan in Sanliurfa to look after Daesh jihadists.
For the past year the US has banged on about it fighting ISIS / Daesh and at the same time the mainstream media has made it known that ISIS was being financed by stolen oil to the tune of hundreds of millions, possibly a billion per year. Yet somehow the entire US intelligence state with it's satellites, global intercept capabilities, advanced surveillance technologies of the US air force with it's fleet of drones, AWACs and other planes, never seemed to find any of the oil tanker trucks shipping this oil nor has a single one up to very recently been attached.
However over the past two months with the start of the Russia air campaign attacking targets things have changed. The regime plans of Turkey, UK, France and USA for Syria have been upset temporarily and their blatant support for ISIS exposed and completely embarrased and made obvious to the public how ineffective the US & co campaing was in light of the huge success of Russia in the space of a few weeks doing inflicting a lot of damage on ISIS.
After the Paris attacks, the US had to do something and finally attacked over 100 ISIS oil tankers. There are reports that a leaflet drop was done 45 mins in advance to advise everyone to run away as an attack was immiment. It's a pity the 2,000+ civilians (and these are US military figures) killed by drone strikes over the last few years never got the same warning.
In the same week though Russia upped it's air campaign and destroyed over 500 ISIS oil tankers and have since gone on to destroy many more including oil storage tanks so as to disable the infrastructure to enable the large scale looting of the oil. While the US attack was a token gesture to keep up appearences, the Russian attack hurt the Erdogan's badly and he was mad that the Russians would dare disrupt his criminal entreprise.
It was widely speculated by many commentators that the shooting down of a Russia SU-24 aircraft in Syria by a Turkish F16 fighter was in retaliation for the attack on the oil tankers and attempt to warn Russia, although it had the opposite effect because they intensified their air campaign against the ISIS monsters. It should be pointed out that on a surface level this may have been how it played out, but taking in the larger geopolitical context, driving a wedge between Russia and Turkey plays to the advantage of the US, because it means the loss of trade with Russia while hurting Turkey, hurts Russia too. Also the Turkish Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey and onwards to the Balkans is at best now on hold or possibly cancelled. The Balkans are traditional allies of Russia and undoubtly one of the objectives of Turkish Stream was to help strength those again. While the US has in public supported Turkey in the whole affair they still let it be known through a leak reported to Reuters news agency by an anonymous American military official that the Russian plane was downed while over Syrian airspace which is another way of the US saying to Russia we know. This suggests something deeper to that particular event and may relate to the speculation of a coming civil war in Turkey where so far Erdogna has been the fall guy and the planned end result is the setup of a Kurdish state -aka Kurdistan. This has been the goal of the neo-cons from the early 2000s. The general idea was to smash up all the larger states and fracture them into smaller ones, each then more easily controllable. Iraq is defact more or less on the way to being divided into three states. Libya is a failed state. Syria is the present target and Iran is the main target, at least in that part of the world.
But for the moment, the focus of this article is on the presentation made on Weds 2nd Dec 2015, the Russian military presented comprehensive and devasting evidence (for the Turks at least) of the large scale of the ISIS oil smuggling through Turkey and the complicity of the Turkish state in this massive criminal entreprise and for their support of these butchers who have ruthlessly murdered tens of thousands, beheaded people and destroyed some of the greatest archaeological that were treasures of all humankind.
In the presentation they illustrated the scale of the operation and how the oil is transported to Turkey. It goes via three routes (see map), the Western, Northern and Eastern route. There are thousands of oil tanker trucks (8,500 per day) used which are driven at night over the Syrian-Turkish border where they let through without any hinderance. It is reckoned they were making approximately 3 million dollars per day which works out at around 3x365 = 1 billion+ dollars per year. Some of the oil is exported through the ports of Dörtyol and Iskenderun on the South coast of Turkey and the rest sold within Turkey with the Turks taking their cut for services rendered.
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Russian military reveals details of ISIS-Turkey oil smuggling
In the presentation a series of aerial and satellite photographs illustrated each point. On the Eastern route, one satellite image, dated the 14th November 2015, shows the presence of 3,220 tanker trucks crossing the border into Turkey via the crossing point at Zakho.
So far Russia has carried out air-strikes on 32 petrol complexes, 11 refineries, 23 pumping stations and 1,080 tanker trucks transporting petroleum products. The result for the IE is a loss of 1.5 million dollars per day yet ISIS are still receiving money, arms and munitions from their sponsors abroad.
Meanwhile ....'Great partners': Pentagon rejects Russian evidence of Turkey aiding ISIS
Isn't that incredible after all the coverage in the Western press about ISIS?? Does that not wake up some people from the incessant propaganda covering up their role in the creation of ISIS?
And on Nov 24 head of Turkey's Intelligence says we must stop Putin from crushing the Islamic revolution
T - Sun Nov 01, 2015 00:27
In the last two months, the dramatic and sad photographs of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi, and his brother lying dead on the shores on a beach in Turkey have finally opened the curtain very slightly on the horrors and terror of war in Syria. It is hard to conceive the trauma of this family first seeing one of their other brothers beheaded by ISIS jihadists, then to flee and then for this man's wife and two remaining young children to drown in the sea whilst attempting to escape. If you were to listen to politicans from the UK all the way up to the present prime minister, you would think they were doing this so they could scab off the social welfare but as anyone knows, this was the act of a family desperate to flee the terror in their home country and get to safety at all costs. However Aylan Kurdi and his brother and mother aren't the only ones to drown or being killed in war, there are tens of thousands dead.
In the last two months, the dramatic and sad photographs of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi, and his brother lying dead on the shores on a beach in Turkey have finally opened the curtain very slightly on the horrors and terror of war in Syria. It is hard to conceive the trauma of this family first seeing one of their other brothers beheaded by ISIS jihadists, then to flee and then for this man's wife and two remaining young children to drown in the sea whilst attempting to escape. If you were to listen to politicans from the UK all the way up to the present prime minister, you would think they were doing this so they could scab off the social welfare but as anyone knows, this was the act of a family desperate to flee the terror in their home country and get to safety at all costs. However Aylan Kurdi and his brother and mother aren't the only ones to drown or being killed in war, there are tens of thousands dead.
Up to now the corporate media has kept us distracted with titlation, celebrity and other inane stories; for it was social media that led to these pictures going viral and the media then just had to pick up the story. Previous to that, thousands have already drowned this year alone in the Mediterranean Sea fleeing from Libya -bombed out by NATO, and other war torn countries like Iraq and Afghanistan where Western powers dropped their democracy inducing bombs, invaded and occupied for over a decade, tortured people (Abu Ghraib anyone?), ran night raids terrorizing and murdering thousands, formented civil war, armed warlords and so forth. It is funny how we hear about all these conflicts and consider them remote and happening to others while the life of middle class consumerism continues but in fact we are vaguely aware of it in our sub-conscious and it disturbs us greatly when we are forced to focus on it to actually pay attention to reality. We know that we should be doing something but content ourselves with the fact that our lives are just too busy to allow us to do anything about it.
Neverthless at the height of this crisis before the Russians stepped in, it was the ISIS jihadists who were firmly center stage in the news and were the target witha rising chorus, to send a force to Syria to remove them, but this is simply another justification for war and hides the fact that previous attempts over the last 3+ years by the Gulf States primarly Saudi Arabia and Qatar and by the US, UK, France and Turkey, have failed at regime change despite the fact that they are 100% responsible for formenting the war and financing, training, arming and sending in thousands of mercenaries and jihadists extremists. And this means they are responsible for the wave of refugees and deaths such as Aylan Kurdi. So the narrative was that ISIS are so bad and out of control which is true, that they need to send in the troops. In other words they have previously failed to swing public opinion to commit a full scale assault and hopefully this can do it. This is what all the beheadings were about in the last year and destruction of some of humanity's greatest archaeological treasures was for and firmly aimed at the Western middle classes. Again though this has changed since the Russians started bombing ISIS and caught the Western powers by surprise and ruined their narrative at least to those paying attention.
So Who backs ISIS?When one looks there is quite a lot of evidence for who backs ISIS. First off, lets start with a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Aug 2012 report recently declassifed that Judical Watch managed to obtain through a FOIA request. The report was widely circulated through the US government. The report points out that the key event in the rise of ISIS was the corresponding rise of the insurgency in Syria which the USA with its allies fully supported. It confirms that reactionaries dominated the opposition from early on.
"The Salafist, The Muslim Brotherhood, and al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria" and in the next sentence says:
The West, Gulf Countries and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China and Iran support the regime. -so there you have it -the West & Co. support the terrorists. Later in the report it states:
If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor) and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).
And this is what more or less happened. In June 2014 a few thousand ISIS fighters took over the northern Iraq city of Mosul with a population of 2.5 million and gained access to the oil revenues and at the same time looted a few hundred million dollars from the bank and picked up a vast amount of weaponry provided by the US to the Iraqi army. Around this time there was lots of media coverage showing ISIS in fleets of Toyota trucks advancing on different areas. Yet how come the US didn't attack them? The US had their famous 'turkey' shoot after the first Gulf War on the road from Kuwait to Iraq where they massacred the retreating Iraqi army. So why didn't they attack these very visible convoys? They rendition people from all over the planet to Guantanamo and other secret detention sites, and launch drone attacks in other countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan which even the US admits has killed over 2,000 civilans so far in the form of colateral damage -all to kill a few Al Qaeda leader -assuming they really did. Their radar and signals intercept satellites can pick up all movements and radio signals in vast areas and would be particularly focused on the entire Middle East -yet they were claim they were surprised. The whole episode looks more like tacit support by virtue of not intervening.
The US for the past year as part of it's cover story has been claiming it has been bombing ISIS but it has carried out very few sorties and in fact the Russians did more damage to ISIS in the first 3 weeks of their recent campaign than the US has in the last year. The US is likely dropping their bombs in the sand and have used it as a way to bomb infrastructure in Syria which harms Assad and the people rather than ISIS. Just recently they bombed the main power plant in Aleppo and cut power to 2.5 million people, yet when ISIS held parts of Aleppo there was a tacit agreement that neither side would damage the plant since both sides needed it. See Putin Cites US Bombing Attack on Aleppo Power Station as ?Strange?
And just recently 50 intelligence analysts working in US Central command (CENTCOM) have said ISIS intelligence was cooked by senior officials in order to make it appear ISIS was weaker than they actually were. Src: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/09/exclusive-50-spies-say-isis-...
Additionally there were several cases of weapons drops that were supposed to be for other fighters such as the Kurds fighting ISIS in the town of Kobane which were dropped 'accidently' into the hands of ISIS. Once is a mistake, but this has happened several times and even got reported in the mainstream news. There are other reports such as these which say the US has been dropping weapons to ISIS on a regular basis. See for example: In Plain Sight: Coalition Forces Routinely Air-Drop Military Supplies to ISIS Fighters In Syria and in March 2015 Terrorists Supported by America: U.S. Helicopter Delivering Weapons to the Islamic State (ISIS), Shot Down by Iraqi ?Popular Forces?
Last week, Head of the Iraqi Parliament?s National Security and Defense Committee Hakem al-Zameli announced that the helicopters of the US-led anti-ISIL coalition were dropping weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL terrorists in the Southern parts of Tikrit.
When we consider other aspects of ISIS like the fact that they are said to be excellent at social media and regularly use Facebook and Twitter to get their messages out, we have to wonder how the powerful NSA and cyber army of the US seems unable to close down their websites. They do it very quickly and easily when people are breaking copyright, or downloading free music. Likewise we are told ISIS are well financed and rich. So how come their banks accounts and assets aren't frozen? They managed to do this quite easily against Gadaffi at the time and recently against a range of Russia oligarchs with regard to the sanctions there.
Moving onto the arming of the "resistance" in Syria the evidence is much more in the open about the Gulf states' and Western backing of those fighting Assad and when it became increasingly clear the only 'Syrian resistance' was ISIS, the US media then pushed the line that it was US allies (-i.e. not the USA itself) supporting them. In Sep 2014 General Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services committee that their "Arab allies" were funding ISIS. Later in Oct 2014 Vice President Joe Biden publicly criticized US allies again for backing ISIS. Biden even apologized to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates for saying Middle Eastern allies are partly to blame for the strengthening of ISIS. At an appearance (Oct 2014) at Harvard University, he said the militant Islamist group had been inadvertently strengthened by actions allies took to help opposition groups fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
"They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad. Except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra and al Qaeda and the extremist elements of Jihadis coming from other parts of the world," Biden said.
You don't just hand over millions of dollars and tonnes of weapons to anybody. If you try and claim on the social welfare for alot less you are checked and cross checked and have to make multiple verifications as to who you actually are. You also have to wonder why Biden came out in public and said this. It suggests that different factions of the elite in the US empire are at odds at how things should be happening. And yet the narrative they tried to push that their allies do thing outside of their control is not right either. It is said that Saudi regime can't take a pee without the US say so as they are joined at the hip. Without the US protection and security, the royals in Saudi would be overthrown in weeks if not days.
To help those still in doubt, an ISIS leader, Abu Atheer in 2013 stated: "We have good relations with our brothers in the FSA," and said ISIS bought anti-aircraft missiles and anti-tank weapons from the FSA.
Then we have the killing of US ambassador Stevens in Benghazi, Libya in Sept 2012. Stevens was killed by some faction of Al Qaeda and was funneling weapons seized from Gadaffi Libyan army stockpiles after his downfall and were shipped to the terrorists in Syria. Officially Stevens was killed by a faction of Al Qaeda but it is not actually clear who did it. The Steven's killing itself is interesting as once again it seems to shine a light on divisions in the US elite. There is also speculation that elements of lower ranks of special forces and Navy are so appalled at the actions of the CIA & politicos that despite having a unit nearby, none was sent to rescue Stevens. Regardless anyhow, according to documents obtained by Judical Watch:
Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG?s, and 125 mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.Reports say that Britain's MI6 cooperated with the CIA on this weapons rat-line to Syria.
And just recently a trial in the UK of a Swedish man accused of terrorism in Syria, collapsed after according to this report:
The prosecution abandoned the case, apparently to avoid embarrassing the intelligence services. The defence argued that going ahead with the trial would have been an "affront to justice" when there was plenty of evidence the British state was itself providing "extensive support" to the armed Syrian opposition. That didn?t only include the "non-lethal assistance" boasted of by the government (including body armour and military vehicles), but training, logistical support and the secret supply of "arms on a massive scale" See Guardian June 2015 Now the truth emerges: how the US fuelled the rise of Isis in Syria and Iraq
Indeed it has been suggested that all the Jihadists going to Syria over the last year or two from Britain were helped in their efforts by the MI6 despite the media scare stories horrified that this was happening and clamouring for more police and surveillance powers. To spell it out, the British state uses the angry young Muslem men in Britain to put in the meat grinder to promote extremism and carry out terrorism abroad and at the very same time to scare the home population into accepting more draconian powers and ratcheting up of the police state. This is all about controlling the folks at home. You need to be made scared and confused all the time. What's even better for the neo-liberal capitalist system is that the waves of refugees and immigrants are the perfect tool for driving down labour costs and undermining working conditions and rights. It's a win-win.
This article from Voltaire network http://www.voltairenet.org/article188650.html
For months it was in the news that 400 Britons had joined the jihadis in Syria. Foreign Secretary William Hague himself said so. However, the number of these British jihadis is much larger and it has been revealed that some of them were trained to be Sunni jihadists by a jihad-seeking Saudi mullah in a British mosque under the watchful eyes of the MI6.Does anyone think there is no mosque in Britain that is not under surveillance?
For yet more coverage of how Western powers are backing the ISIS terrorists in Syria see this report from the Guardian in 2013. Notice how it is always couched in terms of helping moderates even though it should be absolutely clear there aren't any and the various governments and intelligence agencies know that too.
From West training Syrian rebels in Jordan Exclusive: UK and French instructors involved in US-led effort to strengthen secular elements in Syria's opposition, say sources
Reading between the lines, it is clear they have been blatantly training, arming and providing intelligence to the terrorists, which would include locations and movements of Assad's Syrian army. The sentence about maintain order in the event of Bashar al-Assad's fall is a laugh because if we check with what happened in Libya, it has gone from the African country with the highest standard of living and tolerance to a completely failed state, with infrastructure built over decades destroyed, and over-run with marauding gangs of Jihadists and criminals who have murdered literally tens of thousands since Gadaffi's fall.
For another angle on this, the former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned that the war in Syria could engulf Iraq, yet the United States and its allies kept supporting the insurgency. The American bombing of ISIS, relatively light and sporadic, has only intensified the belief of many Iraqis that the United States doesn?t want to defeat the group. Maliki has been publicly accusing Saudi Arabia and Qatar of funding ISIS for months. He also blamed both countries for launching Syria's three-year civil war through al Qaeda-linked groups that now operate on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border, next to Anbar province.
"They are attacking Iraq through Syria indirectly. They absolutely started the war in Iraq, they started the war in Syria," Maliki said. ISIL has been one of the biggest fighting forces in Syria's civil war. Regarding Saudi Arabia: "Saudi Arabia supports terrorism against the world, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Libya. See March 2014 Iraqi PM Maliki says Saudi, Qatar openly funding violence in Anbar province
Finally not forgetting the role of Turkey which is actually huge because without them it would have been much harder to supply, train and generally prop up ISIS and it affiliates. In this article Links between Turkey and ISIS are now ?undeniable? some of the details are exposed although many more can be found quite easily elsewhere. For example:
..Documents and flash drives seized during the Sayyaf raid reportedly revealed links ?so clear? and ?undeniable? between Turkey and ISIS ?that they could end up having profound policy implications for the relationship between us and Ankara,? a senior western official familiar with the captured intelligence told the Guardian.
A bit more about the not so moderate Free Syrian Army openly supported by US, UK, France, Turkey, Saudi & QatarThe Free Syrian Army (FSA) is a terrorist organization responsible for indiscriminate killings, imposition of sharia law, murders, rapes, cannibalism and more. Even one of the FSA commanders, Bassel Idriss, recently admitted to openly collaborating with ISIS and al-Nusra, revealing yet another example of the fact that the ?moderate rebels? are not moderate at all.
In an interview with the Daily Star of Lebanon, Idriss stated ?We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Army?s gatherings in . . . Qalamoun . . . . Let?s face it: The Nusra Front is the biggest power present right now in Qalamoun and we as FSA would collaborate on any mission they launch as long as it coincides with our values.?
Idriss also admitted that many FSA fighters had pledged allegiance to ISIS. He said, ?[ISIS] wanted to enhance its presence in the Western Qalamoun area. After the fall of Yabroud and the FSA?s retreat into the hills [around Arsal], many units pledged allegiance [to ISIS]?.
Abu Fidaa, a retired Syrian Army Colonel who is now a part of the Revolutionary Council in the Qalamoun, corroborated Idrisss? statements by saying that ?A very large number of FSA members [in Arsal] have joined ISIS and Nusra. In the end, people want to eat, they want to live, and the Islamic State has everything.?
Not only the FSA, but also the Syrian Revolutionary Front has also openly admitted to working with Nusra and al-Qaeda. The leader of the SRF, Jamaal Maarouf admitted that his brigades coordinate with Nusra and al-Qaeda regularly.
Salem Idriss, one of the men seen in the photograph with John McCain, is the commander of the FSA, the ?opposition group? touted as a ?moderate rebels.? In reality, of course, the FSA is nothing of the sort.
Former US Ambassador Robert Ford has admitted as much, saying that "for a long time, we have looked the other way" as US-backed groups worked with al-Qaeda?s affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq spinoff al-Nusra Front. Many "moderate" rebels - "entire CIA-backed rebel units" - have joined al-Nusra Front and ISIS. Earlier this year, the main US-backed group, Harakat al-Hazm, couldn?t beat al-Nusra Front -- so it joined them
However as the rebels gained strength, the reports of war crimes and atrocities that they were committing began to create a bit of a public relations problem for Washington. It then became standard policy to insist that U.S. support was only being given to what they referred to as "moderate" rebel forces. This distinction, however, had no basis in reality.
Reuters had reported in 2012 that the FSA's command was dominated by Islamic extremists, and the New York Times had reported that same year that the majority of the weapons that Washington were sending into Syria was ending up in the hands Jihadists.
And the FSA's ties to Al-Nusra are just the beginning. In June of 2014 Al-Nusra merged with ISIS at the border between Iraq and Syria.
So to review, the FSA is working with Al-Nusra, Al-Nusra is working with ISIS, and the U.S. has been sending money and weapons to the FSA even though they've known since 2012 that most of these weapons were ending up in the hands of extremists but even that is too gentle a conclusion because as we know and cited above, they have been doing weapons and food drops directly to ISIS.
Former presidential candidate John McCain's meeting with ISIS leaderIn April 2013 former presidential candidate John McCain made an illegal visit to Syria and had a meeting in a rebel safe house with the heads of the "Free Syrian Army" in Idlib, Syria. Present was the top Al Qaeda terrorist leader Ibrahim al-Badri (aka Al-Baghdadi of ISIS, aka Caliph Ibrahim of the recently founded Islamic Empire) demonstrating the farce that is the so called War on Terror. We have to let the magnitude and significance of this sink in. This is the same group the American army were 'hunting' down in Iraq, the key brand name in the 14 year War on Terror but really War of Terror by the US and it's allies on Arab and Middle East states.
The meeting and photograph also demonstrates that the FSA and ISIS are very very close and largely one and the same and underscores that supplying arms and support to the FSA is effectively supporting ISIS. Even if they were truly separate, the very fact that you are arming one faction, diverts Assads forces away from dealing with ISIS and takes the pressure off them and thereby allowing them to advance and take over territory and of course to carry out their butchery.http://www.activistpost.com/2013/05/syrian-rebel-eats-soldiers-heart-paid.html
The New York times attempted to run a story to deny the visit and claim it was rumors, but the only other offering in the way of McCain?s defense is a statement by his own Communications Director, Brian Rogers, who claims that the man in the picture was not Baghdadi but another individual associated with the Northern Storm Brigade, ironically a terrorist organization in its own right. Northern Storm was famous for kidnapping a group of religious pilgrims crossing through Syria in September, 2012. Nevertheless, the comparisons of the photographs and the individuals in them lean toward the idea that the terrorist in the picture is Baghdadi. Regardless of who it was, the individual was a terrorist since McCain?s defense is that it was a fighter/commander with Northern Storm.
It should also be remembered that McCain traveled to Libya during the assault against Ghaddafi in order to meet with terrorists in that country and promote the barbarism which they would ultimately bring.
It should be noted that McCain is extremely close to the color revolution apparatus organization, the International Republican Institute, a wing of the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID. He is the current Chairman of the IRI.
It Was All Planned Years Ago.
There are still more sides to this story because all this mayhem was planned years ago. For those who don't know, U.S. General Wesley Clark was Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO from 1997 to 2000.
In an interview with Amy Goodman on March 2, 2007, Clark (Ret.), explains that the Bush Administration planned (in 2001) to take out 7 countries in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.
-See here
It has all taken a little longer than expected but it is making good progress. Here is the latest update.
The Wave of RefugeesSo it should be quite clear that the current wave of refugees to Europe is directly as a result of the actions of the sponsors of terrorism in Syria. While the numbers are trying to enter Europe are in the hundreds of thousands, there are in fact several million in the countries directly bordering Syria. It is likely that the poorest are in places like Lebanon and Turkey while the ones reaching Europe had more money to pay the traffickers. The ideal solution is that the war would end and resources could be made available to rebuild the country and people's lives but this is not likely to pan out.
So far the refugee crisis is causing all sorts of political problems in Europe. Germany had said it will take 850,000 and Sweden expects to accommodate around 190,000 by the end of the year. For a country like Sweden this is a huge number and even for Germany too and one can only conclude that this is going to greatly fan the flames of the far right.
The Left in general seems to take the approach that we should let everyone in and it will all be fine but it won't. Nor do the Left say an awful lot about who has caused all the butchery or make any real effort at trying to understand what is going on. The Left simply play the role assigned to them. In the Libyan war they were fooled and thereby helped with the pretext for the justification for the NATO bombing of Libya. Then again in the Syrian war, they were fooled for a while into believing the FSA were Left wing rebels and again enabled the pretend game. And now in this instance by just reacting and not analysing and controlling their own narrative, they instead allow the mainstream media to get away with the lies that the refugees are the result of Assad. They are not. They are the result of terrorism. We also have to step back and see what is the bigger picture. For instance, Ulrich Grillo, the boss of Germany?s heavy industry and obviously a capitalist not a leftist, has welcomed the refugees. Why you would wonder? -because big business has profited from the occasion to abolish the minimum wage in several German federal states and is getting a huge influx of cheap labour. This is and will cause resentment from the German population. There has been suggestions that this was planned up to a year in advance primarily with President Erdoğan of Turkey who controls the 'valve' and therefore the flow of refugees from Syria through Turkey and onwards to Europe via the Balkans. Erdoğan in the last few weeks has managed to extract a promise of several billion euros from the EU to deal with refugees on Turkish soil. In this article Who is twitter-luring refugees to Germany? the author cites a study that shows the bulk of tweets inviting refugees to Germany and welcoming came not from the Germans but an army of bots operating from UK, USA and Australia. What exactly then is going on and what is the effect on Syria? It looks like the action by Erdoğan to readily accept refugees from Syria on the one hand and allow them to pass through Turkey to Europe is essentially an exercise to drain Syria of it's people and thereby dismantle the country. As more people leave and remember it is more likely to be the young, it tends to reinforce itself and trigger more to leave. These are the very people that are needed to both defend the country and rebuild it. And this crisis comes out a time when the efforts to topple Assad have failed and they are probably running out of fighters. The logic is that they terrorists sponsors will tap into the flood of refugees to recruit, arm and send back in a new fresh wave of bodies to the war. Traditionally refugees have been widely used for this sort of thing in all conflicts.
For the European side of the equation the benefit for the USA which after all is really the boss amongst the sponsors of this awful war (i.e. Saudi, Qatar, Turkey, France, Britain) is that if they can create enough problems in Europe it bogs them down and stops any reapproachment with Russia. For the US who incidentally fund 70% of the NATO budget, the role of NATO in Europe is one of occupation and control in the military and foreign policy sphere and America only remains strong so long as others are weaker. The geography of Europe and Russia would suggest that they should form a natural alliance and strong trading relationship, but if this was to occur, then combined an independent economic region extending from Europe into Russia would be far stronger than the USA. This can never be allowed to happen and the Ukraine war is part of the poison to disallow that. But so too must the present crisis be related to it, especially when you consider the vast majority of refugees are heading to Germany.
Links / References
http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/weekly-updates/the-truth-about-bengha... These documents also show connections between the collapse in Libya and the ISIS war ? and confirm that the U.S. knew remarkable details about the transfer of arms from Benghazi to Syrian jihadists
How Neocons Destabilized Europe
In Plain Sight: Coalition Forces Routinely Air-Drop Military Supplies to ISIS Fighters In Syria
March 2015 Terrorists Supported by America: U.S. Helicopter Delivering Weapons to the Islamic State (ISIS), Shot Down by Iraqi ?Popular Forces?
EXCLUSIVE: Israeli Colonel Leading ISIL Terrorists Captured in Iraq
Links between Turkey and ISIS are now ?undeniable?
Germany seeks to extract itself from the Syrian conflict
General Clark reveals that Daesh is an Israeli project
Why does France want to overthrow the Syrian Arab Republic ?
Middle East: The predictable defeat of France
New Western Info Fronts Against Syria: Refugees, Russia, And The Balkans
US to give arms, air support to Islamist militias in Syria - 10th Oct 2015
Paul Lynch - Thu Jul 16, 2015 23:57
Day 4 of Corrib Gas Trial, Castlebar Circuit Court 10th July 2015
The trial of two Mayo men accused of violent disorder and damaging property at the Shell Corrib gas project tunneling site in June 2013 continues in Castlebar circuit court.
On Friday four Shell security guards gave evidence to the court and were cross examined by the defence.
The trial of two Mayo men accused of violent disorder and damaging property at the Shell Corrib gas project tunneling site in June 2013 continues in Castlebar circuit court.
Related Links: ShellToSea.com | Radio reporter claims he lost his job over coverage of Corrib Gas controversy | Irish Times: Top criminologist calls for inquiry into Corrib policing | Archbishop Tutu calls for independent inquiry into policing of Corrib gas project | Court Report On ?rape-tape? Sergeant Being Awarded ?33,0000 | Business as usual for Gardaí ? trying to smear women in ?rape tape? controversy | Join the continuous protests against Shell | 22 TDs gather at gates of Dail to demand reversal of Corrib pipeline consents
"They are good people" - Shell security boss on protestors
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