North Korea-China:Xinhua published remarks of Chinese State Councilor and former Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, who held discussions today, 21 June.
“Yang said: Positive results have been achieved in the strategic dialogue between foreign affairs departments of the two countries. China is willing to work with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to promote the sound and stable development of relations between the two countries. China insists on actualizing non-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, insists on maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula, and insists on resolving issues through dialogue and consultation. Currently, an easing momentum has emerged in the situation on the peninsula, which is nevertheless still complex and sensitive. It is hoped that all parties will actively engage in dialogue and contact, push for the situation to continue to turn better, and seek an early resumption of the six-party talks.”
“Kim said: Friendship between the DPRK and China has a long history. It is hoped that the two sides will inherit it and carry it forward. Non-nuclearization of the peninsula is the instruction left behind by President Kim Il-song and General Secretary Kim Chong-il. The DPRK hopes the situation on the peninsula will ease, insists on resolving issues through dialogue, and is willing to take part in various forms of dialogue including the six-party talks.”
If you own a television or read a newspaper you've probably heard that we need another war because the Syrian government used chemical weapons.
If you own a computer and know where to look you've probably heard that there isn't actually any evidence for that claim.
Below are 10 reasons why this latest excuse for war is no good EVEN IF TRUE.
1. War is not made legal by such an excuse. It can't be found in the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the United Nations Charter, or the U.S. Constitution. It can, however, be found in U.S. war propaganda of the 2002 vintage. (Who says our government doesn't promote recycling?)
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2. The United States itself possesses and uses internationally condemned weapons, including white phosphorus, napalm, cluster bombs, and depleted uranium. Whether you praise these actions, avoid thinking about them, or join me in condemning them, they are not a legal or moral justification for any foreign nation to bomb us, or to bomb some other nation where the U.S. military is operating. Killing people to prevent their being killed with the wrong kind of weapons is a policy that must come out of some sort of sickness. Call it Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
3. An expanded war in Syria could become regional or global with uncontrollable consequences. Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Russia, China, the United States, the Gulf states, the NATO states . . . does this sound like the sort of conflict we want? Does it sound like a conflict anyone will survive? Why in the world risk such a thing?
Patrick Cockburn has written a very important essay on Syria in the London Review of Books (attached below). The essay is aptly titled but has only a few oblique, albeit important, references to Sykes – Picot Agreement, a document some readers may not familiar with. Let's begin with a little background.
The Sykes-Picot agreement (it was a secret agreement concocted by two bureaucrats) is one of the most cynical documents in the creation of the modern Middle East.
The Encylopaedia Britannica describes it accurately as follows:
It was a … “secret convention made during World War I (1916) between Great Britain and France, with the assent of imperial Russia, for the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. The agreement led to the division of Turkish-held Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine into various French- and British-administered areas. The agreement took its name from its negotiators, Sir Mark Sykes
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla., June 3, 2013 – About 100 people are hard at work at the U.S. Special Operations Command headquarters here on a new plan that will operationalize the way the command provides manpower and capability in support of the new defense strategic guidance.
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The plan, due to the Joint Staff in late August, is part of the Special Operations Command 2020 vision Navy Adm. William H. McRaven introduced shortly after taking the helm as Socom commander in 2011.The building of a global network of special operations forces, as well as U.S. government partners and partner nations, is a major component of Socom 2020, McRaven explained during the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa, Fla., earlier this month.
McRaven’s Socom 2020 vision calls for a globally networked force of special operations forces, interagency representatives, allies and partners, with aligned structures processes and authorities to enable its operations. Globally networked forces, he said, will provide geographic combatant commanders and chiefs of mission with an unprecedented unity of effort and an enhance ability to respond to regional contingencies and threats to stability.
McRaven noted his own experience working with the Joint Special Operations Command in Afghanistan. “It has been interesting to work in a network like that, and we do that very, very well on the direct action side,” he said. “We need to figure out — and it is part of the Socom plan — how do we take that network, and be able to extend that out to the theater special operations commands,” down to special operations forward elements and forces assigned to them.
(Beirut) – The short answer is Iran and Hezbollah according to Congressional sources. “The Syrian army’s victory at al-Qusayr was more than the administration could accept given that town’s strategic position in the region. Its capture by the Assad forces has essentially added Syria to Iran’s list of victories starting with Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, as well as its growing influence in the Gulf.”
Other sources are asserting that Obama actually did not want to invoke direct military aid the rebels fighting to topple the Assad government or even to make use of American military power in Syria for several reasons. Among these are the lack of American public support for yet another American war in the Middle East, the fact that there appears to be no acceptable alternative to the Assad government on the horizon, the position of the US intelligence community and the State Department and Pentagon that intervention in Syria would potentially turn out very badly for the US and gut what’s left of its influence in the region. It short, that the US getting involved in Syria could turn out even worse than Iraq, by intensifying a regional sectarian war without any positive outcome in sight.
George thought you might be interested in the op-ed below published today by Guinean President Alpha Condé. President Condé writes about the struggle to reform business practices in Guinea’s mining sector so all the people of Guinea can benefit from the country’s immense mineral wealth. The op-ed comes in the context of Conde’s participation in this year’s G8 meeting, which is focusing on trade, taxes, and transparency. OSF has been in the forefront of promoting transparency particularly in the governance of natural resources. President Condé is emerging as a champion of these values in Africa. His op-ed is an elegant statement of why the issue is so vital to the continent’s development.
We need G8 support for transparency and good global business governance so that our assets can be used to benefit everyone rather than just a few greedy mining companies and politicians.
In December 2010, I was elected president of Guinea in its first truly open and democratic elections. I said then that I had inherited a country, not a state. Our economy was in ruins, our people among the poorest on the planet and our political system weakened by decades of corruption, dictatorship and misrule.
It needn't be so. Guinea has vast mineral wealth, the world's largest reserves of bauxite and some of the highest grade iron ore deposits.
Making these assets work for all our people rather than a few unscrupulous international mining companies and politicians means confronting the deeply ingrained corruption in our politics and business. But uprooting such corruption can be painfully slow, and is often dangerous. After all, vested interests do not welcome challenge.
On 22 November 2013, the Oswald Innocence Campaign will be hosting the premiere event to commemorate the 50th observance of the JFK assassination. Presenting cutting-edge research on the death of our 35th President that holds the keys to understanding what took place, it will feature some of the best authors on some the most important evidence that clarifies and illuminates that tragic event in Dallas, 50 years ago.
The research presented will advance extensive, detailed evidence establishing that the assassination of JFK was a “national security event”, which involved crucial elements of the most powerful institutions in the American government, including the CIA, the Joint Chiefs, the FBI and the Secret Service, who conspired with the Mafia, anti-Castro Cubans and Texas oil men to remove JFK from office and replace his policies with those of Lyndon Baines Johnson.
As Ralph Cinque has observed, this November 22nd, the government and the media are going to be going all out with the official lie about JFK–and with extreme prejudice. They are going to pull all the stops to promote the indefensible and long-disproven lie–one more stomach-churning time. What can we do to stand up to this evil pomposity? We can literally stand together–in Santa Barbara. We can come together and evoke the call for JFK truth. A coup d-etat took place in 1963, and we have been living with the results of it for half a century–with millions of dead across the globe. With the death of John Kennedy, the US became a perpetual warfare state, and we live every day of our lives with the consequenes of that monstrous fact. So, join us on this very special day to find strength in numbers, to make a blip on the national radar and take personal responsibility for disseminating the truth about JFK.
What you weren’t supposed to ever know
The evidence that substantiates the scenario of the assassination as a national security event is extensive and compelling. It has generate enormous resistance even within the JFK community, where several of those who will present their findings have been banned in a massive effort to suppress the truth and preserve the illusion that it was an event of a different kind, where the view that “the Mafia did it” or “the Cubans did it” or “the KGB did it” are frequently advanced, but where none of them could have effected the cover-up that was indispensable to convey the false impressions this conference will correct:
* Lee Harvey Oswald was working for the government when he was framed for the death of JFK
* Photos and films allegedly taken during the assassination were altered to conceal the truth
* Autopsy photos and X-rays were altered and faked to support a false account of the murder
* LBJ was a pivotal player–perhaps the pivotal player–who brought about the assassination
* George H.W. Bush was not only in Dealey Plaza but took an active role in carrying out the plot
* There were multiple shooters who tied the conspirators together to insure their mutual silence
* They included a Deputy Sheriff, an Air Force expert, an anti-Casto Cuban, a Police Officer and a Mafia shooter
* LBJ’s personal hit-man, who killed a dozen people for Lyndon, also appears to have been directly involved
* The Mafia could not have extended its reach into Bethesda Naval Hospital to alter X-rays and photographs
* Anti-Castro Cubans would have been unable to substitute someone else’s brain for that of JFK
* While the KBG had the capability to alter films, it could not have gained access to the Zapruder film
The experts assembled for this unique conference–which will explain how it was done, who was responsible and why, and how it was covered up–have invested decades upon decades of their lives to research on crucial aspects of the case, including the medical, the ballistic, and the film and photographic evidence. They include the leading authorities on the role of Lyndon Baines Johnson, on the involvement of George H.W. Bush, on the management of the cover-up, on the death of key witnesses intimately related to JFK and by others who personally knew the man accused of killing him. If you are there, you will understand what went down.