Guardian Smears Syria's President With Implausible Link To Beirut's Port Blast

On August 4 2020 2.750 tons of ammonium nitrate, stored in a warehouse of Beirut's harbour, exploded. The blast destroyed large parts of the city.

The dangerous load had come on a defect ship which was impounded by the Lebanese authorities. It had been stored since 2013. Despite urgent warnings, the complicate Lebanese bureaucracy had never found a way to get rid of the dangerous load.

Soon conspiracy theories sprang up about the 'real' ownership and purpose of the load and of who might have had an interest in igniting it. None made much sense. The original explanation of a bureaucratic tussle and pure neglect are still the most plausible cause.

But that does not stop the British Guardian from trying to blame the Syrian government for the incident:

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Here is how the Guardian 'links' the Syrian government with the explosion:

Cont. reading: Guardian Smears Syria's President With Implausible Link To Beirut's Port Blast

The Suppression Of Trump Voters Will Not Create Long Term Stability

Someone at CNN was tasked with writing a thrilling story about a brave democratic congressman who did not shy away from confronting the Capitol intruders.

How a swift impeachment was born under siege

Rioters were still ransacking the halls of the US Capitol when two Democrats stuck in lockdown together in the House office buildings across the street started drafting the impeachment resolution that led to the unprecedented second impeachment of President Donald Trump almost exactly one week later.

California Rep. Ted Lieu was forced to evacuate his office in the Cannon Office Building as insurrectionists converged on the Capitol. Grabbing a crowbar in his office, Lieu said he and his chief of staff called the top aide to Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline while wandering the halls and asked if they could hunker down in Cicilline's office in the Rayburn House Office Building. ...

Shortly after the story was published someone (a fact checker?, Lieu?) most have notified CNN that a crowbar is an unlikely instrument to be found in a representative's office.

The story was implausible and had to be changed. That done a correction was appended to it.

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The crowbar was replaced with a product placement, a "ProBar energy bar".

That is only one example of the ghastly reporting about the Trump impeachment by the 'librul' media.

They completely miss the point:

Michael Tracey @mtracey - 6:14 UTC · Jan 14, 2021

Virtually none of the corporate media coverage even bothers to remark on the radicalism of what occurred today. "Snap" impeachment with a total of two hours of debate, charging as a "high crime" that the president engaged in political speech.

The anti-Trump campaign, from Russiagate to Ukrainegate to this 'insurrection' nonsense, has likely done more damage to the U.S. than Trump managed to do during his four years in office. The hostility the Democrats have shown will create a huge backlash. Do they really believe that can suppress 74 million Trump voters?

As M.K. Bhadrakumar diagnoses:

For the outside world Trump Impeachment 2.0 can only appear as a kangaroo trial.
...
This ongoing project to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time in a little over a year is farcical. ...

What happened in Washington, DC, on January 6 was by no means an insurrection. Of course, US citizens were behind the Capitol Building siege. But the parallel ends there. There was no way they could have usurped power in America last Wednesday. In fact, even the vandalism was entirely due to the ineptness of the security personnel deployed there.
...
What is the guarantee that another Trump will not arise from outside the cabals that preside over politics in America and reaches out to the people directly? The fact of the matter is that Trump’s support base still remains the envy of any American politician. Seventy million Americans voted for him last November. That massive support base will feel further disenfranchised or disempowered by what the cabals are perpetrating on the Capitol Hill.

The real paradox is that the “mob” who besieged the Capitol building was largely drawn from the American middle classes — the petite bourgeoisie or the ‘transitional class,’ as Karl Marx described them ...
...
Make no mistake, this class is here to stay in America and if the post-pandemic economic recovery does not go brilliantly well or is mismanaged, its ranks will swell further. That is going to be Biden’s real challenge even if Pelosi were to dispatch Trump into political wilderness.

The backlash from this Trump impeachment will be huge. It may come in rare events of real domestic terrorism. But it is more likely to swell up through smaller acts of civil disobedience. There is a lot that the petite bourgeoisie can sabotage. The CIA has published volumes of advice, meant for people in other countries, on how to do that.

Feisal al-Istrabadi فيصل الاسترابادي @FIstrabadi - 00:03 UTC · 14 Jan 2021

Joy Reid just spoke on MSNBC of the necessity for “de-Baathifying” the Republican Party to rid it of Trumpian influences.

An excellent precedent. It has worked just great in Iraq.

The Democrats aren't stupid. They know that they are provoking more strife. They will use that to roll out authoritarian measure that will serve the powerful.

It is a suppression strategy that has, at times, worked in other countries.

But it does not lead to long term stability.

Open Thread 2021-004

News & views ...

Three Views On The Current Situation In The U.S. Of A.

No post by me for today but three views of interest on the current situation in the U.S. of A.

Pepe Escobar: 9/11 Was the Prelude. 1/6 Is the Holy Grail

So where will 75 million disenfranchised voters – or 88 million Twitter followers – go?

As it stands, we’re deep into Hardcore Class War. The Top of the Scam Gang are in full control. The remains of “Democracy” have gelled into Mediacracy. Ahead, there’s nothing but ruthless purge, protracted crackdown, censorship, blanket surveillance, smashing of civil liberties, a single narrative, overarching cancel (in)culture. It gets worse: next week, this paranoid apparatus merges with the awesome machinery of the United States Government (USG).

Alastair Crooke: America’s Battle Over the Nature and Direction of Change Itself

The next question for 2021 then, concerns that old adage: ‘Beware not to win too much’. It can be a mistake to corner your adversaries to having nothing to lose. The Blue state has ousted Trump; and Blue has taken everything across ‘the board’, and are ready to implement the ‘Re-set’ – the ultimate subjugation of Red by main force, achieved by the preponderance of wealth, ruling institutional leverage, and military power. A social ‘woke’ revolution, as well as a political transformation. The full outcome would likely reconstitute the constitutional order, in ways unrecognizable to most Americans today.

But will Red America succumb from exhaustion, or lack of leadership; or, on the other hand, might it find the energy to revitalise ‘their’ Republic? We shall see – a big question whose ramifications might make the EU élites particularly nervous. Of course Blue now possesses force majeure. But there is another old adage: ‘No passionate, partisan assessment has any value, save to inflame’ – and Big Tech and the MSM’s censorship and accompanying humiliation of Trump may turn him a martyr, and make the spirit of defiance all the stronger.

Diana Johnstone: Biden Exploits His Capitol Gains

From outside the melee, it is easy to define the serious issues that should dominate political debate in the United States. But instead of that, we hear a torrential exchange of insults. The establishment elite cannot stoop to exchange viewpoints with populists denounced as deplorable, racist, misogynist, white supremacist, fascist and now even “terrorist.”

The populists’ unfocused denunciation of the elite describes Wall Street Democrats as “socialists” and veers off into accusations of genocidal vaccination campaigns, occult pedophile rites and Satanism. Instead of anything resembling a clear political division, America is increasingly split by blind, burning mutual hatred.

What American political life needs is not more censorship, but the self-censorship of reason. That is very far away.

Apartheid News

Sheldon Adelson, the casino oligarch who has financed far right causes as well as the political careers of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahoo, has died. In 2013 Adelson had called for nuking Tehran (vid).

Good Riddance.

Unfortunately his money will continue to flow to the far right as his Israeli wife is the one who is now running the show.

In other news B'Tselem, the topmost Israeli human rights organization, finally describes both Israel and its control of the Palestinian territories as a single apartheid regime:

B’Tselem rejects the perception of Israel as a democracy (inside the Green Line) that simultaneously upholds a temporary military occupation (beyond it). B’Tselem reached the conclusion that the bar for defining the Israeli regime as an apartheid regime has been met after considering the accumulation of policies and laws that Israel devised to entrench its control over Palestinians.

Nothing really new there but it makes it official.

With B'Tselem finally speaking out it is much easier to refute those who falsely denounce the much justified condemnation of Zionism and Israel as anti-semitic.

This comes at a time when Israel is scheming to derail the incoming Biden administration's plan to return to the nuclear deal with Iran:

Israel will start by sending a stream of envoys on visits to Washington, the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss private deliberations. It’s stated publicly that it doesn’t want the U.S. to abandon sanctions on the Islamic Republic without a new deal, and that a tougher stance should be taken toward its nuclear project, ballistic missile program and regional proxy forces.

That strategy runs against the Biden team’s willingness to re-enter the deal, then negotiate an expansion of its terms. It’s conditioned on Iran’s returning to compliance with the accord, whose limits it breached after President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018.
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Israel also has a higher-risk card up its sleeve: the potential to upend diplomatic efforts through covert operations against Iran.
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Netanyahu has been open about his intention to thwart renewed U.S. participation. In a rare public split, he rebuked his envoy to Germany for supporting Berlin’s push to expand the deal.

“There should be no return to the Iran nuclear agreement of 2015 -- a deal which is flawed to its foundations,” Netanyahu said.

With Biden being an arch-Zionist and with a team of Zionist Jews leading the State Department the chances of a fast return to the deal can be regarded as slim.

Dear Congress - Stop Wasting Time With Impeaching Trump - End His Famine In Yemen

The pompous U.S. Secretary of State informed Congress that he will designate the Ansarallah movement in Yemen as Foreign Terrorist Organization. As Ansarallah, also known as the Houthi, is ruling over some 80% of Yemen's population such a designation will make aid deliveries to those people impossible:

The designation is to take effect on President Donald Trump’s last full day in office, a day before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. Several aid groups pleaded on Monday for Biden to immediately reverse the designation. The Biden transition team has not yet expressed his intentions.

“Acting on day one cannot only be a figure of speech,” Oxfam America’s Humanitarian Policy Lead Scott Paul said. “Lives hang in the balance.”

Six years of war between a U.S.-backed Arab coalition and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have been catastrophic for Yemen. Most of its 30 million people rely on international aid to survive. The U.N. says 13.5 million Yemenis already face acute food insecurity, a figure that could rise to 16 million by June.

The threat of the designation has immediate consequences:

Yemen Solidarity Council @YSCouncil - 5:58 UTC · 11 Jan 2021

We are ceasing all operations in the United States for the time being, as well as putting a temporary halt to our intended plans for humanitarian fundraising.

Let it be known that the Trump Administration just criminalized foreign humanitarian aid to #Yemen.

The famine in Yemen is already acute:

[Seven-year-old] Faid weighs only 7 kg (just over 15 lb) and his tiny, fragile frame takes up barely a quarter of a folded hospital blanket. His family had to travel from Al-Jawf, 170 km (105 miles) north of Sanaa, through checkpoints and damaged roads, to get him there.

Unable to afford Faid’s medication or treatment, the family relies on donations to get him treated. Mohammed says malnutrition cases are on the rise and impoverished parents are forced to rely on the kindness of strangers or international aid to get their children treated.

Missing in almost all reports about the ghastly State Department act is the fact that Congress can easily prevent that the terrorist designation becomes reality. The State Department's designation of the Houthi comes under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Paragraph 219 (8 USC 1189) a.3.B.ii of the law says:

Any designation under this subsection shall cease to have effect upon an Act of Congress disapproving such designation.

In April 2019 Congress voted to end all U.S. support for the Saudi/UAE war on Yemen:

The House voted 247 to 175 to send the resolution to the president’s desk, where it is likely to be met with a veto. Sixteen Republicans broke ranks and joined Democrats in the effort. The Senate passed the resolution last month, with seven Republicans voting in favor of it.

It is likely that a similar majority could be found now to stop the designation of Ansarallah. To immediately do this would only need some initiative from Congress leaders.

Unfortunately those leaders are currently busy with nonsensical stuff:

Cont. reading: Dear Congress - Stop Wasting Time With Impeaching Trump - End His Famine In Yemen

The MoA Week In Review - OT 2021-003

Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

• January 4 - British Judge Rejects Assange Extradition
  Related:
  Wednesday's Other Story - Matt Taibbi
  The Assange saga: Practicing real journalism is criminally insane - Pepe Escobar
  Even If Assange’s Death isn’t the Goal of the US and UK, Everything They’re Doing Makes It More Likely - Jonathan Cook

• January 5 - U.S. Foreign Policy Blob Knows The Real Threat From China - Has Ideas Of How To Defeat It
  Related:
  2020: Stable Trends in an Unstable World - Ivan Timofeev / Valdai Club
  China’s New Rules Could Hit U.S. Firms and Send a Message to Biden - New York Times
  A Hong Kong Website Gets Blocked, Raising Censorship Fears - New York Times
  The blocked website has been doxing policemen and endangered their families. The NYT is not concerned about that but about the 'censorship'.

• January 6 - How Trump 'Appeased' Russia
  Related:
  American exceptionalism hurt by violent Capitol debacle, expect Biden to push aggressive foreign policy in bid to repair damage - Fyodor Lukyanov / RT

• January 7 - Leaving In Style
• January 8 - By Wrongly Calling The Capitol Rabble 'Terrorists' Joe Biden Will Likely Create Some
• January 9 - Democrats Use Capitol Incident To Suppress Political Dissent
  Related:
  Portland mayor promises to ‘hold people responsible’ after 2 days of vandalism, violence - Oregon Live
  Details emerge of high-level state involvement in Wednesday’s coup attempt - WSWS
  Major Technology Companies Join List of Biden Inaugural Donors - New York Times
  Amazon Is Booting Parler Off Of Its Web Hosting Service - Buzzfeed

Alexey Navalny @navalny - 18:13 UTC · Jan 9, 2021
1. I think that the ban of Donald Trump on Twitter is an unacceptable act of censorship (THREAD)

Rania Khalek @RaniaKhalek - 10:33 UTC · Jan 10, 2021
Entrusting Silicon Valley oligarchs to police speech on the social media platforms that dominate the exchange of information is gonna turn out great for the left for sure. No concerns here
I remember when Instagram and Facebook removed leftist videos about the elections in Bolivia following last year’s fascist coup. I’m sure that was just an accident and more of that won’t happen.
Also the many many many Palestinian posts and accounts that have been censored for challenging Israeli criminality surely isn’t coordinated or intentional, no reason to be concerned, really. Daddy Zuck and Jack are just trying to protect our minds from bad ideas 🙏🏽

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Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review - OT 2021-003

Democrats Use Capitol Incident To Suppress Political Dissent

When watching this Jimmy Dore Show about the Capitol incident one can clearly see that some of the police were reluctant to intervene against the surprise visitors. Some even took selfies with them. The police may have been overwhelmed and decided that more fighting would have been counterproductive. Or, maybe, they let it happen on purpose?

The LIHOP theory is often applied to the 9/11 incident in 2001. The FBI and others knew that terrorist from the Middle East were about to use air planes to attack within the U.S. but it was decided to let that happen and to use the event for political gain. That political gain came in form of the Patriot Act which gave the government more power to spy on its citizens, and in form of the war of terror on the Middle East.

Even weeks before Wednesday's event there had been lots of open source chatter about a big protest in Washington and plans to take on the Capitol. Like in in 455, when the Vandals sacked Rome, there was little done by the local authorities to prevent that. The actors in both incidents have by the way remarkable similarities.

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If we consider that 'Vandals' storming the Capitol was known to be upcoming and that the vandals actually managed to do it, we have to look for potential aims of those who might have allowed it to happen.

Two are sticking out. The 'Domestic terrorism' issues and the mass destruction of communication channels used by Trump and the political right.

Joe Biden gave a hint when he (falsely) called the Capitol incident an act of 'domestic terrorism':

Cont. reading: Democrats Use Capitol Incident To Suppress Political Dissent

By Wrongly Calling The Capitol Rabble 'Terrorists' Joe Biden Will Likely Create Some

The hyperventilating over Wednesday's MAGA cosplay in the Capitol Building continues:

In a blistering speech one day after pro-trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an unprecedented security breach, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden said the perpetrators should be considered 'domestic terrorists'.

"Don't dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It's that basic. It's that simple."

That the incoming president declares a number of activist from the opposing party to be 'terrorists' demonstrates how unqualified he is for that job.

Is this a terrorist?

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Those rabbles were in no way terrorists. They were not even a mob. Most of them were out-of-town rednecks who felt that they had been wronged. They wanted to express that. They were surprised when they found how easy it was to enter the Capitol and they apparently took more time to take pictures than to rearrange the furniture.

This was not a coup attempt either. These folks had no weapons, no training and, most importantly, they had no plan of what to do except to maybe enter to then leave:

And yet, and yet…. This was no Vietnam-level rioting. This wasn’t even a serious occupation, which one would think was the point, to keep Congress from executing the final ratification of the Biden win. Could you image the spectacle of democracy chastened if the Trump mob had held the Capitol and forced Congress to scramble find a hotel ballroom in which to finish their official business?

Nope, Congress was back in business by 8:00 PM, roughly seven hours after the barbarians stormed the walls, albeit with pretty much everyone badly rattled and some Trump supporters rapidly backpedaling from their former positions.

Despite the gravity of the event, if you look not very hard at what happened, both sides in their different ways were shambolic.

Another such view:

Cont. reading: By Wrongly Calling The Capitol Rabble 'Terrorists' Joe Biden Will Likely Create Some

Open Thread 2021-002

News & views ...