More Aletho News Original Content

September 19, 2011

Bush regime retread, Philip Zelikow, appointed to Obama’s Intelligence Advisory Board

January 2, 2011

Top Israel Lobby Senator proposes permanent US air bases for Afghanistan

October 10, 2010

‘A huge setback for, if not the end of, the American nuclear renaissance’

July 5, 2010

Progressive ‘Green’ Counterinsurgency

January 5, 2010

Biodiesel flickers out leaving investors burned

December 19, 2009

Carbonphobia, the real environmental threat

Saudi Led Destruction of Yemen’s heritage

This short video was a part of our presentation to the UNHRC made by team www.arwarights.org. It shows a tiny part of the destruction and devastation of ancient cultural sites and heritage by a Saudi coalition hell bent on massacre and obliteration of history in Yemen. Thank you to Yousra Alharazi and Carson Germignani for their moving and heartfelt presentation of this crime against humanity and our universal heritage.

Saudi fighter jets target north Yemen with cluster bombs

Press TV - October 18, 2015

Yemeni media have released a video showing the northern province of Sa’ada being targeted with banned cluster bombs by Saudi warplanes.

 The footage on Sunday showed Saudi fighter jets bombing the residential area of Maran village in Sa’ada Province with cluster bombs, al-Yemen al-Youm television network reported.

Tens of civilians were reportedly killed in the attack and several houses were destroyed.

Meanwhile, Saudi bombs also hit a number of locations in Sanhan district in the capital city of Sana’a.

Saudi warplanes also attacked the security forces headquarters in Haraz district in the northern Hajjah Province.

Reports also indicate that a number of Yemeni civilians were killed in Saudi bombings in al-Hazm district of the northern al-Jawf Province. ... http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/10/18/433972/Saudi-Arabia-Yemen-Ansarullah

Israeli training drives US police brutality: Analyst

Press TV - July 28, 2015 Police brutality in the United States is directly linked to the training some American officers receive in Israel, says a political commentator in Kentucky. John Miranda made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday when asked about the death of an African American woman while in police custody. Sandra Bland was found dead in a prison cell at the Waller County jail in Texas on July 13. Miranda pointed to the circumstances surrounding Bland’s arrest on July 10 by a Texas state trooper for failing to signal while changing lanes with her vehicle. “That these people are being taken out of their cars is 100 percent illegal. The only reason a person should be taken out of their car is if the officer thinks some other crime or something illegal has happened, but obviously as we can all see from dashboard camera from Sandra Bland that this is not what happened,” he said. Police said that an autopsy has confirmed an initial finding by a medical examiner that Bland’s death was a suicide. However, Miranda said “the story that police gave to the press conference just does not add up.” “As for the increase in police brutality within the United States,” Miranda said, “I think this definitely can be pointed towards the Israeli training that the Department of Homeland Security is giving all of American police officers.” “This is not a myth, this is actually happening. I know this first-hand from friends of mine that are police officers,” he continued. “Some police officers are actually being flown to Israel for the training, not all of them but some, and then those that are flown to Israel, they come back home and they train the head officers in the training that they’ve gotten in Israel,” he explained. “All these incidents, it is not just happening to African Americans,” Miranda said. “Police are literally being brutal with all Americans.” The deaths of Bland, as well as two others - Rexdale W. Henry and Kindra Chapman - who were both found dead in their prison cells a few days after they were arrested, are the latest in a series of suspicious police-involved incidents that have sparked protests in many cities across the US.

Beneath the Negotiating Endgame in Vienna: Hillary Mann Leverett and Seyed Mohammad Marandi

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By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett | Going to Tehran | July 12, 2015

As the world waits to see if the P5+1 and Iran can, in fact, conclude a comprehensive nuclear deal, it is important to step back from the not just day-by-day, but minute-by-minute coverage of comings and goings at the Palais Coburg in Vienna and think about what is really at stake in the negotiating endgame.  To this end, we post here a very good discussion of these issues by Hillary and the University of Tehran’s Seyed Mohammad Marandi on CCTV’s The Heat, see here or click on videos above.  (Like Mohammad, Flynt is currently in Vienna for the nuclear talks.)

The most critical of the remaining issues to be resolved by the parties relate to the terms of a new United Nations Security Council resolution that would negate previous Security Council resolutions dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue, remove Security Council-authorized international sanctions against Iran, and formally start implementation of a comprehensive nuclear deal.  As both Hillary and Mohammad point out, underneath discussions about the modalities for removing international sanctions, whether and how to lift the conventional arms embargo against Iran, and related matters are more fundamental issues:

–Can the United States, for its own interests, abandon its increasingly self-damaging quest to dominate the Middle East and adopt a more reality-based strategy toward this critical part of the world?

–Can the United States, for its own interests, finally accept the Islamic Republic of Iran as a legitimate political order representing legitimate national interests, and genuinely come to terms with this already indispensable and still rising actor in the Middle East?

–In the process, can the United States, for its own interests, replace its longstanding reliance on Israel and Saudi Arabia as its key “partners” in the Middle East with a more balanced approach characterized by strategically-grounded diplomacy with all major regional players?

Let’s see what happens in Vienna.

Banking giant HSBC's scandal

April 3, 2015 Secret documents reveal that the global banking giant, HSBC, profited from doing business with arms dealers, who channeled mortar bombs to child soldiers in Africa, traffickers in blood diamonds and other international outlaws. The leaked files, based on the inner workings of HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm, relate to accounts holding more than $100 billion. They provide a rare glimpse inside the super-secret Swiss banking system, one the public has never seen before. On this edition of the Economic Divide, we examine how a banking giant HSBC broke the law, while sheltering billions in offshore accounts. http://presstv.ir/Detail/2015/04/03/404492/Banking-giant-HSBCs-scandal56a4-43d7-4ab6-9e63-07d3faadcfd4/

Zionist grip over Hollywood (Part 2)

Zionists' grip over Hollywood

In this edition of Hollywood Cut we will examine the Zionist lobby's grip over Hollywood and ask: Do Zionists own Hollywood and the media? How is Israel spreading its propaganda in its favor while resorting to the most complicated techniques to vilify its foes? View Part II

Israeli soldiers attack photojournalists in West Bank

A new video shows Israeli soldiers attacking two photojournalists in the occupied West Bank while covering an anti-Israeli demonstration.

The photojournalists were covering a protest against Israeli settlements near the village of Nabi Saleh. Despite being clearly marked as members of the press, the Israeli soldiers pushed them to the ground and hurled stones at them, forcing them out of the area. An army spokesman said the behavior seen in the video was reprehensible. Earlier in 2012, an Israeli soldier was filmed throwing stones and firing at Palestinians in the area.

Scholars and expert climatologists warn of new ice age

A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son

Salon | June 2014

... I heard my baby wailing and asked one of the officers to let me hold him. He screamed at me to sit down and shut up and blocked my view, so I couldn’t see my son. I could see a singed crib. And I could see a pool of blood. The officers yelled at me to calm down and told me my son was fine, that he’d just lost a tooth. It was only hours later when they finally let us drive to the hospital that we found out Bou Bou was in the intensive burn unit and that he’d been placed into a medically induced coma. ... Read full article

ISRAEL BENEFITS AS WORLD LOSES

By Paul Balles What started off as Arab Spring has turned morbidly into Arab Fall. What began as a seasonal description became directional and self-destructive. Not only have movements that looked promising failed to benefit anyone but Israel, they have drawn their sponsors exorbitantly toward bankruptcy. The Israelis and their lobbyists in the United States laugh quietly when they hear someone complain about the $3 billion in annual gifts America sends to Israel. Why is that funny? Because it only represents a tiny portion of what Israel really costs America. Add the total costs of all the wars the US has fought for Israel. The Iraq war alone has cost America $815 billion and it’s still not over. It has benefitted no one but Israel–not America and certainly not Iraq. The number of Iraqis slaughtered in the US war and occupation of Iraq: 1,455,590. Nearly half a million people have died from war-related causes in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003, according to an academic study by a research team from the Universities of Washington, Johns Hopkins, Simon Fraser and Mustansiriya (Oct.2013). Anyone with a few hours of work as an investigative journalist and a calculator would know that Israel has been the sole beneficiary of Iraq’s near-total destruction. One must ask the same question about the other imbroglios that America has been supporting in the Middle East: Who has benefitted? Support for the uprising in Egypt: America echoed protesters chanting “Down with Mubarak” in favour of democracy, until democracy elected Mursi, the wrong man for Israel. Whatever happens in Egypt, Israel is determined to be the beneficiary. Repeated bombings of Libya were designed to get rid of Muammar Gaddafi so that Israel wouldn’t have to worry about what Libya’s madman would do with Libya’s petro dollars. The Pentagon spent $1.1 billion in 2011 to launch attacks to destroy that country’s air defences and established a no-fly zone. America and NATO paid. Only Israel benefitted. Syria – controlling chemical weapons: More than $1 billion per month. No-fly zone another &1 billion a month Already cost 100,000 lives. Refugees cost $7.5 billion. Shimon Peres acknowledged the benefit to Israel of the death and destruction in Syria: “Today the Syrian President Basher al-Assad is punished for his refusal to compromise with Israel and the Syrian people pay for it.” The Syrians, America and Saudi Arabia pay. Israel benefits. Led by Israel, Iran is currently Israel’s major objective of death-dealing slaughter in the Middle East. The efforts Israel makes to convince the world that Iran has nuclear weapons or wants to develop them have been non-stop. Israel’s propaganda campaign is as constant and effective as anything Herr Goebbels put together in Nazi Germany. Currently, Iran and the P5+1 nations are looking for a way to avoid the fates of the countries suffering from Arab spring becoming Arab fall. Until a fair and reasonable solution can be negotiated Iran will suffer from undeserved sanctions while Israel benefits. Palestine continues to be the major victim of Israel’s perfidy, as it has been for the past 50 years. Total Cost of Wars Since 2001:$1,500 trillion The war in Afghanistan: $667 billion The War in Iraq: $815 billion Trillions of dollars in monetary costs; millions of lives lost and impoverished–monstrous unjustifiable expenses dictated by Tel Aviv. The world loses. Israel remains the only real beneficiary.

Ukrainian government vows to track down ‘ringleaders of separatism’

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Interim Prime Minister, warned of serious consequences for those involved in behaviour likely to destabilise Ukrainian autonomy. He said: “The Ukrainian state will find all those ringleaders of separatism and division who now, under the cover of Russian troops, are trying to destroy Ukrainian independence. We will find all of them – if it takes one year, two years and bring them to justice and try them in Ukrainian and international courts. The ground will burn beneath their feet.”

Bitter memories: Tule Lake

(1975) - A documentary on the Tule Lake Japanese Relocation Camp presented through interviews with Japanese Americans who were interned there.

Palestine Under Siege

Palestine Under Siege from Richard Hugus on Vimeo.

A video documentary of the destruction caused by the April 2002 Israeli attack on Jenin refugee camp in Palestine. Filmed three months after the attack. Also visits Jerusalem and Gaza. 41 minutes. Winner of 2006 award from Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition worldwide film contest at Al-Awda’s Third Annual International Convention in Los Angeles Full screen view recommended.

Al Walaja: The Story of a Shrinking Village

Al Walaja: The Story of a Shrinking Village from Julie Land on Vimeo.
November 30, 2013 from Julie Land and Alison Morgan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Palden Jenkins | March 22, 2012

An armoured digger was rumbling slowly up through the military construction site toward a new piece of the separation wall that is being built at Al Walaja. The wall is slicing through Palestinian land to surround the growing Israeli settlement of Har Gilo, which is taking over much of the hill on which Al Walaja, an extended farming village, is located. Over 100 Palestinian houses have been demolished for it. Just round the corner is Cremisan monastery, a well-run estate managed by the Salesians, an ancient Christian sect here in Bethlehem – its land is going to be sliced through by the new wall. It’s crazy.

Wall in construction at Al Walaja

Ishmael was getting nervous. There was an armoured police van cruising around watching us, and he knew it would be waiting for us further on, watching what we were doing. I obliged, stopped photographing and hopped back in the car. “If there’s a problem, Ishmael, I’ll handle it – you’re just an innocent taxi-driver, okay?” But I knew he was concerned because his son Tareq had been released from Israeli jail only a few months ago, during the big release Hamas had fixed in return for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and the Israelis are now going around re-arresting some of those who were released. Not because many of them are doing anything suspicious, but they are suspected of possibly doing something – and that, to the Israelis is enough. Enough to give them an excuse to bomb Gaza a week or two ago, killing over 20 people and wounding nearly a hundred.

In the unlikely event that I got arrested, I could talk my way out of it, cite a few names and, at worst, waste 24 hours, but for Ishmael and people like him it’s a very different story. He’s an inmate of Deheisheh refugee camp, which immediately makes him suspect, even though he is the least troublesome man you could imagine – respectable, cautious, law-abiding (though Palestinians have a free-style approach to law, not least because many of the laws applied to them are nonsensical, giving new meaning to the term ‘criminal law’). ... Full article

Bombies

MLK, Obama & War on Syria

August 30, 2013   
Source: NYTX

Danny Schechter un-spins select stories from the day’s New York Times for his NYTX News Dissector video column. In today’s report Danny looks at Obama's remembrance of MLK, the U.S. threat of war on Syria, and the Times' coverage.
NYT articles referenced in this report:
- “Obama Set for Limited Strike on Syria as British Vote No” by Mark Landler, David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker
- “Fears Growing as Syrians Wait for U.S. Attack” by Anne Barnard and Ben Hubbard
- “One Great Big War” by David Brooks
- “Bomb Syria, Even if It Is Illegal” by Ian Hurd
Danny Schechter is a journalist, author, television producer and an independent filmmaker who also writes and speaks about economic and media issues. He is a regular contributor to NYT eXaminer

¡Vieques Resiste!

by subMedia

Russia Grants Snowden Asylum, Obama Gets Personal

August 2, 2013 | NYTX

Danny Schechter un-spins select stories from the day’s New York Times for his NYTX News Dissector video column. In today’s report Danny comments on Russia’s decision to grant NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden asylum and how Obama and powerful media have responded by making it personal.

 A list of New York Times articles references in this video: - “Defiant Russia Grants Snowden Year’s Asylum” By Steven Lee Myers and Andrew E. Kramer - “Obama’s Fall Moscow Trip Is Even More in Doubt” By Mark Lander