— In President Vladimir Putin’s Soviet / post-Soviet way, that which best serves the dictator’s political ambitions and ends becomes “pravda” — “truth”. —
Tomorrow the Dutch government will be inviting all EU member states to The Hague to propose an EU wide Magnitsky Act. In advance of that, the Russian government today has accused me of murdering Sergei Magnitsky. Kafkaeske to say the least https://t.co/oHjfUJlFTR
If a Kremlin officer is allowed to run Interpol, it will have no credibility at all. Russia already abuses it to persecute political enemies. It's putting an arsonist in charge of the fire department. https://t.co/7OEBL308tq
It appears Moscow would dispute even the existence — even the possibility — of integrity in information.
In the world’s “Totalitarian Information Spaces (TIS)”, ๐ , all expression — all thought — is political, malleable, and manipulative.
All of a sudden, RT inverts Browder’s claims regarding his friend and motivation for the Magnitsky Act, and assigns the murder to Browder himself.
Russian accountant Sergey Magnitsky may have been poisoned and his former employer, financier Bill Browder, was possibly behind the murder, prosecutors have found. Now, Moscow will place Browder on the international wanted list.
UK businessman Browder had much interest in the death of Sergey Magnitsky after receiving what he wanted from the accountant, an adviser to the Russian prosecutor general told the briefing.
โBased on the documents that were shown, an obvious conclusion can be made that, having received a false statement from Magnitsky that was used for provocation, Browder was interested in Sergey Magnitsky’s death more than anyone else in order to avoid exposure,โ Nikolai Atmonyev said.
Given enough time and manpower, Moscow may turn night into day — and day and light into night and darkness.
Mission accomplished.
In President Vladimir Putin’s Soviet / post-Soviet way, that which best serves the dictator’s political ambitions and ends becomes “pravda” — “truth”.
British officials expect Alexander Prokopchuk, a former major-general at the Russian Interior Ministry, to be elected as Interpol president as soon as Wednesday, The Times reported, without saying where it got the information.
Earlier this morning, BackChannels updated a compilation of references associated with Romanian KGB defector Ion Mihai Pacepa, which activity recalled in part how difficult the battle for empiricism, integrity (most of all), and reason may be before a veritable disinformation army devoted to the preservation of despotism and tyranny on behalf of the limitless needs (for “narcissistic supply”) of a single damaged, ruthless, sadistic, and vacant soul.
After his murder, the Russian authorities covered up the crime, exonerated and promoted the people involved, and put Magnitsky on trial three years after he died, in the first trial of a dead man in Russian history.
#SergeiMagnitsky died following his work exposing corruption in Russia. After his death, the U.S. enacted human rights laws bearing his name. To date 49 people sanctioned under #RussiaMagnitsky Act and 101 for corruption or human rights abuse under #GlobalMagnitsky Act.
“The barbaric and feudal politics of the world’s civilizational past would seem to be getting its claws into the world’s future and dragging it backward.”
One of the two candidates in the upcoming vote by Interpolโs 192 member states, is from Russia despite allegations that Moscow has used Interpolโs procedures to pursue political enemies.
Banks, as founder of Leave.EU, wanted Bannonโs data firm Cambridge Analytica to devise a plan in late 2015 for raising funds in the US that would support the unofficial Brexit campaign, according to the correspondence.
The emails are likely to be scrutinised in the US where Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, has interviewed Bannon a number of times.
The possibility that Brexit (& it's bankroller Aaron Banks) and the Trump campaign relied on some of the same advisers to further far-right nationalist campaigns has set off alarm bells on both sides of the Atlantic. https://t.co/dCxc2eH283
— J. #EmergencyConfetti Doyle also on POST (@sibersong) November 18, 2018
Observation
It would seem all paths back toward the renewal of feudal political absolutism in the authentically democratic free world lead back to Moscow (and now perhaps Beijing as well).ย
Without Putin’s permit, Assad’s Sadnaya Prison would not exist.ย The memory of that obscenity will burn in history long after the “eye doctor” has succeeded in more fully destroying his own estate.
The Interpol stories involving Russia and China: which despot would wish himself to be policed?
Which despotic elite should be entrusted with the coordination policy of the world’s basic global policing element?
And how well will the west stand when it has itself been riven by the renewal of feudal governance?
The EU may impose sanctions on Hungary for adopting laws against the development of civic society, that’s according to MP Volodymyr Ariev, who is also vice-president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, chairman of the PACE Committee on Culture, Education, Science and Media.”In Hungary there are very serious problems with the European Union, with Brussels. They stem from those very anti-democratic laws that were passed by the Hungarian authorities, in particular against civic society, against the Soros University, public organizations, and not only that. Now the EU is on the path toward imposing sanctions on Hungary,” Ariev told Pryamiy TV channel.
Observation
EU / NATO has effectively lost Turkey as a partner for democracy, and it has seen democracy seriously degraded in Hungary as well.ย While BackChannels has thought it politic to lay off the United States in similar regard, the “Fake News!” President has made that tack similarly difficult.ย He has degraded the media (for many, America’s “Fourth Estate”); taken a hard run at the Department of Justice (Comey firing; effort to degrade or derail the Mueller Investigation; the out-of-order appointment of Matthew Whittaker as Acting Attorney General); and packed the court with the appointment of an at best marginally acceptable (Senate confirmation vote: 50 to 48) “old boy” of a lawyer.
Politics Medieval v Politics Modern and Democratic?
The barbaric and feudal politics of the world’s civilizational past would seem to be getting its claws into the world’s future and dragging it backward.
Steve Bannon, former political strategist for Donald Trump, said he plans to work closely with the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban in the run-up to next yearโs European Parliament elections. Mr Bannon revealed that he had visited Budapest to speak to the far-right leader and his aides in meetings not previously made public.
The political operative also suggested Hungary would make an ideal home for โThe Movementโ โ his new campaign group aimed at electing right-wing nationalists in Europe.
Inspiration: invoking of the phrase”They are my people”.
Okay.
Every person on the planet has some ethnic, family, and religious identification.
I was thinking about the Druze — I think they are their own people, not yours, Mohammad Muneer Dandan. I know the ancient Samaritans are on the land too, but . . . they’re not your people either, are they? I don’t know the ethnography of the Palestinian Territories — in Israel for its citizens, it just doesn’t matter so much as the state maintains its Jewish ethnic majority (as North American and Europe maintain their Christian majority and atmosphere).
The idea that you would find the Jews at once mixed in Israel as well as reprehensible as a group sounds awfully, well, racist these days. You seem to be promoting some version of ethnic Palestinian purity as the standard for residence on land conquered and administered by many distinct parties over . . . centuries.
Were the Canaanites your people? The Phoenicians? Romans? The Crusaders from the west?
The history of Palestine is the study of the past in the region of Palestine, generally defined as a geographic region in the Southern Levant between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River (where Israel and Palestine are today), and various adjoining lands. Situated at a strategic point between Europe, Asia, and Africa, and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity,[1] the region has a long and tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. The Palestine region or parts of it have been controlled by numerous different peoples and regional powers, including the Canaanites, Amorites,[2] Ancient Egyptians, Israelites, Moabites, Ammonites, Tjeker, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, different dynasties of the Early Muslim period (Umayads, Abbasids, Seljuqs, Fatimids), Crusaders, Late Muslim dynasties (Ayyubids, Mamluks, Ottoman Turks), the British, Jordanians (1948โ1967, on the “West Bank”) and Egyptians (in Gaza), and modern Israelis and Palestinians. Other terms for approximate geographic area include Canaan, Zion, the Land of Israel, Southern Syria, Outremer and the Holy Land.
Jews are Hebrews and the Hebrews are of the Land of Israel.
Any question about that should seem to the whole world — and the entire Muslim world that relates to the Moses mentioned by the Qur’an — surreal.
As regards Palestinian purity, go over the listings.ย Your people — which ones from which period?
For the record, BackChannels believes the refugee generations of Gaza and the West Bank may well comprise a “Palestinian People” on the basis of more than 70 years of separation in the Arab Apartheid Palestinian camps of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt.ย For administration, the camps — they’re built these days — need to be integrated into the states that host them, and the refugees accepted and free to learn, live, and work like any other Arab citizen.ย The more restive of Gaza and the West Bank are welcomed here to know their true history and their being a part of the world fought, traded, and traveled across the land from every other corner of the world.ย Now THAT would be something to be — multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-national.
Moscow has long had hold of two immensely manipulative levers in its often malign and narcissistic vying for the control of political circumstance and their image as perceived: anti-Semitism most of all: Okhrana | Protocols –> Germany via White Russian fleeing the Bolsheviks, especially contributing to the Holocaust: Max Erwin Von Scheubner-Richter. The other lever: socialist | nationalist totalitarianism. Revival of the Russian Orthodox Church as a sop for Russian disgruntlement, and, of course, revival of the military as a power need little explication. The effect intended, imho: weaken democracy in EU / NATO and revive what Russia has known best: a paternal and authoritarian feudalism that is itself also absolute in power.
One image which showed a schoolboy holding a rifle was captioned: โHamas cubs, they are the next soldiers of Gaza and the next liberation army, god willing.โ
Another picture of a toddler wearing a beret and holding a gun was captioned: โGeneration after generation Hamas is increasing its enthusiasm, dignity, and power.โ
When I spoke with a warlord โGeneralโ about why he recruited children he said, โChildren are abundant, stupid, they obey orders, donโt ask questions, and cost nothing. They are very cheap! They never desert, cannot go home and I can get as many as I want immediately.
Eid also criticized the education provided in UNRWA schools. โI worked in several UNRWA schools in the territories and in Jordan, and children aged 9-10 want to be killed and kill Jews and to release their people. โWho taught you that?โ I asked. They said that was what they were learning in schools, and I asked teachers at UNRWA schools in Jordan if children were taught to blow themselves up and be killed. They said โof course. How else will they liberate the land from the Israeli occupation? โ UNRWA is aware of this, and the international community knows that all UNRWA studies are full of hate and incitement. The international community continues to inject funds because it is against Israel.โ
According to the army, the young girl was spotted by soldiers as she approached the security fence. The troops, who were on the Israeli side, met the girl as she reached the fence, an army spokesperson said.
โWhen the IDF troops realized it was a girl, they picked her up and made sure that she could get back to her parents safely,โ the army said. It did not say how it coordinated with girlโs parents on the Gaza side.
For some reason, we never hear any discussion of child soldiers in Palestine, but we all very clearly know they exist and that it is nothing new. The PLO, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority have for decades used children as fodder to throw rocks, fireworks and explosives at soldiers, as bombers, as lookouts and couriers. Hamas has been even more brazen, publicizing its recruitment of an army of child soldiers. In the current wave of terrorism in Israel and Palestine, we have seen attackers as young as 13 years old. These child soldiers have been called to action by Abu Mazen, The PA, and Hamas who then glorify them to encourage more children to commit attacks.
The curriculum also promotes the century-old paradigm of a ceaseless effort to destroy Israel in stages. A new generation of Palestinian children is methodically being educated in the spirit of the Ten-Point Program adopted by the Palestinian National Council ([PNC] (the legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO], at its twelfth meeting in Cairo June 8, 1974). The plan called for the establishment of a national authority “over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated” with the aim of “completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory”. The curriculum includes an uncompromising rejection of Israel and a combination of violence and international community pressure to accommodate Palestinian demands. What used to be the strategy of one extremist guerilla movement has now become the standard for all Palestinians students.
The Hamas campaign, entitled, “Vanguards of Liberation,” is aimed at recruiting young men whose ages range between 15 and 21.
So far, the Hamas recruitment program has attracted hundreds of youths from the Gaza Strip who, according to the movement, will form the nucleus for the new “Liberation Army.”
ย
“Children’s Army of Hamas – short” – David Bedein, published to YouTube March 22, 2015.
โWe can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate usโ — Golda Meir, n.d.
“Indeed, it would appear Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance, flight, or murder has become a matter most delicate, most intriguing, most opaque.”
Epistemological Khashoggi
Things we know.
Things we don’t know.
Things we don’t know we don’t know.
Things we don’t want to know.
Things we will never know.
Thing we know but don’t know that we know.
Things we don’t know but fervently believe.
Finally
Things we would like to find out.
One of the 15 suspects in the death of dissident Jamal Khashoggi dressed up in his clothes and was caught on surveillance cameras walking around Istanbul on the day Khashoggi went missing.
Footage being used as part of the Turkish governmentโs investigation into Khashoggiโs death was shared with CNN, and shows the man, identified as Mustafa al-Madani, leaving Saudi Arabia’s consulate through the back door wearing Khashoggiโs clothes, a fake beard, and glasses, a senior Turkish official told CNN.
Even so, what has happened to other potential evidence of murder?
Above all: where is the body?
A man in a foreign land leaves his fiancee (of another nationalist) parked by the curb, walks into his nation’s embassy to obtain a permit for marriage and fails to walk back out to drive off into the sunset with his presumed beloved.
Missing: the body.
Also missing: blood spatter; the odor of disinfectant; the appearance of discardedย . . . anything: clothing; a table or parts of one involved in a murder; not even a shoelace, much less a pair of shoes, has been shown to the public.
Also for public notice: embassies are considered a part of the sovereign territory of the state represented: what have the Turks been doing (directly) in the Saudi’s building?
Everyone knows the answer to that question — one good reason for the invention of the “Secure Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF)” within buildings intent on defending the most private and sensitive of conversations.
Bold added:
Erdogan called on the perpetrators to be brought to justice in Istanbul and questioned whether the Vienna Conventions, which give immunity to diplomatic staff, applied in this case.
It was the first time that any official in Turkey has publicly outlined the Turkish contention that Khashoggi was killed by a hit squad sent from Saudi Arabia. But while Erdogan had promised the “naked truth,” he offered few details beyond those revealed by Turkish officials speaking privately.
But officials are skeptical of Saudi’s explanation for the Khashoggi’s death. Turkish officials have repeatedly touted claims that Khashoggi was brutally tortured and dismembered by what appeared to be a 15-person kill squad flown in from Saudi Arabia.
Where are the bones? The clothes? The “body bag”? Was there a sink? A plastic or porcelain tub? Where are the clothes of the killers? Where was the fire and smoke needed to burn things that burn? Where are his shoelaces and their plastic tips (if of common construction)? No nails? No hair follicles?
After his transforming Turkey into a family enterprise, what motive has anyone from the post-Enlightenment west for believing the presentations of President Erdogan?
In Sum
Where is the body?
Where, in fact, is the story?
BackChannels may suggest that the Saudi confession to murder should have been accompanied immediately by its evidence.ย Today, the lag in time between the confession and the turning up of evidence — so late as to make fabrication possible — may make the confession suspect.
The time may be running out for even the telling of an untimely untruth.
Indeed, it would appear Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance, flight, or murder has become a matter most delicate, most intriguing, most opaque.
Multiple sources suggested Khashoggi had been cut up and his face “disfigured,” Sky News reported.
Sources in the Istanbul Prosecutor’s office denied that Khashoggi’s remains were found at the consul general’s home, adding that a picture on social media purportedly showing the corpse is fake.
BackChannels will try to stop at this point: where is the body?ย Is a body found really the body?ย If a man wished to leave his body, loosely speaking, would he also not leave behind his old clothes?
There is no way to address such questions from an armchair or by watching television.
That may not be the problem — so the man is dead or, perhaps, on his way to early skiing vacation in the Swiss Alps (never let it be said the editor of this blog has not been a foolish romantic); what is the problem is that “the public” — or respective national publics or statistical clumps of national or party identity — may lose its basis for believing anything from any source.
Gruesome, brazen and barbaric were some of the terms that were thrown around in response to learning his fingers were cut off first, then his head and finally his body was chopped into small pieces in order to โdisappearโ it from the crime scene.
Images of such a sadistic act were the linchpin in inciting the political debacle. Yet, since the remains of Khashoggiโs body had not been found yet, it also served to precipitate a war over who controlled the narrative. With this โmemoryโ destroyed, who owned the truth?
Not all information is or needs to be stridently partisan or political. Even where “objectivity” may be impossible to achieve, having multiple sources represent multiple angles of a story lets all of us as readers compare reports, sift, and deduce what fits best together, impartially so, into a coherent whole. That is the soul of empiricism.
The New York Post has been turning out pretty good for being “on it” as regards some of these international stories.
“The assessment by the Saudi attorney general was broadcast on state television.
The broadcast also reported that five top officials have been fired and 18 Saudi nationals detained as suspects in the death.”
The west, Left and Right, hippie liberal and knotted tie conservative, seem to have become more interesting in “framing” observation their own way than in cool-headed and, frankly, human-oriented analysis. That’s a bad habit to get into for any democratic and modern soul trying to temper medieval enthusiasms for absolute, capricious, and tyrannous power.
Prompt: “How can we constantly ask to be accepted and understood without giving the same???”
The problem is the false Palestinian narrative, and the more sympathetic the attention given to it, the more the Palestinians suffer — and most of all at the hands of their own leaders (plus their “handlers” in Moscow and Tehran).
The Middle East Conflict is part of the hangover from WWII, and the only way it’s going to lose energy is to be honest with the Palestinians about what really happened, i.e., about what was done to them by the Soviets and the Arab dictators who had thought the refugees better off stuffed into camps and intellectually weaponized with the biggest lie of all: “The Jews stole YOUR land.” That idea was not true then; it is not true today; and it will never be true.
One thing that may be true today is that the Arab Apartheid demonstrated in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria (have a look at Yarmouk for how the Arab and Muslim worlds have actually regarded Palestinians), and Egypt has after 70+ years of consistent separation and abuse actually formed a new people — but they need to get out of the womb in hell — or be brought out of that suffocated space — and turned right-side up, and that starts with recognizing exactly the evil that set them up for misery.
We should never be kind to the cruel.
We should never be sympathetic with the misguided but rather firm with the western insistence on great integrity in support of bedrock truth.
BackChannels 