Menu



error This forum is not active, and new posts may not be made in it.
PromoteFacebookTwitter!
Luis Miguel Goitizolo

1162
61587 Posts
61587
Invite Me as a Friend
Top 25 Poster
Person Of The Week
RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
12/6/2015 12:26:21 AM

Video footage of the alleged aftermath of Russia bombing ISIS oil trucks in Syria just emerged


Youtube/RFS Media Office

[This report contains video stills and a video that some readers may find distressing].

Russia, as well as the US, France, and Britain, are all launching airstrikes against ISIS (also known as ISIL, Islamic State, and Daesh) in Syria and are targeting oil trucks and fields to hamper the terrorist group's main means of funding.

Meanwhile, a video has just emerged on the YouTube channel of RFS Media, which is described as "The Revolutionary Forces of Syria Media Office" that "reports the news of the Syrian revolution professionally and objectively," of the alleged aftermath of Russia bombing three ISIS-owned oil trucks.

The video, the title of which says that this is the aftermath of a Russian airstrike on a number of oil trucks on a trade route near Aleppo, starts off with plumes of smoke coming from three oil trucks.



YouTube/RFS Media

While Business Insider has not been able to verify the video, the publication of the footage on YouTube comes on the same day of the
Russian Defence Ministry saying that an airstrike hit a line of vehicles transporting oil in the Aleppo province.

However, the Russian Defence Ministry did not confirm whether it was targeting ISIS vehicles, although it had, as have Britain and the US, launched a series of bombing campaigns on ISIS-held oil facilities.

The video continues showing several trucks on fire.

YouTube/RFS Media
Allegedly, according to activist outlet Halab News Network, three people were killed and several others were left injured from the airstrikes.

The video then zooms up and shows one truck on fire and leaving a trail blazing on the road.

YouTube/RFS Media

The US, Britain, and Russia have cited their plans to air bomb ISIS-controlled oil fields in a bid to hurt its main means of funding. However, that's likely not nearly enough to significantly affect the terrorist group's bottom line, according to a recent report in The New York Times.

It shows that ISIS pulls in hundreds of millions of dollars from "taxing" and extorting those who live in the territory that the group controls in Iraq and Syria.

ISIS is thought to make as much as $900 million from residents and businessmen in its territory, American and European officials told The Times. And this revenue isn't easy to diminish since it has "so far proved largely impervious to sanctions and air raids," according to The Times.

Here is the full video of the aftermath of the alleged Russia bombing:



(BUSINESS INSIDER)

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

+1
Luis Miguel Goitizolo

1162
61587 Posts
61587
Invite Me as a Friend
Top 25 Poster
Person Of The Week
RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
12/6/2015 1:09:25 AM

Why the US, France and Britain are destroying Syria

Sam Gerrans
Sam Gerrans is an English writer, translator, support counselor and activist. He also has professional backgrounds in media, strategic communications and technology. He is driven by commitment to ultimate meaning, and focused on authentic approaches to revelation and realpolitik. He is the founder of Quranite.com – where the Qur’an is explored on the basis of reason rather than tradition – and offers both individual language training and personal support and counseling online at SkypeTalking.com.

Published time: 5 Dec, 2015 13:24

© Darren Staples / Reuters

Since Russia stepped up to the plate, suddenly western countries can’t wait to bomb ISIS. Are they now there to get the job done? Or are they there to stop Russia increasing its influence, and to make sure it doesn’t succeed where they failed?

The world is falling over itself to bomb Syria.

The following
statement from Reuters summarizes the situation: “Most of the world's powers are now flying combat missions over Iraq and Syria against Islamic State. But any consensus on how to proceed has been thwarted by opposing policies over the 4-year-old civil war in Syria, which has killed 250,000 people, driven 11 million from their homes, left swathes of territory in the hands of jihadist fighters and defied all diplomatic efforts at a solution.”

While it may seem to the outside observer that this catalogue of mayhem is the result of incompetence, to me – on the contrary – it is evidence of things going to plan.

I have never, thus far, seen a war the ruling elite clearly wanted to happen not happen.

Here, as in all other cases, there has been a bit of hand-wringing, some crying, some protests, some moving speeches. But like the morality plays of medieval times, after enjoying the sermon dressed as entertainment, life has inevitably carried on as normal with the barons raping and pillaging and everyone else having to put up with that reality.

Destruction of Syria is the plan

This time the plan – at least judging from the outcomes – is to destroy Syria.

Syria has been anathema to the self-appointed arbiters of righteousness: the ‘international community’, that coterie of hypocrites which arrogates to itself the monopoly on meting out death to those who won’t get with the program.

This group dislikes Syria which has had an uncompromising stance towards Israel and an independent financial system, and is using the chance to destroy it to flood Europe with refugees, thus further debasing the makeup of its constituent nations, and simultaneously justifying a lockdown in those countries.

Enter Putin

Everything was going swimmingly until Putin stepped in.

While many in the West who have grown jaundiced at the obvious usurpation of our governments by outside interests ascribe almost saint-like motivations to Putin, I do not. He is a superb strategist. Exactly what he is strategizing for is not clear yet.

What is clear is that his move into Syria threw a spanner in the works of a status quo the US was quite happy with: growing terrorism and mayhem in Syria and spreading nicely to Europe.

Assad himself said a few days ago to the BBC (courtesy of Czech Television) that ISIS was growing smaller after Russian bombing intervention whereas moves by other countries served only to strengthen ISIS and increase their recruitment.

He added: "The facts are telling."

So what do the facts tell?

They tell us that Russia is the only country involved to date which has the removal of ISIS as an actual goal.

Russia is also the only country with a legitimate mandate under international law.

In addition, ISIS was most eloquently outed by author and journalist Gearóid Ó Colmáin on Russia Today as a US creation.


In this scenario, the reason for further western efforts in the region is looking increasingly like an attempt to prevent Russia from routing its assets or achieving the informational coup that would follow.

France and Britain milking the crises

The propaganda war is hotting up, with western press issuing unsubstantiated and emotional surmise as news.

Meanwhile, the French and the British are now, of course, bombing Syria.

At home, the French government not only voted to bomb but enacted ‘emergency’ powers at the same time. And Holland wants to change the constitution to extend these powers.

The Telegraph states: “The draft “Protection of the Nation” bill […] would extend the right to strip French citizenship from dual nationals convicted of terrorism offences by also including people born in France.

It would also prolong certain powers after a state of emergency was lifted.

No time limit will be inscribed in the constitution under the new proposals. As is currently the case, parliament will decide how long a given state of emergency should last.”

This all looks so like a dictator’s wet dream, it takes an effort of will to believe it has not been planned this way.

And a man no less respected than Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, formerly Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has raised legitimate questions about the official line on the Paris attacks.

He says: “European peoples want to be French, German, Dutch, Italian, Hungarian, Czech, British. They do not want their countries to be a diverse Tower of Babel created by millions of refugees from Washington’s wars.

To remain a nationality unto themselves is what Pegida, Farage, and Le Pen offer the voters.

Realizing its vulnerability, it is entirely possible that the French Establishment made a decision to protect its hold on power with a false flag attack that would allow the Establishment to close France’s borders and, thereby, deprive Marine Le Pen of her main political issue.”

The same event, of course, justifies France’s bombing of Syria.

The British government for its part – despite some theatrical hand-wringing – has got on the bandwagon and opted to join in whatever further criminality the US has planned in Syria.

As though to justify the decision, the Telegraph breathlessly informs us that ISIS (or ISIL as it calls it) is planning to attack the UK “next”.

It says: “There are unconfirmed reports that Isil has decided that the next target of an attack will be Britain.

European security agencies, citing specific intelligence that had been obtained, stated that British Isil operatives in Syria and Iraq were being tasked to return home to launch an attack, CNN reported.”

This is the level of the propaganda now: CNN reports security agencies who say that a terrorist group whose name changes every five minutes might be sending members to Britain to do harm.

But this is unconfirmed.

The real reason for this war

I’m going to simplify things: the Plan for a New American Century – a document which was created by neoconservative warmongers in or close to power under George Bush Jr. – listed countries which it wanted the US to attack, namely: North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria.

The journal-neo.org site states: “[all were] pinpointed as enemies of the U.S. well before the illegal war in Iraq in 2003, as well as the illegal 2011 war in Libya and the ongoing proxy war in Syria.”

Retired US General Wesley Clarke went on record in 2007 stating that the fix was in: the U.S. had unilaterally decided to destroy Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.


This is not some wild-eyed conspiracy theorist. Clarke was a four-star general, and the man who commanded Operation Allied Force in the Kosovo War during his term as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe of NATO from 1997 to 2000.

The pretense of choice

Any objective assessment of who benefits from attacks upon the countries Clarke mentioned would not include any European country – or even the U.S. for that matter.

But the subtext is clear: if Europeans don’t want to take part, terrorist attacks will be allowed or contrived until they acquiesce.

In short: the ruling elite wants this war. Our pretend governments voted it through on the nod. And we the people will have to deal with the fallout and put up with random terrorist acts if we wake up and speak out about how this charade is rigged.

At the same time, the people of Syria are subject to bombing raids by the US, France and the UK – none of which have any invitation from the legitimate government of that country – actions which, properly speaking, are acts of war against the country the perpetrators claim to want to help.

My prediction: the clean-up operation Russia initiated and Assad approves of will be made to fail; terrorism will increase and spread into Europe; and mass immigration from Syria and that area to Europe will continue; and acts of terrorism on European soil will magically justify endless war, internal lock-down, wholesale surveillance, detention without trial, and troops on the street.

And this – in the absence of hard evidence based in action to the contrary – I can only see as the actual plan.

Do you remember voting for that?

No, nor do I.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

+1
Luis Miguel Goitizolo

1162
61587 Posts
61587
Invite Me as a Friend
Top 25 Poster
Person Of The Week
RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
12/6/2015 10:37:00 AM

Russia accuses US of cover-up over IS oil smuggling to Turkey

AFP

Oil well pumps are seen in the Rmeilane oil field in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province on July 15, 2015 (AFP Photo/Youssef Karwashan)


Moscow (AFP) - Russia's defence ministry on Saturday accused the United States of turning a blind eye to the trafficking of oil into Turkey from Syrian areas under Islamic State control, after Washington called the amounts involved insignificant.

"When US officials say they don't see how the terrorists' oil is smuggled to Turkey... it smells badly of a desire to cover up these acts," the ministry said on its Facebook page.

"The declarations of the Pentagon and the State Department seem like a theatre of the absurd," the statement added, suggesting that Washington "watch the videos taken by its (own) drones which have recently been three times as numerous over the Turkey-Syria border and above the oil zones".

US special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs, Amos Hochstein, on Friday said the amount of oil smuggled into Turkey from areas of Syria controlled by the Islamic State group is "of no significance from a volume perspective -- both volume of oil and volume of revenue".

His comments came after Moscow accused Ankara of profiting from the trade.

Russia and Turkey have in recent days traded allegations that they are involved in the illegal trade, further ratcheting up tensions after Turkish jets downed a Russian bomber on the Syrian border.

The State Department has dismissed Moscow's charge against its NATO ally, which directly implicated President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family in the trade, insisting there is no evidence to support it.

"I don't believe that there is significant smuggling, between ISIL-controlled areas and Turkey of oil in any significance in volume," Hochstein said Friday, using an alternative name for IS.

Instead, US officials told reporters, the oil pumped in eastern Syria is refined in ad hoc desert pits equipped with crude stills and sold on the war zone black-market within Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

Allied officials estimated the IS group's income from oil at $1.0 million to $1.5 million per day, but hope that renewed US, British and French air strikes have cut that.

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

+1
Luis Miguel Goitizolo

1162
61587 Posts
61587
Invite Me as a Friend
Top 25 Poster
Person Of The Week
RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
12/6/2015 10:50:15 AM

Triple suicide attack 'kills 27 on Lake Chad island'

AFP

The Lake Chad region also borders Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon and and is frequently targeted by Boko Haram Islamists (AFP Photo/Philippe Desmazes)

N'Djamena (AFP) - A triple suicide bombing on an island in Lake Chad on Saturday killed at least 27 people and left more than 80 wounded, a Chadian security source said, in another apparent strike by Boko Haram Islamists despite a regional offensive to stop the insurgency.

"Three suicide bombers blew themselves up in three different places at the weekly market on Loulou Fou, an island in Lake Chad," the source in the capital N'Djamena told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He said the explosions had killed 30 people including the three attackers, and injured more than 80 others.

N'Djamena on November 9 declared a state of emergency in the flashpoint Lake Chad region, which also straddles Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger and is frequently targeted by Nigeria's Boko Haram fighters who this year declared allegiance to the Islamic State group.

The decree granted the governor of the remote region the authority to ban the circulation of people and vehicles, to search homes and to seize arms.

The European Union in a statement said Saturday's attacks were "a threat to the stability of the country and the region".

The bloc stood ready to "use all available means to help in the fight against terrorism" in the region, it added.

In recent months, Boko Haram fighters have stepped up attacks and suicide bombings on Chadian villages in the lake region that lie close to the frontier with Nigeria.

The deadliest attack on Chad's side of the lake took place on October 10, another triple suicide, which killed 41 people at Baga Sola, according to N'Djamena.

Since the start of the year, the Chadian army has been on the front line of a regional military operation against Boko Haram, whose attacks have spread from northeast Nigeria, its traditional stronghold, to the country's three Lake Chad neighbours.

The joint operation of the four Lake Chad countries plus Benin has involved 8,700 soldiers, police and civilians.

- 'Weakened but not defeated' -

Despite being hit hard by the offensive, losing territory, Boko Haram has responded with a wave of attacks and bombings.

Their attacks are often carried out by young women or adolescent boys targeting markets, which are at heart of African daily life.

Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno recently admitted that the regional force, which is not yet fully operational, "has without a doubt weakened" the Islamists but "it has not defeated" them.

Still, Cameroon, part of the regional offensive, on Wednesday claimed to have dealt a major blow to Boko Haram, killing around 100 fighters and freeing 900 hostages in a three-day operation last week.

The claim comes on the heels of twin attacks by women suicide bombers the previous day in the far north of Cameroon, an area repeatedly targeted by the Islamists in which at least six people died.

No independent confirmation of the Cameroonian government's statement was immediately available from the region, which is inaccessible to the media.

Boko Haram fighters, believed to be hiding out in Nigeria's Sambisa forest and the Lake Chad's many islands, are held responsible for 17,000 deaths and for making 2.5 million people homeless in their six-year campaign of violence.

Over the past year Boko Haram has stepped up cross-border attacks in Niger, Chad and Cameroon while also continuing to mount shooting and suicide assaults on markets, mosques and other mostly civilian targets within Nigeria itself.

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

+1
Luis Miguel Goitizolo

1162
61587 Posts
61587
Invite Me as a Friend
Top 25 Poster
Person Of The Week
RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
12/6/2015 10:57:45 AM

Chicago cops' versions of teen's killing at odds with video

Associated Press

FILE - In this Oct. 20, 2014 frame from dash-cam video provided by the Chicago Police Department, Laquan McDonald, right, walks down the street moments before being shot by officer Jason Van Dyke in Chicago. Amid an outcry after the city waited more than a year to release dash-cam footage of Officer Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced this week that he was setting up a special task force to examine, among other things, the city’s video-release policy. (Chicago Police Department via AP, File)


CHICAGO (AP) — Police officers who watched a colleague shoot a black Chicago teenager 16 times filed reports depicting a very different version of events than what dashcam footage showed, portraying the teen as far more menacing than he appeared in the video.

The city released hundreds of pages of documents late Friday pertaining to the October 2014 killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by Jason Van Dyke, a white police officer. Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder last month, only hours before the department released the video under a court order, sparking protests and accusations of a cover-up.

The video, which the city kept from the public for more than a year, shows McDonald veering away from officers on a four-lane street when Van Dyke, seconds after exiting his squad car, opens fire from close range. The officer continues shooting after McDonald crumples to the ground and is barely moving. The video does not include sound, which authorities have not explained.

In the newly released police reports, several officers including Van Dyke and his partner described McDonald as aggressively approaching officers while armed with a knife. At least three other officers, including his partner, supported key details in Van Dyke's portrayal of events.

The officers' version, recorded in more than 300 pages of handwritten and typed reports, prompted police supervisors to rule at the time that McDonald's death was a justifiable homicide and within the use of force guidelines, even though the dashcam video also was available to them shortly after the shooting.

Van Dyke told an investigator McDonald was "swinging the knife in an aggressive, exaggerated manner" and "raised the knife across the chest" and pointed it at Van Dyke, according to one report. Multiple officers reported that even after McDonald was down, he kept trying to rise while holding the knife.

"In defense of his life, Van Dyke backpedaled and fired his handgun at McDonald, to stop the attack," one report reads. "McDonald fell to the ground but continued to move and continued to grasp the knife, refusing to let go of it."

Van Dyke told an investigator he feared McDonald would rush him with the knife or launch it at him. He also noted a 2012 Chicago Police Department warning about a knife capable of firing a bullet, according to the reports. The reports included a copy of the warning issued by an unidentified "Midwest intelligence organization" that was circulated to officers.

The reports add to questions about the department's handling of the shooting. The U.S. attorney's office is investigating, and several officials have called for the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division to open a wider investigation of police practices, similar to ones conducted in Ferguson, Missouri, and elsewhere.

The shooting happened while protests were still roiling Ferguson months after the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old, Michael Brown. His death revived questions about police treatment of minorities throughout the United States and energized the national Black Lives Matter movement.

Chicago officials fought in court for months to keep the McDonald video from being released. The city's early efforts coincided with Mayor Rahm Emanuel's re-election campaign, when he was seeking African-American votes.

Emanuel has said he didn't see the video until it was released publicly. He and a number of aldermen have said they relied on the city attorney, who did view it, when they signed off on a $5 million settlement with McDonald's family even before the family filed a lawsuit.

In an op-ed article, Emanuel denied a cover-up and said he "strongly" rejects any alleged connection to his re-election campaign. He said the city was following a longstanding practice of releasing such material only after an investigation was complete.

Emanuel fired Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy on Tuesday.

Van Dyke's attorney, Dan Herbert, maintains the video doesn't tell the whole story, and says the officer feared for his life and acted lawfully. Herbert didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

What's on video and what the officers reported could all be true, said Dean Angelo, president of the Chicago police officer's union, because each officer had "a different perspective," which could vary significantly from the fixed car camera.

It's unclear whether the newly released documents could lead to more officers being prosecuted. The officers would have Fifth Amendment protection for anything they said during an internal investigation, but their initial police reports could be used in an obstruction of justice case against them, said Phil Turner, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago.

"You've got police reports that say the guy lunged and a video that says that didn't happen at all," Turner said.

Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the city's Independent Police Review Authority, not the police department, conducts investigations of officer-involved shootings and the agency was given all evidence from the scene. The authority has not released its report on McDonald's death.

"If the criminal investigation concludes that any officer participated in any wrongdoing, we will take swift action," Guglielmi said.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said the documents show police "misrepresenting" what happened and called for an escalation of protests Sunday in the city's business district.

Requests for comment to representatives for Emanuel, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez and the police review authority weren't immediately returned.

McDonald was being chased by police after reports he was burglarizing vehicles.

The police reports refer to him as the "offender" and Van Dyke and other officers as "victims."

Van Dyke's partner, identified as Joseph Walsh, told an investigator that he repeatedly yelled "Drop the knife!" at McDonald and backed up as the teenager "continued to advance toward the officers." He said McDonald "swung the knife toward the officers in an aggressive manner" before Van Dyke shot him and that he believed McDonald was "attempting to kill them."

Walsh said McDonald attempted to get up after falling, "while still armed with the knife." He said he eventually kicked the knife away from McDonald and then told the dying teenager "Hang in there" as an ambulance was called.

When announcing charges against Van Dyke, Alvarez said McDonald's knife, which had a 3-inch blade, was folded when recovered from the scene. One of the police reports said the knife's blade was open.

One report said McDonald showed "irrational behavior," such as ignoring verbal directions, "growling" and making noises. A medical examiner's report said the hallucinogen PCP was found in his system.

Redactions in the police reports cover signatures, a reporter's cellphone number, the serial number of the officer's gun and McDonald's address.

___

Associated Press writers Michael Tarm and Don Babwin contributed to this report.

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

+1