15 Years of War: To Whose Benefit?

Written by Darius Shahtahmasebi

(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) — Last week, New Zealand – the world’s second most peaceful country and the world’s least corrupt country, according to a ranking released last year — hosted one of the world’s most notorious potential war criminals, and nobody batted an eye.

In fact, the television media’s coverage of this criminal’s trip was saturated with nightly TV news bulletins involving long-lens cameras and helicopters even though the essence of this trip to New Zealand was nothing more than playing golf and receiving a handsome check for speaking at a private business meeting.

If you lived in New Zealand and turned on the evening news, you would never have known from the one-sided reporting that in 2016 alone, this man was responsible for the detonation of over 26,000 bombs. You also wouldn’t know that this man had dropped those bombs in at least seven different countries in that one year alone.

Throughout his time as a leader of the terroristic army he commanded, he bombed people in at least eight countries in total. In the countries where this man deployed the use of armed drones, most estimates suggest there was a 90 percent civilian strike rate. If the statistics are accurate, he is either a terrorist by design or a potential war criminal. Either way, he is a mass murderer.

This man also executed what was originally a secret kill list, sitting down every week to decide who made the cut for this list in a ritual quickly dubbed “Terror Tuesdays.”

Roughly between 2012 and 2015, this criminal oversaw an extensive terrorist training program in which $1 billion a year was spent teaching radical Islamists terrorist tactics. These terrorists have been responsible for exacting an onslaught of suffering across an entire region.

In one North African country, this man took what was previously a stable, functioning system with the highest standard of living on the continent and turned it into a failed state. He even sponsored known al-Qaeda operatives to overthrow this country’s president, who actually provided his people with state-sponsored healthcare, as well as the opportunity to participate in local governance and decision-making.

When these terrorists on the ground failed to do their leader’s bidding, he decided to unleash a bombing campaign of his own to topple this leader, even targeting a water pipe factory that supplied water to approximately 70 percent of this North African nation’s population.

When he wasn’t directly murdering people, this man was supplying weapons to other countries that used them to commit mass murder on an even greater scale. He reportedly sold more weapons than any other person or entity since World War II, mainly to Saudi Arabia, a country that not only sponsors ISIS but is also murdering thousands of civilians in neighboring Yemen. He was even warned that his support for Saudi Arabia could see him charged as a co-belligerent in its war crimes. He was also warned that his policies of murdering people without due process — only to then murder the very people who came to the aid of people targeted by his initial attacks — could also make him a criminal.

This transgressor not only murdered an innocent grandmother while she was tending to her garden but also made life unbearable for at least one 13-year-old boy, who said he no longer loves blue skies because that’s when the drones fly. He and his younger sister had been previously drone bombed. This lawless man never showed empathy for the innocent children these drones killed. In fact, he openly bragged about his killing machines to a world-famous underage boy band.

Despite all this, this man was able to come to New Zealand – the second most peaceful country on earth – to meet with said country’s prime minister, all the while being greeted like a royal celebrity. He then went golfing with one of the country’s former prime ministers as the media continued to praise him (even though said media was almost completely banned from interviewing or reporting on his trip as they normally would).

No matter which lens you view this issue through, former U.S. President Barack Obama is a potential war criminal. Launching unjust, illegal wars and bombing civilians while you arm other despotic regimes that also murder civilians sounds like the basis of a war crimes investigation at the International Criminal Court — not cause for a round of golf with former world leaders in the scenic backdrop of the Lord of the Rings movies.

Op-ed / Creative Commons / Anti-Media

Clashes as thousands of Gazans march near Israel border

Written by Jim Carey

(GPA) — Following the alleged March 4th alleged Russian poisoning of Sergei Skripal, an ex-double agent in the UK, several European countries and the US have begun ejecting Russian diplomats from their countries. With both the UK and US each ejecting dozens of diplomats, it stands to reason that every other NATO country would follow suit.

However, several European Union members have yet to follow London’s lead. One important NATO country isn’t bowing to western Russophobia: Turkey.

Despite calls from the UK for all of their allies to stand with them in “punishing Russia” they have failed to convince many of their fellow EU members, Israel, and Turkey to follow their suggestions. While there isn’t much London can do to their fellow European states, and obviously, they can’t criticize Israel; tension between Turkey and the EU has reached a point where it’s fashionable to demonize Ankara.

Both the US and UK often pander to Turkey due to the country’s strategic location and their control of the second largest military in NATO. This, however, has become much more difficult in recent months due to the increasingly authoritarian governance of the country leading to arrests of western employees, global kidnappings, and blatant defiance of international law.

This tense relationship between Turkey and the EU was on full display yesterday as Turkish President Recep Erdogan met with EU leaders about his nation’s prospects of joining the bloc. Predictably, no new results were achieved between Brussels and Ankara. This allows Erdogan to go back to turkey and play the victim, likely in anticipation of this announcement on Russia, which he will probably frame as ‘retaliation.’

Tensions between NATO and Turkey have also increased following the recent decision by Ankara to purchase Russian-made S-400 anti-air missile systems rather than the US Patriot missiles. According to Turkey the decision for this purchase was due to the vast amount of red tape around the purchase of the Patriot systems (although, they may have dodged a bullet as the Patriots have recently shown to be ineffective).

The Turks have also found themselves quarreling with the US over their support for the Kurds in northern Syria. According to Ankara (and some high level US officials) the Syrian Kurdish group’s armed by the US have very public connections to the terrorist group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Combine all these factors and it shouldn’t be surprising to hear the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister, Bekir Bozdag announce that “Turkey isn’t considering taking any decisions against Russia.” According to Bozdag, the current crises in US-Turkish relations is a large factor in their decision not to alienate Moscow at a time when “there is a positive and good relationship between Turkey and Russia.”

While nobody can be sure what to believe coming from the Turks, Erdogan also confirmed the decision to not retaliate against Russia although he “condemns what happened in the UK and regards the use of chemical weapons as a crime against humanity.”

By Jim Carey / Creative Commons / Geopolitics Alert

Clashes, 16 dead as thousands of Gazans march near Israel border

Adel Zaanoun,AFP 6 hours ago