Sunday, December 11, 2016

“…Whatever you hear in the corporate media about Syria – and I will name them, BBC, Guardian, New York Times, etc. - is the complete opposite of the reality…”  -- EVA BARTLETT, Canadian freelance journalist 


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On Friday, 9 December 2016, Eva Bartlett took part in a press conference organized by the Syrian mission to the United Nations. After delivering her remarks regarding the current situation in Aleppo and throughout the country, in which she pointed out Western media bias regarding the conflict, Bartlett was asked by a journalist from the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten what the incentive was for Western media to spin a false narrative. Bartlett succinctly explained…



READ the complete article, and WATCH a short video:

Syria - Sovereignty and Peace, United Nations, 9 Dec., 2016. 
The full press conference can be found here:

Saturday, December 03, 2016

Viet Nam: 30 years of renovation, a look from the diplomatic sector  


2016 marks 30 years of Vietnam’s Doi Moi (renovation) and development period. From a low-income, underdeveloped country, Vietnam is now a middle-income country. From a country suffering from an embargo, Vietnam has normalized relations with almost all countries and participated extensively in international organizations. Its position in the international arena has improved. These achievements include the positive contribution of the diplomatic sector. VietNamNet talks with former Deputy PM Vu Khoan about the 30 years of Doi Moi.

"I still remember the heavy pressure of isolation": Vu Khoan


The year 2016 marks the 30-year journey of Vietnam’s renovation and development. As one who has made major contributions to the country’s foreign affairs, in your opinion, what is the actual basis of renovation in the field of foreign affairs? How was the country’s context at that time?

The foreign policy always comes from the interests and the needs of the country as well as the global situation and major trends in the world. For our country, there were three remarkable stories in the late 80s of the 20th century.


Firstly, our country was in a severe social-economic crisis. At that time Vietnam underwent a galloping inflation. In 1986 alone the price index increased by nearly 800%. 


At that time I worked at the Vietnam Embassy in the Soviet Union. I bought a bicycle from the Soviet Union, brought it to Vietnam and sold it as a savings. But after the country changed the banknotes, the money I earned from selling the bicycle was only enough to purchase ten eggs. I took this example in order to show you how hard life was at that period.


In that context, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs considered contributing to curb inflation as the most important task. The Foreign Minister at the time - Mr. Nguyen Co Thach - tasked us to learn experience from other countries of the world against inflation in order to help handle inflation in Vietnam.


Secondly, since 1979, our country fell into political isolation and economic blockade on the pretext of "Vietnam sent troops to invade Cambodia". 


Actually, it was the disguised excuse because Vietnamese voluntary soldiers sacrificed their blood to help the Cambodian people escape from genocide.


At that time, Vietnamese diplomats attending international conferences were completely isolated, especially those who represented Vietnam at the United Nations because at all meetings, the Cambodian issue was used to attack Vietnamese representatives.


I was assigned to handle the issue related to boat people. Once I led a delegation to a conference in Kuala Lumpur on this topic and until now I still remember the feeling of being isolated at the conference and the heavy pressure I suffered there.


Thirdly, the main allies of our country at that time were the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. In the late 80s of the 20th century, these countries fell into deep crisis. In 1989, the Berlin Wall collapsed and in 1991, the Soviet Union disintegrated. The dissolution of the socialist community caused serious impact on our country because aid from these countries accounted for around 70% of Vietnam’s budget.


At that time Chairman of the Council of Ministers Do Muoi convened an emergency meeting to discuss economic policies to cope with the situation. Mr. Do Muoi said that the country's economic situation was very difficult and the vital commodities such as iron and steel, petroleum, fertilizers ... were nearly out of stock and he asked all sectors to find ways and solutions.


I mentioned the three above characteristics in order to show how difficult the situation was at that time. It is said that foreign policy is the continuation of domestic policy. In my opinion, it is true, but not enough. We need to understand that foreign policy is a supporter of domestic policy.


The 6th National Party Congress was held at a time with the above characteristics and it introduced very new and breakthrough perspectives which is called renovation thinking. 


As for the foreign policy, for the first time the Party’s documents mentioned the internationalization process and said that the world was forming a market economy, in which economies both cooperated and competed with each other. These renovation ideas are so important. Without them Vietnam would have not had the open-door policy that later we called international economic integration.


After the 6th National Party Congress, the world situation was very complicated and the Party and the State made many important policies. 


For example, the Party and the State stressed that the supreme interests of the country is taking advantage of the peaceful conditions for development and since then decided to withdraw Vietnamese troops from Cambodia, to promote the process of finding a peaceful solution for the Cambodian issue, to normalize relations with China, the US and ASEAN countries ...


Such policies have laid the foundations for the country’s foreign policy for the past 30 years.


We understand that the 6th National Party Congress just introduced the ideas, and the 7th Party Congress really made the breakthrough with the formation of the foreign policy for the renovation period. Is that correct?


Yes. The 6th National Party Congress launched a comprehensive renewal process for both domestic and foreign relations. However, for the foreign policy alone, the Congress only offered some new approaches, not forming a comprehensive policy. 


Until the 7th National Party Congress, the foreign policy based on the renovation spirit was formed. In particular, the 3rd conference of the 7th Central Party Committee adopted a resolution on foreign policy, politically and economically. Thus we can say that the 7th Party Congress is an important milestone in the country’s renovation in foreign policy.


The ideas of the 6th Party Congress opened the road and broke down dogmatic and backward thinking.


Could you further analyze the new features in the foreign policy of the renovation period?


The foreign policy during the renovation period contains many new things.


Any country in the world, since ancient times, pursued the three goals in foreign relations: maintaining independence and sovereignty, taking advantage of favorable international conditions for economic development, and improving the position of the country. 


During the renovation period, we also identified these three key objectives. They were bound together, interacting with each other, in which the mission of taking advantage of the favorable international conditions for economic development defined as the central task because in domestic policy, social-economic development was considered as the key one.


This does not mean that we loosened the goal of defending independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity and enhancing the position of the country. It is only the issue of arranging the order of priorities.


To accomplish the above objectives, the key ideas of the foreign policy must be identified. The Party and the State set national interests as paramount and the key ideology. It does not mean that we pursued narrow-minded nationalism. We have always recognized our international responsibility of contributing to the cause of peace, national independence, democracy and social progress in the world.


According to the above guiding ideology, we have always pursued the goal of national independence and socialism. And how to accomplish that goal, we applied the thought of President Ho Chi Minh of “firm in objectives, flexible in strategies and tactics”. Nowadays, these things have become very familiar, but 30 years ago they were breakthrough ideas.


Besides the identification of objectives and guiding ideology, the Party set out a series of guiding ideologies.


If earlier we followed the guideline of completely standing in the socialist community, in the renovation period, when the Socialist community no longer existed, we pursued the policy of diversification and multilateralisation of international relationships. This was also consistent with the general trend of the world after the Cold War era.


We also identified that in international relations, there are always two sides: cooperation and struggle. In fact in today's world every country pursues its own interests. Sometimes those interests are similar but sometimes they are different. Later, we clarified the relationship between "partners" and "subjects".


That means there are still problems between partners and similar interests between rivals. So we need to have a dialectical attitude in international relations. Generally, we try to expand cooperation with other countries but we must be dependent; differences or conflicts must be solved by diplomatic and peaceful measures to avoid disruption of international relations.


Another policy that Vietnam pursues is "more friends, fewer enemies." Therefore, since the 7th National Party Congress, Vietnam has raised the motto “Vietnam wants to be a friend and a partner with countries around the world” and we have built strategic and comprehensive partnership relations, including all big countries in the world. This thought was mentioned by President Ho Chi Minh in 1946 when he affirmed that Vietnam wants to be friends with democratic countries, and we don’t want to cause animosity toward anyone.


In international relations, we made an important adjustment to giving priority to cooperation with neighboring countries in Southeast Asia in particular and Asia Pacific in general, and attaching importance to relations with major countries in the world. This does not mean that we neglect relations with traditional friendly countries, independent states and the forces loving peace and justice in the world.


A major policy during the renovation period is the policy of international integration. Actually, the phrase "international economic integration" appeared in 1996 at the 8th National Party Congress and since the 10th National Party Congress we have talked about the policy of international integration in general, not only international economic integration.


As everyone knows, our country has entered the period of extensive international integration with a series of agreements on free trade areas with 55 countries. Vietnam also participates very actively in the world’s political, security, culture and social institutions.


The correct policy is very important, but in the diplomatic service, the “movement” is decisive, not just the policy. How did we make a “diplomatic move” in the renovation period?


Yes, for the successful implementation of the policy, in foreign affairs the “movement” is very important.

After the 6th National Party Congress, the Party and the State decided to give priority to solve the Cambodian issue.

In this direction, we actively completed withdrawal of troops from Cambodia, paving the way for the Paris Conference on Cambodia issues. That was the breakthrough to escape from isolation and embargo.


Taking advantage of that breakthrough, we have normalized relations with many countries in the world.

I still remember that at that time the Politburo decided to conduct a series of high-level visits to many countries. The only problem is the order of visits.

Under the decision of the Politburo, a Vietnamese delegation led by Chairman of the Council of Ministers Vo Van Kiet visited several Southeast Asian nations while General Party Secretary Do Muoi and Chairman of the Council of Ministers Vo Van Kiet visited China, and then Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Europe.


In that situation, the United States gradually lifted the embargo against Vietnam. In 1995 the two countries officially established diplomatic relations.


These are important milestones marking the escape from isolation and the embargo against Vietnam.

In international integration, we have moved step by step, from low to high: normalizing relations with international monetary organizations, joining ASEAN in 1995, ASEM in 1996, APEC in 1998, WTO in 2006 and signing a bilateral trade agreement with the United States in 2000.

To be continued…

Ky Duyen - Lan Anh - Huynh Phan





Sunday, October 09, 2016


Vietnam. . . Syria
Two very different countries, but each with a long and proud history and culture. Both had to endure a long and bloody war of foreign aggression and terrorism waged against them by outside forces. In both cases, media disinformation played a major role in fuelling war, and confusing public opinion. Finally, Viet Nam won its war for independence and reunification, with active support of a world-wide anti-war movement. Today, Syria is gaining more support as people wake up to the real horrors of this war. Like Viet Nam, Syria is fighting for its very survival as an independent, sovereign state against foreign terrorists seeking "regime change" and "divide and conquer" for their own strategic agendas. Recalling some of the history of the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War, may be relevant and constructive in helping Syria win its right to peace too. It is healthy to learn from history, and honour those who struggled for peace and justice in the past. . .



CANLF- is short for the U.S. Committee to Aid the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam.

Started in 1965 and later changed to ISC or Indochina Solidarity Committee in 1973 and closed in 1975 after the end of the war.

  
Check out this web link for much more:




Monday, October 03, 2016

Why Everything You Hear About Aleppo Is Wrong
Please WATCH and SHARE this enlightening VIDEO

What's really going on in Aleppo? Are Assad & Putin exterminating the population for sport?  Is it a war against US-backed "moderates"?  That is what the mainstream media would have us believe.  We speak with Vanessa Beeley, a journalist who just returned from Aleppo for the real story.

It’s really horribly simple: The US and its allies are supporting the world's most bloodthirsty terrorists, while Russia, Iran, Syrian government are fighting them!
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YOUTUBE.COM   (24:26)    Streamed live on Sep 29, 2016    RonPaulLibertyReport



Russia-Baiting and Risks of  Nuclear War

From Consortiumnews.com, by Ray McGovern, September 30, 2016

As U.S. and Russian officials trade barbed threats and as diplomacy on Syria is “on the verge” of extinction, it is tempting to view the ongoing propaganda exchange over who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July 2014 as a sideshow. That would be a huge mistake

There are advantages to having some hands-on experience, and having watched how propaganda wars can easily escalate to military confrontation. 


In a Sept. 28 interview with Sputnik Radio, I addressed some serious implications of the decision by the US and two of its European vassal states (the Netherlands and Ukraine) to stoke tensions with Russia still higher by blaming it for the downing of MH-17.

In short, there is considerable risk that the Russians may see this particular propaganda offensive (which “justified” the European Union’s economic sanctions in 2014), together with NATO’s saber rattling in central Europe, as steps toward war. In fact, there is troubling precedent for precisely that.

A very similar set of circumstances existed 33 years ago after the Soviets did shoot down Korean Airlines Flight 007 on Sept. 1, 1983, when it strayed over sensitive military targets inside the Soviet Union and the KAL-007 pilots failed to respond to repeated warnings. After the tragic reality became obvious, the Soviets acknowledged that they had downed the plane but said they did not know it was a passenger plane.

However, 1983 was another time of high tensions between the two superpowers and President Ronald Reagan wanted to paint the Soviets in the darkest of hues. So, his administration set out to sell the storyline that the Soviets had willfully murdered the 269 passengers and crew.

US government propagandists and their media stenographers laid on all the Sturm und Drang they could summon to promote the lie that the Soviets knew KAL-007 was a civilian passenger plane before they shot it down. As Newsweek’s headline declared, “Murder in the Sky.”

Exploitation of the tragedy yielded a steep rise in tensions, and almost led to a nuclear exchange just two months later. There is an important lesson, now three decades later, as Western governments and the mainstream media manufacture more endless fear and hatred of Russia.


The Dutch/Ukrainian Follies

On Wednesday, new “evidence” blaming Russia for the downing of MH-17 over eastern Ukraine was made public – brought out of the oven, as it were, at a Dutch Maid bakery employing Ukrainian confectioners. A bite into the evidence and it immediately dissolves like refined sugar – and leaves an unpleasant artificial taste in the mouth.

The Dutch-Ukrainian charade played by the “Joint Investigation Team,” on which Belgium, Australia and Malaysia also have members, is an insult to the relatives and friends of the 298 human beings killed in the shoot-down. Understandably, those relatives and friends long for truth and accountability, and they deserve it.

Yet, as happened in 1983 with the credulous acceptance of the Reagan administration’s version of the KAL-007 case, the mainstream Western media has embraced the JIT’s findings as “conclusive” and the evidence as “overwhelming.”

But it is in reality extraordinarily thin, essentially a case of deciding immediately after the event that the Russians were to be blamed and spending more than two years assembling snippets of intercepted conversations (from 150,000 provided by the Ukrainian intelligence service) that could be stitched together to create an impression of guilt.

In the slick video, which serves as the JIT’s investigative “report,” the intercepted voices don’t say anything about Russian Buk missiles actually being deployed inside Ukraine or shooting down a plane or the need to get the Buk missiles out of Ukraine afterwards. One voice early on says he’d like to have some Buks but – after that – Buks aren’t mentioned and everything in the video is supposition. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Troubling Gaps in MH-17 Report.”]

There’s also no explanation as to why the Russians would have taken a bizarrely circuitous route when a much more direct and discreet course was available. The JIT’s embrace of that strange itinerary was made necessary by the fact that the only “social media” images of a Buk system traveling on July 17, 2014, before the MH-17 shoot-down, show the Buks heading east toward Russia, not west from Russia. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Official and Implausible MH-17 Scenario.”]

In other words, to make the storyline fit with the available images, the JIT had to take the alleged Russian-Buk convoy on a ridiculous trip far out of the way so it could be photographed in Donetsk before doubling back toward the alleged firing site near Snizhne, which could have been reached easily from the Russian border without the extensive detour through heavily populated areas.


Ignoring Inconvenient Evidence


The JIT also had to ignore its own evidence that on the night of July 16-17, 2014, Ukrainian military convoys were pressing deep inside what has been called “rebel-controlled territory.” The obvious implication is that if a Ukrainian convoy could move to within a few miles of Luhansk, as one of the intercepts described, a Ukrainian Buk convoy could have traveled to the east as well.

And, the JIT’s presumed motive for the Russians taking the extraordinary decision of supplying a Buk battery to the rebels – that it was needed to shoot down Ukrainian warplanes attacking rebels on the front lines – doesn’t fit with the placement of a Buk system on farmland south of Snizhne, far from the frontlines.

Indeed, very little about the JIT’s case makes sense.

It also appears that the JIT devoted no effort to examining other plausible scenarios regarding who might have shot down MH-17. The JIT video report makes no reference to the several Ukrainian Buk systems that were operating in eastern Ukraine on the day that MH-17 was shot down.

The Dutch intelligence service MIVD, relying on NATO’s intelligence capabilities, reported earlier that the only anti-aircraft-missile systems in the area on July 17, 2014, capable of shooting down MH-17 were under the control of the Ukrainian military.

But the JIT’s report offered no explanation of where those Ukrainian Buk systems were located or whether Ukraine had accounted for all the Buk missiles in those batteries. 

The JIT’s blinders can be explained by the fact that it was coordinating (and relying on) Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency, which has among its responsibilities the protection of Ukrainian government secrets.

The shocking reality about the JIT is that one of the major suspects for having shot down MH-17, Ukraine, was pretty much running the inquiry.

Yet, since the JIT’s accusations on Wednesday, the West’s mainstream media has put on its own blinders so as not to notice the gaps and inconsistencies in the case.

But what should be apparent to anyone without blinders is that the JIT set its sights on blaming the Russians for the MH-17 shoot-down in 2014 and nothing was going to get in the way of that conclusion.

That predetermined conclusion began with Secretary of State John Kerry’s rush to judgment, just three days after the shoot-down, putting the blame on the Russians. It then took the JIT more than two years to scrape together enough “evidence” to “confirm” Kerry’s findings.



The Near-Nuclear Clash

As a longtime CIA analyst covering the Soviet Union, the MH-17 case immediately brought to my mind the exploitation of the KAL-007 tragedy for propaganda purposes in 1983.

After KAL-007 went down, the US propaganda machinery, led by the US Information Agency, went into high gear, even doctoring evidence for a U.N. Security Council meeting to “prove” the Soviets knew KAL-007 was a civilian aircraft and still shot it down deliberately.

“Barbaric” was the word used then – and in recent days US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power has applied that epithet again to the leaders in the Kremlin.

The same sort of anti-Russian hysteria is in play today as it was in 1983. And we now know based on declassified records that the extreme vilification of Moscow back then led Soviet leaders to believe that President Reagan was preparing for a nuclear war, a conflict that almost got started because of the harsh propaganda, combined with unprecedented military exercises and other provocations… 


In 2016, as we deal with the West’s new hysteria regarding Russia – complete with rehashes of prior propaganda themes and military escalations – the pressing question is whether there are any adults left at senior levels of Official Washington who can rein in the madness before things spin entirely out of control.

Santayana famously noted, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” 

But the real danger now is that history won’t stop at repeating itself but will continue beyond, plunging over the nuclear precipice.






Ray McGovern is a former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)

READ the complete article and public comments:


Thursday, September 29, 2016

US Propaganda Machine Now in Overdrive to Fight Russia in Syria




Some extracts from the article:

“…In this war in Syria and broader Middle East, if the truth be known, US-led coalition forces are the true bad guys protecting their fellow bad guys as their proxy war terrorist allies that the US itself created decades ago while at the same time combating the only true fighters against terrorism in Syria – Russia, Syria, Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah and Syrian Kurds…

Without any evidence to back up her completely bogus claim, the US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power keeps accusing Putin as the perpetrator of what turns out most likely to be another US staged terrorist rocket attack that a week ago destroyed 18 of 31 trucks killing 21 in a UN aid convoy, thus resulting in suspension of relief efforts to the people of Aleppo…


WHITE HELMETS: terrorists posing as Syrian civil defense, funded by the West.

It’s now come to light that a privately funded NGO security firm owned by a former British military intelligence officer (not unlike Blackwater) hires fake first responders that pose as Syria Civil Defense covertly operating with Western security forces most often in terrorist embedded areas. 

They’re called the White Helmets and most likely last week worked in cahoots with the local terrorists to pull off the false flag so that Empire could conveniently blame Putin for the so-called airstrikes out of some twisted revenge that only diabolical forces of the US crime cabal could dream up…


Obviously, the most damning evidence indicating that the US never intended to honor the ceasefire agreement came when US-led coalition jets attacked a Syrian Arab Army position near Deir Ezzor airbase on Saturday, September 17th that the US feebly claimed was “an accident.” 

The Russians had to call the Americans twice for the hour long airstrikes to finally be called off. The incident that killed at least 70 Syrian soldiers and wounded over 100 allowed sufficient air cover for nearby ISIS terrorists to wage a successful assault within seven minutes after the airstrikes began to advance forward to overtake the attacked Syrian high ground.

The Damasus government intercepted a conversation between the US military and ISIS just prior to the airstrikes, confirming they were premeditated, well-coordinated, and deliberate acts of aggression that violate international law and more than anything else expose US Empire’s true intentions all along in the Middle East to protect its terrorist ally.

The UN convoy attack two days later was mere camouflage in a vain attempt to disguise US criminality for the Saturday airstrikes involving the US, Australian, and UK warplanes. 

Because the Syrian government forces were clearly winning the war against the terrorists and closing in on the final ISIS strongholds of East Aleppo and Raqqa, the Washington neocons were deceitfully using the ceasefire and months of Vienna talks as opportunity for its proxy terrorist allies to regroup and then launch its latest volley in the propaganda war to smear both Assad and Putin with this most recent barrage of verbal attacks… Right now Washington is conditioning Americans for a world war against Russia…

Still another hugely significant development from last Tuesday receiving a Western media blackout again proves that the US Empire and its Western puppets are behind the terrorists. A Russian missile attack destroyed a secret field operations room in west Aleppo province just three days after the Syrian soldiers were killed in the US airstrike. Three caliber missiles from Russian warships were responsible for killing 30 military intelligence officers from the US, Israel, UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, confirming  that the US Empire is leading all terrorist operations in Aleppo province…

Where there is no will to achieve peace through diplomacy, as the double-crossing US has demonstrated, Russia, Syria, and Iran have concluded that the only solution is through achieving a military victory against all the terrorists as well as their Western sponsors in Syria…

It was recently reported that US Special Forces are stationed at seven different military bases in Northern Syria. With both Turkish and American boots now on the ground firmly and illegally entrenched on Syrian soil… 


With upwards of 400,000 Syrians killed in the near half dozen year war that the US caused, and over 11 million people displaced constituting half of Syria’s prewar population, it is the US Empire that is truly the most brutally barbaric enemy to the entire world. 

Up to 30 million humans and counting have been murdered around the globe in the 37 nations that the US has attacked just since WWII.

And with all its lies and disinformation, the United States is bent on igniting a global war that will likely dwarf in both death toll and human tragedy the two world wars from the last century combined. So let’s not be fooled by the sleight of hand deadly deceptions spun by the ruling elite’s puppet show from Washington that’s currently waging a genocidal war against all of the humanity.



Read the complete article:





Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer… After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field for more than a quarter century. In recent years he has focused on his writing, becoming an alternative media journalist. His blog site is at http://empireexposed.blogspot.com.