Lebanon in US action movies: Beirut starring Jon Hamm

By AS’AD ABUKHALIL*

Lebanon often provided a venue for American and Western action films.  In the 1950s and 1960s, it was a place of international intrigue and espionage where spies intersected with other spies, and where car chases on mountainous roads provided for good movie scenes.  There were so many US and European movies shot in Lebanon in those times, with such titles: The Sell-out, Masquerade, Man on the Spying Trapeze, Agent 505, Embassy, among others. But that so-called peaceful Lebanon (where successive Israeli invasions and massacres don’t get a mention in Western movie accounts, and are rarely listed as the reason for undermining the old Lebanon—with all its flaws, inequities, and injustices) does not exist anymore.  The Lebanese civil war provided a totally different venue for American action films that were to come in the 1980s.

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Nicaragua, unraveling a plot

The United States’ National Endowment for Democracy distributed some 4.2 million dollars in Nicaragua, between 2014 and 2017, to train “new leaders” to overthrow the Sandinista government | Francisco Arias Fernández*

(June 29) – AS early as 2016, talk of war against Nicaragua could again be heard in Miami, at a time when the streets of this nation were a regional example of security, peace, and prosperity, where a hardworking, tranquil people proudly enjoyed the social and economic advances achieved by the Sandinista government, that had established a national consensus, in the wake of one of the worst interventions carried out by the United States in Central America. 

CIA’s Bin Laden forgery is a psyop: three articles

By TONY SEED

In the context of the offensive of the Trump regime against Iran and for domination of West Asia (Middle East), the CIA released on November 1 a “never-before-seen 19-page document,” as well as a 228-page “journal” ostensibly written by Osama Bin Laden as all U.S. and Canadian media (as directed by the U.S. government) are promoting.

Venezuela’s response to US interference

1. Government rejects CIA Chief’s interventionist admission

The following statement was issued by the Government of Venezuela on July 25, 2017.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela categorically rejects the declarations of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, Michael Pompeo, and denounces before the international community the systematic attacks against Venezuela from the USA, including:

UK intelligence called Israel ‘true threat’ to Middle East

A 2008 document, leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, says the British were concerned about Israel’s stance on Iran. GCHQ also spied on Israeli diplomats, and defence firms.

Haaretz and  JTA. Dec 07, 2016 7:00 PM 

British intelligence spied on Israeli diplomats and firms in addition to its military, the French daily Le Monde reported on Wednesday, based on leaked documents that came into the possession of whistleblower Edward Snowden. In one of the files, Britain’s GCHQ intelligence-gathering apparatus defined Israel as “a true threat” to the Middle East.

Nefarious aims behind Canadian financing of ‘White Helmets’

By ENVER VILLAMIZAR

On December 6, the government of Canada announced it would begin financing the group called the “White Helmets” to the tune of $4.5 million dollars. The Trudeau government has taken this “Syria Civil Defence” group under its wing as part of Canada’s “peacemaking” in Syria. The funds come from its “Peace and Stabilization Operations Program.” The same day, Stéphane Dion, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Howard Drake, British High Commissioner to Canada, announced that six public events would be held across Canada from December 7 to 13 featuring figures associated with the group.

Exponential growth of disinformation

Role of powerful private interests and the necessity to build our own organizations and media. “Although the use of social media by parties of the rich to gain electoral advantage and the wielding of social media as a weapon of U.S. imperialism against sovereign states have been well-documented, the use of social media by state agencies to directly interfere with progressive and anti-imperialist political movements is less well studied.” | SAM HEATON

One of the serious problems that faces the people’s movement for empowerment today is the exponential growth of disinformation that takes advantage of modern communications technology and social media. No sooner have these advances been made than powerful private interests, the state and its agents in the ranks of the people have worked out how to dominate and wield the technology in their interests.