Syria’s Rukban Now Little More Than a US-Controlled Concentration Camp – and the Pentagon Won’t Let Refugees Leave

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a concentration camp is defined as “a place where large numbers of people are kept as prisoners in extremely bad conditions, especially for political reasons.” It is undeniable that the Rukban camp fits this definition to the letter.

DAMASCUS, SYRIA — The United States military has rejected offers to resolve the growing humanitarian crisis in the Rukban refugee camp in Syria, which sits inside a 55 km zone occupied by the U.S. along the Syria-Jordan border. The U.S. has also refused to let any of the estimated 40,000 refugees — the majority of which are women and children — leave the camp voluntarily, even though children are dying in droves from lack of food, adequate shelter and medical care. The U.S. has also not provided humanitarian aid to the camp even though a U.S. military base is located just 20 km (12.4 miles) away.

The growing desperation inside the Rukban camp has received sparse media coverage, likely because of the U.S.’ control over the area in which the camp is located. The U.S. has been accused of refusing to let civilians leave the area — even though nearly all have expressed a desire to either return to Syrian government-held territory or seek refuge in neighboring countries such as Turkey — because the camp’s presence helps to justify the U.S.’ illegal occupation of the area.

Though the U.S. has long justified its presence in al-Tanf as necessary to defeat Daesh (ISIS), the U.S. government has also acknowledged that al-Tanf’s true strategic importance lies in U.S. efforts to “contain” Iran by blocking a connection from Iran to Syria through Iraq. Al-Tanf lies near the area where the borders of Syria, Iraq and Jordan meet. Thus, in the U.S.’ game of brinkmanship with Iran, Rukban’s estimated 40,000 inhabitants have become pawns whose basic needs are ignored by their occupiers.

U.S. shows no interest in meeting

On Tuesday, delegations from Russia, Syria, the UN, and the Rukban refugee camp met to discuss the fate of the camp’s inhabitants after a UN survey found that 95 percent of the camp’s inhabitants wanted to leave the camp, while 83 percent wanted to return to their hometowns in areas of Syria now under Syrian government control.

However, the U.S. military and State Department officials in nearby Jordan rejected an invitation to Tuesday’s meeting. The U.S. military also prohibited a Syrian-Russian delegation from entering the Rukban camp on Tuesday. The delegation had sought to assess conditions in the camp, which have become increasingly desperate according to reports from a variety of outlets, including U.S. government-funded outlets like Voice of America.

The U.S.’ refusal to attend the meeting or allow the delegation passage comes less than a month after the U.S. military blocked the entry of evacuation buses overseen by Russian and Syrian forces that would have allowed refugees to leave the camp.

The buses would have entered through the “humanitarian corridors” that were recently opened on the Syrian-controlled side of the U.S.-occupied enclave. While camp inhabitants can, in theory, leave the camp through the corridors on foot, the barren area’s remoteness makes such evacuations unfeasible without vehicle transport. Although some families have left this way, the lack of record keeping within the camp has made it impossible to know how many have tried leaving this way since the corridors were opened last month.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/syrias-rukban-little-more-than-a-u-s-controlled-concentration-camp-and-the-pentagon-wont-let-refugees-leave/256689/

Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist: Hillary Approved Sending Sarin Gas to Rebels to Frame Assad, Start Syrian War

In April of 2013, Britain and France informed the United Nations that there was credible evidence that Syria used chemical weapons against rebel forces. Only two months later, in June of 2013, the United States concluded that the Syrian government did, in fact, use chemical weapons in its fight against opposition forces. President Obama immediately used this chemical attack as a pretext for invasion and authorized direct U.S. military support to the rebels, according to the White House.

Since the US has been funding these ‘moderate rebels’ more than 250,000 people have been killed, over 7,600,000 have been internally displaced, and 4,000,000 other human beings have been forced from the country entirely.

All of this death and destruction carried out by a sadistic army of rebels who’ve been funded and armed by the United States government, based on, what we are now told, was a complete fabrication.

World renowned journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed, in a series of interviews and books, that the Obama Administration falsely blamed the government of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad for the sarin gas attack that Obama was trying to use as an excuse to invade Syria.

As Eric Zuesse explained in Strategic Culture, Hersh pointed to a report from British intelligence saying that the sarin that was used didn’t come from Assad’s stockpiles. Hersh also said that a secret agreement in 2012 was reached between the Obama Administration and the leaders of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, to set up a sarin gas attack and blame it on Assad so that the US could invade and overthrow Assad.

“By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria.”

Hersh didn’t say whether these ‘arms’ included the precursor chemicals for making sarin which were stockpiled in Libya, explains Zuesse in his report. But there have been multiple independent reports that Libya’s Gaddafi possessed such stockpiles, and also that the US Consulate in Benghazi Libya was operating a “rat line” for Gaddafi’s captured weapons into Syria through Turkey.

While Hersh didn’t specifically say ‘Clinton transported the gas,’ he implicated her directly in this ‘rat line’ of arms which the sarin gas was part of.

https://aresathena.wordpress.com/2019/03/28/yes-assad-was-framed-by-non-other-than-hrc/

‘$1,600 for $6 meds’: HIV drug prices ‘inflated,’ even though it was developed with taxpayers’ money

An online campaign has been launched against a US drug maker accused of inflating prices of an anti-HIV drug by thousands of dollars. And it turns out the company doesn’t even own the patent for the treatment.

https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/1600-for-6-meds-hiv-drug-prices-inflated-even-though-it-was-developed-with-taxpayers-money/

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Gets Russia-Venezuelan Threat Mitigation Act Through the House

This week, the U.S. House passed on a voice vote a proposal from U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., to have the U.S. State Department provide a threat assessment and propose strategies on dealing with Russia’s increased ties to the Maduro regime’s military in Venezuela.

Wasserman Schultz introduces the “Russia-Venezuelan Threat Mitigation Act” at the end of February with the backing of Florida Democrat U.S. Reps. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Donna Shalala and Darren Soto and Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.

The South Florida Democrat’s bill would “require the president to monitor the risk of Russian acquisition of…Venezuela’s CITGO assets in the United States , as well as impose a visa ban for any individuals working on behalf of the Russian government in direct support of Venezuelan security forces.”

The House passed Wasserman Schultz’s bill on Monday along with Mucarsel-Powell’s bill proposing $150 million in humanitarian aid for Venezuelans and Shalala’s proposal cutting off tear gas and riot gear to the Maduro regime.

Wasserman Schultz weighed in on her bill after it cleared the House.

“This menacing Kremlin influence creates not only a hurdle to restoring a functioning, legitimate democracy to the people of Venezuela, but it also poses an imminent military threat to the entire Western Hemisphere. We not only need a detailed assessment of what kind of threat this poses, but a strategy for dealing with it,” Wasserman Schultz said. “Our goal, regardless of party, is to allow for the peaceful transition to Venezuela’s rightful leader, interim President Juan Guaidó, and for the peaceful execution of free and fair elections. This bill takes a critical step toward understanding and addressing the impact of military cooperation between Russia and Venezuela, and ensuring it does not impede democracy or safety in the region.

“As his people suffer and protest all around him, Maduro survives inside an oil-soaked cocoon that the Russian Federation provides his regime,” Wasserman Schultz added.

“The Russia-Venezuela Threat Mitigation Act…requires close investigation and continued monitoring of the role that Russia has played in propping up the Maduro regime,” Diaz-Balart said on Monday. “After Russia has sent nuclear-capable bomber plans and, as recently as this weekend, additional military support to Venezuela, we must keep a close eye on Russia’s threat to stability and democracy in our hemisphere. Regrettably, the Maduro regime has invited America’s adversaries such as Russia and China to our doorstep.”

So fare there is no counterpart over in the U.S. Senate.

“Right now, the people of Venezuela are enduring an unimaginable onslaught of hunger, preventable medical dangers and dire, escalating economic pain,” Wasserman Schultz said. “We cannot stand idly by while Putin assists Maduro in carrying out this inhumane and barbaric tragedy. The Russia-Venezuelan Threat Mitigation Act will make it harder for the Kremlin to outfit Maduro with weapons of oppression.”

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/debbie-wasserman-schultz-gets-russia-venezuelan-threat-mitigation-act-through-house

Documents Reveal Saudi-Backed Gov’t in Yemen Granted Citizenship to Charlie Hebdo Attacker Peter Cherif

Cherif is just one of the dozens of foreigners — mostly former al-Qaeda and ISIS fighters — who have been granted Yemeni citizenship by the Coalition-allied Yemeni Passport Authority, under pressure from high-ranking leaders in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

DJIBOUTI — During the four years of war against it, Yemen has been subjected to numerous flagrant violations of its sovereignty by the Saudi-led Coalition, ranging from the occupation of its southern districts to a devastating blockade, not to mention the deliberate targeting and murder of thousands of civilians. Yet often overlooked is the Coalition’s practice of granting Yemeni citizenship to foreign terrorists and stateless people from across the Gulf region, including the ethnic Bidoon, a group of stateless people who were refused Saudi nationality when the Kingdom declared independence in 1932.

MintPress News was able to obtain copies of dozens of confidential documents relating to foreigners of different nationalities who have been granted Yemeni citizenship, including Europeans like 36-year-old French citizen Peter Cherif, also known as Abu Hamza, who was accused of terrorism, as well as other extremists from the ranks of Al Qaeda and ISIS, many of whom were former fighters in Iraq and Syria.

According to one of the documents, Cherif, who is accused of helping to organize the terrorist shooting at the Paris headquarters of Charlie Hebdo magazine in 2015, received an official Yemeni identity under the name of Mohammed Ba Mahzmah, from the Riyadh-allied Yemeni government in Aden. The process was facilitated by Coalition security authorities.

The document — an official cable from Yemen’s ambassador to Djibouti in North Africa, Abdullah Musallam al-Sakhtari — is addressed to “Yemen’s foreign minister,” Khalid al-Yemeni. Al-Yemeni was appointed by the Coalition as Yemen’s minister of diplomacy in the Saudi-allied Yemeni government based in Aden. The document was issued on December 12, 2018.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/documents-reveal-saudi-arabia-granted-yemeni-citizenship-to-charlie-hebdo-attacker-peter-cherif/256721/