[Rudaw] A US federal jury convicted an American for manufacturing weapons illegally and torturing an Estonian citizen, in cooperation with Kurdish soldiers on a military compound in the Kurdistan Region in 2015, the US Justice Department said on Monday.
According to the statement by US Justice Department Ross Roggio
...formally Ross William Roggio, who was setting up a gun factory in Kurdistan after two failures in the business in the U.S. The unnamed Estonian was skeptical that he would succeed on the third try. Mr. Roggio could theoretically get over 700 years for this example of managerial excess...
"arranged for Kurdish soldiers to abduct and detain the victim at a Kurdish military compound" for 39 days. The Estonian man who was subjected to the torture worked for Roggio at a weapons manufacturing company in the Kurdistan Region.
"Roggio suffocated the victim with a belt, threatened to cut off one of his fingers, and directed Kurdish soldiers to repeatedly beat, tase, choke, and otherwise physically and mentally abuse the victim," the statement added.
A federal jury convicted the 54-year-old from Pennsylvania on Friday but his sentence is scheduled to be set on August 23. He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
"Roggio brutally tortured another human being to prevent interference with his illegal activities," Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said.
The man was convicted of exporting weapons parts to Iraq without prior approval from the US State Department, committing torture, and "conspiring to commit an offense against the United States".
In 2018, Roggio and his consulting company were charged in a 37-count indictment for illegally exporting firearm tools from the US to Iraq. Roggio was arrested in February last year.
"The heinous acts of violence that Ross Roggio directed and inflicted upon the victim were blatant human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... violations that will not be tolerated," said Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division at the time of the arrest.
A Rolling Stones report from February detailing Roggio’s business in the Kurdistan Region linked him to Polad Sheikh Jangi, the former head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) counter-terrorism. The report claims that Roggio allegedly used the factory to manufacture weapons for Sheikh Jangi. There has been no comment regarding the claims by the former counter-terror head.
#8
The liberal mega-donors, like Soros and the Foundations, will bankroll them for the 2024 election season -- the blackshirts will march in the streets next year.
#11
Watched The Five this evening. Geraldo had nothing but praise for BLM, and refused to criticise the 3 who stole all that money. I despise that man.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/24/2023 19:29 Comments ||
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#12
/\ A little bit of that fella goes a very long way.
#13
With Juan Williams having the Faux Village Idiot™ slot rolled up, Jerry has to try harder to hit bottom.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/24/2023 20:03 Comments ||
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#14
/\Like an organized crime 'mouthpiece' lawyer Geraldo "Baghdad Bob" Riviera is absolutely shameless ...and so predictable that he is absolutely inconsequential.
#15
One of my dad's favorite criticisms was to say a given person was "somewhere to the left of Mao." I think FauxNews collectively is almost there now.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/24/2023 20:27 Comments ||
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The times, they are a-changing, and MBS intends Saudi Arabia to be on the leading edge
.[IsraelTimes] A study of Saudi school textbooks that will be released today finds some progress on the kingdom’s portrayal of Israel and Zionism, including the removal of some problematic passages in a new social studies textbook.
Israel is hoping to reach a normalization agreement with Riyadh by the end of the year with US help.
However, “continued non-recognition of Israel, its omission from maps, and its frequent depiction as an occupying enemy state” remain in textbooks, according to the latest study on the Saudi school curriculum from the IMPACT-se organization, which has been following the topic in the wake of the 2001 9/11 attacks.
There has also been some backsliding in Saudi Arabia’s treatment of Israel in recent years.
Textbooks for 2017 refer to Israel by name, but since 2019, Israel is usually called “the Zionist entity.”
Zionism is described in a Grade 10-12 textbook as a colonial and racist European movement aimed at expelling Palestinians from their homes, which is far more hostile than the 2017 description of a movement aimed at “unifying the Jews of the Diaspora and settling them in Palestine.”
At the same time, there are plenty of encouraging examples. A lesson on “patriotic poetry” removes “opposing the Jewish settlement of Palestine.” In past editions, students were asked to disprove “one of the Zionist claims regarding their right to the Arab land of Palestine,” but that was removed in the 2022 edition.
Moreover, there is a high school social studies textbook that replaced references to the “the Zionist enemy” with “the Israeli occupation army,” and moved to “the Israeli occupation” instead of “the Israeli enemy.”
In addition, a high textbook first introduced in 2022-23 removes entirely a chapter on the Palestinian Cause.
Saudi textbooks also include greater criticisms of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Houthi militias, accusing them of promoting terrorism and extreme religious thought.
In religion textbooks, lessons promoting negative stereotypes of Jews and Christians have been noticeably toned down.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/24/2023 00:00 ||
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[NPASyria] Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... announced on Monday that The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... will deport one million Syrian refugees to northern Syria without identifying a specific time for commencing the process.
Erdogan told TRT Haber that the his country has returned Syrian refugees "to their dormitories to start with briquette houses in the north of Syria."
Turkey has built more than 19 settlements in Afrin region, northwest Syria, through using organizations like Living with Dignity Association, White Hands (Beyaz Eller), Rahma International Society, and other organizations which are funded by Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... and Kuwait.
While the number of settlements built by Turkey with the support of Gulf countries, most notably Kuwait and Qatar, and Paleostinian associations, has exceeded more than 100 in Ottoman Turkish-occupied areas in northern Syria, according to North Press’ own investigations.
"But now we have a plan that 1 million refugees will return to the target." Erdogan added.
The Ottoman Turkish president also revealed that 560,000 refugees have returned to Syria.
Turkey has repeatedly — and illegally — deported Syrian refugees under the pretext of violating asylum laws and not amending their data regarding the temporary protection ID card, also known as Kimlik.
In March, The administration of Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, north of Idlib Governorate, northwest Syria, revealed that the number of Syrians deported by the Ottoman Turkish authorities to Syria in February amounted to 1.486 people, including women, men and children.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/24/2023 00:50 ||
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This is the Biden administration’s version of a pincer movement: within Israel the State Department-funded protests, outside Israel holding hostage an Abraham Accord with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince.
[IsraelTimes] Report also claims both Washington and Riyadh are conditioning potential establishment of diplomatic ties on Israel restarting peace talks with Paleostinians.
What a pointless waste of energy that would be for all involved.
The White House reportedly wants Israel to halt its judicial overhaul and restart peace talks with the Paleostinian Authority in order for the US to move forward with brokering normalization between Israel and Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... Reports have swirled in recent days that Jerusalem and Riyadh are in the midst of negotiations over direct flights between the nations that have the potential to lead to a wider normalization deal — which has long been sought by Israel but largely rejected by the Saudis.
Why should they, when the Biden administration will make impossible demands for them?
An unsourced Channel 12 news report Tuesday evening said the US and the Saudis have enumerated their demands for such an agreement moving forward. The report claimed that Washington and Riyadh are both seeking to pressure Israel into restarting diplomatic talks with the Paleostinians, and the US is also demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu halt his government’s controversial judicial overhaul plan.
This strikes me as the kind of deal Israel should walk away from. There is entirely too much demanding for what is being offered.
On Friday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ...Crown Prince and modernizer of Saudi Arabia as of 2016. The Turks hate him, so he must be all right, despite the occasional brutal murder of Qatar-owned journalists... told the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... that "the Paleostinian issue was and remains the central issue for Arab countries, and it is at the top of the kingdom’s priorities."
Nobody actually believes boilerplate, right?
The Saudis are also reportedly demanding that the White House unfreeze some Trump-era weapons deals that were frozen when US President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem mschine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family... took office, and are also seeking a defense treaty with the US similar to NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... as well as its stamp of approval for a civilian nuclear program.
A full nuclear program? That seems a tad risky, given what Saudi populace has been so carefully taught.
A full normalization deal, the report claims, would offer Israel in exchange full US backing for its actions against Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Is there a knife in that backing?
In 2020, Israel agreed to freeze a plan to annex wide swaths of the West Bank in exchange for the Abraham Accords which normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and later Morocco.
Channel 12 reported Tuesday that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan are involved in the negotiations alongside Mossad chief David Barnea
...whose intelligence no doubt is equal to the total of the Americans in this equation...
and "very bigwigs" close to bin Salman.
The TV network cited a senior Israeli official as saying that a normalization deal would be a "gamechanger for Israeli security," and that there is "potential for a deal," but it will require courage from Netanyahu, Biden and bin Salman.
One wonders how that senior Israeli official voted in the last election...
On Monday, the channel reported that the Saudis were pressuring Israel to hand certain powers in the West Bank from the IDF to the Paleostinian Authority forces, give the PA forces security-related authority at the Temple Mount and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City — far-reaching steps that are highly unlikely to be approved by Israel’s hard-right government.
What are you demanding of the Palestinians, O crown prince?
Speaking at a conference on Tuesday, National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi denied that there had been any direct conversations between Netanyahu and bin Salman in recent months, but said a normalization deal was possible.
"There is in Saudi Arabia a leader that the world has never seen before, a man who took his country 180 degrees in a different direction, a bold and revolutionary leader," Hanegbi said. "If he thinks that it is possible to reach normalization with Israel, it will happen. I believe there is a chance this will happen."
In a historic move last year, Saudi Arabia announced that it opened its airspace to all civilian overflights, hours before Biden became the first US leader to directly fly from Israel to the Gulf nation.
On Saturday, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen touted the possibility of normalization with Saudi Arabia within six months, during an interview with Channel 12’s Meet the Press.
"There’s a good chance we can advance a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia," Cohen said. "I assume there is definitely a chance in half a year, or in the coming year."
Cohen cited Jerusalem and Riyadh’s joint interests, notably preventing Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... from creating a nuclear bomb, as a reason to be hopeful for a deal.
Saudi Arabia’s decision in March to renew ties with Iran after over half a decade was seen by some as a setback for normalization between the kingdom and Israel.
But the Biden administration has continued to work on striking such a deal in recent months, with Sullivan calling it a "national security interest" earlier this month. Shortly after those comments, Sullivan flew to Riyadh, where he met with bin Salman and raised the issue. He was accompanied by senior White House aides Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein who subsequently traveled to Jerusalem to brief Netanyahu on the status of the endeavor.
Foreign Ministry director-general Ronen Levy also spoke with administration officials about a potential Saudi deal during his trip to Washington last week.
Netanyahu flew to Saudi Arabia in November 2020 to meet with bin Salman, the first publicly reported meeting between the two. Israel and Saudi Arabia do not have diplomatic relations, but clandestine ties have strengthened in recent years, as the two countries have confronted a shared threat in Iran. Was Klingon head man Bill Burns on holiday, or simply not invited to any of these festivities.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/24/2023 00:00 ||
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I wouldn’t be surprised, but let us pause for a moment, dear Reader, to think through the implications.
[IsraelTimes] Dismissing claims that the terror group was infiltrated, Ziad Nakhaleh blamed the ’negligence’ of fighters who Israel was able to track
The top leader of Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... -based Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
Continued on Page 49
#4
Reminds me of the foreign volunteers in the Ukie who couldn't give up their phones so the Russkies hit their barracks. Not keeping up with the news.
#6
Hajjis in the Stans oftentimes carried 4 or 5 cellies. Didn't matter. Voice rec usually set the analysts to laughing and screaming out grids and coordinates.
"It's Mustaffa again on Razuli's selector. Here's his grid."
[NPASyria] The administration of Hawl Camp, in eastern Hasakah, northeast Syria, is preparing to evacuate a new batch of Syrians who wish to be released in the coming days.
A source from the camp administration, affiliated with the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), told North Press, "Preparations are underway to evacuate 60 families, with a total of 217 people, from Hawl camp and return them to their home in Manbij."
Unless an emergency hinders the process, the source added, they are scheduled to be returned on May 29.
The number is subject to change if some families refuse to leave, he added.
The AANES Executive Council, through the mediation of tribal leaders, issued a decision in October 2020 stipulating the evacuation of all displaced Syrians who wish to leave the camp and return to their areas.
However, women are made to be loved, not understood... all operations to return Hawl’s Syrians were halted in November 2022 following the attack on al-Sinaa Prison, in Hasakah city, by operatives of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS).
The prison break sparked a 10-day battle between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the US-led Coalition, and ISIS krazed killers, and ended with the SDF reclaiming control over the prison.
[AlAhram] Israel's defense minister late Monday said that Israel's new government has greatly increased the number of strikes on Iranian targets since taking office late last year.
Yoav Gallant did not provide an exact number of Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s. But the address, delivered at a security conference, marked rare public comments on Israeli military activity in Syria.
"Since I took office, the number of Israeli strikes against the Iranians in Syria have doubled," Gallant said.
"As part of this campaign, we are working methodically to strike the Iranian intelligence capabilities in Syria," he said. "These strikes inflict significant damage to the attempts by the Revolutionary Guard to establish a foothold a few kilometers from the Israeli border."
Gallant also accused Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... of converting civilian ships into military vessels armed with weapons such as drones, missiles and intelligence-gathering capabilities. He said Iran hopes to station these ships at long distances from Iran.
"Iran aims to expand its reach to the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and even the shores of the Mediterranean," he said. "This is a structured plan designed to threaten trade and flight routes — both military and civilian — and to create a permanent threat in the maritime arena."
Israel considers Iran to be its greatest enemy, citing its calls for Israel's destruction and its support for anti-Israel bully boy groups across the region. It also accuses Iran of trying to develop a nuclear bomb — a charge Iran denies.
Israeli officials have acknowledged carrying out hundreds of strikes on Iranian targets in neighboring Syria — where Iran has sent advisers and forces to assist Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... in a 12-year civil war. But officials have given few details over the years and almost never comment on specific operations.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/24/2023 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Rudaw] A US federal jury convicted an American for manufacturing weapons illegally and torturing an Estonian citizen, in cooperation with Kurdish soldiers on a military compound in the Kurdistan Region in 2015, the US Justice Department said on Monday. 
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...
...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem mschine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...
