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Mexico’s War on Journalists

By Laura Carlsen | CounterPunch | August 14, 2015

Earlier this summer, Ruben Espinosa fled Mexico’s Gulf coast state of Veracruz after receiving death threats. His work as a photojournalist there had made him an enemy of the state’s governor, who presides over one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a reporter.

On July 31, Espinosa was found beaten and shot dead in a Mexico City apartment.

Eight months ago, Nadia Vera, a student activist and cultural worker, looked boldly into a camera lens and told an interviewer that if anything happened to her, Veracruz governor Javier Duarte and his cabinet should be held responsible. She also fled Veracruz to the nation’s capital after suffering attacks.

On July 31, Nadia Vera was found sexually tortured and murdered, shot point-blank in the same apartment.

Three more women were assassinated in the normally tranquil, upper-middle class neighborhood that afternoon — an 18 year-old Mexican named Yesenia Quiroz, a Colombian identified only as “Nicole,” and a 40 year-old domestic worker named Alejandra. The press generally refers to the case as “the murder of Ruben Espinosa and four women,” relegating the women victims to anonymity even in death.

At a recent demonstration of journalists and human rights defenders, the sense of dread was palpable. As communicators in Mexico, we’re angry and intensely frustrated at how so many of our ranks have been killed, disappeared, displaced, or censored with no repercussions.

For many, including me, this crime especially hit home. For a long time, whenever I was asked if I was afraid to speak out critically in Mexico, I answered that fortunately Mexico City was relatively safe. Drug cartels and their allies in government only kept close tabs on reporters in more disputed areas.

The quintuple homicide in a quiet corner of the city shattered that myth — and with it what was left of our complacency. Several days before his murder, Espinosa told friends that a man had approached him to ask if he was the photographer who fled Veracruz. When he said yes, the man replied, “You should know that we’re here.”

Once considered a haven, Mexico City has become a hunting ground in a country where, too often, journalists end up reporting on the brutal assassinations of their colleagues — and wondering who will be next.

Targets

Ruben Espinosa had photographed social movements in the state of Veracruz for the past eight years, including journalists’ protests over the murder of Regina Martinez in 2012, a journalist and colleague of Espinosa at Proceso magazine. He covered the protests against the disappearance of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa by local police in Guerrero and acts of repression by the Veracruz state government.

Espinosa captured a front-page photo of Governor Duarte, big-bellied and wearing a police cap, which appeared on the cover of Proceso alongside the title: “Veracruz, a Lawless State.” Espinosa noted that the governor was so enraged by the photo he had his agents obtain and destroy as many copies of the magazine as they could get their hands on. He reported that while he was taking pictures of the eviction of protesters, a government agent told him, “You better stop taking pictures or you´ll end up like Regina.”

The Mexican Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes Against Freedom of Expression recognizes 102 journalists murdered from 2000 to 2014.

Yet the Mexico City prosecutor didn’t even mention the threats and attacks against Nadia Vera, an activist and a member of the student organization YoSoy132, as a line of investigation in her murder. The UN High Commission on Human Rights in Mexico stated that Vera and the other female victims found with Espinosa showed signs of sexual torture. Mexico City investigators announced that they were applying investigative protocols for possible femicides, but didn’t say why or confirm the reports of rape and sexual torture.

The invisibility of the women victims in the press and the official statements has been partially compensated for by social media. In social networks, millions of posts and tweets have brought to light the lives of the women, and especially Nadia’s more public and activist past, in an impromptu campaign that insists that women’s lives also matter.

Signs of a Cover-Up?

Now, just days into the investigation, with the nation — and especially journalists — reeling from the news, there are already signs of a cover-up.

On August 2, Mexico City Attorney General Rodolfo Rios gave a press conference reporting on advances in the case. Although Rios promised to pursue all lines of investigation, he downplayed the possibility that this could be a political crime against freedom of expression, claiming that Espinosa was not currently employed.

Rios also stated that the photojournalist came to Mexico City to look for work — a thinly veiled attempt to pre-empt the dead journalist’s own version of the facts that he was forced to leave Veracruz due to ongoing persecution. The city attorney’s office has put forth robbery as the principal motive of the crime, despite the execution-style torture and killings, and hasn’t called on anyone from the Veracruz government to provide testimony.

These are signs that the city government may be trying to railroad the investigation, and they’ve outraged the public, especially journalists. The attorney general’s absurd claim that Espinosa was unemployed at the time of his murder, seemingly suggesting that his journalistic work wasn’t a motive, caused particular indignation.

On August 5, investigators announced that they’d arrested and were questioning a suspect based on a match with a fingerprint found in the apartment. Despite apparent advances, there’s a growing fear that the government has no intention of really investigating a crime that could lead straight to a powerful member of the president’s own party.

The U.S. Role

The involvement of the Mexican government in the crime itself, or at least in creating the climate that led to the crime and failing to prevent it, raises serious questions for U.S. policymakers as well. The watchdog organization Article 19 reports that nearly half of the aggressions against journalists registered were carried out by state agents.

Since 2008, the U.S. government — through the Merida Initiative and other sources — has provided some $3 billion to the Mexican government for the war on drugs. This is a period when attacks on human rights defenders and journalists have skyrocketed, and more than 100,000 people have been killed by criminals and security forces alike.

A fraction of that money has gone to mechanisms for protection that have so far proved worthless. Rather than helping, this serves to support the false idea that the Mexican state is the good guy in a war on organized crime. The cases of corruption, complicity, and abuse that pile up week by week have demolished this premise.

Supporting abusive governments and security forces while claiming to support the journalists and human rights defenders being attacked by them is like pretending to help the fox while arming the hunter — it just prolongs the hunt. Mexican citizens who speak up are being hunted, too often by their own government. It’s time the U.S. government came to grips with that and immediately suspended the Merida Initiative.

Until there is accountability and justice — and an end to the murder of those who tell the truth about what’s happening here — sending U.S. taxpayer money to Mexican security forces is a vile betrayal of Mexicans’ friendship and of the highest principles of U.S. foreign policy.

Laura Carlsen is the director of the Americas Program in Mexico City and advisor to Just Associates (JASS).

August 14, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , | 2 Comments

No Thanks, Obama and McCain. Continuing Indefinite Detention Isn’t Closing Guantánamo.

By Chris Anders | ACLU | August 12, 2015

A bad idea doesn’t somehow become a good idea just because five years have gone by.  But the Obama White House and Sen. John McCain seem ready to recycle a proposal that was overwhelmingly rejected in 2010.

President Obama has renewed his commitment to closing Guantánamo before he leaves office, and McCain (R-Ariz.) said he might be able to support closure. However, there has always been a right way and a wrong way to close Guantánamo. The restrictions the Senate has passed, along with the latest proposal floated by the White House to move some detainees to the United States for indefinite detention without charge or trial, is the wrong way.

Guantánamo has never been just about the prison. Instead, Guantánamo has been about our government violating the rule of law and ducking American values. From torture and abuse during the Bush administration to indefinite detention and defective military commissions extending through the Bush and Obama administrations, Guantánamo has been a place where our government behaves like a human rights pariah instead of a human rights beacon.

The solution can never be to simply pack up both the detainees and bad policies at Guantánamo and ship them to some new prison here in the United States. No. The only meaningful solution is to close Guantánamo by ending indefinite detention without charge or trial, transferring the detainees who have been cleared for transfer,  and trying detainees for whom there is evidence of wrongdoing in our federal criminal courts in the U.S., which regularly try terrorism suspects, including high-profile ones.

But instead of doing the hard work of closing Guantánamo the right way, the Obama White House is reportedly dusting off the same plan that Congress overwhelmingly rejected in 2010. The “plan” would involve transferring overseas all cleared detainees (an excellent idea, but one that actually needs to be completed now, not when this “plan” goes into effect), but then setting up prisons in the U.S. to continue the indefinite detention of men who have been imprisoned for more than a decade without ever being charged with any crime. Other detainees would be put on trial — but some of them would be tried before the same unfair military commissions used at Guantánamo. The result would be moving Guantanamo, not closing it.

McCain has a hand in it too. As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he sponsored the Senate’s National Defense Authorization Act, which would allow indefinite detention and military commissions to be brought to the U.S. as part of closing Guantánamo — but only if both houses of Congress approve the president’s plan. Of course, anything requiring both houses of Congress to approve almost anything from the president is a political non-starter. But this provision is still being sold as a step towards closing Guantánamo.

A particularly bizarre bit of news about the White House plan this week came in a Washington Post report that said that the White House was considering setting up a nearly empty prison in Thomson, Illinois, as a site for indefinite detention of Guantánamo detainees. This exact same plan, with the exact same prison in Illinois, was rejected by a House vote of 353-69 in 2010. Then Attorney General Eric Holder later swore that the Thomson prison would never be used for that purpose.

The ACLU said back in 2009 that shipping indefinite detention north was the wrong way to close Guantánamo, and it still is the wrong way to close Guantánamo. Bad ideas don’t get better by just sitting on the shelf. It’s time to close Guantánamo the right way, by charging in federal court any detainee who can be charged and ending indefinite detention for everyone else. If a prosecutor can’t put together a case against someone who has been sitting in prison for as long as 13 years, there is no reason that person should continue to sit in prison, whether in Guantánamo or someplace else.

Let’s close it the right way.

August 14, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Mark Steyn’s new book on Michael Mann

A Disgrace to the Profession: The World’s Scientists – in their own words – on Michael E Mann, his Hockey Stick and their Damage to Science – Volume One

Review by Judith Curry | Climate Etc. | August 13, 2015

The backstory on Mann vs Steyn is described in previous posts [link] and links therein. The short story is this. Mann is suing Steyn (and others) for defamation regarding a statement about ‘the fraudulent hockeystick’. Steyn is countersuing. The lawsuits have been tied up in DC courts for years. The new book compiles what is presumably evidence obtained by Steyn’s lawyers regarding whether ‘fraudulent’ is defamatory here. And this is only Volume 1; apparently there is a Volume 2 in the works.

Mark Steyn has 3 blog posts (so far) on the book:

Two bloggers have already written about the book

Anthony Watts reminds me of this statement I made in a previous post: “Mark Steyn is formidable opponent. I suspect that this is not going to turn out well for you.” This book certainly supports my statement.

The book is organized around quotes from Ph.D. scientists (100+) that have made remarks about Mann, either publicly in interviews, on blogs, or in private emails that were revealed through FOIA or unauthorized releases (e.g. Climategate, SkS). This is not just a compilation of quotes from the ‘usual suspects’; I was unfamiliar with many of these individuals, and impressed by their credentials. Each chapter begins with an overview and context about the particular theme, then each subsection is devoted to a particular scientist, beginning with a brief biosketch of that scientist and including backstory and context.

There is much wit and plenty of zingers in Steyn’s narrative (not sure if anyone helped him with the technical aspects of this; seems pretty solid). However, for my post on this book, I decided to focus on snippets from climate scientists who generally support the consensus (explicitly, or lacking any evidence of the opposite), including Mann’s collaborators. It was not simple to cull this down to ~1200 words (so as not to steal thunder from potential buyers of the book), but the quotes below I think give a pretty good representation from the climate scientists that were quoted. Note, I focus particularly on the Hockey Stick (and subsequent incarnations), rather than broader issues about Mann that were raised in some of the quotes.

From climate scientists, all of whom support the general consensus on climate change:

Wallace Broecker: “The goddam guy is a slick talker and super-confident. He won’t listen to anyone else,” one of climate science’s most senior figures, Wally Broecker of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York, told me. “I don’t trust people like that. A lot of the data sets he uses are shitty, you know. They are just not up to what he is trying to do…. If anyone deserves to get hit it is goddam Mann.”

Eduardo Zorita: Why I Think That Michael Mann, Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf2 Should be Barred from the IPCC Process. Short answer: because the scientific assessments in which they may take part are not credible anymore. These words do not mean that I think anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. On the contrary, it is a question which we have to be very well aware of. But I am also aware that editors, reviewers and authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations, even based on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly blackmailed.

Atte Korhola: Another example is a study recently published in the prestigious journal Science. Proxies have been included selectively, they have been digested, manipulated, filtered, and combined – for example, data collected from Finland in the past by my own colleagues has even been turned upside down such that the warm periods become cold and vice versa. Normally, this would be considered as a scientific forgery, which has serious consequences.

Hans von Storch: A conclusion could be that the principle, according to which data must be made public, so that also adversaries may check the analysis, must be really enforced. Another conclusion could be that scientists like Mike Mann, Phil Jones and others should no longer participate in the peer-review process or in assessment activities like IPCC.

Bo Christiansen: The hockey-stick curve does not stand. It does not mean that we cancel the manmade greenhouse effect, but the causes have become more nuanced… Popularly, it can be said that the flat piece on the hockey stick is too flat. In addition, their method contains a large element of randomness. It is almost impossible to conclude from reconstruction studies that the present period is warmer than any period in the reconstructed period.

David Rind: Concerning the hockey stick: what Mike Mann continually fails to understand, and no amount of references will solve, is that there is practically no reliable tropical data for most of the time period, and without knowing the tropical sensitivity, we have no way of knowing how cold (or warm) the globe actually got. I’ve made the comment to Mike several times, but it doesn’t seem to get across.

Tom Wigley: I have just read the M&M stuff criticizing MBH. A lot of it seems valid to me. At the very least MBH is a very sloppy piece of work – an opinion I have held for some time. Can you give me a brief heads up? Mike is too deep into this to be helpful.

From Mann’s collaborators and coauthors:

Phil Jones: Keith [Briffa] didn’t mention in his Science piece but both of us think that you’re on very dodgy ground with this long-term decline in temperatures on the thousand-year timescale. It is better we put the caveats in ourselves than let others put them in for us.

Keith Briffa: I have just read this letter – and I think it is crap. I am sick to death of Mann stating his reconstruction represents the tropical area just because it contains a few tropical series. He is just as capable of regressing these data again any other “target” series, such as the increasing trend of self-opinionated verbiage he has produced over the last few years

Edward Cook: I will be sure not to bring this up to Mike. As you know, he thinks that CRU is out to get him in some sense. I am afraid that Mike is defending something that increasingly cannot be defended. He is investing too much personal stuff in this and not letting the science move ahead.

Raymond Bradley: I would like to disassociate myself from Mike Mann’s view. As for thinking that it is “Better that nothing appear, than something unnacceptable to us” …as though we are the gatekeepers of all that is acceptable in the world of paleoclimatology seems amazingly arrogant. Science moves forward whether we agree with individual articles or not.

Matti Saarnisto: In that article [Science], my group’s research material from Korttajärvi, near Jyväskylä, was used in such a way that the Medieval Warm Period was shown as a mirror image. The graph was flipped upside-down. In this email I received yesterday from one of the authors of the article, my good friend Professor Ray Bradley …says there was a large group of researchers who had been handling an extremely large amount of research material, and at some point it happened that this graph was turned upside-down. But then this happened yet another time in Science, and now I doubt if it can be a mistake anymore. But how it is possible that this type of material is repeatedly published in these top science journals? There is a small circle going round and around, relatively few people are reviewing each other’s papers, and that is in my opinion the worrying aspect.

Rob Wilson: I want to clarify that my 2 hour lecture was, I hope, a critical look at all of the northern hemispheric reconstructions of past temperature to date. It was not focused entirely on Michael Mann’s work. The “crock of xxxx” statement was focused entirely on recent work by Michael Mann w.r.t. hypothesized missing rings in tree-ring records. Although a rather flippant statement, I stand by it and Mann is well aware of my criticisms (privately and through the peer reviewed literature) of his recent work.

Some of the harshest criticisms come from physicists; I’ve selected this one from Jonathan Jones, who I had the pleasure of meeting with last June while in the UK:

Jonathan Jones: My whole involvement has always been driven by concerns about the corruption of science. Like many people I was dragged into this by the Hockey Stick. The Hockey Stick is an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence, so I started reading round the subject. And it soon became clear that the first extraordinary thing about the evidence for the Hockey Stick was how extraordinarily weak it was, and the second extraordinary thing was how desperate its defenders were to hide this fact. The Hockey Stick is obviously wrong. Climategate 2011 shows that even many of its most outspoken public defenders know it is obviously wrong. And yet it goes on being published and defended year after year. Do I expect you to publicly denounce the Hockey Stick as obvious drivel? Well yes, that’s what you should do. It is the job of scientists of integrity to expose pathological science. It is a litmus test of whether climate scientists are prepared to stand up against the bullying defenders of pathology in their midst.

Two of the most surprising statements (to me) are from two young scientists associated with Skeptical Science:

Neal King: My impression is that Mann and buddies have sometimes gone out on a limb when that was unnecessary and ill-advised. Mann, for all his technical ability, is sometimes his own worst enemy. Similarly, with regard to “hiding the decline” in Climategate, I am left with the impression that the real question is, Why would you believe the tree-ring proxies at earlier times when you KNOW that they didn’t work properly in the 1990s? Mann et al spent too much time defending what was incorrect, and allowed the totality of the argument to become “infected” by the fight.

Robert Way: I don’t mean to be the pessimist of the group here but Mc2 brought up some very good points about the original hockey stick. I’ve personally seen work that is unpublished that challenges every single one of his reconstructions because they all either understate or overstate low-frequency variations. Mann et al stood by after their original HS and let others treat it with the confidence that they themselves couldn’t assign to it. The original hockey stick still used the wrong methods and these methods were defended over and over despite being wrong. He fought like a dog to discredit and argue with those on the other side that his method was not flawed. And in the end he never admitted that the entire method was a mistake. They then let this HS be used in every way possible despite knowing the stats behind it weren’t rock solid.

This selection of quotes does not include the strongest ‘zingers’, which come from scientists that are somewhat further afield or have made public statements that are critical of the AGW consensus.

JC reflections

So, back to the topic of the lawsuits. In light of these quotes by Ph.D scientists, does Mark Steyn have a strong defense against the charge of defamation for stating ‘fraudulent hockey stick’? This certainly looks to me like the basis of a strong defense. With regards to Steyn’s countersuit, if he makes a lot of money off this book, that would rather argue against large damages from his countersuit.

I have written many posts about Michael Mann – apart from my own concerns about the hockey stick (Hiding the Decline), I am greatly concerned about Mann’s bullying behavior inserting itself into the scientific process (collaboration, peer review, public communication). My concerns go beyond the general strategies of adversarial science, to what I regard as unethical behavior.

It is a sad state of affairs for climate science that this book had to be written (it was brought on by Michael Mann’s lawsuit – without the lawsuit, Steyn obviously wouldn’t have bothered).  At a time when the U.S. and the world’s nations are trying to put together an agreement to tackle climate change (for better or for worse), Steyn’s book reminds everyone of Climategate, why the public doesn’t trust climate scientists and aren’t buying their ‘consensus.

How will all this play out? Hard to predict, but I hope that everyone will learn that adversarial science as practiced in its pathological form by Michael Mann doesn’t ‘pay’ in the long run.

The book can be purchased at the SteynStore, or it will be available at amazon.com (kindle edition available Sept 1).

August 14, 2015 Posted by | Book Review, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | 1 Comment

Pinochet’s Right-Hand Man Commits Suicide After Conviction

Former Chilean General Hernan Ramirez committed suicide after learning of his conviction for dictatorship crimes on August 13, 2015.

teleSUR | August 13, 2015

A retired Pinochet-era Chilean general and former head of the DINA secret intelligence unit committed suicide Thursday at the age of 76, after being convicted of dictatorship crimes earlier this week.

Former General Hernan Ramirez Rurange was one of 14 military personnel convicted Tuesday for involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Eugenio Berrios, a chemist and secret police agent under the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

Berrios was disappeared in the early 1990s after escaping from hiding in Uruguay. He had been sent there as part of DINA’s Operation Silence to avoid testifying in cases of assassinations carried out by secret police in the 1970s in the dictatorship-era Operation Condor.

Ramirez was sentenced to a total of 20 years and two days in prison this week: 10 years and one day for being the mastermind behind Berrios’ kidnapping, and another 10 years and one day for illicit association.

The former general died in the hospital after shooting himself in the head Thursday. His suicide immediately after the sentencing provoked strong reactions on social media.

“Hernan Ramirez couldn’t deal with his conscience or he was too cowardly to face his punishment, because he didn’t have any problem torturing.”

“Hernan Ramirez, today you join in heaven Odlanier Mena, Himmler, Hitler, Goebbels, Goring, Hess and other who valiantly committed suicide.”

Ramirez’ suicide comes a week after Manuel Contreras, another former head of DINA during the dictatorship, died Friday age of 86, remaining unrepentant until his death for the grave human rights abuses he committed, including torture, murder, and disappearances.

Ramirez was a right-hand man to Pinochet. He committed serious crimes aimed at protecting the dictatorship military regime at the beginning of the 1990’s, during the transition to democracy, when the Chilean government launched investigations into military personnel for human rights abuses perpetrated under the dictatorship, according to Chilean newspaper La Tercera.

In the Berrios case, Ramirez testified that Pinochet had directly ordered him in 1991 as a DINA operative to take Berrios into hiding in Uruguay and that Pinochet knew “perfectly” who Berrios was.

Berrios oversaw the development of chemical weapons for use by DINA under Pinochet’s dictatorship. Such biochemical weapons included sarin gas, a chemical used to kill victims silently and without a trace by mimicking a heart attack.

DINA was key in executing Operation Condor, a six-country regional intelligence operation and terror campaign to assassinate political opponents of the participating U.S.-backed right-wing regimes.

Pinochet came to power after a U.S.-backed coup on Sept. 11, 1973, that removed the democratically elected, socialist President Salvador Allende. Pinochet’s bloody regime ruled until 1990, during which time over 3,000 people were murdered and tens of thousands tortured and disappeared.

August 13, 2015 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | 2 Comments

Ukraine Bans Human Rights Watchdog Book

By Alexander Dyukov | International Information Group on Crimes against the Person | August 12, 2015

The report ‘Massive Human Rights Violations during the Civil Conflict in Ukraine 2013-2014′ is included in the list of books banned by Ukraine for import into the country. The Russian-language book and report is the annual report of the International Information Group on Crimes against the Person (IGCP). The principle author of the report and the coordinator of the ICGP is Alexandr Dyukov, who lives in Russia.

The list of 38 banned books was prepared and issued by the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine. It was published on the official page of the Customs Service of Ukraine on Facebook on August 7. “We present a list of books banned from importing to Ukraine in order to prevent informational war attacks and misinformation, the spread of anti-humanism, fascism, xenophobia and separatism, encroachment on the territorial integrity and the state system stipulated by the Constitution of Ukraine,” says the report of the Customs Service of Ukraine.

Massive Human Rights Violations during the Civil Conflict in Ukraine 2013-2014 was published at the end of June 2015. The book presents facts concerning crimes against the person and violations of civil rights and freedoms committed during the civil conflict in Ukraine. It contains summarized information about violations of the international norms of human rights by state authorities, non-state organisations and armed groups in Ukraine. At the same time, the publication lists violations of human and civil rights committed by all parties of the conflict.

“Our final report shows that large-scale human rights violations acquired a systematic character long ago,” says Alexandr Dyukov. “All parties of the conflict neglect human rights. Within the so-called anti-terror operation, the Ukrainian military regularly commit crimes which are, in fact, war crimes, such as murders, tortures, abductions and unselective attacks on civilians and infrastructure.

“These crimes have a systematic character with a certain involvement of the state authorities, thus they can be qualified both as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The information revealed in our publication gives a clear confirmation of this.”

Mr. Dyukov is not surprised with the ban of the book in Ukraine. “Let me remind you that in May, the Ukrainian Parliament officially announced the refusal of Ukraine to fulfil the undertaken international duties to protect human rights,” says Alexandr Dyukov. “After all, it’s a logical decision. Violations of basic human rights in modern Ukraine are not only daily life routine but also an element of the state structure. Consequently, collecting and spreading information about these violations is a seditious and anti-state act. However, we hope that due to the new ban, more people will learn about our book. Fortunately, there are no borders in the Internet.”

At the moment, the IGCP team is working on the English version of its report. The Russian-language version can be read and downloaded here. It is 344 pages long.

The International Information Group on Crimes against the Person (IGCP) was established in February 2014 as an international civil initiative. The group aims at collecting information about political and other crimes against the person committed in Ukraine since February 22, 2014, as well as informing people in Ukraine, the European Union and the Russian Federation about them.

IGCP is coordinated by Alexandr Dyukov, a Russian historian and head of the Historical Memory Foundation.

August 13, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Former Executive Director of CIA Arrested Attempting To Bring Loaded Gun On Airplane

By John Vibes | The Free Thought Project | August 13, 2015

Linthicum, MD — Last Thursday at BWI airport in Maryland, former CIA agent A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard was arrested for trying to carry a gun onto an airplane. According to CBS Baltimore, Krongard had a 9mm handgun loaded with five rounds in his carry-on bag when he was stopped by TSA agents because they saw the gun as his bags passed through the x-ray scanner.

Krongard was immediately arrested on weapons charges, despite his involvement with the government and his notoriety as a well known local businessperson. During his time in the CIA, Krongard was a high-ranking official and was named the executive director of the CIA under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2004. He held the third-highest ranking position in the CIA during that time period.

Oddly, on that same day another man was arrested for attempting to bring a loaded gun on an airplane, this time at Hagerstown Regional (HGR) airport, not far from BWI. So far there has been no indication that these cases are connected.

According to the official TSA policy “Firearms, firearm parts and ammunition—are not permitted in carry-on bags, but can be transported in checked bags if they are unloaded, properly packed and declared to the airline. Firearms must be unloaded, packed in a hard-side case, locked, and packed separately from ammunition. Travelers who bring firearms to the checkpoint are subject to possible criminal charges from law enforcement and civil penalties from TSA of up to $11,000.”

Did Mr. Krongard think that he was above the law after a life in the upper echelons of government? Or was he involved in a deeper plot to justify overreaching TSA searches and overblown budgets?

August 13, 2015 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , , | Leave a comment

Escalating the Anti-Iran Propaganda

By Jonathan Marshall | Consortium News | August 13, 2015

The United States and five other powers that negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran based it on verification, not on trust. The media need to start applying to same standard rather than trusting the often questionable claims of their favorite expert on nuclear proliferation, David Albright.

Albright, who is president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, has long been a loud and oft-quoted critic of Iran’s nuclear intentions. His latest salvo was his widely reported claim that Iran is engaging in suspicious activity at Parchin, a military facility in northern Iran, that “could be related” to “sanitization efforts” to defeat verification efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Albright’s suspicions were buttressed by two anti-Iran-deal columnists who reported that the “U.S. intelligence community” was also studying recent photos of the site for possible evidence of clean-up work ahead of planned inspections. His claims were touted by the Washington Post’s right-wing blogger Jennifer Rubin as one more reason to reject the Iran nuclear deal. The Post’s neoconservative-leaning opinion page also gave Albright a column to repeat his assertions, and to ridicule as “mirthful” Iran’s denials.

But credible experts with much more serious credentials than Albright have undercut his latest report along with many of his earlier warnings about Iran’s nuclear plans. Needless to say, they have received much less media attention.

Albright’s Aug. 5 report — a mere one page of text along with three photos — began by describing Parchin as a facility “that is linked to past high explosive work on nuclear weapons.” That unqualified phrase should have concerned reporters right from the start.

Yes, there have been unproven claims that Iran tested non-nuclear high-explosive devices at Parchin — but they have been debunked by no less an authority than Robert Kelley, former director of the Department of Energy’s Remote Sensing Laboratory and former director of the IAEA’s nuclear inspections in Iraq. Moreover, IAEA found nothing amiss during two unrestricted visits to Parchin in 2005, though Iran has rebuffed its requests for return visits.

Albright’s report then analyzed several recent satellite photos, which show something happening on the roofs of two buildings, several “possible oil spills,” and a couple of vehicles, possibly including a bulldozer. In contrast, a photo taken before the signing of the agreement showed “little activity” and no vehicles. In addition, two new structures “of unknown purpose” had been erected since May. All of this pointed, in Albright’s fevered imagination, to a “last ditch effort to try to ensure that no incriminating evidence will be found.”

He offered not a shred of evidence to link the mundane visual clues to his dramatic conclusion. One wonders if any reporters actually looked at his photo evidence critically.

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, stated in response that the activities at Parchin were related to road construction. Opponents of the deal “have spread these lies before,” he added. “Their goal is to damage the agreement.”

In his Washington Post column, Albright twisted Zarif’s words to claim that he “chose to deny the visible evidence in commercial satellite imagery. Iran’s comments would be mirthful if the topic were not so serious.” Of course, Zarif was disputing not the imagery but the tendentious conclusions that Albright drew from it.

Albright’s conclusions were also disputed by Kelley, the American nuclear weapons scientist and inspector, who studied a much larger sample of satellite photos over the past five years and found no evidence of any unexplained activity. He also took issue with a subsequent Albright “imagery brief” calling suspicious attention to more than 20 cars parked between Parchin and a nearby dam.

“The ‘parking lot of death’ has been imaged dozens of times and there are clear patterns of passenger cars parked there,” Kelley told Bloomberg News. “There have been no indicators of a change in Iranian activities of any significance — no earth moving or sanitization whatsoever.”

Other experts also derided Albright’s overheated conclusions. “Parchin is an active site and movement is inevitable,” said Paul Ingram, executive director of the British American Security Information Council. “Attempting an impossible cleanup in full view of satellites and just before Congressional votes would be stretching conspiracy theories beyond breaking point.”

Who should one believe? Expert nuclear inspectors like Kelley, or Albright, who apparently has no advanced training as a nuclear engineer or photographic interpreter?

Scott Ritter, the former chief United Nations weapons inspector and IAEA consultant, unloaded on Albright several years ago, saying he has “a track record of making half-baked analyses derived from questionable sources seem mainstream. He breathes false legitimacy into these factually challenged stories by cloaking himself in a résumé which is disingenuous in the extreme. Eventually, one must begin to question the motives of Albright and ISIS” (the unfortunate acronym of Albright’s organization).

Ritter cited example after example of Albright peddling misinformation: “On each occasion, Albright is fed sensitive information from a third party, and then packages it in a manner that is consumable by the media. The media, engrossed with Albright’s misleading résumé (“former U.N. weapons inspector,” “Doctor,” “physicist” and “nuclear expert”), give Albright a full hearing, during which time the particulars the third-party source wanted made public are broadcast or printed for all the world to see. More often than not, it turns out that the core of the story pushed by Albright is, in fact, wrong.”

Ritter concluded his blast, “It is high time the mainstream media began dealing with David Albright for what he is (a third-rate reporter and analyst), and what he isn’t (a former U.N. weapons inspector, doctor, nuclear physicist or nuclear expert). It is time for David Albright, the accidental inspector, to exit stage right. Issues pertaining to nuclear weapons and their potential proliferation are simply too serious to be handled by amateurs and dilettantes.”

Judging by the latest dust-up, Albright remains a media darling, able to garner headlines whenever he lobs new charges into the political battlefield. The issues at stake in the Iran nuclear deal, to echo Ritter, are simply too serious to be muddied by such irresponsible speculation. It’s high time the media began subjecting Albright — and all quoted experts — to more careful verification of their credentials and claims.

For more on Albright and other fake experts on Iran’s nuclear program, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Israel Clears the Bench in Iran Fight.”

August 13, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli settlers torch Bedouin tent near Ramallah

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(MaanImages/Zakariyya al-Sidda)
Ma’an – August 13, 2015

RAMALLAH – Israeli settlers torched a Bedouin tent in the area of Ein Samiya near Kafr Malik village in northern Ramallah Thursday morning, local sources told Ma’an.

A group of Israeli settlers raided the village of Ein Samiya and threw flammable material on a Bedouin tent before the residents noticed and attacked the settlers, forcing them to flee the area.

An Israeli army spokesperson confirmed the attack but could give no further details.

The fire caused substantial damages to the tent but locals were able to put the fire out without any injuries, locals said.

Israeli settlers also sprayed “price tag” near the scene and signed slogans calling for the killing of Palestinians and expelling them out of their lands.

Graffiti sprayed in red paint also read “administrative revenge” alongside a crudely drawn Star of David.

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The graffiti seemed to refer to the internment without charge — known as administrative detention — of three alleged Jewish extremists in the wake of a July 31 arson attack in the West Bank village of Duma that killed 18-month-old Palestinian Ali Saad Dawabsha and his father Saad.

Locals said Israeli forces and police arrived to the area, investigated the incident, and dusted for fingerprints at the scene.

On Wednesday, Israeli forces had closed the Ein Samiya area road and prevented Palestinians from using it.

Recent weeks have seen a rise in Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank.

An 18-month-old Palestinian, Ali Dawabsha, was burned alive when alleged Israeli extremists firebombed their home at the end of last month in the village of Duma near Nablus.

The toddler’s father, Saad Dawabsha, succumbed to his wounds a week later, after suffering third degree burns on 80 percent of his body.

On Saturday morning, Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian home with firebombs and rocks in an area east of Tayba in the Ramallah district. The bombs landed outside of the house, causing no damage, locals told Ma’an.

Israeli settlers have carried out at least 120 attacks on Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank since the start of this year, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

August 13, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Radicalizing radicals’: US military aid landing in hands of ISIS

RT | August 13, 2015

Foreign powers are meddling within Syrian political affairs not to defeat ISIS as they claim, but to get rid of a regime they don’t approve of to replace it by God knows what, Catherine Shakdam from the Beirut Centre for Middle East Studies told RT.

RT: The rebels and government forces are fighting not only each other but Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL] at the same time. How is this multiple-front conflict affecting attempts to prevent terrorism?

Catherine Shakdam: That’s the main problem. It’s not just that they are fighting each other. I think that there are very different goals as to what foreign powers are trying to achieve in Syria. And for now when it comes to the US for example all Washington seems to want to do is to neutralize and get rid of President Bashar Assad in Syria rather than really fight IS. That’s the main problem. We have foreign powers meddling within Syrian political affairs not to defeat IS as they claim, but rather to get rid of a regime that they do not approve of to replace it by God knows what, because they created a situation and a power vacuum which would essentially allow for Islamist radicals to take over Damascus and I don’t think that anyone would want that.

RT: Iran and Turkey brokered a 48 hour ceasefire between the Insurgents, Assad’s army and Hezbollah. How significant is their diplomatic intervention? Could this move be helpful in resolving the crisis long-term?

CS: There is a real effort here to try to breach differences and to look towards. I’m hoping, diplomacy will actually pave the way for a resolution rather than resort to military intervention. That’s the message that is coming out of Iran and Russia as well. They are all trying to calm the situation, defuse it and try to find a way which would be acceptable for everyone. I think that if indeed the fight of IS takes precedence over everything else then there is no reason why a diplomatic solution could not take place.

The problem is until now Washington’s intent on getting rid of the Syrian president, even though it’s not really their business to decide whether the Syrian people should have him as a president or not. It’s really up to the Syrians to decide for themselves. That’s the main problem – we see foreign powers trying to decide what people should do or shouldn’t do in this case.

RT: The US and its allies are stepping up their support for so-called moderate rebel groups. How could that change what’s happening in your country?

CS: Whenever I hear the US or even Britain talking about supporting moderate Islamists in Syria or anywhere else I tend to cringe. Who are those moderates really? We know those moderates are not so moderate after all. Most of the military aid which actually landed in Syria or even in Iraq landed in the hands of the likes of IS and that’s a worry, because what we are seeing is radicalization of the radicals. And whenever you attempt to fuel, by adding more military power to the situation which is already unacceptable and very volatile, you are making the problem worse here. And they are not trying to go after the ideology, what they are trying to do is militarize the ideology of terror which is of course very dangerous and it’s leading people to wonder who it is that they are serving and who it is they are really trying to support and help because the assistance is going to ISIS as far as I can see.

READ MORE: Ousting Assad militarily would enable ISIS to seize Syria – Lavrov

August 13, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dutch Authorities Refuse Access to MH17 Boeing Crash Information

Sputnik – 13.08.2015

The Dutch television news service RTL Nieuws made a Freedom of Information request about the actions of the Dutch government in the aftermath of the Malaysian Airlines crash in Donetsk in July 2014, which was refused by the Ministry of Security and Justice.

A Freedom of Information request for information about the aftermath of the July 2014 Malaysian Airlines Boeing-777 air disaster in Donetsk was refused by the Dutch government, on the grounds that confidentiality is more important, the Dutch television news service RTL Nieuws reported on Wednesday.The news program reported that Minister for Security and Justice Ard Van der Steur replied to the request by saying:

“The simple fact that your Freedom of Information request relates to information about the handling of the MH17 disaster does not give extra weight to the importance of public access.”

In October 2014 RTL Nieuws asked for the disclosure of documents from the cabinet’s ministerial crisis committee, and from the civil service crisis teams dealing with the disaster. In February of this year some redacted documents were released, in response to the request.

The disclosure of further documents was refused by the government, on the grounds that the documents were intended for internal consultation, and contain the personal views of officials and politicians, the release of which could adversely affect the Netherlands’ international relations.In the subsequent objection procedure, RTL Nieuws argued that more documents should be made public, particularly reports of the decisions taken by the ministerial crisis committee, in order to reconstruct the actions of the government in the aftermath of the disaster.

Minister Van der Steur wrote that that request was refused, because the release of information on the decisions of the crisis committee would be “interwoven” with the opinions of officials and politicians.

“For that reason, disclosure of factual information is also refused.”

RTL Nieuws called the decision “very disappointing.”

“We find it unbelievable that the minister is not trying his best to make more information public. Naturally, we understand that not everything can be put into the public domain. But to keep back facts and decisions?” said RTL Nieuws deputy editor Peter Klein.

“We are going to study this decision and see whether there are grounds to pursue the request in court.”

“We believe that all aspects of the political and administrative handling of the disaster must be reconstructed,” Klein said.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crashed in Ukraine’s southeastern Donetsk region on July 17, 2014, when it was on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

All 298 people on board were killed in the disaster, 196 of whom were Dutch citizens.

August 13, 2015 Posted by | Deception | | 2 Comments

No room for anti-Israel commentary in Canadian politics

By Hadani Ditmars | RT | August 13, 2015

It would seem the height of Orwellian doublespeak to eliminate a political candidate for calling a war crime a war crime. And all the more so if you’re a leading member of Canada’s New Democratic Party.

And yet that’s exactly what happened this week when Nova Scotian Morgan Wheeldon, an NDP candidate for the riding of Kings-Hants, was forced to step down when a Conservative troll found a statement on his Facebook page from 2014 calling Israel’s bombardment of Gaza a “war crime.”

I suppose that party brass doesn’t read much Orwell, or UN reports on actual Israeli war crimes in Gaza – but perhaps it should become required reading.

Especially if you set yourself up as the main ‘progressive’ opponent to the ruling Conservative Party, whose leader Stephen Harper carries on what is surely the creepiest political ‘bromance’ with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bar none.

And yet in last week’s televised leaders debates it was clear that while the two parties differ on the controversial Harper backed C-51 ‘anti-terror legislation’ the NDP and the Conservatives were duking it out for the pro-Israel vote. When Harper needled him, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair responded that “Israel has no better friend than the NDP.” It seems he was correct.

The damning out-of-context statement on Wheeldon’s Facebook page in the wake of Israel’s 2014 bombing of Gaza that killed over 2,200 Palestinians was this:

“One could argue that Israel’s intention was always to ethnically cleanse the region — there are direct quotations proving this to be the case. Guess we just sweep that under the rug. A minority of Palestinians are bombing buses in response to what appears to be a calculated effort to commit a war crime.”

While the UN itself has accused Israel of war crimes during ‘Operation Protective Edge’, the NDP cried foul, stating:

“Our position on the conflict in the Middle East is clear, as Tom Mulcair expressed clearly in the debate. Mr. Wheeldon’s comments are not in line with that policy and he is no longer our candidate.”

So that’s that then. Call a war crime a war crime on your personal Facebook page, and there’s no room for you in Canada’s ‘progressive’ party.

What has happened to Canada, and for that matter to the NDP? Their take-no-prisoners approach to criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank has recent precedents, and they all lead back to Thomas Mulcair.

In 2008, Mulcair led a caucus revolt against then leader Jack Layton when he criticized the Harper government’s decision not to participate in the United Nations Conference on Racism on the grounds that its mention of certain Israeli violations of international law was ‘anti-Semitic’.

Mulcair successfully muzzled NDP criticism of the January 2009 Israeli bombardment of Gaza, which killed 1,400 civilians, as well as the subsequent Israeli attack on the Gaza Flotilla, which killed nine.

And in 2010, Mulcair joined forces with the Conservatives and the Liberals in calling for the ouster of long time MP Libby Davies, (who has since resigned from politics) as NDP House Leader after her comments to a journalist that occupation of Palestine had begun in 1948.

While the NDP’s position is more than apparent to keen observers (as author Yves Engler notes, even NDP pioneer Tommy Douglas was an ardent Zionist), it’s odd that Israel has suddenly become an election issue in Canada in the midst of recessionary times.

Is freedom of speech completely dead in Canada? Can no one criticize Israeli war crimes without fear of repercussions?

It would seem that only Elizabeth May, leader of the tiny but scrappy Green Party, is free to speak her mind on foreign policy issues. Her candid comments have helped the Green Party usurp the NDP’s former role of ‘unofficial opposition’ to the ruling Conservatives. And indeed, after Paul Manly was barred from running for the NDP on the grounds that his comments about Israel incarcerating his aging father John Manly (captured with other crew members of a ship bearing aid to besieged Gaza) were of concern to the party executive, he joined the Green Party.

The general mood of muzzling any dissent against Israel would seem at odds with Canada’s allies. Comparing the situation here to say that of the UK – where Labour MP’s were asked to vote in favor of a Palestinian state, the prime minister was forced (via growing public opposition) to resign as patron of the Jewish National Fund and Senior Foreign Office Minister Baroness Sayeeda Warsi chose to resign over the government’s policy on Gaza – makes Canada look backward at best.

In an international context, it would now appear that Canada has the least control of any G7 country over its own foreign policy. Perhaps even less than in the US where tax dollars go more directly to maintaining the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Bizarrely, no matter who wins the upcoming election, Canada’s Middle East policy now seems to be firmly based on Likudist agendas.

Hadani Ditmars has been reporting from Iraq since 1997 and is the author of Dancing in the No Fly Zone. Her next book Ancient Heart is a political travelogue of historical sites in Iraq.www.hadaniditmars.com

August 13, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | 3 Comments

US warns Swiss companies about Iran sanctions

Press TV – August 13, 2015

The United States has cautioned Swiss companies against dealing with Iran until the implementation of the nuclear agreement reached between Tehran and the P5+1 group of countries.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Wednesday that US sanctions against Iran will remain in place until the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verifies the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

His remarks came after the Swiss government announced that it’s going to lift sanctions against Iran on Thursday.

The Swiss government said it wants the decision to be seen as a sign of support for the Iran nuclear agreement reached in Vienna last month.

“This agreement opens up new political and economic prospects with Iran, including bilateral relations,” the government said in a statement.

The decision underscores Switzerland’s “support for the ongoing process to implement the nuclear agreement, and its confidence in the constructive intentions of the negotiating parties,” it said.

The sanctions had been suspended since January 2014 following an interim nuclear deal between Tehran and the P5+1 group of countries – the US, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany.

Other European countries are awaiting the final approval of the conclusion of nuclear talks by Tehran and the P5+1.

The illegal sanctions on Iran were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Tehran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the IAEA, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

August 13, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

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