Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia has repeatedly apologized for his remarks on Israeli settlements, remarks in which he likened settlements popping up all over the West Bank to a termite infestation.
Yet even so, the Zionists are still piling on him.
“The ripple effect continues for U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson a week after the Lithonia Democrat was quoted comparing Jewish settlement policy in the disputed West Bank to termites,” reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution in an article published August 3.
This of course is what passes for US mainstream media coverage of the Palestine-Israel conflict. Tamar Hallerman, the author of the piece, demonstrates what would seem to be a rather pronounced lack of journalistic integrity in her reference to the West Bank as “disputed,” rather than occupied. The word “disputed” has for years been a hasbara talking point. The West Bank is viewed by virtually the entire world as rightfully belonging to the Palestinians and regarded as a vital ingredient to implementation of the so-called two-state solution.
And as such, the settlements are regarded as illegal under international law–something which Hallerman also fails to mention in her report. Virtually no one, other than Zionists and media flunkies like Hallerman, refer to the West Bank as “disputed.” The proper term is “occupied.”
At any rate, the main focus of her article is an editorial “blasting” Johnson which appeared at the Atlanta Jewish Times on Monday and which is quoted extensively.
“The editorial argues that if Johnson wants to receive votes from the pro-Israel community in the future, he’ll need to answer questions about what he was doing speaking at an event sponsored by a pro-Israeli-boycott group in the first place,” Hallerman reports.
“Meanwhile, Johnson’s apology tour continues. He met with the Atlanta chapter of the advocacy group the American Jewish Committee on Tuesday,” she adds.
Don’t you just love the term “apology tour”? It kind of falls into the same category as Philip Weiss’ comment about Jews dominating the American media–“and so what if we do?” It is of course imperative for Jews to try and downplay their political power, yet as we see every so often one or another will succumb to the temptation to boast about it.
So yes, Johnson is on a “tour” visiting various Jews and Jewish organizations, apologizing for his remarks. Here he is in an August 2 meeting with members of the American Jewish Committee, whose website urges visitors to “stop BDS in its tracks” by signing onto a form letter to Congress members:
The letter, by the way, describes BDS as a “virulent movement,” and following his meeting with the group, Johnson tweeted amicably, “Appreciate meeting w/ @AJCGlobal today to open important dialogue — especially w/ #ATL director @DovWilker. Thanks!”
Johnson’s initial remarks about termites were made at an event in Philadelphia on July 25. If you have not read my article, Termites and Israeli Settlers: A US Congressman’s Analogy, you might consider doing so. As I noted, the congressman’s critics seem to have little to say about racist rabbis in Israel who have articulated things far worse and who have even called for the murder of Palestinians.
The editorial at the Atlanta Jewish Times, cited by Hallerman, makes mention of the fact that Johnson holds the same congressional seat once held by Cynthia McKinney, and while the opinion piece seems to give him credit for being less of an “anti-Semite” than his predecessor, it doesn’t seem to cut him much else in the way of slack.
Unlike McKinney, the woman he defeated 10 years ago to win his seat in Congress, Johnson doesn’t hate Jews, many of whom have been crucial supporters, and he doesn’t spout conspiracy theories accusing Jews or Israelis of carrying out false-flag terrorist attacks.
But his attitude toward Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has changed in recent years, and he spoke July 25 as someone who has earned a reputation as a leading congressional critic of Israel.
That day he criticized Israel and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while lamenting the condition of the Palestinians. He portrayed Israelis as the villains and Palestinians as the victims, ignoring Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians, incitement by Palestinian leaders and rocket fire from Gaza.
The editorial doesn’t divulge that Jewish donors hostile to McKinney funded Johnson’s campaign in a deliberate effort to unseat her. This, however, is indeed what took place. So of course the “many Jews” the editorial does allude to, i.e. those who have been Johnson’s “crucial supporters” in the past, obviously have plenty of reason to be irked!
Israeli Apartheid Explained with Humor
“He (Rep. Hank Johnson) portrayed Israelis as the villains and Palestinians as the victims, ignoring Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians, incitement by Palestinian leaders and rocket fire from Gaza.” – Atlanta Jewish Times
Moreover, the specter of McKinney apparently looms rather sinisterly in the anonymous editorial writer’s imagination. “Short of going full Cynthia McKinney, Congressman Hank Johnson couldn’t have done much more to anger the Jewish community than unleash a comparison between termites and Israelis living on the West Bank,” the person writes in what is essentially an unintended tribute to the former Georgia congresswoman.
Thankfully Johnson doesn’t “spout conspiracy theories accusing Jews or Israelis of carrying out false-flag terrorist attacks.” That would certainly be to his detriment and lead to an extended, much-prolonged apology tour–and of course as we all know, Jews don’t celebrate in parking lots while “documenting the event,” take out insurance policies on asbestos-filled buildings, or get themselves appointed to oversee commissions investigating what happened on a day that “changed the world” and that led to a series of wars against Israel’s enemies and a flood of refugees pouring into Europe. Jews don’t do any of these things! So repeat after me: It’s all just a coincidence… just a coincidence… just a coincidence…
The editorial also invokes the Nazis (you wouldn’t expect otherwise), calls Johnson’s termite comment “a particularly vile association,” and quotes one of his more contrite apologies:
“The language I used was not only unacceptable but it was hurtful,” he wrote in a message to constituents. “I deeply regret using this terrible metaphor. It was not only nonconstructive, it was wrong.”
I’m just guessing here, but I suspect a lot of people in Johnson’s congressional district are supporters of the Black Lives Matters movement, and of course a good many activists in that movement have openly expressed solidarity with Palestinians. Could that have anything to do with why Johnson accepted the invitation to speak at the event in Philadelphia?
A number of Johnson’s critics have attacked him not only for his comments about termites, but also for speaking at what they view as an anti-Semitic event. The event at which he spoke was not anti-Semitic, but it has been portrayed as such. “Progressive for Palestine: Is the US Ready to Rethink Policy on Israel?”–this was the title of the program. It was sponsored jointly by the American Friends Service Committee and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. The latter group should change its name to the “US Campaign to End the Israeli Disputation” or else prepare to go on being accused of anti-Semitism. At any rate, the main point I’m making is that not only were Johnson’s words criticized, but the program itself.
“Why was Johnson speaking to such an anti-Israel gathering at all?” asks the Atlanta Jewish Times editorial, in what is perhaps typical of some of the jabs. “That’s the question he must answer if wants to receive any more votes from the pro-Israel community.”
“Any more votes” from a group that makes up roughly two percent of the population is of course of scant consideration. The real question is whether Johnson will undergo savage media attacks in conjunction with buckets of money funneled to the campaign of some possible future opponent. Clearly the congressman has been warned.
UPDATE:
For those who think it worth the effort, an online petition has been started to urge Johnson to “please keep speaking out about West Bank settlements.”
The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – Fourth part of the series titled “9/11 and the Zionist Question” Read the third part here.
Back in 2006 all but a prescient few, such as Christopher Bollyn, perceived it as premature to try to identify and bring to justice the actual perpetrators of the 9/11 crimes. There was still some residue of confidence that responsible officials in government, law enforcement, media and the universities could and would respond in good faith to multiple revelations that great frauds had occurred in interpreting 9/11 for the public.
Accordingly, the main methodology of public intellectuals like Dr. Kevin Barrett or, for instance, Professors David Ray Griffin, Steven E. Jones, Peter Dale Scott, Graeme MacQueen, John McMurtry, Michael Keefer, Richard B. Lee, A.K. Dewdney, Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed, and Michel Chossudovsky, was to marshal evidence demonstrating that the official narrative of 9/11 could not be true.
The marshaling of evidence was spurred on by observations coming from government insiders like Eckehardt Wertherbach, a former head of Germany’s intelligence service. In a meeting in Germany with Christopher Bollyn and Dr. Andreas von Bülow, Wertherbach pointed out that, “an attack of this magnitude and precision would have required years of planning. Such a sophisticated operation would require the fixed frame of a state intelligence organization, something not found in a loose group like the one led by the student Mohammed Atta in Hamburg.”
Andreas von Bülow was a German parliamentarian and Defense Ministry official. He confirmed this assessment in his book on the CIA and 9/11. In the text von Bülow remarked that the execution of the 9/11 plan “would have been unthinkable without backing from secret apparatuses of state and industry.” The author spoke of the “invented story of 19 Muslims working with Osama bin Laden in order the hide the truth” of the real perpetrators’ identity.
In the early years the pioneer researchers and organizers of the 9/11 Truth Movement began the process of marshaling evidence that demonstrated beyond any shadow of doubt that the original narrative of the 9/11 crimes could not be true. From this it followed that the public was entitled to a credible and true explanation, from the responsible authorities, about what really transpired on 9/11. To arrive at this outcome the Bush administration’s now-thoroughly-discredited 9/11 Commission Report, sometimes also known as the Kean-Hamilton report, would have to be put aside.
Released in 2004, the 9/11 Commission Report was drafted primarily by the Commission’s executive director, Philip Zelikow. Zelikow is a history professor who was a well-known political operative active in the Bush White House. Zelikow was a prominent member of the Israeli First network in and around the war cabinet and staff of US President George W. Bush. Zelikow is recognized for his professional expertise in studying, creating and deploying public mythology as a tool for the shaping of public attitudes and behavior.
The chairs of the 9/11 Commission failed to stop Zelikow from drawing on counterfeit evidence obtained illegally through torture. Zelikow deployed this tainted testimony to embed, in the conscious and subconscious minds of the trusting public, the religious fable of 9/11. The 9/11 Commission Report entrenched in public mythology the imagery of demonic Islamic extremists motivated exclusively by their theocratic zealotry.
The new investigation called for by many prominent members of the 9/11 Truth Movement would have to transcend the realm of partisan politics; it would have had to be staffed by neutral parties of high esteem capable of rendering genuine third-party adjudication that goes to the very roots and origins of the 9/11 crime. To this day no such honest investigation has taken place. Meanwhile the citizens’ investigation of 9/11 has continued to bring forward more and more evidence that proves conclusively that from September 11, 2001 until this day, authorities are lying to the public about 9/11 and many related topics. Thus the lies of 9/11 continue to form the basis of public policy, the basis of decisions made everyday about who lives and who dies.
The scope and depth of the citizens’ investigation on 9/11 is hard to fathom in terms of the number of researchers involved, the diversity of specific topics covered, and the array of various types of expert knowledge brought to the project of separating fact from fiction. As one observer has noted, “In the annals of history, no event has ever been so thoroughly dissected by as many disparate humans as the 9/11/01 Massacre.”
Of course the quality of the work being developed in the field of 9/11 studies spans the spectrum from excellent to poor. This variation has resulted in the evolution of improvised versions of peer review that developed among experts both inside and outside the halls of academia. Some, like Noam Chomsky, choose to mock and demean these people’s process of distinguishing empirically demonstrable truth from the lies of corrupt officialdom. Why would Chomsky show such contempt and to what end?
What must always be born in mind is that the citizens’ investigation into 9/11 is first and foremost a public service done because the responsible authorities have failed to do their jobs. The authorities have acted criminally at worst, contrary to the public interest at best. Our compromised and discredited officials have failed almost uniformly to provide citizens with a credible explanation for a major event that has significantly transformed all our lives decidedly for the worse. So far the negative fallout has rained down with particular severity on Muslims. Millions of them have been killed, maimed, poisoned, displaced, and tortured in a series of wars all originating in a specious interpretation of what transpired on 9/11.
There is still no end in sight to the murder and mayhem. The failure to address the crimes of 9/11 with truth rather than with the constant resort to the 9/11 fable has become a major factor in the delegitimization of government. Never has public confidence been lower in our most basic institutions of governance, finance, policing, education, and media of mass communications.
In the decade since 2006 the realization has grown that there is little chance that those in charge of our core institutions would dare press for a genuine investigation to identify the real nature and perpetrators of the 9/11 crimes. The elaborate 9/11 operation itself and the subsequent cover up implicate too many powerful agencies, groups and individuals.
Understanding the deep corruption permeating the system over which the 9/11 culprits still rule, is changing the attitudes of many of those who have taken the time to study 9/11 for themselves. Given the unwillingness of officialdom to protect the public interest, those leading the citizens’ investigation into 9/11 are increasingly inclined to name and shame the most credibly accused suspects who so far have been able to evade accountability by framing, blaming, manipulating and smearing Muslims.
A recent illustration of the depth of this scam is exposed in the machinations of the kangaroo court at the US concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Along with four supporting actors, the supposed “mastermind of 9/11,” the oft tortured Khalid Sheik Mohammed, is subject to the travesty of a psychological operation going forward under the guise of a legal proceeding.
The Guantanamo Military Commission has been ordered to direct ultimate blame for the 9/11 debacle on a manipulated cast of patsies performing parodies of Islamic extremism. This farce of litigation, this betrayal of due process, forms a telling illustration of the degradation of our criminal justice systems. Like many other institutions essential to the survival of free and democratic societies, our criminal justice systems are being trashed to protect the real culprits responsible for the lies and crimes of 9/11.
Prominent among those that should be put on trial, including for the 9/11 cover up, are Michael Chertoff, Larry Silverstein, Dov Zakheim, Richard Perle, Benjamin Netanyahu, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, Douglas Feith, Shalom Yoran, Arnon Milchan, Jules Kroll, Philip Zelikow, Ash Carter, Robert Gates, Ronald Lauder, William Kristol, Judge Alvin Hellerstein, Judge Michael Mukasey, Jonathan Kay, Michael Shermer, David Frum, Karl Rove, General Richard Myers, David Aaronovitch, Rupert Murdoch, Rita Katz, Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, Pam Geller, Robert Spencer, Paul Godfrey, and, as we shall see, Noam Chomsky.
As years pass, the 9/11 cover up is becoming the central element of the 9/11 crime. The logistics of the cover up involve the manipulation of the mainstream media and other strategic institutions including our courts, schools and universities. As Howard Baker observed when reflecting on the abbreviated presidency of Richard Nixon, “it is almost always the cover up rather than the event that causes trouble.” It is difficult to fathom the enormity of the enterprise of keeping alive the absurd Islamophobia-inducing fable of 9/11, let alone the smaller scale sequels of false flag terror events required to keep large portions of the public in constant states of fear, confusion, uncertainty, disorientation and angst.
You will read “A Classic Hoax of Homeric Proportions” in the next part.
Five U.S. citizens were denied entry to Israel after 18 hours of being detained and interrogated by Israeli border police regarding their backgrounds, political tendencies and personal relationships, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation said this week.
The incident, which occurred July 17 but was not publicly revealed until Tuesday, is the latest case of U.S. citizens being profiled and denied entry to Israel based on the color of their skin and their background in pro-Palestine activism.
“After repeatedly asking why I was being yelled at, handcuffed, and threatened with force, I was never given any explanation for the treatment I received,” a 26-year old U.S. citizen of South Asian descent, who asked not to be named, said in a press release.
“In fact, I was told that they did not owe me an explanation, and that any rights I had as a U.S. citizen were invalid under Israeli law. The only thing made clear during the 18-hour ordeal was that their dehumanization of me was based on a ‘hunch’ rooted in nothing more than my name and ethnic background.”
The young U.S. activists were attempting to enter Israel and go to Palestine to observe the conflict on the ground and gain a better understanding of the conditions Palestinians live under amid the Israeli occupation.
“One of the delegates, Bina Ahmad, a New York City public defender and former vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, was denied entry to the country and given no reason why, then transferred to a filthy cell without knowing how long she would be held,” the statement added.
Commenting on the incident, Ahmad said she was “outraged” at what Israel did to her and her colleagues, noting such actions were unlawful.
“The deportation of a majority Muslim and people of color group is an example of how Israel engages in Islamophobia and racism, and silences debate by preventing the world from hearing the testimony of those who bear witness to the plight of Palestinians,” she said in the press release.
Describing their experience at the Israeli airport as “terrifying,” the statement added that female delegates who were detained were “asked irrelevant and intrusive questions about their personal relationships, and were held for as long as 18 hours.”
After long hours in filthy cells and interrogations for merely attempting to enter a country with which the United States has a visa waiver program, all five delegates were put on flights back to the U.S. Some were also slapped with travel bans that bar them from entering Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories for the next 10 years.
The delegates’ own government was also of no help, as calls to the U.S. Consulate’s Citizen Services resulted in no assistance. “Some officials made comments indicating they had no power over the treatment of U.S. citizens held at the airport despite visa agreements between Israel and the United States,” the statement said.
The repeated abuse of U.S. citizens of Palestinian or Middle Eastern origins has prompted the U.S. State Department to issue a travel warning for Israel that reads: “Some U.S. citizens of Arab or Muslim heritage not on the Palestinian Population Registry or otherwise prohibited from entering Israel have experienced significant difficulties and unequal and hostile treatment at Israel’s borders and checkpoints.”
US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is enjoying financial support from a growing list of American billionaires who oppose Republican nominee Donald Trump.
According to a recent report by Fox News, the former secretary of state’s presidential campaign has so far received more than $42.5 million in donations from a total of 24 billionaires.
So far, movie producers Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, financiers Warren Buffett and George Soros, and Walmart heiress Alice Walton have all made contributions to the former first lady’s campaign.
Media mogul Oprah Winfrey has also thrown her weight behind Clinton. Haim Saban is another media magnate that will support Clinton in the battle against Trump.
Billionaire environmentalist Thomas Steyer joined the list and endorsed Clinton in early June.
Some of the multimillionaires have donated millions to a top Clinton superPAC named Priorities USA Action.
Saban ($10 million), Soros ($7 million), hedge fund billionaire James Simons ($7 million), Hyatt Hotel heir J.B. Pritzker and his wife Mary Kathryn Pritzker ($6.5 million), Slim-Fast founder S. Daniel Abraham ($3 million), Hedge fund billionaire David Shaw ($2.25 million), investors Jon and Pat Stryker ($1.5 million each), Spielberg ($1 million), Legendary Entertainment founder and CEO Thomas Tull ($1 million), and the list goes on.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg are some of the other major figures who are siding with Clinton.
In addition to the pro-Clinton billionaires, some of the Republican-leaning tycoons have announced that that they will not support Trump as the party nominee.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman, for instance, has joined industrial power-brokers Charles and David Koch in withdrawing support from fellow GOP billionaire Trump.
Whitman has pushed the envelope even further by stating that she will endorse and help fund Clinton.
In addition to Priorities USA Action, million have been paid to other Clinton funds Hillary for America and Hillary Victory Fun. Pro-Clinton such as PACs American Bridge 21st Century, Priorities USA Action 2016 and Correct the Record have also received huge donations.
Israeli occupation authorities continue to prevent the entry of 400 commodities into the Gaza Strip, a senior Palestinian official said yesterday.
Maher Al-Tabbaa, is a senior official in Gaza’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce, said Israeli occupation authorities had tightened measures against Palestinian traders, companies and businessmen.
These remarks came a day after occupation authorities said they had facilitated the movement of goods and commodities into the Gaza Strip.
Speaking to QudsNet, Al-Tabbaa said: “Israel bans all chemical raw materials needed for the industrial sector, cleaning materials, sponges, paints, welding skewers and other materials needed for making furniture.”
He noted that Israel had tightened its restrictions by withdrawing more than 1,500 travel permits from traders and businessmen.
It is still controlling the entry of cement and construction materials, he explained, paralysing the construction industry.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has authorized the B61-12 warhead life-extension program (LEP) to enter the production-engineering phase – the final one prior to actual production.
Established by Congress in 2000, the NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy. While the Defense Department manages the delivery systems of the nuclear force, the agency has oversight over the development, maintenance and disposal of nuclear warheads.
The first production unit of the weapon is planned for fiscal year 2020. The LEP – a joint NNSA and United States Air Force (USAF) program – will add at least an additional 20 years to the life of the system.
The decision is part of the plan to modernize the US nuclear forces, which could cost $350-$450 billion over the next decade.
The $8 billion B61-12 LEP is probably the most expensive nuclear bomb program in US history.
On July 29, the Air Force released requests for proposals for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), which replaces the 1960s-era Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the Long Range Standoff (LRSO) weapon, which will replace the AGM-86B Air Launched Cruise Missile.
It comes at a time when members of Congress have begun to question the modernization plan, in particular over the LRSO.
Both programs have come under fire from lawmakers and analysts who assert that the weapons are too costly, duplicative and could add to global instability.
The B61-12 LEP refurbishes both nuclear and non-nuclear components to extend the bomb’s service life while significantly improving the weapon’s characteristics. The modernization includes a new tail fin assembly for greater accuracy and would allow a lower nuclear yield in attacking targets. The B61-12 will have both air- and ground-burst capability. The capability to penetrate below the surface has significant implications for the types of targets that can be held at risk with the bomb.
A nuclear weapon that detonates after penetrating the earth more efficiently transmits its explosive energy to the ground, thus is more effective at destroying deeply buried targets for a given nuclear yield. The B61-12 is designed to have four selectable explosive yields: 0.3 kilotons (kt), 1.5 kt, 10 kt and 50 kt. According to the US National Academies’ study, the maximum destructive potential of the B61-12 against underground targets is equivalent to the capability of a surface-burst weapon with a yield of 750 kt to 1,250 kt.
The yield can be lowered as needed for any particular mission. In fact, the bomb’s explosive force can be reduced electronically through a dial-a-yield system accessed by a hatch on the bomb’s body.
Even at the lowest selective yield setting of only 0.3 kt, the ground-shock coupling of a B61-12 exploding a few meters underground would be equivalent to a surface-burst weapon with a yield of 4.5 kt to 7.5 kt.
Existing US nuclear bombs have circular error probabilities (CEP) of between 110-170 meters. The B61-12’s CEP is just 30 meters.
A combination of its accuracy and low-yield makes the B61-12 the most dangerous nuclear warhead in America’s arsenal.
The smaller yields and better targeting can make the arms more tempting to use – even to use first, rather than in retaliation, knowing the radioactive fallout and collateral damage would be limited.
The B61-12 will initially be integrated with B-2, F-15E, F-16, and Tornado aircraft. From the 2020s, the weapon will also be integrated with, first, the F-35A bomber-fighter F-35, built on the technology of «stealth» (replacing the F-16) and later the LRS-B next-generation long-range bomber. The combination of a guided standoff nuclear bomb and a fifth-generation stealthy fighter-bomber will significantly enhance the military capability of NATO’s nuclear posture in Europe. The B61-12 will replace the existing B61-3, -4, -7, and -10 bomb designs. It is thought that approximately 480 B61-12s will be produced through the mid-2020s.
The implementation of the program runs contrary to President Obama’s stated pledge not to create any new nuclear weapons or ones with new military capabilities.
«The United States will not develop new nuclear warheads or pursue new military mission or new capabilities for nuclear weapons», he said on the release of Nuclear Posture Review, which, in turn, reads, «The United States will not develop new nuclear warheads. Life Extension Programs (LEPs) will use only nuclear components based on previously tested designs, and will not support new military missions or provide for new military capabilities».
American leading experts believe it to be nothing else but a new weapon.
Currently around 200 B61 bombs are deployed in underground vaults inside around 90 protective aircraft shelters at six bases in five NATO countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey). About half of the munitions are earmarked for delivery by national aircraft of these non-nuclear states, although they all are parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968.
Article I of the treaty prohibits the transfer of nuclear weapons from nuclear-weapons states to other countries. Its Article II requires non-nuclear weapons states not to receive nuclear weapons.
Engaged in this nuclear sharing activity which completely destroyed the spirit of the treaty, the US and its NATO allies have no moral authority to convince other countries not to proliferate.
The shared deployment of these weapons is in large part designed to lock NATO allies into a nuclear weapon posture and weakens the credibility of their claims in international disarmament negotiations to be working towards disarmament.
The modernization of the US nuclear tactical weapons competes with resources needed for more important conventional forces and operations. Conventional forces are much more credible than tactical nuclear weapons in the fight against terrorists.
Deployment of B61-12 in Europe is comparable to a time bomb which may one day explode. The decision will inevitably spike tensions in the already strained relationship between NATO and Russia.
Moscow has already called the B61 program «irresponsible» and «openly provocative».
Russia considers US forward-based tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe to be an addition to the US strategic arsenal that is capable of striking deep into its territory. It will greatly complicate further arms control efforts with New Start Treaty expiring in 2021. The withdrawal of these weapons is a prerequisite for starting talks on reduction of tactical nuclear weapons. The US decision to implement the LEP makes such prospects dim at least.
NATO members to host the new weapon on their soil should realize that the move will automatically make them targets for possible pre-emptive or retaliatory attack. Countries that host foreign nuclear weapons don’t enhance their security. Withdrawing nuclear munitions would be a serious contribution to strategic stability and security in Europe.
If it had not already been apparent, the net effect of the DNC email hack has been to kick open the door to a deep American antagonism towards Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In what has become an old fashioned American pile-on, President Barack Obama, Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party and what seems the entire political establishment as well as the MSM, have united to undermine Putin as if to prime the American public for war with Russia.
War is, after all, more successful when the people have been thoroughly programmed. For instance, for a war-weary American public ‘we are bombing civilians out of a humanitarian necessity’ may work well. If necessary, a little hysteria wouldn’t hurt but most of all, a necessary requirement is to efficiently tutor the public consciousness to despise the adversary. In this case, Clinton has identified Putin as the adversary and that he is one evil reincarnation of Adolf Hitler.
Among media outlets, Politico, once considered a ‘liberal’ magazine ran “Inside’s Putin’s Information War” whose author has found a lucrative book deal on the subject and yes, this is the same Politico that requested DNC permission to publish re the Sanders/Clinton primary. The Times of London joined the effort to demonize Putin with several anti Russian articles over the weekend including “Putin’s Information War” which ran on July 30th followed by “Inside Putin’s Info War on America” in the Wall Street Journal on July 31st. Keep your eyes peeled as the “Putin Info War” concept is sure to catch on.
As part of the effort to synchronize public antipathy to an appropriately belligerent level, the Associated Press recently published an article for wide distribution entitled “Clinton v. Putin: Russian television shows what Kremlin thinks of her.” Perhaps the AP presumed to rouse the American public in defense of Hillary Clinton.
The first paragraph began with the admission that Clinton’s entire acceptance speech had been broadcast live on nationwide television in Russia. If anyone yearns for the day when a Putin speech will be broadcast across American television, forgetaboutit. A good guess is that the intellectually-lazy American public including many liberals who have forgotten how to think, would not make the effort to inform themselves of world events.
Thereafter, the AP article followed with a series of assertions that dazzled the reader with its irony such as:
“Viewers were told that Clinton sees Russia as an enemy and cannot be trusted” and “the Democratic convention was portrayed as proof that American democracy is a sham.” The story added that Channel One introduced Clinton “as a politician who puts herself above the law, who is ready to win at any cost and who is ready to change her principles depending on the political situation.”
If the AP reporter wrote with the intention that the American public would rise up en masse and demand satisfaction; how unfair of those Russkies to write like that about our Gal Hill – that reporter was dead wrong.
What the reporter did not mention was that a significant number of Americans, including some of those who plan to hold their collective noses while voting for Clinton in sheer terror of Trump, agree with those quotes. What the reporter did not mention was that the Sanders and Trump campaigns have been largely based on those sentiments giving Clinton an unexpected run for the money which explains why she has had to pull out all the stops to beat Trump, a candidate who, by any standard, should have been a piece of cake.
Giving a wink and a nod to the MSM, Clinton formalized her accusations on Sunday Fox News that “Russian intelligence” was responsible for the DNC hacking and linked her opponent Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin.
Using the DNC hack issue as an opportunity to further hammer on Putin, Clinton asserted during the Fox interview that “we KNOW that Russian intelligence services hacked into the DNC and we KNOW that they arranged for a lot of those emails to be released and we KNOW that Donald Trump has shown a very troubling willingness to back up Putin, to support Putin.”
A good follow up by an engaged journalist might have been what does Clinton know, how does she know it and when did she know it? If the proof exists, why the reluctance to provide specifics to the American public – but that might require initiative, transparency and some candor? While challenging Trump on his commitment to the Constitution (who clearly could use an Intro 101 class), wasn’t Clinton trained, as an attorney, to understand that evidence comes before the accusation?
This is not the first time that Clinton has personally attacked Putin. In March, 2014 before a University of California audience, she said he was “thin-skinned,” was trying to “re-sovietize Europe while threatening instability and the peace of Europe.” In citing “Russian aggression,” she is smart enough to know the difference between protecting ethnic Russians who have centuries of deep cultural roots in Ukraine and Crimea as compared to Hitler’s invasions of eastern Europe.
An impartial observer can only assume Clinton has knowingly skewed the chronology of events in the Ukraine which began with the US-initiated overthrow of a democratically elected President on February 22, 2014; followed by an overwhelming vote on March 16th by Crimean citizens to reunite with Russia which was then followed by the legal annexation of the Crimean peninsula to Russia on March 18th. What is so difficult to understand?
Thanks to Clinton’s repetitive disinformation campaign, accusations of ‘Russian aggression’ are now widespread; repeated without regard to the evidence throughout the mainstream media and by Members of Congress, many of whom choose to remain uninformed.
Back to the Fox interview, she could not resist adding, with mock indignation, that “I think laying out the facts raises serious issues about Russian interference in our elections, in our democracy.” And as if the rest of us were asleep at the wheel and could not distinguish fact from fiction, she further added that “For Trump to both encourage that and to praise Putin despite what appears to be a deliberate effort to try to affect the election I think raises national security issues.”
Does she not see that ‘interference in our elections, in our democracy’ is exactly what the DNC did to the Bernie Sanders campaign?
And has no bright eyed, eager beaver staff person yet pointed out to Clinton that if Russia and Putin had been intent on disrupting the American presidential election, why wouldn’t they have gone after Clinton’s ‘classified’ State Department emails on her personal server that were subject to an FBI investigation and with the potential of criminal charges? Then again, an educated assumption might be that Russian intelligence does have those emails in their possession. Now there’s a real national security issue.
In her eagerness to further aggravate US – Russian relations, apparently Clinton is not only unfamiliar with the State Department’s Foreign Service Protocol for the Modern Diplomat guidelines for rules and process of diplomatic protocol (or perhaps it does not apply to her), but it appears she did not receive the memo from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper.
Responding to the DNC-Russian furor in a more blasé and introspective manner than might be expected, Clapper stepped in as a calm voice of reason stating that he was “somewhat taken aback by the hyperventilation on this” and that the US was in “reactionary mode” regarding cyber-attacks. Clapper further indicated he was ‘not ready’ to identify Russia as the hacker “I don’t think we are quite ready yet to make a call on attribution.”
Interestingly, Clapper commented that “cyber warfare is not terribly different than what went on during the Cold War” suggesting that it is “just a different modality.” He further suggested that the American people ‘need to accept’ and ‘become more resilient’ since cyber threats are a major long term challenge. Americans should “not be quite so excitable when we have yet another instance.” Hmm… wonder to whom he was referring.
In other words, we spy on them, they spy on us – all’s fair in love and war and that there is a certain level of honor among (cyber) thieves.
An astonishing piece appeared in the New York Times (NYT) recently. It reported a fierce bias in the Times’s coverage of politics and current affairs, most notably when it comes to Donald Trump. The bias turns up not just in the opinion pages but in the News, reports Liz Spayd, the new “public editor,” a position once called the ombudsman.
But the surprise does not end there. Spayd’s report is based on letters from liberal readers, which are filling her inbox to overflowing. Here are some examples that she cites:
“You’ve lost a subscriber because of your relentless bias against Trump — and I’m not even a Republican,” writes an Arizonan.
“I never thought I’d see the day when I, as a liberal, would start getting so frustrated with the one-sided reporting that I would start hopping over to the Fox News webpage to read an article and get the rest of the story that the NYT refused to publish,” writes a woman from California.
“The NY Times is alienating its independent and open-minded readers, and in doing so, limiting the reach of their message and its possible influence,” writes a Manhattanite.
Since these examples are all letters from liberals, the public editor comments:
“You can imagine what the letters from actual conservatives sound like….
“Emails like these stream into this office every day. A perception that The Times is biased prompts some of the most frequent complaints from readers. Only they arrive so frequently, and have for so long, that the objections no longer land with much heft.”
Of course, this is nothing new for the Times. The bias in favor of the latest project of the American Imperium has been true for my entire lifetime. But it used to be subtler, and it used to include some real information, albeit buried away somewhere deep within an article. Noam Chomsky was once fond of reminding us that it was better to read the Times articles backwards, because some truth was buried in the last couple paragraphs.
But in the last few decades since the end of the Cold War and the rise of NATO Expansion and American Exceptionalism in the Clinton “co-presidency,” the situation has grown much worse. The age of American Triumphalism has caused more rot in the mainstream media. Not only with the Times but with other major outlets like the Washington Post, the Wall St. Journal and National Public Radio.
A striking example occurred when the Times lent its front page to a fabricated and now thoroughly discredited story by Judith Miller and Michael Gordon in September, 2002 claiming that Iraq had WMD.
That was just weeks before Congress took a vote to “authorize” George W. Bush to launch an invasion of Iraq. I still recall the day I looked at that article and thought it was fact free and source free and that any decent editor would turn it back. It was clear at that moment that the fix was in and that we were on our way to a war which our Elite had decided upon. (Judith Miller eventually was the sacrificial lamb when that story and its origins in Dick Cheney’s office became known. But the co-author, Michael R. Gordon, continues as the “chief military correspondent” for the Times, and the editors in charge have never been punished.)
It seems that the situation has got worse with the rise of Trump who endangers the Imperium’s quest for world domination by seeking to “get along” with Russia and China. Once Trump took that stance, the vitriol and vituperation became a daily feature in the Times. Indeed their columnist Timothy Egan seems to write about little else these days. Only Maureen Dowd provides occasional timid relief, daring to point out that Trump “talks to the press,” a dig at Hillary who does not. (Clinton has not had so much as a single press conference in almost a year.)
I know that many Times readers now seek out Fox, just like the letter writer quoted above. And many also turn to Breitbart and the Drudge Report as well as RT and China Daily. Even when the Times reports some actual facts, it reports only selected ones (A half truth is a full lie.) or buries them in a narrative that neutralizes them.
More Times readers should recognize that they are being taken for a ride. And they should stop being so damned cocksure and snooty about their “knowledge.” They often look more foolish than they might think.
For makers of the swine flu vaccine, 2009 was a year to remember. By June, CSL Limited’s annual profits had risen 63 percent over 2008. GlaxoSmithKine’s 2009 earnings spiked 30 percent in the third quarter alone, to $2.19 billion. Roche made a stunning 12 times more in the second quarter of 2009 than of 2008. But in 2010, drug companies may get their comeuppance.
On Tuesday, the Council of Europe launched an investigation into whether the World Health Organization “faked” the swine flu pandemic to boost profits for vaccine manufacturers. The inquiry, held in Strasbourg, France, vindicates a worldwide movement of insiders, experts, and elected officials who accuse the United Nations organization of misleading the world into buying millions of unnecessary vaccines.
“I have never heard such a worldwide echo to a health political action,” Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, an epidemiologist who formerly led the health committee for the Council of Europe, said at Tuesday’s hearing.
Dr. Ulrich Keil, director of the WHO’s Collaborating Centre for Epidemiology, hammered his own organization and WHO’s flu chief, Dr Keiji Fukuda, for “producing angst campaigns”.
“With SARS, with avian flu, always the predictions are wrong…Why don’t we learn from history?” Keil said. “It [swine flu] produced a lot of turmoil in the pubic and was completely exaggerated in contrast with all the really important matters we have to deal with in public health.” … continue
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