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Welcome To Post-Coup Brazil, Where Jews and “Christian” Zionists Run Wild

By Jonathan Azaziah | Mouqawama | September 8, 2016

It’s only been a few weeks since the Zionist coup in Brazil and a Judaized shift in the Latin American powerhouse and BRICS stalwart is already unfolding. Michel Temer, the putschist who seized power from Dilma Rousseff, is known as a “friend of the Brazilian Jewish community”, and this “righteous Gentile” (as the ‘Israelis’ like to call all their puppets) has already appointed another “friend of the Brazilian Jewish community”, Jose Serra, as Brazil’s foreign minister. It has also been revealed that the Coupmonger-In-Chief worked closely with Fernando Lottenberg, the president of the Brazilian Israelite Confederation, on raising awareness (read: brainwashing) among Brazilians about “Holocaust Remembrance Day” as well as passing Zionized “anti-terrorism” legislation that will undoubtedly have an Orwellian effect on Brazil’s citizenry.

Temer has also opened the doors to the “Christian” Zionist scourge that has infected much of America, as well as other Western nations–albeit to a lesser extent–like Canada, the UK and Australia. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), led by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, arrived in Brazil mere days after Rousseff’s overthrow and just concluded its trip 24 hours ago. Rabbi Eckstein’s gang  was on a mission to turn every major “mega-church” in Brazil into even stronger supporters of the usurping Zionist entity for the “cause” of combating “anti-Semitism”. The good “rebbe” and Temer aren’t strangers and thus, this entire event should be looked at not just as a consequence of the Zionist coup against the Workers’ Party (PT), but part and parcel of it. Furthermore, Rabbi Eckstein’s subversive visit should be seen in the greater context of “Christian” Zionist penetration into Brazil and Latin America as a whole.

Brazil, which was once a hotbed of Christian Liberation Theology led by revolutionary luminaries such as Leonardo Boff, is now spiraling into a bottomless pit of “Christian” Zionist hell and has been so since 1977 when the Universal Church–an ultra-Freemasonic institution right down to its reconstruction of Solomon’s Temple–came into being.  And let there be no doubt that this “Christian” Zionism is a byproduct of the utterly devilish Rockefeller-financed Wycliffe Bible Translators and the CIA which have worked hand-in-hand from the “Christian” Zionist outfit’s beginnings in 1942 to evangelize the Catholics of Latin America, with a special focus on Brazil, using the satanic Scofield Reference Bible.

It should be noted for the record that the Freemasonic Universal Church and other like-similar institutions were welcomed by the Brazilian military dictatorship as a counterweight to the Christian Liberation Theologians, who, despite being tortured, killed and disappeared, remained a formidable anti-Imperialist opposition current until the end of the coup regime. And how can we forget that the US-‘Israeli’-backed tyranny that did all of this murdering and maiming would never have attained power if it wasn’t for the Zionist Jew Harold Geneen, who was deathly afraid of losing his multinational ITT telecom giant to democratically-elected Brazilian President João Goulart in a wave of nationalizations.  So the Zionist Jew simply called his “shabbos goy” friend CIA Director John McCone, gave him all-access to ITT’s resources and then the CIA used this new, incredibly useful instrument to push forward with the coup full throttle, ultimately deposing Goulart in 1964. It was International Jewry that crushed Brazil’s first attempt at nationalist-socialism, and it was International Jewry that crushed Brazil’s new experiment in nationalist-socialism exemplified by Dilma Rousseff and her Workers’ Party.

Quite possibly NOTHING encapsulates this entire sad affair like BreakingIsraelNews, a known gateway for Zionist propaganda, which called the illegal ouster of Dilma Rousseff “karma” for her anti-‘Israeli’ posturing and quoted a verse from the genocidal, Jewish supremacist book of Deuteronomy to drive its pro-coup point home even further. The arrogance of World Zionism is indeed boundless and this hubris is certainly driving its offensive throughout Latin America. It’s not just Brazil. Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a former World Bank economist whose Jewish roots and strong ties to numerous international banks and investment firms (read: the Rothschild Octopus) make him a prime mover and shaker for the Zionist project in the region, is about to take over Peru. Argentina, once run by the fiery anti-globalist Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, is now a pro-US, pro-‘Israel’ neoliberal nightmare run by neocon Mauricio Macri. And Venezuela, home of the Bolivarian Revolution, is once again in the throes of a coup as US-Zionist-aligned oligarchs wage economic war on Caracas through the deliberate creation of food shortages and other forms of destabilizing malice. The homeland of Hugo Chavez (RIP) has long been a target of ‘Israel’–he said so himself–for El Comandante fought the Jewish New World Order tooth and nail, and considering the above-mentioned pomposity of these bloodthirsty “chosenite”  coupmongers, it’s a safe bet to assume they are going to continue their efforts to crush the Bolivarian phenomenon permanently.

If Brazil and Venezuela are to survive this dark, dark period, the peoples of these respective great nations must come to terms with the simple fact that it is not merely “Imperialism” which is seeking to destroy their nationalist-socialisms and impose economic neoliberalism on their societies, but International Jewry’s ZIO-IMPERIALISM which is seeking to impose TOTAL neoliberalism on their societies in the political, financial, cultural and even spiritual sectors, hence the blatant “Christian” Zionist surge as of recent. Resistance on all fronts is the only antidote to this growing poisonous trend, and if it is not fiercely engaged in, as Venezuelan President and Chavez successor Nicolas Maduro is desperately attempting to do now, then the darkness is not only going to continue, but worsen to levels not seen since Guatemala in ’54, Brazil in ’64, Chile in ’73, Argentina in ’76 and in more recent times, Honduras in ’09, ALL PUT TOGETHER. Our full solidarity with the Latin American peoples in the face of Empire Judaica’s storm.

September 8, 2016 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

‘People coming together’: Seattle Seahawks mull BLM-inspired team protest during national anthem

RT | September 8, 2016

At least some members of the American football franchise plan to follow the example of Colin Kaepernick and stage a protest against police brutality during the national anthem, at the upcoming Week 1 game in Seattle.

“Anything we want to do, it’s not going to be individual. It’s going to be a team thing. That’s what the world needs to see. The world needs to see people coming together versus being individuals,” starting linebacker Bobby Wagner told the Seattle Times on Wednesday evening.

Wagner did not specify what form the protest would take, saying only that “whatever we decide to do will be a big surprise.”

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick kickstarted a movement among athletes when he sat down during the national anthem during a preseason game last month, later explaining that he was “not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” Kaepernick says that he plans to continue with the protest for the foreseeable future.

Seahawks cornerback Jeremy Lane has followed his example, and receiver Doug Baldwin said that players discussed becoming part of the protests in the locker room, but he wanted to “get all of [his] ducks in a row” before taking a decision that is bound to become a magnet for controversy.

The previous protests, one of which was carried out by white female soccer player Megan Rapinoe, have been dismissed as inflammatory and unpatriotic, and the accusations are bound to be even more intense on Sunday, September 11, when the country will be commemorating the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans.

“I think it’s very ironic to me that 15 years ago on September 11 was one of the most devastating times in US history and after that day we were probably the most unified that we have ever been. And today we struggle to see the unity. And it’s very ironic to me that this date is coming up,” Baldwin said.

“So it’s going to be a special day, a very significant day, but at the same time I am looking forward to the may changes and differences, the changes we can make in this country to make better changes in our country.”

The team, which won the Super Bowl in 2014, has been given carte blanche to express their feelings by coach Pete Carroll, who is regarded as being liberal by the media.

“He’s pretty clear on what he did and what he was trying to express and I think it is very simple and so we’ll leave that up to him,” Carroll said, referring to Lane.

Carroll, 64, said he did “not specifically” consider that symbolic significance of September 11, when considering his decision.

Several other major league coaches, such as John Tortorella, who coaches the US national hockey team, and the Columbus Blue Jackets, stated that he would bench any player who made overt political statements during the anthem.

But Seattle players said they would be going ahead with their intentions regardless of reactions from coaches or other team or league officials.

“We have the freedom to do whatever we want here. Whatever we decide to do, we ain’t gonna get into too much trouble. We’re big kids now,” said Wagner.

Shaun King, one of the founders of the Black Lives Matters movement, has called on more players to join the public displays, saying many have expressed a wish to join, mixed with fear about being black listed from the NFL for their political activism.

“The league has 1,696 players. If just 100 of you took a knee during the “Star-Spangled Banner,” it would instantly become one of the largest social protests in sports history,” wrote King in his New York Daily News column.

“Over the past two weeks, every sports network in America has started discussing injustice and police brutality. You have the power to take that to a whole different level.”

An estimated 804 people of all races have been killed by the police since the start of 2016, after 1,207 who died last year. Black Lives Matters says that over 100 of last year’s victims were unarmed blacks, who shouldn’t have lost their lives during their detention.

September 8, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | 1 Comment

Exposing US-Funded “NGOs”

From Moscow to Myanmar, US-European funded organisations undermine the essential work of genuine NGOs

The New Atlas | August 9, 2016

A nongovernmental organisation (NGO) is described as a not-for-profit organisation independent from states and international governments. They are funded by donations and facilitated by volunteers drawn from the communities they serve.

Genuine NGOs fitting this description fulfil a vital role within the nations they work regarding issues including education, healthcare, the media, the environment, technology, and economic development.

They often perform their work in parallel with government organisations and may even cooperate with their national government. At other times, they provide a necessary but constructive check and balance to deficiencies present within a state.

However, NGOs can be abused. Foreign governments and financially motivated special interests can use the structure and appeal of NGOs as vectors to project unwarranted, coercive power and influence.

Funded not by the communities they claim to serve, but by these foreign interests, they often operate under the pretext of upholding the legitimate  roles and responsibilities of genuine NGOs while in reality undermining a targeted nation’s government, its people, its institutions, and national peace and stability. Ironically, such organisations also undermine the perceived legitimacy and effectiveness of real NGOs.

Foreign interests seek to do this for a number of reasons including pressuring a targeted government to make concessions regarding bilateral relations, competing with and eventually overrunning state institutions, and even replacing a nation’s entire government.

How the US State Department Took Over Myanmar’s Ministry of Information 

An extreme example of this can be seen in Southeast Asia’s Myanmar, where the Ministry of Information is now firmly under the control of Pe Myint, trained in “journalism” by a US government-funded organisation posing as an NGO, called the Indochina Media Memorial Foundation.

Pe Myint is also a member of a political party supported by a large collection of US and British funded organisations (National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Open Society, USAID, etc.), which in turn was propelled into power during recent elections also influenced heavily by organisations posing as NGOs funded by these same foreign interests.

Previously an independent institution of Myanmar, the Ministry of Information is now firmly under the influence of the US State Department. This may explain uncharacteristic comments regarding “substandard democracy” published by a national newspaper it controls directed at neighbouring Thailand ahead of the August 7, 2016 Thai referendum.

Henceforth, the Ministry has been made to serve the best interests of the United States, not Myanmar, indicated by the fact that its recent comments only risk jeopardising what would otherwise be constructive and beneficial bilateral relations with Thailand.

In this example, foreign-funded organisations not only pressured the government of Myanmar to accept the conditions in which a foreign-backed opposition came to power, but these foreign-funded organisations also helped create an entirely parallel government that are now overwriting Myanmar’s sovereignty.

Recognise the Threat

These foreign-funded organisations masquerading as NGOs are more than just foreign-funded “charities,” “rights advocates,” or “media platforms.” This can be discerned simply by examining the intermediary organisations providing these groups money and examining the special interests and agendas they in turn serve.

The United State National Endowment for Democracy (NED) for example, lists among its 2013 sponsors (.pdf) petrochemical giant Chevron, Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs, US State Department-connected and privacy usurping tech-giant Google and the US Chamber of Commerce which itself represents corporations ranging from defence contractors to oil companies to banks, as well as agricultural and pharmaceutical giants. Individual donors include pro-war Republican politicians including Frank Carlucci, Paula Dobriansky, Condoleezza Rice and Robert Zoellick.

(It would be exponentially more difficult for foreign funded organisatons posing as NGOs to attract volunteers and local support if the true nature of their funding was transparently and repeatedly disclosed to the communities they allegedly serve.)

NED’s board of directors represents a similar and troubling convergence of special interests who directly contradict the alleged purpose of both NED itself, and the many organisations it funds around the world.

Unfortunately, many people who work for foreign-funded organisations posing as NGOs are unaware of such facts. Senior leadership of these organisations often go through great lengths to conceal their foreign funding to avoid scrutiny and even in some cases, to avoid properly paying people who are led to believe no funds are available and thus are asked to “volunteer” to help. Those few who are aware of this funding, are usually unaware of who and what NED and other organisations like them truly represent.

To put it simply, any organisation or institution serves only the interests of those who support it. An NGO supported by local donations and volunteers serves its local community. A foreign-funded organisation posing as an NGO serves foreign interests.

And simpler still, an organisation funded by a foreign government cannot possibly be characterised as “nongovernmental.” Even at face value, this notion strains credibility.

Case Study: Prachatai, Thailand 

After being caught concealing foreign funding, Bangkok-based media platform Prachatai disclosed several million baht in US State Department funding, Open Society grants and funds from several European governments.

Remarkably, Prachatai was (and still is) soliciting donations on their website. They also have categorically failed to update their foreign funding in English (since their first and only disclosure in 2011) and have never disclosed their foreign funding to their Thai readers.

(US Ambassor Kristie Kenney in US State Department-funded Prachatai’s office in Bangkok, Thailand.)

Independent journalists attempting to ascertain the true depth of Prachatai’s connections to the US State Department were told that Prachatai had none, and that the money was provided to them unconditionally.

In reality, as revealed by Wikileaks, Prachatai’s staff remains in constant contact with the US Embassy in Bangkok, with US ambassadors and political counsellors making regular visits to their office off of Ratchada Road, and with Prachatai’s director Chiranuch Premchaiporn making regular, lengthy and detailed reports about Thailand’s internal political affairs to US Embassy staff.

In the infamous Cablegate leak, the US Embassy in Bangkok sent off as many as 7 cables regarding or referencing Prachatai and its activities within the country and in particular its defence of agitators attempting to undermine the nation’s institutions and political stability.

For the US State Department, Prachatai exists as a state-funded asset — a constant pressure point to extort concessions from the Thai government with and to coerce from them the settings in which US-backed political forces might take power.

Under the guise of defending “free speech” and “human rights,” Prachatai networks deeply with US-backed political party Pheu Thai, its street front the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD or “red shirts”) and a large number of other US-funded organisations posing as NGOs and academic associations — many of which share the office building Prachatai is currently based in.

Additionally, Prachatai communicates and coordinates regularly with foreign media staff based in Thailand, particularly those who gravitate around the swank Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand clubhouse and bar in downtown Bangkok.

Together they stage public relations events aimed at portraying the current Thai government as overbearing, dictatorial and losing popularity and control. In reality, the events include the same handful of stand-ins and utilise intentionally deceptive methods to conflate the size and impact of each staged event.

By participating in such events, the foreign media betrays the principles it allegedly represent, creating the news rather than objectively covering it. For Prachatai, posing as an NGO but clearly functioning as an extension of US interests in Thailand, it too represents a betrayal of true, community-supported activism.

Ending the Charade 

In all honesty Prachatai’s activities could easily be tolerated by the Thai government, if only for one concession — that Prachatai and other organisations like it fully and repeatedly disclosed in English and in Thai, their existence as foreign-funded government organisations rather than pose as a genuine NGO.

Since it has operated for years and failed to fulfil its own responsibilities toward transparency to the society it claims to serve, it may be time for Thailand to pass legislation to force foreign-funded organisations like Prachatai to come clean.

Other nations have adopted comprehensive legislation to help protect real NGOs from those with foreign funding merely posing as such.

(The graffiti reads, “foreign agent,” written in Russian..)

In Russia, legislation now requires foreign-funded organisations to declare on all written material and verbally declare before all audio statements, their relationship with foreign interests. Those that fail to register as foreign-funded organisations or fail to disclose all of their funding, face liquidation.

While the US and the myriad organisations it was running in Moscow predictably decried the legislation as “oppressive,” some might appreciate the irony of “pro-democracy activists” resisting calls for greater transparency, a fundamental prerequisite for a democratic society.

Foreign-funded organisations posing as NGOs are more than a mere nuisance, or even simply a means by foreign governments and special interests to apply coercive pressure on a nation’s government and institutions. They represent a patient, concerted effort to compete with and eventually fully replace a nation’s existing sovereign institutions. This threat should not be underestimated nor should it be tolerated.

And beyond a threat to national security,  these foreign-funded organisations attract and squander a nation’s human resources, while undermining the very legitimate and essential work performed by honest, locally-supported NGOs.

September 8, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama Flinches at Renouncing Nuke First Strike

obama-nobel-12-10-09-300x199

President Barack Obama uncomfortably accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Dec. 10, 2009. (White House photo)
By Jonathan Marshall | Consortium News | September 8, 2016

Time is running short for President Obama to make good on his 2009 promise “to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet as both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times recently reported, Obama’s advisers may have just nixed the single most important reform advocated by arms control advocates: a formal pledge that the United States will never again be the first country to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.

Ever since President Truman ordered two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945, the United States has reserved the right to initiate nuclear war against an overwhelming conventional, chemical or biological attack on us or our allies. But peace advocates — and more than a few senior military officers — have long warned that resorting to nuclear weapons would ignite a global holocaust, killing hundreds of millions of people.

In a talk to the annual meeting of the Arms Control Association on June 6, Deputy National Security Advisor Benjamin Rhodes promised that President Obama would continue to review ways to achieve his grand vision of a nuclear-free world during his last months in office. Obama was reportedly considering a “series of executive actions” to that end, including a landmark shift to a “no first use” policy.

Two-thirds of adult Americans surveyed support such a policy. So do 10 U.S. senators who wrote President Obama in July, proposing a no-first-use declaration to “reduce the risk of accidental nuclear conflict” and seeking cut-backs in his trillion dollar plan for nuclear modernization over the next 30 years.

But Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz (who oversees the nuclear stockpile), and Secretary of State John Kerry all warned during a National Security Council meeting in July that declaring a policy of “no first use” would alarm America’s allies, undercut U.S. credibility, and send a message of weakness to the Kremlin at a time of tense relations with Russia.

Yet until they took charge of giant bureaucracies whose funding depends on keeping the threat of nuclear war alive, both Carter and Moniz were on record supporting “a new strategy for reducing nuclear threats” and achieving security “at significantly lower levels of nuclear forces and with less reliance on nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.”

In a 2007 manifesto, Carter, Moniz, and other centrist Democratic foreign policy experts rejected the old claim that nuclear weapons are still needed to deter non-nuclear attacks.

“Nuclear weapons are much less credible in deterring conventional, biological, or chemical weapon attacks,” they wrote. “A more effective way of deterring and defending against such non-nuclear attacks – and giving the President a wider range of credible response options – would be to rely on a robust array of conventional strike capabilities and strong declaratory policies.”

They also gave strong implicit support to a no-first-use doctrine, stating that “nuclear weapons must be seen as a last resort, when no other options can ensure the security of the U.S. and its allies.”

Risk of Overreaction

Why does a no-first-use policy matter? In a New York Times column last month, Gen. James Cartwright, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and head of the United States Strategic Command, emphasized the folly of introducing nuclear weapons into any conflict.

“Using nuclear weapons first against Russia and China would endanger our and our allies’ very survival by encouraging full-scale retaliation,” he and a colleague wrote. “Such use against North Korea would be likely to result in the blanketing of Japan and possibly South Korea with deadly radioactive fallout.”

A policy of no first use, backed up by a reconfiguration of U.S. nuclear forces to reduce their offensive capabilities, would lower the chance of a rival nuclear power rushing to launch early in a crisis and unleashing World War III. Today some nuclear powers like Russia have their forces on hair-trigger alert for fear of being wiped out by a U.S. surprise attack; as a result, the world is just one false alarm away from all-out nuclear war.

As two senior officials at the Arms Control Association observed recently in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Among other advantages, a clear US no-first-use policy would reduce the risk of Russian or Chinese nuclear miscalculation during a crisis by alleviating concerns about a devastating US nuclear first-strike.

“Such risks could grow in the future as Washington develops cyber offensive capabilities that can confuse nuclear command and control systems, as well as new strike capabilities and strategic ballistic missile interceptors that Russia and China believe may degrade their nuclear retaliatory potential.”

They also discounted the claim that U.S. allies such as Japan or Korea would rebel against such a change of policy: “They are highly likely to accept such a decision, since no first use will in no way weaken US military preparedness to confront non-nuclear threats to their security. . . Many US allies, including NATO members Germany and the Netherlands, support the adoption of no-first-use policies by all nuclear-armed states.”

Warnings by nuclear hawks that a common-sense doctrine of no-first-use would undercut U.S. “credibility” or project “weakness” are simply business-as-usual attempts by national security bureaucrats to inflate threats and keep the war machine in high gear. If they succeed in blocking reform, America and the rest of the world will remain at real risk of annihilation through accidental nuclear escalation.

The question now is whether President Obama will listen to the fear-mongers in his cabinet, or remember what he said in May at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial: “Among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them.”

Jonathan Marshall is author or co-author of five books on international affairs, including The Lebanese Connection: Corruption, Civil War and the International Drug Traffic (Stanford University Press, 2012). Some of his previous articles for Consortiumnews were “Risky Blowback from Russian Sanctions”; “Neocons Want Regime Change in Iran”; “Saudi Cash Wins France’s Favor”; “The Saudis’ Hurt Feelings”; “Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear Bluster”; “The US Hand in the Syrian Mess”; and “Hidden Origins of Syria’s Civil War.”

September 8, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

9/11 Suspects: Robert Baer

corbettreport – September 8, 2016

Given the exceptionally grave nature of this admission and its repercussions, one would suppose that Baer has been questioned by other media and/or the FBI and made to discuss in detail precisely who it was who cashed out and how he knew about the 9/11 plot in advance. But one would be wrong. Since making this stunning admission to the cameras of We Are Change Los Angeles, no one has ever asked Baer for more information about the case.

September 8, 2016 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

‘US spy planes approaching Russian territory with transponders off a provocation’

RT | September 8, 2016

It is not just a double standard for the United States to have its aircraft fly so close to Russian territory; it is a refusal on the US part to be safe, to fly safe, Karen Kwiatkowski, retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, told RT.

Three American spy planes were intercepted by a Russian fighter jet while approaching Russian airspace over the Black Sea, according to US Defense officials, cited by the Reuters news agency.

“On September 7, US P-8 Poseidon surveillance airplanes tried to approach the Russian border twice… with their transponders off,” Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

The SU-27 fighter jets that intercepted the US aircraft were acting “in strict accordance with international flight rules,” the statement reads.

RT: How safe is it to fly with transponders switched off? It’s well known that civil aviation is unable to recognize an aircraft if they are not turned on, is that right?

Karen Kwiatkowski: That is true. They are tracked by radar, but… this tells the planes in the sky where they are and who they are.

It is pretty dangerous [not to have transponders switched on] depending on the traffic. In some parts of the world it wouldn’t be dangerous, but certainly in a crowded airspace it is going to be a problem. Particularly in this example, when we do have a big Russian exercise in that area. There is going to be a lot of extra air traffic, and a lot of it maybe military, as well as the normal civilian and transport traffic that you are going to have. So at this particular time given the exercise, it is probably the worst time to have your transponders off.

RT: Do you think that media are going too far in accusing Russia here? Is it a case of double standards? 

KK: It’s definitely double standards, but that is not unusual with the US and our policy around the world. We have one set of rules for ourselves and what we expect others to do. I do think it’s interesting that Finland in trying to deal with some of the things up in the Baltic area has proposed that in places like this Baltic Sea and around NATO, certainly the Black Sea – they have proposed, and Russia I believe has supported this, that all airplanes keep their transponders on at all times when they are in these areas.

It is the US that has not been supportive of that. I think even some of the NATO countries are supportive, but the US in particular is not. Clearly given the past history – this has happened numerous times in the past several years – we fly with transponders off when we’re in our surveillance planes. This is a traditional way of doing business to test the so-called enemy, to test their responses. We’re probing, we’re testing their responses – we’re doing it in a dangerous way, and then when something happens, we’re blaming the side that was doing exactly what we hoped and expected they would do. So it is not a good thing. It is not just a double standard – it is a refusal on the US part to be safe, to fly safe…

These things are fixable, and the fact that we’re not fixing them, the fact that we’re letting these things happen, is a little bit scary. It seems to be a policy-driven provocation, something that is geared to produce a reaction that might play into the hands of those in the United States who are looking for conflict.

 

US flying without transponders a provocation

Michael Maloof, former Pentagon officer said that flying without transponders turned on is extremely dangerous, that is why it was right for Russian jets to scramble to at least identify what the aircraft was.

RT: How dangerous is it to fly without transponders turned on? 

Michael Maloof: It’s extremely dangerous, and it is basically a provocation for a hostile act. I think that the Russian Ministry of Defense should file a formal complaint about that. When an aircraft like that is flying without its transponders it cannot be identified, and it was only right that Russian jets scrambled to at least identify what the aircraft was. And when they did come upon it, they discovered it was one of the more sophisticated – what we call C4ISR aircraft – which has all the latest sophistication on it.

Basically, the transponders being off tells me at least that the aircraft was probing, sensing what radar systems would light up that would be alerted, and what defense systems would come on as a result in order to identify where they are actually located. But to be in that area… is almost a provocation in itself. You don’t see Russian aircraft flying within 100 km of the US border, or stationing its ships out as we’re doing in the Baltic Sea right now.

RT: This particular aircraft is capable of hacking military installations. How likely is it in your opinion, that this was why it was flying so close to Russia? 

MM: Well, as I said it has, what I said it has C4ISR – that is command, control, communications, and computers: I – for intelligence; S – for surveillance; R – for reconnaissance. It is the most sophisticated system that we have in probing the electronics of a potential adversary. It is to test, to see what goes on, what defense systems are going on; they can pick up all kinds of frequencies. It is an amazing technology, but its uses are clearly for intelligence gathering. It’s the most sophisticated [type of aircraft] we have.

September 8, 2016 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Top General Warns That NATO Wants to Turn Post-Soviet Space ‘Into Another Syria’

Sputnik – 08.09.2016

A top Russian general has voiced his frustration over NATO’s lack of cooperation with a Russian-led alliance involving countries from the former Soviet space, saying that the Western alliance doesn’t seem to want countries in the former USSR to ally with one another, allowing NATO pick them off one by one at their leisure.

Speaking at a press conference in Moscow on Wednesday, Col. Gen. Nikolai Bordyuzha, secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance involving six post-Soviet states, including Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, had some harsh words for Russia’s NATO partners.

The North Atlantic Alliance, he said, has been consistently opposed to any military integration between Russia and its partners in the CSTO, and the reason is that NATO wants to deprive these countries of their collective security guarantees.

“Why do you think NATO does not cooperate with the CSTO?” the general asked. “It’s simple – they have no need to support processes of [defense] integration. This way, things will be like in Syria, and nobody will be able to let out a peep. The country is being pounded, and there’s no one to help them, since it didn’t have any allies. And this is the situation they want to create for us as well,” Bordyuzha said, referring to the members of the CSTO.

Furthermore, the officer warned that the Western media has been engaged in what he called campaign of information warfare against the CSTO. “They will tell lies all day, every day. Everything that is being said about the CSTO is presented in a way that’s the opposite to how things are in reality,” Bordyuzha noted. “This is done, for example, in order to ensure that Tajikistan was not together with Russia,” he added.

Ultimately, Bordyuzha suggested that the Western political, media and military effort’s “most important task is to splinter our unity, to separate our nations into our own ‘national apartments’, and to dictate their terms to everyone individually.”

In this scenario, the officer emphasized that while the CSTO has absolutely no plans to fight a war of aggression against NATO, neither does it fear an attack by the Western alliance. “That’s why the CSTO exists,” Bordyuzha quipped.

The Collective Security Treaty Organization, formed in 1992, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, integrates the defense capabilities of six former Soviet republics, including Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Afghanistan and Serbia became observers to the organization in 2013. Former members include Azerbaijan, Georgia and Uzbekistan.

Signatories to the alliance are not able to join other military alliances, and aggression against one member is considered aggression against all.

The CSTO holds yearly command exercises and drills to improve coordination between its states militaries, the most recent being Cooperation-2016, which took place last month in Russia’s Pskov region.

September 8, 2016 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Saudi: Assad must go – or we step in

By James Tweedie – Morning Star – September 8, 2016

SAUDI ARABIA’s foreign minister has threatened to escalate the war on Syria if President Bashar al-Assad does not step down.

Saudi royal Adel al-Jubeir told the BBC yesterday that Mr Assad was not in a “position of advantage or victory,” despite a recent string of major coups against Western-backed insurgents, including the surrounding of 5,000 rebels in Aleppo.

“If Bashar al-Assad continues to be obstinate and continues to drag his feet and continues to refuse to engage seriously, then obviously there will have to be a plan B which will involve more stepped-up military activity,” he warned.

Mr Jubeir spoke ahead of a meeting in London between the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) — the Saudi-convened Syrian opposition coalition that stretches from anti-Assad political moderates to armed al-Qaida-allied extremists — and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in London.

The HNC was set to present its latest variation of regime-change demands — a six-month complete ceasefire followed by an 18-month “transition” ending with Mr Assad’s removal.

Mr Johnson sought to present the HNC as the “broadest-based” and “democratic and pluralistic” political force in Syria, and attacked Russia’s “seemingly indefensible” support for the government.

But the member groups of the HNC have repeatedly broken February’s Russian-US brokered ceasefire, renewing its alliance with Syria’s al-Qaida in breach of December’s UN security council resolution 2254.

On Tuesday Syrian UN ambassador Bashar al-Jaafari denounced the imperialist doctrine of “responsibility to protect,” saying that was the exclusive function of sovereign states.

He said that dogma had turned Libya into a haven for international extremism and exporting terror to other countries, including Syria.

“The events in Syria can’t be described as civil war as thousands of foreign terrorists have entered Syria through neighbouring countries,” Mr Jaafari said.

jamestweedie@peoples-press.com

September 8, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , | 3 Comments

Son of a Bitch!

Hope for the Philippines?

By Gary Leupp | Dissident Voice | September 8, 2016

Son of a bitch (var. sonovabitch): Something that is very difficult or unpleasant. Used to express surprise, disappointment, anger, etc. (based on Merriam-Webster)

Rodrigo Duterte, elected president of the Philippines last May, was supposed to meet with President Obama in Laos on the sidelines of the ASEAN meeting Monday. He had referred to Obama as a putang ina (“son of a bitch”) in a news conference, and earlier to U.S. ambassador Philip Goldberg with what was reported as a homophobic slur.

(I understand that Duterte routinely uses the word bakla or “gay” to refer to elite men, but — like most Filipinos — actually is fine with gayness. The city of Davao, where he was mayor for many years, has lots of gay establishments and he had no problem with them. He supports gay marriage. When asked last year if he would mind if his son Paolo had a gay partner, he replied that he had no problem at all.

“It’s more of the human dignity than anything else,” he replied, adding in his typical manner combining English and Tagalog, “All human beings are created by God so kung rerespetuhin mo ang totoong babae, totoong lalaki, at ito namang isa kung medyo alanganin sa babae, lalaki, then he is also a creation of good. So kaya magrespetuhan tayo.”  I don’t understand Tagalog but this sounds pretty tolerant. I’m inclined to think his putative homophobia is actually State Department hyperbole designed to discredit him.

By the way, have you noticed how, following the rapid unexpected legal advances gay people have made in this country since the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 2003 recognized same-sex marriages, the U.S. government itself has rapidly and shamelessly come to make homophobia — still rampant in this country, and indeed normative until recently — a cause for the vilification of selected regimes abroad? Regimes such as that in Russia — where homosexuality is, in fact, legal, and tourist literature advertises the “warm and vibrant gay club scene” and bars and saunas in St. Petersburg especially? And have you also noticed the ringing silence about close U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, where guys get tossed to their deaths off buildings if convicted of sodomy?)

Duterte has boasted about the accusations against him of extrajudicial killings of drug-traffickers in Davao while he was mayor and since he became president. I suppose he deserves condemnation. But from whom? In biblical rhetoric: Who is entitled to cast the first stone? Who has the beam in their eye, rather than the mote?

Asked by reporters last week about the likelihood that Obama would raise criticisms of his human rights record, Duterte declared elliptically, “I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody. You [Obama] must be respectful. Do not just throw questions. ‘Putang ina,’ I will swear at you in that [ASEAN] forum.”

The mainstream media was shocked at the insulting suggestion that the U.S. president would have to be respectful to the Filipino president or risk provoking some reactive rudeness. Asked in Beijing if he would meet as planned with Duterte, Obama affected mild amusement at the “colorful” Filipino leader, saying his staff was deciding when and if a meeting will happen. Its cancellation was announced soon afterwards. Obama would meet with the South Korean leader instead.

There seems reason to believe that Duterte, unlike any of his predecessors, is genuinely anti-imperialist. More than that, and quite surprisingly, he has expressed admiration for the Communist Party of the Philippines, and its guerrilla New People’s Army, that has been at war with the Philippines state for almost 50 years. He was actually a student of Jose Maria Sison, the party’s founder who has been in Dutch exile since 1987, in the 1960s; the two have been in touch and remain friends.

On August 26 the long-stalemated Oslo talks between Manila and the rebels resulted in an indefinite ceasefire. Meanwhile Duterte has offered the Communists cabinet posts overseeing the departments of agrarian reform, environment and natural resources, labor and employment, and social welfare and development. He has invited Sison to return home. Sison says he longs to do so but only after an agreement is finalized. This is looking increasingly possible, barring decisive U.S. intervention.

Washington, on the other hand, views the Communist Party of the Philippines, and the New People’s Army, as “terrorists.” Just as the U.S. views all left-wing armed movements as terrorists (unless and until they can be used for common purposes, as in the case of the Iranian MEK in Iraq). In 2002 U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell took the unprecedented step of blacklisting the estimable Sison personally as a “terrorist” and the U.S. (spurred by then-president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) was surely behind the Dutch authorities’ raid on his house and his brief detention in 2007 on suspicion of ordering two murders in the Philippines the year before. (He was cleared of the charges and released.)

While cozying up to the Filipino Communists, Duterte has unexpectedly responded to the World Court’s judgment in favor of the Philippines’ South China Sea territorial claims over those of China, not with a tighter embrace of the U.S. and cooler relations with China, but with outreach to Beijing. Duterte has made it clear he sees China more positively than the imperialist U.S., which seized the Philippines as a colony following the Spanish-American War of 1898, slaughtered one-tenth of the Filipino people suppressing their resistance to colonization between 1899 and 1901, acquired total control over the Filipino economy and largely retained it after according the Philippines formal independence in 1946.

U.S.-led forces suppressed the communist-led Hukbalahap rebels who had spearheaded resistance to the Japanese occupation of 1942 to 1945, treated a succession of puppet presidents with astonishing contempt, and praised as “democratic” the vicious regime of Ferdinand Marcos (president from 1965 to 1986) that declared martial law in 1972 to suppress the communist threat. The U.S. backed Marcos until the “people’s power revolution” of 1986 forced President Reagan to issue him marching orders. (Marcos settled and died in Hawai’i.)

His initially popular successor Cory Aquino first sought peace talks with the CPP. Towards this end she freed Sison, who had been captured and imprisoned in 1977. But while Sison was touring the world in the year following his release — notably, accepting a literary award for a book of poetry he had composed from the hands of the king of Thailand in October 1986 — the Aquino regime under army pressure decided to revoke his passport. Ever since he has been stuck in Utrecht, Holland, advising the CPP from abroad.

The prospect of his return to the Philippines, publicly embraced by Duterte, possibly taking a cabinet post along with other members of the CPP, must be producing shit-fits in the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon. State Department spokespeople insist that the bilateral relationship remains strong. Duterte has now expressed “regret” for calling Obama a putang ina. He says he meant nothing personal. (In fairness, he calls lots of people that, including Pope Francis. That’s just Digong’s manner of expressing himself.)

But things do not actually seem normal. Not at all.

In 1992 the U.S. was forced to close its Subic naval base and its Clark air force base in the Philippines — voted out by the national legislature. It has been trying to worm its way back in since 9/11. Recall how George W. Bush once called the limited deployment of U.S. forces in Mindanao, to aid Filipino forces in defeating the tiny (and still surviving) Abu Sayyaf group supposedly aligned with al-Qaeda, the “second stage” in the “War on Terror” after Afghanistan? Even as she was further bought by a massive injection of new military aid from the U.S., she had to request that Washington stop using that phrase because the Abu Sayyaf threat was actually tiny and Filipinos getting nervous thinking their country would be the next Afghanistan.

(For a time, Georgia and the Pankisi Gorge became the next stage, and then Yemen. The neocons clustered around Dick Cheney were determined to use the post 9/11 atmosphere to expand the U.S. military presence everywhere in the world.)

Step by step, the U.S. military has returned to the Philippines. It continued port calls in Subic Bay after 1992 and by pressing Manila to sign the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement in April 2014 has acquired access to military bases in the country on a rotational basis. Meanwhile the Philippines has played a central role in the Southeast Asia Maritime Security Initiative, a U.S.-led effort to monitor and challenge the expanding Chinese presence in the South China Sea.

This is all part of what Washington calls its “pivot to Asia” — code term for its desire to just get the job done in the Middle East as soon as possible so as to focus attention on preparing for war with the inevitably rising China. But what does Duterte mean for that pivot?

In 1947 the Truman administration ordered its European allies including France and Italy to remove any Communist members from cabinets. Never mind that these parties were popular and enjoyed a reputation as having led the anti-fascist resistance. And it’s well known that CIA dirty tricks prevented a Communist electoral victory in Italy in 1948.

How would a President Hillary Clinton react, should the CPP acquire an established role in Philippines politics, Manila withdraw from recent military and “security” agreements, and the country draw closer to the PRC? Be assured her crooked cabal is already discussing coup plans. Because that’s what they do, thinking that as the “exceptional” nation they need not (as Hillary confidante Henry Kissinger once said in relation to Chile) “stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.”

But that was 1970, when the U.S. had twice the share in global GDP than it has today and the world was divided by the Cold War. Ruling classes of nations forced to take sides at that time have since been obliged by market and geopolitical forces to align, re-align, and hold out options for the future. Obama cannot snap his fingers and demand that Duterte cooperate with an anti-China, pro-U.S. balikitan program. Nor will his successor be able to do so.

The next U.S. president might face an independent country whose people are attempting to resolve their own contradictions in their own way, rejecting interference from the putang ina in Washington. What could be more hopeful than that?

Gary Leupp is a Professor of History at Tufts University, and author of numerous works on Japanese history. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu.

September 8, 2016 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , | 3 Comments

Conspiracy charge against radio shock jock arrested for 1rst amendment activities relating to Oregon standoff dismissed

The Rutherford Institute | September 7, 2016

PORTLAND, Oregon — Citing a lack of evidence, federal prosecutors have dismissed the government’s conspiracy charge against radio shock jock Pete Santilli, a new media journalist who was arrested and charged in connection with his reporting on the 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon. The dismissal came on the eve of Santilli’s trial. Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute advised Santilli’s court-appointed attorney, Thomas Coan, on the First Amendment protections for Santilli’s activities as a journalist. Santilli is the only journalist among those who were charged with conspiracy to impede federal officers from discharging their duties by use of force, intimidation, or threats. However, Santilli was charged solely as a reporter of information and not as an accomplice to any criminal activity. In coming to Santilli’s defense, Institute attorneys warned that Santilli’s case followed a pattern by the government of intimidating journalists whose reporting portrays the government in a negative light or encourages citizens to challenge government injustice and wrongdoing.

“The FBI’s prosecution of this radio shock jock has been consistent with the government’s ongoing attempts to intimidate members of the press who portray the government in a less than favorable light,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “This is not a new tactic. During the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, numerous journalists were arrested while covering the regions’ civil unrest and the conditions that spawned that unrest. These attempts to muzzle the press were clearly concerted, top-down efforts to restrict the fundamental First Amendment rights of the public and the press. Not only does this tactic silence individual journalists, but it has a chilling effect on the press as a whole, signaling that they will become the target of the government if they report on these events with a perspective that casts the government in a bad light.”

In early January 2016, a group of armed activists, reportedly protesting the federal government’s management of federal lands and its prosecution of two local ranchers convicted of arson, staged an act of civil disobedience by occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon. Broadcaster Pete Santilli, who has covered such protests in the past, including the April 2014 standoff in Nevada between the Bundy ranching family and the federal government over grazing rights, described himself as an embedded journalist reporting on the occupation in Burns. Santilli did not participate in the takeover of the refuge, nor did he reside on the grounds of the refuge. However, as a self-described “shock jock” who uses “colorful language,” Santilli was vocal about his commitment to exercising his First Amendment rights in a nonviolent, peaceful fashion and the need for others to do so as well. When asked to clarify his role in relation to the occupation, Santilli declared, “My role is the same here that it was at the Bundy ranch. To talk about the constitutional implications of what is going on here. The Constitution cannot be negotiated.” Santilli also took pains to emphasize during his broadcasts that the only weapon he is using is the First Amendment: “I’m not armed. I am armed with my mouth. I’m armed with my live stream. I’m armed with a coalition of like-minded individuals who sit at home and on YouTube watch this.” In the wake of a roadblock that resulted in the arrests of several key leaders of the occupation and the killing of another, Santilli was arrested and eventually indicted with conspiracy to impede federal officers.

Case History and Further Reading

September 8, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | 1 Comment