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DHS Secretary Refuses to Comment on Clinton Claims Russia Behind Election Hack

Sputnik — 27.09.2016

US Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson refused to discuss Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s attribution of recent election cyberattacks in the United States to Russia in a brief conversation with Sputnik on Tuesday.

During the Monday presidential debate, Clinton asserted “there is no doubt” that Russia organized the July hack against the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and other election-cycle cyberattacks.

“I have no comment on that, sorry,” Johnson told Sputnik when asked about Clinton’s statement during the Monday night US presidential debate claiming that Russia was behind recent election-cycle hacks in the United States.

Clinton’s allegations do not match the official statements by the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Department of Homeland Security, which have not yet made any attribution for the DNC hack or recent cyber breaches of US state election systems.

Russia has also rejected the claims of interfering in the US election as absurd.

September 28, 2016 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 1 Comment

International investigators allowed Ukraine to fabricate MH17 evidence – Russia

RT | September 28, 2016

The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that investigators probing the MH17 crash allowed Ukraine to fabricate evidence, turning the case to its advantage, while denying Moscow any comprehensive role in the inquiry.

“Russia suggested working together from the start and relying on the facts only,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a statement for the media  on Wednesday, commenting on the findings in the criminal probe into the MH17 crash by a Dutch-led team of international investigators.

“Instead of [working together], international investigators suspended Moscow from comprehensive participation in the investigative process, allowing our efforts only a minor role. It sounds like a bad joke, but at the same time they made Ukraine a full member of the JIT [Joint Investigation Team], giving it the opportunity to forge evidence and turn the case to its advantage,” Zakharova added.

The spokesperson also noted that the JIT bases its findings on evidence provided by Ukrainian power structures, which are “undoubtedly a party with a vested interest.”

“To this day, the investigators continue to ignore the overwhelming evidence provided by the Russian side, despite the fact that Russia is the only side that submits accurate information and constantly discloses new data,” Zakharova said.

“Russia is disappointed that the situation surrounding the investigation into the Boeing crash is not changing. The findings of the Dutch prosecutor’s office confirm that the investigation is biased and politically motivated.

“To arbitrarily designate a guilty party and dream up the desired results has become the norm for our Western colleagues,” the spokesperson said.

Read more:

Members of a joint investigation team present the preliminary results of the criminal investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 , in Nieuwegein, on September 28, 2016

September 28, 2016 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 1 Comment

Canadian professor libelously targeted as “anti-semite” in coordinated attack

By Rafiq | American Herald Tribune | September 28, 2016

In his Now Magazine article “Facebook Removes Anti-Semitic Post after Online Blowback,” Bernie Farber explains that “the Facebook ravings on the social media site of Anthony Hall,” a tenured professor at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, have been identified as anti-Semitic. This statement might lead readers to believe that there were anti-Semitic ravings by Dr. Hall on his Facebook page, but as the article makes clear, there are no examples of such ravings by Dr. Hall, only by “one Glen Davidson,” who we are told posted these ravings on Dr. Hall’s page.

Farber goes on to state that Dr. Hall “has publicly embraced the ridiculous and obnoxious notions of Gerard Menuhin, who has purported to have proof that the Holocaust is a myth.” Farber does not attempt to dismiss any of this proof, as one might expect an objective journalist to do, but instead takes the position that such proof can be dismissed out of hand as false without any investigation.

By comparison, Dr. Hall sounds like the more reasonable person for having actually looked at Menuhin’s book Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil. Note, too, that when Hall says “I’m reading that text and having to reassess a lot of ideas,” he does not say that he has changed his ideas, only that he is reassessing his ideas. Again, Hall sounds like the more courageous thinker for his willingness to reassess his thinking on a narrative as seemingly sacrosanct as the Jewish holocaust.

Having not yet said anything that convinces me Dr. Hall is an anti-Semite, Farber adds, “Hall reportedly linked Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad, with 9/11.” The role of Mossad, along with the CIA, in the 9/11 attacks is a fact well documented by credible journalists and scholars and widely disseminated online and in books. It is public knowledge and in the public domain. To admit the role of Mossad and the CIA in 9/11 is to admit the villainy of national governments and their foreign policies. Jewish identity and anti-Semitism have nothing to do with it.

Regarding  the anti-Semitic Facebook post that did not even originate with Dr. Hall, Farber writes, “To the best of my knowledge, Hall was never moved to delete this post himself.” An unbiased journalist would have contacted Dr. Hall and asked him about this matter. Well, I did contact Dr. Hall, and he informed me that he didn’t even know that the post was up on the “wall” of his Facebook page until after it had been taken down and after he had learned of the resulting controversy. So, here again, Farber offers no proof that Dr. Hall is even remotely anti-Semitic.

Not only that, but Dr. Hall’s award-winning two-volume book The Bowl with One Spoon, published by respected arbiter of scholarly history McGill-Queen’s University Press, gives every indication that Dr. Hall is the opposite of a racist, particularly in light of his deep commitment to exposing the plight of Indigenous peoples. Indeed, renowned Canadian scholar Naomi Klein, who happens to be Jewish, doesn’t seem to think that Dr. Hall is a racist either. On the cover of Dr. Hall’s book, she writes, “I cannot overstate the importance of this book. If used properly, it could change the world.”

Nonetheless, Farber goes on to bemoan that “the combined efforts of B’nai B’rith Canada and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs were unable to move the University of Lethbridge to take action against Hall.” I would like to believe that this unwillingness on the part of the University of Lethbridge to help B’nai B’rith destroy Dr. Hall’s career is due to the university’s professed commitment to liberal education and liberal values, even if Farber does portray Lethbridge as a racist backwater in conservative Alberta, where Hall is said to have “found a comfortable home amongst Holocaust deniers.”

I would like to believe that the unwillingness of the University of Lethbridge to help B’nai B’rith destroy Dr. Hall’s career is due to the fact that, as a nation, Canada has shown itself willing to reconsider history when there is good cause. Notably, Canadians have recently begun the hard process of re-evaluating our own history with respect to our nation’s cultural and physical genocide against our Indigenous peoples. Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools has just published a six-volume final report on its findings, and in the tradition of scholars like Dr. Hall, this report shows fearlessness in confronting past lies so that history can better reflect the truth, however uncomfortable that truth may be.

I would like to believe that the unwillingness of the University of Lethbridge to help B’nai B’rith destroy Dr. Hall’s career is due to the university’s high ideals and Canadian bearing, but when I contacted Dr. Hall, he informed me that the University of Lethbridge has indeed asked him to step down from his tenured position after twenty-six years as a professor. It seems that the university is ready to bow to outside pressure and to sacrifice Dr. Hall. I’m sure that Farber’s biased account of the anti-Semitic posting on Dr. Hall’s Facebook page did little to help Dr. Hall’s chances of staving off B’nai B’rith’s attack.

Farber’s misrepresentation of Dr. Hall is no less offensive than the crime of which Dr. Hall is accused, namely misrepresentation of the Jewish holocaust. The difference between the two is that, in the case of Farber, his accusation that Dr. Hall is an anti-Semite is clearly baseless, whereas Dr. Hall’s willingness “to reassess a lot of ideas” about the history of the Second World War seems to be well thought out given his reputation as a respected historian.

September 28, 2016 Posted by | Deception | , , , , , | 3 Comments

Israeli Nuke-Washing on the World Stage

By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | September 28, 2016

There are oh so many varieties of Zio-washing: pink-washing, green-washing, Black-washing, even Muslim-washing. Now, there’s another to add to the treasury of hasbara promoted by Israel to the world: nuke-washing. I wrote about a similar domestic effort at cleansing Israel’s nuclear warheads of the stench of potential mass murder.

The IAEA celebrated its 60th anniversary in Vienna, its headquarters, recently. And Israel was there with its very own exhibit featuring the innovations and contributions which Israel’s nuclear program has bestowed on humanity. No mention, of course, of Israel’s 200 nuclear weapons and the legacy that they’ve given the world. No mention, of course, that Israel has refused to join the only international agreement limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the NPT. No mention of the fact that Israel has torpedoed a U.S. and Arab effort to hold a regional conference leading to declaring the Mideast a nuclear-free zone.

Instead, we have Rays of Hope (get it? radiation=rays), Israel’s latest marketing effort to persuade the world to ignore its worst deeds and focus instead on deeds that are marginal at best in their overall impact on Israel or the world.  A press release from the prime minister’s office hails this as Israel’s first international exhibit of its accomplishments in the field. Here’s some of the marketing jargon, which is about as revoltingly hypocritical as any political statement can be:

The Israeli pavilion highlights Israel as a master of research innovation in the areas of nuclear use for educational, scientific, and agricultural purposes, and for production of clean energy. Director of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, Brig. Gen. (res.) Zeev Snir told the attendees:

“Israeli developments in the nuclear field have spread Rays of Hope and inspiration to many people. Our scientific achievements permit us to manufacture critical equipment for medical treatment, agriculture, security, and safety throughout the world. Our future in the Middle East must include cooperation and joint responsibility for the health and well-being of the people’s of the region.  In the spirit of the IAEA, I call upon our neighbors to join to join us and transform a dream into reality.”

Really? Cooperation? Like Israel’s rejection of the NPT? Responsibility for the health and well-being of the region? Does that include the massive poisoning of the environment surrounding the Dimona nuclear reactor and the hundreds, if not thousands of workers who’ve died of lethal doses of radiation? Does it include the impact that Israel’s 200 warheads might have on the region if even one of them was used, as Moshe Dayan advocated during a bleak moment at the outset of the 1973 War?

dimona website

More nuke-washing: happy shiny Dimona’s website home page

September 28, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | 1 Comment

Who is ‘nuclear saber’ rattling in Europe?

Dr Alexander Yakovenko | RT |September 27, 2016

Some in the West have recently ratcheted up their rhetoric about Russia’s “nuclear saber-rattling” in Europe. Indeed, the USSR did deploy nuclear weapons in the then countries of the Warsaw Pact.

However, it was in response to the deployment of similar US arms in NATO countries, and later the Soviet nukes were completely withdrawn from Europe. Moreover, Russia has reduced its arsenal of non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) by three-quarters, transferred them back home and stored within its own territory.

And what was the US’ answer to such unprecedented operation? Not only have the US continued keeping its NSNW in Europe, but have also engaged actively in their modernization with an eye on expanding their offensive capabilities. American B61 nuclear bombs have obtained a completely new capacity as precision nuclear weapons capable of striking underground targets more effectively.

Under the pretext of limiting the “collateral damage” the capacity of modernized nuclear weapons will be somewhat reduced, which might indicate the intention to use these weapons in densely populated areas. It is also planned to update delivery vehicles in Europe by purchasing new American F-35 fighter jets that are “invisible” to radar systems and capable of striking targets in Russian territory. In general, the modernization would mean a qualitative change in the characteristics of the US nuclear arsenal in Europe that is fraught with a dangerous lowering of the “nuclear threshold.”

As to the so-called NATO’s “joint nuclear missions,” including joint nuclear planning and regular exercises on rehearsing the use of nuclear weapons. These drills involve non-nuclear states providing aircraft carriers, crews, airfields and other ground infrastructure. Such acts flagrantly violate key articles 1 and 2 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

The NATO Strategic Concept, adopted at the summit in Lisbon in November 2010, consolidates the nuclear backbone of the alliance’s military policy. At the summit in Chicago, in May 2012, NATO officially declared itself a “nuclear alliance”, which will remain so “as long as nuclear weapons exist.” There is no such thing in international law, which recognizes only nuclear states.

The Europeans are subjected to a propaganda campaign over a “Russian nuclear threat”, although the Russian military doctrine clearly states that nuclear weapons can hypothetically be used only in response to an attack with weapons of mass destruction or to a large-scale aggression that would threaten the very existence of our country. None of these scenarios implies any “aggression” on our part. So, who is actually rattling one’s saber in Eastern Europe?

We have been constantly championing for further limitations and reductions of nuclear weapon stockpiles, along with strengthening international arms control and non-proliferation regimes. Unfortunately, what we see now is a far cry from what the international community was striving for. Among other things that affects global stability and deterrence, and the trust between Russia and the West is being eroded. Some of the critical Russian concerns are left unaddressed. At the same time, further dialog on nuclear disarmament could only be successful if the core principle of international security is observed – i.e. that the security of one country should not be strengthened at the expense of others.

Dr Alexander Yakovenko, Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Deputy foreign minister (2005-2011). Follow him on Twitter @Amb_Yakovenko

September 28, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | 2 Comments

Prominent Latin American Scientists Say Bill Gates’ Golden Rice Is a Total Failure

By Christina Sarich | Underground Reporter | September 27, 2016

Nobel Laureates who have been pushing the genetically modified organism agenda deep into scientific circles are being lambasted by a group called the Union of Latin American Scientists Committed to Society and Nature (UCCSN-AL).

A whopping third of Nobel laureates recently slammed Greenpeace for its anti-GM campaign, claiming that the issues which Greenpeace has highlighted “misrepresent the risks, benefits, and impacts” of genetically altered plants.

The UCCSN-AL thinks we should be aware of the true aims of companies like Bayer, Monsanto, Syngenta, and Dow Agrochemical, and others, even with glowing reviews from signatories who make GM-promoting claims without data to back them up.

Whether the public at large will take any anti-GM advice based simply on the Nobel pedigree remains to be seen, especially considering that email trails recently revealed that many high-level professors at universities and scientific journals were either bribed or funded by Dow, Syngenta, Monsanto, Bayer AG, and other chemical-ag champions.

The public reprimand against these laureates concerns transgenic crops, and ‘Golden Rice,’ a highly touted Gates Foundation experiment which has been proven to be deceptive in its claims to help feed the world and stop Vitamin A deficits in poor populations. Truly, if the aim of the Gates Foundation and other corporations was to stop hunger and end vitamin deficiency, why would they continue to patent crops which have been shown to have lower levels of the vitamins and essential minerals that humans need for better health? Many transgenic crops are known as chelators of important minerals from the soil itself.

The Gates’ argue,

“The foundation is supporting the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and partners to develop Golden Rice, a type of rice that contains beta carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A. This grant builds on previous foundation funding, and supports a range of activities to develop Golden Rice varieties that are suited for the Philippines and Bangladesh. It is hoped that Golden Rice will help improve the health of millions of children and adults across the Philippines and Bangladesh.”

However, detractors attest that a simple Vitamin A supplement would be cheaper, easier to provide, and would not require patented, transgenic seed. There is also the suspicion that since rice is a staple food in more than two thirds of the world, that the monopolization by genetically modified rice seed would obliterate ancient varieties, making farmers and those they feed reliant upon GM companies for food.

Similarly, 59 varieties of indigenous corn were recently put at risk in Mexico by the same type of campaign to push ‘much needed GM food’ onto people who were already feeding themselves without it.

The UCCSN-AL states in reference to these transgenic crops,

“[Transgenesis] cannot be considered an advanced science anymore because it is based on fallacious and anachronistic assumptions. Its defenders have oversimplified the scientific rationale behind GMOs to the point that the technology cannot be considered valid anymore: they have discarded rigorous science. The lack of scientific ground that justifies GMOs is also the reason why its promoters deny complex systems of knowledge, such as indigenous peoples’ cultures and livelihoods. Transgenic technology is the geopolitical instrument for colonial domination of our time.”

The UCCSN-AL continues,

“Scientific work must be developed with ethical responsibility and it must be committed to nature and society, and because of that, we reject the concepts stated in the letter and denounce the genocidal role of industrial farming based on GM crops, and we stress the need to defend, promote, and multiply the modes of food production that were culturally developed by the peoples of our region, and therefore are vital to ensure autonomy, environmental sustainability, safety and food sovereignty.”

Furthermore, the premise upon which Golden Rice was developed is provably false. Most genetically modified crops are grown to feed animal livestock and corn ethanol as a subsidized ‘alternative’ fuel for oil companies. These crops aren’t being developed to feed the world, but to feed the greed of elite corporate families which have no interest in whether a child in Bangladesh goes blind, or a food production system robs indigenous groups of ancient farming techniques which yield bumper crops of non-GM food.

If you want an autonomously-fed society, you don’t give them Golden Rice. A thousand Nobel winners that have been paid by the industry to say GMOs are good, likely won’t sway indigenous farmers away from their current opinion.

September 28, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Afghans Learned the Art of Torturing Their Prisoners From the West

Sputnik – 27.09.2016

There were 77 cases of prisoner torture registered in Afghan jails last year, almost 10 times more than in 2000, a local human rights commission announced in a report.

According to the report, inmates were being tortured in Kunduz, Baglan, Nangarhar, Kandahar and Herat – provinces controlled by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

The torturers went unpunished

In an interview with Sputnik, Sima Samar, Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission chief, said that none of those responsible for mistreating prisoners have so far been brought to justice.

“Our commission has registered multiple instances of excesses committed by Interior and National Security Ministry officials working in state penitentiaries. We condemn this practice and hope that such inhuman and anti-Islamic actions will never happen again,” Sima Samar said.

She added that a thorough investigation by state and security officials was the only way to of improving the situation.

Taliban supporters tortured

According to the report, people suspected of involvement in terrorist attacks and of links to the Taliban were tortured until they started making confessions.

Inmates were subjected to various kinds of physical abuse from beatings and electric shocks to being beaten with canes, sticks, rifle butts and whips. Many were also forced to stand for hours on end.

Are all those tortured really guilty?

Judging from the report, however, almost 300 people across Afghanistan were sentenced either by mistake or without any solid proof of their guilt.

These people are the type who could have been subjected to torture.

The report also mentioned hundreds of prisoners who went missing in 2015, adding that the past few years have seen a steady rise in the number of such “disappearances.”

See also:

UN Claim 35% of Detainees in Afghanistan Conflict Subjected to Torture

September 28, 2016 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , | 4 Comments

Silenced: Flight 800 And The Subversion Of Justice

What really happened to TWA flight 800? This doc­u­men­tary displays that truth con­cern­ing the mys­te­ri­ous crash of TWA Flight 800 on Ju­ly 17, 1996. As you will see, Flight 800 was ac­tu­al­ly de­stroyed by a sur­face-to-air mis­sile. Ev­ery al­le­ga­tion made in this film is backed up with facts-none more dra­mat­ic than those that come from the Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment it­self. You’ll learn what the 736 of­fi­cial eye­wit­ness­es ac­tu­al­ly saw; why avi­a­tors re­ject the CIA “car­toon” ex­pla­na­tion; how the Feds crim­i­nal­ly sup­pressed re­port­ing; the crit­i­cal wit­ness draw­ings; the rigged NTSB hear­ings; the damn­ing radar da­ta and doc­u­men­ta­tion; the al­tered phys­i­cal ev­i­dence; un­de­ni­able proof of ex­plo­sive residue prov­ing a mis­sile strike; the sting­ing re­port from the ma­chin­ist union; and much more!

Producer: pastor Don producer, host, tech., jd.consultants@live.com 206-440-1938

See also:

American Pravda: The Destruction of TWA Flight 800

CashillTWABy Ron Unz • Unz Review • September 26, 2016

… When naive individuals suggest that maintaining a large government conspiracy in America is simply impossible because “somebody would have talked” perhaps they should consider the implications of this incident, which occurred so close to the media capital of the world.

And if they ever decide to trust Wikipedia on any remotely controversial topic, they should consult the 10,000 word Wikipedia article on TWA Flight 800, comparing that exhaustive presentation with the simple facts provided in this article, or the wealth of additional information in the numerous books and documentaries upon which my treatment was based. … Read full article

September 28, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Where Is That Wasteful Government Spending?

By Lawrence Wittner | CounterPunch | September 27, 2016

In early September 2016, Donald Trump announced his plan for a vast expansion of the U.S. military, including 90,000 new soldiers for the Army, nearly 75 new ships for the Navy, and dozens of new fighter aircraft for the Air Force. Although the cost of this increase would be substantial–about $90 billion per year–it would be covered, the GOP presidential candidate said, by cutting wasteful government spending.

But where, exactly, is the waste? In fiscal 2015, the federal government engaged in $1.1 trillion of discretionary spending, but relatively small amounts went for things like education (6 percent), veterans’ benefits (6 percent), energy and the environment (4 percent), and transportation (2 percent). The biggest item, by far, in the U.S. budget was military spending: roughly $600 billion (54 percent). If military spending were increased to $690 billion and other areas were cut to fund this increase, the military would receive roughly 63 percent of the U.S. government’s discretionary spending.

Well, you might say, maybe it’s worth it. After all, the armed forces defend the United States from enemy attack. But, in fact, the U.S. government already has far more powerful military forces than any other country. China, the world’s #2 military power, spends only about a third of what the United States does on the military. Russia spends about a ninth. There are, of course, occasional terrorist attacks within American borders. But the vast and expensive U.S. military machine–in the form of missiles, fighter planes, battleships, and bombers–is simply not effective against this kind of danger.

Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Defense certainly leads the way in wasteful behavior. As William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project of the Center for International Policy, points out, “the military waste machine is running full speed ahead.” There are the helicopter gears worth $500 each purchased by the Army at $8,000 each, the $2.7 billion spent “on an air surveillance balloon that doesn’t work,” and “the accumulation of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons components that will never be used.” Private companies like Halliburton profited handsomely from Pentagon contracts for their projects in Afghanistan, such as “a multimillion-dollar `highway to nowhere,’” a $43 million gas station in nowhere, a $25 million `state of the art’ headquarters for the U.S. military in Helmand Province . . . that no one ever used, and the payment of actual salaries to countless thousands of no ones aptly labeled `ghost soldiers.’” Last year, Pro Publica created an interactive graphic revealing $17 billion in wasteful U.S. spending uncovered by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction.

Not surprisingly, as Hartung reports, the Pentagon functions without an auditing system. Although, a quarter century ago, Congress mandated that the Pentagon audit itself, it has never managed to do so. Thus, the Defense Department doesn’t know how much equipment it has purchased, how much it has been overcharged, or how many contractors it employs. The Project on Government Oversight maintains that the Pentagon has spent about $6 billion thus far on “fixing” its audit problem. But it has done so, Hartung notes, “with no solution in sight.”

The story of the F-35 jet fighter shows how easily U.S. military spending gets out of hand. Back in 2001, when the cost of this aircraft-building program was considered astronomical, the initial estimate was $233 billion. Today, the price tag has more than quadrupled, with estimates ranging from $1.1 trillion to $1.4 trillion, making it the most expensive weapon in human history. The planes reportedly cost $135 million each, and even the pilots’ helmets run $400,000 apiece. Moreover, the planes remain unusable. Although the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Air Force recently declared their versions of the F-35 combat ready, the Pentagon’s top testing official blasted that assertion in a 16-page memo, deriding them as thoroughly unsuitable for combat. The planes, he reported, had “outstanding performance deficiencies.” His assessment was reinforced in mid-September 2016, when the Air Force grounded 10 of its first F-35 fighters due to problems with their cooling lines.

U.S. wars, of course, are particularly expensive, as they require the deployment of large military forces and hardware to far-flung places, chew up very costly military equipment, and necessitate veterans’ benefits for the survivors. Taking these and other factors into account, a recent study at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs put the cost to U.S. taxpayers of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at nearly $5 trillion thus far. According to the report’s author, Neta Crawford, this figure is “so large as to be almost incomprehensible.”

Even without war, another military expense is likely to create a U.S. budgetary crisis over the course of the next 30 years: $1 trillion for the rebuilding of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, plus the construction of new nuclear missiles, nuclear submarines, and nuclear-armed aircraft. Aside from the vast cost, an obvious problem with this expenditure is that these weapons will either never be used or, if they are used, will destroy the world.

Wasted money, wasted lives, or maybe both. That’s the promise of increased military spending.

September 27, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Militarism | , | 3 Comments

Billions Down the Afghanistan Drain

By Brian CLOUGHLEY | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 18, 2016

India is reported as being “one of the largest donors of civilian aid to Afghanistan” and has recently undertaken to give the Kabul government another billion dollars, which is extremely generous of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, because, as CNN points out, there is in India “a stark picture of widespread rural poverty and deprivation.” According to the site Poverties “70 per cent of Indians don’t have access to decent toilets (which inspires a multitude of bacteria to host their own disease party); 35% of households don’t have a nearby water source and 85% of villages don’t have a secondary school.”

India’s space program costs 750 million dollars a year, and it spent 4 billion dollars hosting the Commonwealth Games. But although 300 million of its 1.2 billion citizens live in conditions that are wretched to the point of barely credible squalor it can still send a billion dollars to Afghanistan which is ranked as the third most corrupt country in the world.

That billion, indeed, might replace the billion stolen from the Kabul Bank, which, according to the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) last week, “operated as a massive pyramid scheme;  hundreds of millions of dollars had been fraudulently lent to fictitious companies, with no loan ever paid off . . . while ordinary Afghan citizens’ deposits were used to fund the fraudulent loans. Two of the principal beneficiaries of the fraudulent loans were Mahmoud Karzai and Haseen Faheem.”  Mahmoud Karzai is brother to the then President, Hamid Karzai, and now lives in luxury outside Afghanistan. Haseen Faheem is a brother of former Vice-President Mohammad Faheem (who was a corrupt savage) and also lives in luxury outside Afghanistan.

India’s billion dollars were promised during a visit to Delhi by Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani who has been in power for two years and was reported by Reuters in October 2014 as “saying that he would re-open the inquiry into the theft of almost $1 billion from the bank, fulfilling a campaign promise to make fighting corruption a priority.”

As is clear from the SIGAR’s report, Ghani has done no such thing, and after fifteen years of US-NATO military operations and expenditure of colossal amounts of money Afghanistan is a catastrophe in which “the United States contributed to the growth of corruption by injecting tens of billions of dollars into the Afghan economy, using flawed oversight and contracting practices, and partnering with malign powerbrokers.”

As the UK’s Guardian newspaper highlighted : “In one damning episode in 2010, Hamid Karzai, the president at the time, ordered the release of an aide who had been caught on wiretap demanding a bribe to thwart an investigation into a money transfer firm accused of stealing $2.78 billion. Meanwhile, the same aide was also receiving payments from the CIA, even as he was targeted by US law enforcement agencies.”

Oh, what a tangled web is weaved, when the CIA is self-deceived.

Four days after the SIGAR’s indictment of US conduct in Afghanistan, the New York Times carried an Editorial titled The Afghan War Quagmire, which is an accurate description of the situation in the country.  But in all its 628 words of observation and comment the NYT didn’t once mention the SIGAR’s report. Certainly it regrets that “America’s longest war deteriorates into a slow, messy slog” — but it’s been a messy and catastrophic slog for years, and the NYT uses the word ‘corrupt’ once and ‘corruption’ not at all.

There is no criticism by the NYT of Washington’s crass incompetence over fifteen years of futile and poorly-directed military operations, or mention of the fact that 2,384 members of the US forces and 1,136 “Coalition” troops died in Afghanistan. In its single use of the word ‘corrupt’ it observes that “The Afghan government remains weak, corrupt and roiled by internal rivalries. The casualty rate for Afghan troops is unsustainable. The economy is in shambles. Resurgent Taliban forces are gaining ground in rural areas and are carrying out barbaric attacks in the heart of Kabul, the capital.” But that’s nothing new. We’ve known for many years that the US-NATO war in Afghanistan was a lost cause. (The NYT doesn’t mention NATO, either, which is extraordinary.)

The Editorial admits in its last sentence that “American taxpayers and Afghans, who have endured decades of war, need a plan better than the current policy, which offers good intentions, wishful thinking and ever-worsening results.”  Certainly there should be a plan to get Afghanistan out of its quagmire, but the NYT does not point out that American taxpayers were duped into supporting the fatuous US-NATO war by rabid propaganda, led by such as the NYT, which, we should remember, was an enthusiastic supporter of the war on Iraq.

It ignored the SIGAR’s report which records that over the years, among other things: US money flowed to the insurgency via corruption; the Afghan government was so deeply enmeshed in corrupt and criminal networks that dismantling them would mean dismantling major pillars of support for the government itself; the United States collaborated with abusive and corrupt warlords, militias, and other powerbrokers who “gained positions of authority in the Afghan government, which further enabled them to dip their hands into the streams of cash pouring into a small and fragile economy;” and, damningly, “People turned to the Taliban as a way of expressing opposition to the government.”

What the New York Times calls the “Afghan War Quagmire” has been caused by the US government and its NATO allies. The US Pentagon has been criminal in its incompetence. The dead soldiers of US-NATO forces gave their lives for nothing. Yet, in addition to Washington pouring its taxpayers’ money down the Afghan drain, the US-NATO military alliance has pledged “to help fund Afghan security forces to the tune of around $1 billion annually over the next three years.” It is doubtful if many European citizens are aware of this generous commitment.

As the old saying has it : a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money. The 300 million Indians who live in bleak and dismal poverty have no idea that their government is throwing away a billion dollars, but India’s Prime Minister Modi and Afghanistan’s President Ghani declared that the money “would be used for building capacity in education, health, agriculture, energy, and infrastructure in Afghanistan.”

What is certain is that the countless Afghans who also live in bleak and dismal poverty will not reap the benefit of a single cent of that billion dollars.

As the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction put it so well : “Corruption is a corrosive acid — partly of our making — that eats away the base of every pillar of Afghan reconstruction, including security and political stability.” The country is in dire straits, and the only hope is to persuade the Taliban and other nationalist militants to come to the negotiating table. The only difference that billions of dollars will make is to the bank accounts of corrupt Afghans living in luxury.

September 27, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘US failed to do its side of Iran deal’

Press TV – September 27, 2016

Iran’s top banker says the United States has failed to do its share of lifting economic sanctions against Iran as per a deal that was signed over the country’s nuclear energy activities last summer.

Valiollah Seif, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), said the behavior of the US toward its commitments as per the deal – that was signed between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries – is not transparent.

Seif added that the US is even scaring banks from doing business with Iran whereas it should have done the opposite based on what it signed with Iran together with four other fellow Security Council members plus Germany.

He was commenting in reaction to remarks by US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz who earlier said that Washington had met its dies of the deal – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – that envisaged the removal of certain economic sanctions against Iran in return for measures by the country to restrict certain aspects of its nuclear energy activities.

“The truth is that this claim … is not correct,” Seif emphasized. “The commitments that the US accepted as per the JCPOA are yet to be implemented and the behavior of the American side to this effect is not transparent,” he told IRIB News during a visit to Vienna.

Iran’s CBI chief further said that the US claims that it is encouraging banks to do business with Iran but at the same time scares them away by threatening them with punitive measures if they approach the Iranian market.

“Before the sanctions, the representatives of the US Treasury visited countries and threatened banks with punitive measures if they cooperated with Iran,” Seif said.

“Now they expect to put everything back in place through a simple statement. They even don’t do that and instead raise threats against doing business with Iran.”

September 27, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Wars for Israel | , , | 1 Comment

NY Times Bureau Chief Serves Israeli Agenda: Distorting History, Ignoring Oppression

By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | September 27, 2016

One month into his stint as New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief, Peter Baker has struck a world-weary tone: In his telling, the turmoil of Palestine-Israel is nothing more than an ancient feud, and the United Nations has grown tired of hearing about it from two intransigent leaders.

The effect of this jaded stance is to leave readers with the impression that Palestinians and Israelis face off over a level playing field and they have been doing so for millennia, two notions that serve to benefit Israel above all.

In a piece about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Baker juxtaposes their comments as if they were two contenders facing off in a boxing ring, hurling invectives at each other. Where Abbas speaks of “heinous crimes” and an “historic catastrophe,” he says, Netanyahu lashes out with charges of “fanaticism” and “inhumanity.”

The two men, Baker writes, are “guilt-tripping” the international community; they are “filled with grievance and bristling with resentment;” and they “summon the ghosts of history from hundreds and even thousands of years ago to make their cases.” But, he states, “the world has begun to move on” as other crises, such as the war in Syria, take center stage.

The tenor is one of fatigue and cynicism, which does a disservice to readers and to the cause of honest journalism. Baker makes no attempt to discern the truth or falsity of any of the statements, dismissing them all as nothing more than rivalry.

When he says that the world has moved on, this implies that the United Nations itself has grown weary of the conflict, but late in his piece Baker quotes Netanyahu on the world body, providing readers with clear evidence that the organization is still very much engaged in the issue.

Baker tells us that the Israeli prime minister bitterly attacked the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council and the UN cultural agency, and knowledgeable readers will find the reasons for Netanyahu’s resentment obvious: UN agencies frequently report on Israeli violations of international and humanitarian law, and the UN has granted membership status to Palestine, over the objections of Israel.

Nevertheless, the Times article would have us believe that the Israel-Palestinian conflict has become passé, that the world is tired of these two bitter rivals who refuse to make up.

In presenting the issue in this light, Baker hides the terrible disparity between the two sides and ignores the urgent issues of injustice and international law.

He writes in this vein knowing that Abbas and Netanyahu represent two very different political and military realities. The United States, as the Times has recently reported, provides massive amounts of military aid to Israel each year, but it provides absolutely none to Palestinians. It also supports Israel at the United Nations, wielding its veto power to block resolutions critical of Israel, even those that echo its own policy statements.

Moreover, Baker and Times editors certainly know that Palestinians have no army, air force or navy; no tanks, warships, drones or nuclear arms; and that Israel has all this and more. They also have UN data for 2016, which show that, as of Sept. 19, 89 Palestinians had been killed by Israelis, while 10 Israelis had died at the hands of Palestinians.

Moreover, they know the shocking Gaza death toll from the summer of 2014, in which, according to the Israeli organization B’Tselem, Israeli forces killed 2,202 Palestinians, two-thirds of them civilians and 526 of them children. By contrast, Gaza fighters and rockets killed 72 Israelis, including 62 soldiers and one child.

The disparity is enormous, yet Baker has chosen to present the situation as a conflict between two equal sides. He has also adopted the “ancient hatreds” line that ignores the reality of Palestinian dispossession since 1947 and the present brutality inflicted on an occupied people by the powerful Israeli state.

Two days after his Abbas vs. Netanyahu story appeared, Baker published a piece on soccer in the West Bank, writing in the lead that “the latest battleground in the age-old struggle” between Israelis and Palestinians” was a dispute over whether FIFA rules allow Israeli soccer teams to play in West Bank settlements.

He thus manages to distort history, trivialize Palestinian resistance and maintain the false impression of parity between the two sides, ignoring evidence that pre-Zionist Palestine saw peaceful coexistence between Jews, Christians and Muslims. The “age-old struggle” is actually a recent one.

In dubbing conflict over soccer as “latest battlefield” he turns his back on urgent and immediate issues: recent Palestinian deaths at the hands of Israeli security forces; the state-sponsored destruction of homes and livelihoods (including humanitarian aid donated to struggling communities); and continued attacks on unarmed fishermen and farmers in Gaza.

When Baker suggests that the conflict is fueled by ancient and intractable animosities, that only the two sides take any real interest in its outcome and that it involves petty disputes and little more than a war of words, this serves the Israeli agenda. He is directing our attention away from the core issues, allowing Israel to carry out its brutal regime of dispossession and oppression well under the radar.

Follow @TimesWarp on Twitter.

September 27, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

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