Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

6 Execs from Pharma Co. who Lobbied for Illegal Pot, Arrested for Bribing Docs to Push Deadly Fentanyl

By Matt Agorist | The Free Thought Project | December 10, 2016

Insys Therapeutics, the company who makes insane profits from a drug behind one of the worst overdose epidemics in the nation’s history, fentanyl, is in hot water — again.

According to Reuters, six former Insys Therapeutics Inc executives and managers were arrested on Thursday on charges that they engaged in a nationwide scheme to bribe doctors to prescribe a drug containing the opioid fentanyl, U.S. prosecutors said.

Along with the executives, Michael Baich, the former CEO, was also charged in an indictment filed in federal court in Boston this week.

They have all been brought up on charges of racketeering for their scheme.

“Patient safety is paramount, and prescriptions for these highly addictive drugs, especially fentanyl, which is among the most potent and addictive opioids, should be prescribed without the influence of corporate money,” Carmen M. Ortiz, the United States attorney in Massachusetts, said in a statement. “I hope that today’s charges send a clear message that we will continue to attack the opioid epidemic from all angles, whether it is corporate greed or street-level dealing.”

What makes this information so damning and hypocritical is that in September, the Free Thought Project helped to expose Insys Therapeutics for paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep marijuana, a plant that has never killed anyone, illegal.

That’s right, in a glaring display of hypocrisy, the maker of the drug Subsys, a sublingual fentanyl spray, claims that marijuana is dangerous because it could hurt children. At least that was their public reasoning for shoving $500,000 towards a campaign opposing marijuana legalization in the US.

These people not only advocated that pot is dangerous, but they were bribing doctors to prescribe a drug responsible for one of the most deadly epidemics in the history of the United States — for entirely unnecessary reasons.

About 129 people died each day nationwide in 2014 from a drug overdose and more than half of those were opioid, heroin, or fentanyl related, according to the DEA.

Insys has every reason in the world to despise legal weed as multiple studies now show that it is a great alternative for pain relief versus the highly addictive and deadly opioids.

According to a study that looked at 17 states with medical cannabis laws in place, researchers “found that the use of prescription drugs for which marijuana could serve as a clinical alternative fell significantly, once a medical marijuana law was implemented.”

Prescriptions fell dramatically for opioid painkillers, with 1,826 fewer doses being prescribed per year by the typical physician in a medical cannabis state. Amazingly, the trend also applied to prescriptions for depression, seizure, nausea and anxiety.

Insys has other reasons to fear this beneficial plant as well — because they are making a synthetic version of it.

According to a September report by the Intercept, Insys is currently developing a product called the Dronabinol Oral Solution, a drug that uses a synthetic version of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to alleviate chemotherapy-caused nausea and vomiting. In an early filing related to the dronabinol drug, assessing market concerns and competition, Insys filed a disclosure statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission stating plainly that legal marijuana is a direct threat to their product line:

Legalization of marijuana or non-synthetic cannabinoids in the United States could significantly limit the commercial success of any dronabinol product candidate. … If marijuana or non-synthetic cannabinoids were legalized in the United States, the market for dronabinol product sales would likely be significantly reduced and our ability to generate revenue and our business prospects would be materially adversely affected.

It is apparent that the people at Insys are willing to go to extreme and unscrupulous lengths to maintain their market share — up to and including buying off doctors and politicians, as well as pushing a highly dangerous drug on people who may not need it.

According to the indictment of the executives, as reported by the NY Times, the six former employees, including the former chief executive, Michael L. Babich, and regional sales directors, offered bribes and kickbacks to pain doctors in various states in exchange for getting them to prescribe more of the company’s product, Subsys, a spray form of fentanyl. Subsys is supposed to be used only by cancer patients who are already on round-the-clock pain drugs.

The irony about the government’s choice to indict these Insys executives is that they are a small time company who has very little market share. If we compare Insys Therapeutics to the makers of OxyContin, for example, we can see a glaring difference as to how the two companies are treated by the government.

While Insys sits in court awaiting a much-deserved criminal indictment, the makers of OxyContin, the Sackler family, is rubbing elbows with the elite. 

As the DEA cracks down on fentanyl, the FDA announced last year that they approved the use of OxyContin, a similarly deadly drug, for use in children.

So, while the news of Insys getting busted for pushing their deadly drug on people who don’t need it is certainly worthy, the elite who make billions a year from peddling their deadly addictive drugs through pill mills across the US while fighting to keep cannabis illegal, remain quietly protected by the establishment and their immoral war on drugs.

December 11, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia ‘strategic competitor’ to West, no business as usual – UK Defense Minister

RT | December 11, 2016

Britain’s Defense Minister Michael Fallon said that Russia is a strategic competitor to the West and hence should not be treated equally. Fallon noted that there is still a need for the de-escalation of tensions, but there can be “no business as usual.”

“Russia is a strategic competitor to us in the West and we have to understand that,” Fallon told the BBC.

He noted that this is essentially the reason why the West “can’t be treating Russia as an equal.” Speaking about joint work with the future US counterpart Jim Mattis (recently appointed by US President-elect Donald Trump), Fallon said that the West should be strong against Moscow.

“I’m ready to work with the new Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis … to be strong against Russian aggression towards NATO,” the British Defense Minister stressed.

However, he added that at the same time he is ready to work with Washington “to de-escalate tensions with Moscow” and “to continue to work with Russia on how we get towards a settlement in Syria.”

“There are things we have to talk to Russia about, of course: to de-escalate tension, to explain the purpose of our deployment within NATO, to reassure the Eastern members and to persuade Russia to use its influence, where it has great influence. And one of those countries is Syria,” Fallon went on to say.

Yet he highlighted that “it can’t be business as usual.” Relations between Moscow and the West have been tense over the past few years, with the US and its allies accusing Russia of building up forces on its western borders. Moscow said that it has done so only on its own territory and in response to US and NATO troops amassing near its borders.

In July NATO members agreed to the “biggest reinforcement since the Cold War,” posting four multinational battalions to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. And in November Washington announced the deployment of nearly 6,000 troops, along with tanks, infantry vehicles, heavy howitzers, and combat helicopters to eastern Europe.

READ MORE:

Britain joins biggest European military buildup since Cold War

Trump must stand up to Russia, not treat it as equal – UK defense secretary

December 11, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Demand action to free British citizen Fayez Sharary from Israeli prison

layla-sharari

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – December 11, 2016

Fayez Sharary, a British citizen of Palestinian descent, has now been held in Israeli prisons for nearly three months. He traveled with his wife Laila and their daughter, Aya, 3, to Palestine, to visit Laila’s widowed mother and to mark Eid al-Adha in Jerusalem, reports Inminds, the British organization currently leading a campaign to free Sharary. As the family attempted to leave Palestine on 15 September at the bridge to Jordan, they were stopped by Israeli forces; they had a flight scheduled for 17 September to return to the UK.

Sharary was separated from his wife and daughter, while he was interrogated for five hours while his daugher was refused access to a toilet. Laila’s mobile phone was confiscated and Sharary was detained; when she attempted to refuse to leave and stay with her husband, Israeli soldiers screamed at her.

Sharary was held for three weeks in Petah Tikva interrogation center and subject to ill-treatment, abuse and torture throughout that time. He was denied access to a lawyer until he signed a forced confession on 6 October and was moved to Ofer prison. Sharary’s torture by Israeli forces was further substantiated by Judge Azriel Levi, who ordered his release in a hearing in Ofer military court on 26 October, citing his confession as a result of “the method of interrogation, which included pained and prolonged shackling, threats, and a blatant exploitation of the defendant’s demonstrated weakness.” The military judge further said that the confession had a value of “less than zero” and that some of the allegations against Sharary were not prosecutable in the military courts.

However, as is frequently the case when on the rare occasion a military judge orders the release of a detainee, the Israeli military prosecution appealed and Sharary has remained imprisoned ever since.

Daniel Zeichner, the British Labour Party’s Shadow Minister for Transport, raised a parliamentary question regarding the involvement of the British consulate in providing support for Sharary’s case; Tobias Ellwood, under-secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, replied that “Our Embassy in Tel Aviv has raised, and continues to raise, the detention of Mr Sharary with the Israeli authorities, most recently on 15 November. Consular officials continue to provide consular support to Mr Sharary and his family.”

Laila Sharary has participated in several protests in London demanding that the UK government act to free her imprisoned husband, 49, who has lived in the UK for 23 years. Sharary is allegedly accused of “contact with an enemy organization,” “services to an illegal organization,” and “bringing money into the region from an enemy.” Part of these allegations allegedly relate to Sharary’s time in Lebanon in 1993 or earlier; Sharary is not a resident of Palestine.  The initial judge in the case who ordered Sharary released also dismissed the allegations of financial involvement due to irrelevant claims by the military prosecutor.

Despite these flimsy charges and his experience of torture – all too common, but publicly confirmed in this case by an Israeli military judge – Sharary remains imprisoned and will face a military court in Ofer on Wednesday, 14 December.

TAKE ACTION:

Please take action to urge the UK government to intervene and pressure Israel to release torture victim Fayez Sharary. This includes asking for UK representatives to attend the hearing in Sharary’s case at Ofer Military Court.

Email the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at fcocorrespondence@fco.gov.uk and the British Consulate in Jerusalem at britain.jerusalem@fco.gov.uk to express your concern about the case of Fayez Sharary.

You can use the sample letter below or write your own letter:

SAMPLE LETTER

To whom it may concern,

I am writing in regard to the urgent case of Fayez Sharary, a British citizen currently imprisoned by Israel in its military court system for the occupied Palestinian territories. Sharary, 49, was previously ordered released due to the torture he experienced under interrogation.

Nonetheless, he remains imprisoned and will once again face a military court at Ofer prison on Wednesday, 14 December from 8:00 am to 1:00 pm.

It is critical that the British government support its citizen Fayez Sharary by pressuring Israel for his immediate release. It is particularly critical that there is a British official presence at the military court hearing on 14 December.

Israeli military trials do not meet international standards for fair trials and can rely on evidence obtained through torture. Please act to release Fayez Sharary and reunite him with his wife and family in Britain.

Sincerely,

December 11, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

May speaking in interest of US, Israel rather than UK: Analyst

Press TV – December 11, 2016

Iran has summoned the British ambassador to Tehran over the recent meddlesome remarks made by UK Prime Minister Theresa May against the Islamic Republic. Speaking at the annual summit of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC] in the Bahraini capital of Manama on Wednesday, May said Britain would help the GCC states “push back” against what she claimed to be Iran’s “aggressive regional actions.”

An investigative journalist says Theresa May seems to be from the school of “foot in mouth” diplomacy, adding that she is speaking more in the interest of foreign powers such as the United States and Israel than Britain.

“Right at the moment, there is a very important deal being struck between Royal Dutch Shell and Iran as she should know, and she cannot go around talking about Iran’s aggressive actions in the region where actually it is a bit rich coming from her, [because] Britain’s aggressive actions in the region along with the United States have been going on since the First World War. There is also problems because Britain and America have been interfering in the region for a long, long time and so she has been totally hypocritical,” Tony Gosling told Press TV in an interview on Sunday.

He stated that the British premier is ruining the good relations built between Tehran and London.

The analyst also noted that Theresa May represents an “authoritarian” government at the moment in Britain, adding that she neither represents the views of ordinary British people, nor of her own cabinet.

Golsing further opined that UK’s ulterior motive for increasing its presence in the Middle East is arms sales to the Persian Gulf states such as Bahrain.

He also argued that Theresa May has effectively been implanted by the “securocrats” in Britain, that is to say the secret services and the top echelons of the civil service.

“She is walking around the world saying silly things and what is worse she is supping with some of the worst regimes on the planet. We are talking about people like Saudi Arabia with an appalling human rights record, which is smashing poor Yemen, a beautiful country, incredibly historic place, [and also] the poorest country in the Middle East,” he said.

December 11, 2016 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , , | 1 Comment

UK in panic over Johnson’s remarks against Saudi regime

Press TV – December 11, 2016

UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s recent criticism of Saudi Arabia has worried British officials, with various government figures trying to gloss them over as Johnson’s own personal views.

During a conference in Rome last week, Johnson blasted the Riyadh regime over its “proxy wars” in the Middle East and its unprovoked military aggression against Yemen, which has killed over 11,000 Yemenis since March 2015.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokeswoman immediately rebuked the remarks back then, saying the comments did not reflect “the government’s views on Saudi and its role in the region.”

Johnson’s statements divided the UK Parliament, with many of the lawmakers saying that he was stating the truth and should not face public chastisement.

UK Defense Minister Michael Fallon lashed out at the media on Sunday, for blowing the story out of proportions and confecting an artificial row between Johnson and the Downing Street.

“Let’s be very clear about this. The way some of his remarks were reported seemed to imply that we didn’t support the right of Saudi Arabia to defend itself… and didn’t support what Saudi Arabia is doing in leading the campaign to restore the legitimate government of Yemen,” Fallon said during a BBC interview.

“Some of the reporting led people to think that,” he added. “The way it was interpreted left people with the impression that we didn’t support Saudi Arabia and we do.”

Fallon said the months-long Saudi invasion against its impoverished southern neighbor was in self-defense, a right that London thought Riyadh was entitled to.

“The government’s view is absolutely clear – that what Saudi Arabia is entitled to do is defend itself from these attacks across its own border,” he said.

Johnson’s remarks came at a time when May was in the Middle East, trying to cement military and economic ties with [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council nations – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar.

Besides helping Bahrain with a heavy-handed crackdown on its popular uprising, Britain has also been providing weapons and intelligence to Saudis in the attacks against civilian targets in Yemen.

December 11, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Former US Assistant Secretary of State confuses compliance with journalism

RT | December 11, 2016

A former State Department official claimed this week that RT’s staff are not legitimate news reporters. This is ostensibly because “real journalists” only work for compliant US media and not disruptive foreign competitors.

Around this time of year, there are a few constants. Leaves will fall, turkeys will be carved, and David J. Kramer will launch some kind of attack on RT.

A former George W. Bush apparatchik, Kramer now works for John McCain’s eponymous Institute for International Leadership. His trademark is anti-Russia vitriol. In fact, it often seems like he’s trying to outdo his boss, who can rarely complete a full week without condemning Moscow for something or other.

Last winter, the activist was campaigning for the US government to seize RT’s assets in America as compensation for Yukos, a former Russian oil company. This year, Kramer has decided that the network’s staff are not “real journalists.”

This is apparently because “real journalists” work for outlets like “Voice of America, Radio Liberty, the New York Times or the Washington Post.” That’s right, reporters at US state-funded media, whose publicly stated mission is to tell the news in a way that is “consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States,” are just swell, but RT staff and contributors can’t be mentioned in the same breath.

Presumably this is because RT doesn’t take the pronouncements of the State Department at face value, unlike virtually every other organization operating in the US media space. And this clearly unnerves a lot of people in the American elite who have managed to control media narratives for decades – such as back in 2003, when popular newspapers and broadcasters helped drum up support for the invasion of Iraq.

Furthermore, it’s rather astonishing how anybody could regard New York Times and Washington Post journalists as any more ‘real’ than those at RT, given both newspapers’ propensity for bending facts, often with terrible consequences. Indeed, mention of Iraq reminds us of the NYT’s insistence that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction”. Of course, WaPo also joined in the campaign, running more than 140 stories on its front page promoting the conflict.

As it happens, WaPo’s propensity for publishing “fake news” has been under the microscope in the past couple of weeks, due to the infamous “PropOrNot” splash over the Thanksgiving holiday. In this very dubious story, the paper helped to smear dozens of respected news organizations as agents of the Kremlin. And the backlash has been overwhelming. So much so that the original article currently has more corrections than a seven-year-old’s school homework.

That trail of corrections betrays the total absence of minimal journalistic standards, at least as applied to this article, the publication is ostensibly out to defend. Libeled outlets were not contacted for comment (by WaPo’s own admission). Information that is a matter of public record was not fact-checked (ditto). Absurd claims that RT originated and promoted fake news stories about the US election weren’t substantiated by a single example, even after RT’s insistence (spoiler alert: WaPo could not provide any examples because there are none).

Now the article opens with what essentially amounts to a soft retraction, and a rather hilarious admission that the Post “does not vouch for the validity” of the findings it nevertheless deemed fit to print.

The venerable New York Times isn’t blameless in the “fake news” myth-building either. Taking some of WaPo’s verbiage almost word for work, the Gray Lady also printed that “Many of those false reports originated from RT News.” To substantiate this libel, did it provide even a single example out of the “many” that are supposedly available? No, of course not. We’ve been in touch with the Times, and yes, they’re still looking. This is not a joke.

Yes, it is apparently entirely acceptable to publish fake news as long as they concern Russia or RT. Not just acceptable – this earns you a commendation from a former Assistant Secretary of State as being a “real journalist.”

Kramer’s essential thesis is that RT is attempting to undermine the credibility of the US government. This is done by “trying to become part of the dialogue, which usually occurs between journalists and press secretaries of the US government agencies.” And “trying to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of the people that the government is not telling the truth.” So, in other words, this former official is upset because RT’s reporters ask the tough questions, which their convivial American colleagues – with some notable exceptions – mostly seem to be unwilling to broach.

One can almost imagine Kramer’s inner mantra: “A good journalist must always believe – and report – that the US government is always telling the truth! We have never ever had even a single example to the contrary!”

Instead, it can be assumed that he’d prefer a situation where Washington’s talking points are accepted at face value and left uncontested. And never mind the fact that this practice allowed the Bush administration to hoodwink the American people into a disastrous war in Iraq, not to mention dozens of other infamous international misadventures. That said, the fact that Kramer worked as an Assistant Secretary of State for that government probably makes him nostalgic for a time when the White House could easily dictate the agenda.

While Kramer’s logic is truly astounding, it does give an insight into the mindset of the American establishment when it comes to the media. In their worldview, “real journalists” don’t ask difficult questions, and do help officials spin the US-driven narrative of the day. However, reporters who try to hold them to account are not legitimate because they refuse to play the game.

But in this day and age, the audiences, in the US and elsewhere, have a different view.

December 11, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Has the US and Its Allies Used Covert Airdrops, Drones to Supply the Islamic State?

By Ulson Gunnar – New Eastern Outlook – 10.12.2016

Is there a way the United States or one of the Islamic State’s admitted state sponsors could be airdropping supplies without triggering suspicion? How has modern airdrop technology and techniques evolved that might make this possible?

When asking these questions, they must first be understood in the context that:

(A.) According to Wikileaks, within the e-mails of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton it was acknowledged that the governments of two of America’s closest allies in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, were providing material support to the Islamic State (IS);

(B.) That according to the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) (PDF), the US and its allies sought to use a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria as a strategic asset against the Syrian government, precisely where the Islamic (Salafist) State (principality) eventually manifested itself and;

(C.) That the fighting capacity of the Islamic State is on such a large and sustained level, it can only be the result of immense and continuous state sponsorship, including a constant torrent of supplies by either ground or air (or both).

Within this context, we can already partially answer these questions with confirmed statements made by another of America’s closest allies in the region, and a long-time NATO member, Turkey.

It was a May 2016 Washington Times article titled, “Turkey offers joint ops with U.S. forces in Syria, wants Kurds cut out,” that quoted none other than the Turkish Foreign Minister himself admitting (emphasis added):

Joint operations between Washington and Ankara in Manbji, a well-known waypoint for Islamic State fighters, weapons and equipment coming from Turkey bound for Raqqa, would effectively open “a second front” in the ongoing fight to drive the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, from Syria’s borders, [Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu] said.

And clearly, by simply looking at maps of the Syrian conflict over the past 5 years, the supply corridors used by the Islamic State, via Turkey, to resupply its region-wide warfare were significant until Kurdish fighters reduced them to one, now the epicenter of a questionable Turkish military incursion into northern Syria.

With the Islamic State’s ground routes hindered, is there another way the US or at the very least, admittedly its Islamic State-sponsoring allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar could deliver food, ammunition, weapons and even small vehicles to the militant group, still held up in Syria’s eastern city of Al Raqqa?

The answer is yes.

Modern American Airdrop Capabilities 

A system developed years ago for the United States military called Joint Precision Airdrop System (JPADS) allows cargo aircraft to release airdrops of supplies from as high as 25,000 feet and as far from a drop zone as 25-30 kilometers. A Global Positioning System (GPS) and an airborne guidance unit automate the drop’s trajectory to land within 100 meters of a predetermined drop zone. The system also makes it possible to release several drops at once and have them directed toward different drop zones.

The US military has already received this system and it has been in use for years. At least one Persian Gulf state has taken delivery of the system as well, the United Arab Emirates.

Defense Industry Daily would report that in 2013, the UAE would order the system for use with its C-130H and C-17 aircraft. The same report would note that the system is used by several other NATO allies.

The US has admittedly used this system to drop supplies to both Kurdish fighters and anti-government militants in Syria, including at least one instance where supply pallets ended up “accidentally” with the Islamic State.

In addition to airdrops made by large, manned cargo aircraft, the US has admittedly used drones to drop supplies across the region, the Guardian would admit.

The US Already Makes Airdrops to the Islamic State

The Washington Post in a 2014 article titled, “U.S. accidentally delivered weapons to the Islamic State by airdrop, militants say,” claims:

The Islamic State has released a new video in which it brags that it recovered weapons and supplies that the U.S. military intended to deliver to Kurdish fighters, who are locked in a fight with the militants over control of the Syrian border town of Kobane.

The Washington Post also admits (emphasis added):

The incident highlights the difficulty in making sure all airdrops are accurate, even with GPS-guided parachutes that the Air Force commonly uses. Airdrops of food and water to religious minorities trapped on mountain cliffs in northern Iraq in August hit the mark about 80 percent of the time, Pentagon officials said at the time.

This (and similar incidents) may represent an accident in which JPADS performed poorly. Or it could represent an intentional airdrop meant to resupply Islamic State terrorists with the Washington Post article attempting to explain away how GPS-guided airdrops could “accidentally” end up in enemy territory.

Reports from Qatari-based Al Jazeera claim the US has also dropped weapons to militants other than Kurdish fighters. In an article titled, “US drops weapons to rebels battling ISIL in Syria,” Al Jazeera claims:

The US has reportedly dropped weapons to rebel fighters in Syria as the UN Security Council considers dropping food and medicine by air to civilians.

It also claims that:

The weapons supplies were airdropped to rebels in Marea, a town in the northern province of Aleppo, on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.

“Coalition airplanes dropped … ammunitions, light weapons and anti-tank weapons to rebels in Marea,” Rami Abdel Rahman, the SOHR head, said.

The Guardian would also admit to the US carrying out similar airdrops in Syria.

Knowingly Dropping Supplies into Terrorist-Held Territory 

And more recently, there has been a push to drop supplies into eastern Aleppo in an attempt to prolong the fighting and prevent the complete collapse of a militant presence there, specifically using JPADS, according to the Guardian.

Another Guardian article reveals that US drones have previously been used to make airdrops in the region and might be used again to create an “air bridge” to militant-held areas of Syria.

However, even most US and European sources have admitted to a heavy presence of Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise in the city, Jabhat Al Nusra, a designated foreign terrorist organization even according to the US State Department.

If the US would seriously consider airdropping supplies to Al Qaeda to prolong fighting and to continue confounding Syrian forces, why wouldn’t they also airdrop supplies to the Islamic State to do the same?

With the ability to drop supplies from as high as 25,000 feet and from as far away as 25-30 kilometers (and possibly even further as was envisioned by future designs), the US or its allies could appear to be resupplying what it calls “moderate rebels” on one part of the battlefield, while diverting a percentage of its drops into Al Qaeda or Islamic State territory. Drones could also be utilized to create “air bridges” harder to detect than those created using larger cargo aircraft.

With the Islamic State’s fighting capacity still potent both in Iraq and Syria, and with Kurdish fighters sealing off ground routes along the Syrian border, unless Turkey within its “buffer zone” is passing weapons onward to the Islamic State, what other means could this terrorist organization be using to resupply its regional war effort, if not by air?

For those seriously committed to defeating the Islamic State and other armed groups operating within Syrian territory, answering this question will bring peace and security one step closer.

December 11, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

THE CIA MOVES TO INVALIDATE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS BY BLAMING RUSSIAN HACKING

By The_Real_Fly | ZeroHedge | Dec 10, 2016

It’s happening. After careful analysis of all the media punditry and the ‘leaks’ coming out from the CIA, I can only conclude that there is a concerted effort taking place to invalidate the U.S. elections, in an effort to unseat Donald Trump. Last night the Washington Post reported a leak from inside the CIA, saying they had a report that showed evidence that Russia hacked the elections in order to elect Donald Trump. They’re being very specific about that point. Pay attention.

Source: Reuters

The CIA has concluded that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help President-elect Donald Trump win the White House, and not just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

Citing U.S. officials briefed on the matter, the Post said intelligence agencies had identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, to WikiLeaks.

The officials described the individuals as people known to the intelligence community who were part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and reduce Clinton’s chances of winning the election.

“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” the Post quoted a senior U.S. official as saying. “That’s the consensus view.”

The Post said the official had been briefed on an intelligence presentation made by the Central Intelligence Agency to key U.S. senators behind closed-doors last week.

The CIA, in what the Post said was a secret assessment, cited a growing body of evidence from multiple sources. Briefers told the senators it was now “quite clear” that electing Trump was Russia’s goal, the Post quoted officials as saying on condition of anonymity.

In October, the U.S. government formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic Party organizations ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election.

President Barack Obama has said he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about consequences for the attacks. But Russian officials have denied all accusations of interference in the U.S. election.

A CIA spokeswoman said the agency had no comment on the report.

In response to the Washpo article, the Trump campaign issued the following statement.

“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” Trump’s representatives said in a statement attributed to the transition team. “The election ended a long time ago … It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.'”

Bob Baer, former CIA and current ‘Hunting Hitler’ shill, said in an interview today that if the evidence regarding Russia hacking the elections are true, then the only logical thing to do is to hold new elections.

‘If the evidence is there, I don’t see any other way than to vote again.’

Bear in mind, this is all in response to the Wikileaks revelations about the abject corruptness of both the DNC and the Hillary Clinton camp, via the Podesta emails. Instead of offering an explanation for their egregious actions, the elite cadre inside of the Clinton camp have instead gone on the offensive to blame the messenger. The media is running with this story with long strides, not only suggesting that Russia hacked the elections, but also saying Trump was — in fact — a ‘witting asset’ of Moscow. What’s next, an arrest order for Trump and his campaign staff for being covert Russian spies?

‘This nation was attacked by a cyber warfare operation.’

Whatever happened to the smug certainty that the elections wouldn’t be rigged? I suppose what Obama meant was they wouldn’t be rigged had Hillary won, yes?

Paul Joseph Watson offers some valuable insight, in regard to the naked hypocrisy of America’s ruling elite:

Russia interfered in the election! (no evidence).

LEFT FREAKS OUT.

Saudi Arabia provably bankrolled Clinton’s campaign

MEH

December 11, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | 1 Comment

The CIA’s Absence of Conviction

By Craig Murray | December 11, 2016

I have watched incredulous as the CIA’s blatant lie has grown and grown as a media story – blatant because the CIA has made no attempt whatsoever to substantiate it. There is no Russian involvement in the leaks of emails showing Clinton’s corruption. Yes this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also.

A little simple logic demolishes the CIA’s claims. The CIA claim they “know the individuals” involved. Yet under Obama the USA has been absolutely ruthless in its persecution of whistleblowers, and its pursuit of foreign hackers through extradition. We are supposed to believe that in the most vital instance imaginable, an attempt by a foreign power to destabilise a US election, even though the CIA knows who the individuals are, nobody is going to be arrested or extradited, or (if in Russia) made subject to yet more banking and other restrictions against Russian individuals? Plainly it stinks. The anonymous source claims of “We know who it was, it was the Russians” are beneath contempt.

As Julian Assange has made crystal clear, the leaks did not come from the Russians. As I have explained countless times, they are not hacks, they are insider leaks – there is a major difference between the two. And it should be said again and again, that if Hillary Clinton had not connived with the DNC to fix the primary schedule to disadvantage Bernie, if she had not received advance notice of live debate questions to use against Bernie, if she had not accepted massive donations to the Clinton foundation and family members in return for foreign policy influence, if she had not failed to distance herself from some very weird and troubling people, then none of this would have happened.

The continued ability of the mainstream media to claim the leaks lost Clinton the election because of “Russia”, while still never acknowledging the truths the leaks reveal, is Kafkaesque.

I had a call from a Guardian journalist this afternoon. The astonishing result was that for three hours, an article was accessible through the Guardian front page which actually included the truth among the CIA hype:

The Kremlin has rejected the hacking accusations, while the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has previously said the DNC leaks were not linked to Russia. A second senior official cited by the Washington Post conceded that intelligence agencies did not have specific proof that the Kremlin was “directing” the hackers, who were said to be one step removed from the Russian government.

Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange, called the CIA claims “bullshit”, adding: “They are absolutely making it up.”
“I know who leaked them,” Murray said. “I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things.

“If what the CIA are saying is true, and the CIA’s statement refers to people who are known to be linked to the Russian state, they would have arrested someone if it was someone inside the United States.

“America has not been shy about arresting whistleblowers and it’s not been shy about extraditing hackers. They plainly have no knowledge whatsoever.”

But only three hours. While the article was not taken down, the home page links to it vanished and it was replaced by a ludicrous one repeating the mad CIA allegations against Russia and now claiming – incredibly – that the CIA believe the FBI is deliberately blocking the information on Russian collusion. Presumably this totally nutty theory, that Putin is somehow now controlling the FBI, is meant to answer my obvious objection that, if the CIA know who it is, why haven’t they arrested somebody. That bit of course would be the job of the FBI, who those desperate to annul the election now wish us to believe are the KGB.

It is terrible that the prime conduit for this paranoid nonsense is a once great newspaper, the Washington Post, which far from investigating executive power, now is a sounding board for totally evidence free anonymous source briefing of utter bullshit from the executive.

In the UK, one single article sums up the total abnegation of all journalistic standards. The truly execrable Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian writes “Few credible sources doubt that Russia was behind the hacking of internal Democratic party emails, whose release by Julian Assange was timed to cause maximum pain to Hillary Clinton and pleasure for Trump.” Does he produce any evidence at all for this assertion? No, none whatsoever. What does a journalist mean by a “credible source”? Well, any journalist worth their salt in considering the credibility of a source will first consider access. Do they credibly have access to the information they claim to have?

Now both Julian Assange and I have stated definitively the leak does not come from Russia. Do we credibly have access? Yes, very obviously. Very, very few people can be said to definitely have access to the source of the leak. The people saying it is not Russia are those who do have access. After access, you consider truthfulness. Do Julian Assange and I have a reputation for truthfulness? Well in 10 years not one of the tens of thousands of documents WikiLeaks has released has had its authenticity successfully challenged. As for me, I have a reputation for inconvenient truth telling.

Contrast this to the “credible sources” Freedland relies on. What access do they have to the whistleblower? Zero. They have not the faintest idea who the whistleblower is. Otherwise they would have arrested them. What reputation do they have for truthfulness? It’s the Clinton gang and the US government, for goodness sake.

In fact, the sources any serious journalist would view as “credible” give the opposite answer to the one Freedland wants. But in what passes for Freedland’s mind, “credible” is 100% synonymous with “establishment”. When he says “credible sources” he means “establishment sources”. That is the truth of the “fake news” meme. You are not to read anything unless it is officially approved by the elite and their disgusting, crawling whores of stenographers like Freedland.

The worst thing about all this is that it is aimed at promoting further conflict with Russia. This puts everyone in danger for the sake of more profits for the arms and security industries – including of course bigger budgets for the CIA. As thankfully the four year agony of Aleppo comes swiftly to a close today, the Saudi and US armed and trained ISIS forces counter by moving to retake Palmyra. This game kills people, on a massive scale, and goes on and on.

December 11, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Facebook Suppresses Truth

By Craig Murray | December 11, 2016

So far 564 people believe they have shared on Facebook my article conclusively refuting the CIA’s invention of lies about Russia hacking the DNC, using the share button on this site. Another 78 have tried to share it from my Facebook page. The total amount of incoming traffic from these 650 people sharing? 22 people. Almost nobody can currently reach this site through Facebook, as the “came from” interface on my statcounter below shows. Nothing from Facebook. Facebook are actively colluding in preventing social media from contradicting the mainstream media lies about Russian involvement in the US election campaign.

Don’t believe me? If you think you shared the article on Facebook, phone one of your Facebook friends and ask if it appeared for them.

The only way to defeat this is to republish the article yourself. I waive any copyright. If you have access to a blog, copy and paste it there and post a link to that blog on Facebook. Or simply cut and paste my whole article and copy it to your Facebook page, in sections if required.

I am similarly ghost banned on Twitter. The work round to this, which plenty of people have found, is to create a new tweet yourself with a link to my site, rather than retweet one of my tweets. As with the Facebook share, if you do retweet you will be unaware it doesn’t work.

There are profound implications for society in the compliance of the major social media corporations with establishment demands to prevent social media from effectively challenging the mainstream media narrative – and I cannot think of a more classic example than this case. I do urge you to take action as described above, to show that the people will not stand for it.

December 11, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | 1 Comment

Facebook is rolling out its censorship initiative

By Guilherme Schneider | The Duran | December 11, 2016

According to the latest news, Facebook began testing new tools to carry out its “censorship plan” with the convenient name of “tackling fake news.”

20161119_fbOne of the tools being tested will enable users to inform Facebook if certain news stories are using “misleading language”. Some users posted images of a Facebook survey asking them the following question: “To what extent do you think that this link’s title withholds key details of the story?”

It is still unclear what kind of actions will be carried out after this additional user data is collected, but it is likely that some sort of a database, containing the list of “misleading” news websites, will be generated.

In a not so distant past, content curators from Facebook confirmed that they received direct orders from the company to decrease the relevance or even hide from the newsfeed stories and content with conservative language. While this happened in the US, similar stories have been reported in Brazil, the United Kingdom around the time of the Brexit, and in other countries.

Recently, there were other reports that Facebook developed a special software for the Chinese market, that would enable “third parties” to authorize the contents before posting it to the users’ timelines. The initiative would aim to lift the current ban of the social network in the country.

The main difference between this new software and the current content restrictions in some countries is that instead of reacting to a government request to hide some specific content, Facebook would be giving the option to some parties to censor and take down content before it is even posted on the network.

It is true that when you create a profile on Facebook or any other social network, you have to accept their terms and conditions in exchange of the “non-paid” use of their platforms. Most of these terms and conditions allow the social networks to analyze the information you are publishing and reading for several proposes, including targeted advertisements and many others, but is it ethical to take advantage of this information in order to define what content you should or should not see?

Since Snowden’s NSA information leak we know that we can be monitored at any given time by government agencies. The realization of this fact, however, didn’t stop us from using the same networks, nor did it prompt the closure of the NSA or other agencies involved in the perpetual recording and storage of our data.

But now we are entering a whole new level in which companies and governments will attempt to define what is right and wrong for us to see, read and talk about. What’s even more bizarre is that the CEO of Facebook could potentially run for office, while retaining control over one of the most popular social networks in the world, with the capability of retrieving and accessing anyone’s data without any sort of legal process or request.

This Orwellian trend is truly scary and we should really start questioning ourselves about the extent to which we are willing to continue handing out personal data and information to these networks.

December 11, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment