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Takeaways from Korean summit

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | April 27, 2018

From the Indian perspective, the Korea summit at Panmunjom today heralding the ‘end of the Korean war’ is a poignant occasion. The Kashmir issue, which is almost of the same vintage, now remains as the only other decades-old flashpoint in international security since World War II. Arguably, the Korean problem is far more complicated than the Kashmir issue. The Kashmir issue is a bilateral issue whereas in the Korean problem, there are overlapping templates at the bilateral, regional and international level. Both are ‘nuclear flashpoints’.

But the Korean War (1950-1953) was far more catastrophic than all the wars India and Pakistan ever fought over Kashmir. The military casualties (dead, wounded or missing) exceeded 1 million while the civilian casualties are estimated to be several millions.

The key passages of the Panmunjom Declaration jointly issued by the leaders of South and North Korea – Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un – read as follows:

  • The two leaders solemnly declared before the 80 million Korean people and the whole world that there will be no more war on the Korean Peninsula and thus a new era of peace has begun.
  • South and North Korea confirmed the common goal of realising, through complete denuclearisation, a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. South and North Korea shared the view that the measures being initiated by North Korea are very meaningful and crucial for the denuclearisation of he Korean peninsula and agreed to carry out their respective roles and responsibilities in this regard. South and North Korea agreed to actively seek the support and cooperation of the international community for the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

A signed joint statement was issued after several hours of talks between Moon and Kim (including one-on-one discussion as they strolled through the gardens and sat privately against the leafy backdrop with a serene atmosphere, deep in conversation, animatedly, but out of earshot). The joint statement is largely aspirational and doesn’t spell out concrete steps. But it flags the general idea that “the South and North have confirmed their common goal of realizing a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.” The highlights are:

  • They will hold talks on formally establishing a peace treaty
  • Agreed to “urgently resolve” humanitarian issues of divided families
  • The two sides will work together to “ease the sharp military tensions on the Korean peninsula” and defense ministers will meet in May
  • Starting May 1, all propaganda activities, including loudspeakers and leaflets, will be halted.
  • Moon will visit Pyongyang in the autumn. They agreed to establish an inter-Korean joint liaison office in Kaeseong.

Kim noted, “We hope we will not repeat our mistake of the past. I hope this will be an opportunity for the two Korean peoples to move freely from North to South. We need to take responsibility for our own history.”

Of course, there are still huge strategic and political divisions between North Korea on one side and South Korea and the United States on the other side. But this is a good start, since there has been a concrete commitment by Kim on denuclearization.

All the key players in the region have welcomed the agreement, including China and Japan. Russia’s Foreign Ministry says it is ready to facilitate cooperation between North and South Korea, in railways, gas and electrical energy.

China has taken care not to distract from the meeting at Panmunjom. The Chinese coverage of PM Modi’s meeting with President Xi Jinping at Wuhan has been noticeably restrained. China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang has been quoted as saying,

  • “Today, the leaders of South and North Korea held their summit successfully. (They) announced a joint declaration on their common understanding of inter-Korean relations, easing military tension on the Korean Peninsula, denuclearizing the peninsula and a permanent peace.
  • The positive outcome of the summit is helpful for inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation, peace and stability on the peninsula and the political resolution of Korean Peninsula issues.”

Trump’s first reaction to the Panmunjom meeting has come when he tweeted, “After a furious year of missile launches and Nuclear testing, a historic meeting between North and South Korea is now taking place. Good things are happening, but only time will tell!”

South Korea is showering all praise on President Trump and giving him credit for what happened today at Panmunjom. It is a wise strategy, since South Korea is essentially creating a positive momentum for Trump’s forthcoming summit with Kim and flattering the US president’s vanities at the same time. Put differently, South Korean president Moon is ensuring that Trump gets the Nobel Prize for Peace this year – and getting Trump to believe he earned it. But the real winner is Moon himself in taking a great leap forward in his life’s mission of inter-Korean reconciliation.

Full text of the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula is here.

April 28, 2018 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | 2 Comments

Dubai firm commissioned Qatar-smearing film from American who made fake news for Iraq war

RT | April 28, 2018

When Gulf states cut ties with Doha in 2017 over its alleged support of terrorism, tensions were aided by a Dubai firm that hired a man to create an anti-Qatar video. That same man also led a US propaganda project in Iraq.

Charles Andreae is the owner of the firm Andreae & Associates, which was contracted in August 2017 to produce a six-part film linking Qatar with global terrorism, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has revealed. The Dubai-based strategic communications firm Lapis Communications, which is owned by an Afghan-Australian entrepreneur, gave Andreae more than $500,000 to produce the video.

The brief given to Andreae’s firm was to produce “six multimedia products focused on an investigation into the role of the state of Qatar and the state’s connection to global terrorism.” It was commissioned as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were intensifying an international campaign against Qatar over its alleged links to terrorism.

News of the contract emerged in a recently filed lobbying declaration with the US Department of Justice. American companies such as Andreae & Associates are required by law to disclose information on lobbying and PR work for foreign clients.

The film, titled ‘Qatar: A Dangerous Alliance,’ included conservative pundits discussing Qatar’s links to Islamist groups, as well as bits of news and archive footage. Copies of the video were distributed at an event at the Hudson Institute think tank in October. Among the keynote speakers at that event were US President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, former defense secretary Leon Panetta, and former CIA director David Petraeus. So far, the documentary has been viewed more than 700,000 times on YouTube and is also available on Amazon.

In addition to Andreae’s involvement in making the film, he also registered as a lobbyist with the US Senate on Qatar-US relations on behalf of Lapis in January. But Andreae’s questionable actions didn’t begin with Qatar.

Andreae was also responsible for running the Washington end of a Pentagon propaganda contract in Iraq, which he did when he was working for the British public relations firm Bell Pottinger. Although the campaign details were known in 2016, Andreae’s involvement was only confirmed to the Bureau by Bell Pottinger co-founder Tim Bell last week.

That project, which has a $500 million contract with the Pentagon, consisted of running secret operations during the Iraq War. Bell Pottinger answered to the US commander in Iraq and created fake local news reports and smeared Iran. It also put together Al-Qaeda propaganda videos, planted them in people’s homes, and tracked who viewed them.

Neither Andreae & Associates nor Lapis Communications has responded to RT’s request for comment.

Read more:

Qatar govt. must send troops to Syria or lose US support and be toppled – Saudi FM

April 28, 2018 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | 1 Comment

US House Report Accuses Russia of Election Meddling, Finds No Proof

Sputnik – 28.04.2018

WASHINGTON – The US House Intelligence Committee on Friday released its final report on its yearlong Russia investigation, accusing Moscow of interference in the 2016 US election but concluding that the Kremlin did not collude with President Donald Trump’s campaign team.

The heavily redacted 243-page document, titled “Report on Russian Active Measures,” drew swift praise from Trump, who hailed its conclusions as “powerful” and called for an immediate end to ongoing investigations into allegations of collusion between his campaign team and Moscow.

But US Democrats criticized the report, vowing to redouble their efforts to investigate alleged Russian meddling in the US vote.

Russia has repeatedly denied interfering in the election, dismissing allegations of meddling as “absurd.”

No evidence of collusion

The US House Intelligence Committee formally opened its Russia investigation on January 25, 2017, just five days after Trump took office. Congressmen on the committee spent the next 14 months holding nine hearings, interviewing 73 witnesses and combing through more than 300,000 documents, according to Congressman Mike Conaway, who led the panel’s investigation.

The committee announced in March that it had wrapped up the probe, with Republicans on the panel releasing a preliminary report saying they uncovered no evidence of “collusion, coordination, or conspiracy” between Trump’s campaign team and Moscow. Friday’s final report underlined many of the same conclusions.

In its final report, the committee accused Russia of waging a “multifaceted, persistent and effective” influence campaign in the United States, but highlighted key US intelligence community failings and ruled out any collusion between Trump and Moscow.

The report claimed that Russian state actors and other third parties were behind the release of documents and communications stolen from US political organizations during the 2016 campaign.

But with regard to accusations of a conspiracy between Moscow and Trump’s campaign team, the report concluded that none of the witnesses had provided any evidence of collusion or coordination between the two sides. The committee also found no indications that Trump’s business dealings in Russia before the campaign would have formed the basis for any kind of collusion, the report said.

The report did say that members of the Trump campaign team showed “poor judgment” in their dealings with Russian nationals. But it also underlined that the committee did not find proof that meetings between Trump’s associates and Russian officials, including one between Jeff Sessions and former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, constituted collusion with Moscow.

The panel also concluded that the Trump associates who had contact with Russians during the 2016 US election had no influence on either Trump or his campaign.

In addition, the report said the committee found no evidence that Trump’s campaign team was involved in the hacking and distribution of former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails through WikiLeaks.

Intelligence shortcomings

The report highlighted what the committee called significant “shortcomings” in the US intelligence community’s assessment that Russia wanted Trump to win the election.

The committee “identified significant intelligence tradecraft failings that undermine confidence in the [intelligence community’s] judgments regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategic objectives for disrupting the US elections,” the report said.

For instance, the report poked holes in the US intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia wanted to help Trump to win the election, arguing that the Kremlin’s main goal was to sow discord in the United States, not to influence the outcome of the vote.

The report also criticized the intelligence community’s reliance on an unverified dossier on Trump compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, saying the document was compiled with “second and third-hand” information.

Former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign team paid for opposition research on Trump obtained from Russian sources — information that eventually made its way into the Steele dossier.

“Some of this opposition research was used to produce sixteen memos, which comprise what has become known as the Steele dossier,” the report noted.

The committee traced how the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee hired the law firm Perkins Coie, which in turn hired Fusion GPS to conduct research on Trump’s Russia ties. Steele later used the information to compile his unverified dossier, which alleged that Russia had collected embarrassing information about Trump that it could use to exert leverage over him.

The House report also documented how Steele’s dossier was then used to obtain a warrant to conduct surveillance on Trump campaign aides.

Recommendations

The committee provided a series of recommendations in the report, including a call for the Congress to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in order to allow investigators to obtain warrants for probes involving international cyber actors.

The report also called on the US intelligence community to immediately brief state and local officials about existing threats to election infrastructure.

The House panel also urged the Congress to refrain from hampering the president’s ability to respond at his own discretion to any particular foreign threat.

The committee also provided a series of recommendations for European leaders. It urged European nations to seek long-term solutions to decrease their economic dependence on Russia, and take steps aimed at strengthening media pluralism, including reforming legal and regulatory environments, building professional journalism associations and improving the financial sustainability of “legitimate” news outlets.

“European governments, non-governmental organizations, businesses, think tanks, and academia should implement and encourage multi-pronged, country-wide efforts by both public and private entities to combat Russian propaganda, technical, and cyber operations,” the report said.

European governments and organizations should also put more stringent cyber security practices in place, including multifactor authentication and encryption, the report said, adding that efforts should be made to educate work forces on basic cyber security practices.

Trump applauds, democrats cry foul

Trump welcomed the release of the report, saying its conclusions confirmed the need to immediately end the Russia investigation.

“Just Out: House Intelligence Committee Report released. ‘No evidence’ that the Trump Campaign ‘colluded, coordinated or conspired with Russia.’ Clinton Campaign paid for Opposition Research obtained from Russia- Wow! A total Witch Hunt! MUST END NOW!” Trump said in a Twitter post just minutes after the release of the report.

Trump later told reporters at the White House that he and his administration were “honored” by the report’s conclusions, which he called “conclusive,” “strong” and “powerful.”

But leading US Democrats including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi vowed to press ahead with efforts to investigate alleged Russian interference in the 2016 vote.

“House Democrats will continue to investigate Russian attacks on our elections,” Pelosi said. “We will not relent in our effort to follow the facts and secure our elections from foreign interference. We have no time to waste.”

Pelosi slammed what she called a Republican attempt to cover up for Trump, saying the report “made a mockery” of the Congressional investigation into Russian election interference.

Along with its final report on the Russia probe, the House Intelligence Committee on Friday also released a 98-page rebuttal compiled by Democrats on the panel.

In their response, Democrats criticized what they called “gaps” in the panel’s report and aspects of the investigation that they believe were not fully explored.

The committee’s investigation is one of several US probes into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election, which include the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Both Russia and the Trump campaign have denied all allegations of collusion, and Moscow has called accusations it interfered in the 2016 election “absurd.”

April 28, 2018 Posted by | Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , | 1 Comment

Western media silent as Rodchenkov’s Russian doping claims fail to stand up in court

RT | April 28, 2018

Russian officials plan to sue Grigory Rodchenkov, whose testimony played a key part in the country’s Olympic bans, after a sports court rejected his claims. But most believe it’s too late to reverse the impact of the doping saga.

The scandal over Olympic doping has been running since 2014, and most of the allegations have been known for years. What’s changed?

In a landmark ruling in February, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the highest legal authority in such cases, reversed the life bans of 28 Russian sportsmen and gave them back their medals, many of them from the Sochi Olympics in 2014.

But it was only this week that a 160-page summary of the session exposed exactly how the allegations that led to the exclusion of entire Russian teams in various sports from Rio 2016 and PyeongChang 2018 failed to stand up to legal scrutiny.

Who failed to convince?

Between 2005 and 2015, Grigory Rodchenkov headed Moscow’s anti-doping testing lab before resigning in the wake of the scandal and eloping to the US, where his words laid the foundation for the portrayal of “state-sponsored” doping in Russia involving athletes, coaches, and officials at all levels. He remains in an American witness protection program and testified via Skype “behind a screen, which concealed the entirety of his upper body save for his forearms and hands” according to CAS.

He maintained that there was a “Sochi plan” designed to pump Russian athletes with performance-enhancing drugs and then swap any contaminated samples for pre-stored urine during the 2014 Games. He also described that he was the inventor of the Duchess Cocktail, a powerful mix of PEDs allegedly distributed to a list of Russian athletes. Many were later excluded from competing on the basis of the Duchess list.

However, when cross-examined, Rodchenkov admitted that he “never: (a) distributed the Duchess Cocktail; (b) seen an athlete take the Duchess Cocktail; (c) witnessed instructions being given to athletes and coaches to use the Duchess Cocktail; (d) seen an athlete give a clean urine sample; or (e) seen an athlete tamper with a doping sample.” He also admitted that no test of the effectiveness of the Duchess cocktail was ever conducted, and when asked about its exact make-up, which has been a matter of some contention, he “stated that he needed five minutes to explain, and therefore refrained from doing so.”

He also repeated claims that a team of officials, nicknamed “Magicians,” had developed a technique for opening tamper-proof sample bottles in order to manipulate them and clear Russian athletes, but added that he personally “never observed first hand any bottles being opened or de-capped” and did not know the “precise method” used by them.

How did the panel respond to Rodchenkov?

The exiled official turned out to be a star witness for the Russian appellants in the case. In its conclusion, it said that his assertion of the guilt of Alexander Legkov, the Sochi gold-winning skier who led the appeal, constituted a “bare assertion which is uncorroborated by any contemporaneous documentary evidence.” On the use of Duchess by a specific athlete, which a specific official reportedly told Rodchenkov about, the panel ruled that it is “hearsay” of “very limited” value. As to his claims of a Sochi plan, ahead of which clean urine samples were delivered to him, CAS stated that the witness’s words were “not corroborated by any further evidence.”

Which other testimony casts doubt on the accusations against Russian athletes?

Richard McLaren, the former head of WADA and author of the eponymous report, whose list of names were used to ban hundreds of competitors, freely admitted that their inclusion did not “mean that they committed an anti-doping rule violation,” and that he was “merely asked to identify those who may have benefited from the systems.” The Canadian professor added that his report was, in any case, “just the starting point for further work” and was severely restricted by budgetary and time constraints.

In view of questions over Rodchenkov, McLaren was asked if his report was, in essence, based on his single testimony. The expert objected, saying that he sought to “corroborate everything” and explained that the Russian scientist’s evidence had been confirmed by “four individuals who provided information on condition that their identities would remain confidential.”

What effect has the publication of the court documents had in Russia?

An outburst of righteous fury.

“Rodchenkov has done his dark deed. We have suffered colossal damage,” said renowned skater and coach Irina Rodnina, one of those namechecked in the fugitive’s accusations. “Since these claims have surfaced we have tried to play by the rules against those without rules.”

“Rodchenkov lied about doping in our country, which was to be proved. I recommend that a commission is assembled that would gather all false publications about Russian athletes in the Western media, and sue them for defamation,” tweeted Igor Lebedev, the deputy chairman of the Russian Duma.

“It’s clear Rodchenkov is mixing up his stories, and his new testimony is evidence that the previous ones were fabrications,” said Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s press secretary.

What has been the reaction in the West?

A polite silence. Aside from specialist websites writing about Olympic sport, no major Western outlet has covered the story.

This is particularly telling in view of the fact that the entire doping scandal was not started by investigators, but German documentary makers from ARD, who managed to create the biggest Olympics upheaval since the fall of the Soviet Union with the help of little more than interviews with two other runaway Russian insiders, the Stepanovs.

Since then, there has been a consistent barrage of accusations, all of them reported without question within the wider context of Moscow’s new image of an international rogue state, from Crimea to the US voting booths to the running track.

Just a fortnight ago, Rodchenkov gave an interview to a Norwegian TV station wearing a ski mask and a balaclava, and his words were spread verbatim by dozens of outlets from the New York Times to Fox News.

Only last month, hundreds of millions around the world tuned in to watch Icarus, a film in which he was portrayed as a heroic whistleblower, which won an Oscar for Best Documentary.

The officials have been similarly reticent.

When the original ruling was published, IOC chief Thomas Bach stepped in to say that it was “extremely disappointing and surprising” and demanded that CAS reform itself.

Meanwhile, the American anti-doping agency USADA, which earlier said that the February ruling had “sabotaged the integrity of the Games” despite not being at the CAS hearing and added that “the whole mess stinks” and that “the nightmare for clean athletes continues,” has not been quick to retract its statements or turn away from Rodchenkov.

In any case, Russia’s anti-doping agency remains under suspension, without accreditation to enter its own testing centers, and although the country will be allowed to compete under its own flag at Tokyo 2020, several of its teams will have limited allocations.

What about the athletes whose names have been cleared?

Legkov told Russian television how he felt when he was forced to miss the Olympics this year despite being cleared, because the IOC chose not to invite any athletes whose names had been linked to doping scandals, regardless of guilt.

“I was preparing for Pyeongchang like a madman, I give it my all. I had better results in tests than even those ahead of Sochi. In a moment all that was ruined,” said the skier.

“No one was listening to us. We insisted on our innocence right from the start. But we lost those years of our careers. We trained our whole lives to be able to do this,” Maxim Vylegzhanin, who won three silver medals at Sochi and had them restored by the same decision this year, told RT.

What next?

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says that Russia “defend[s] clean athletes,” while former sports minister and hockey legend Viacheslav Fetisov said that “now we have a chance of winning our cases in court,” as long as “there is a firm position, and facts to back it up.” The Russian Luge Federation and several individuals say that they will launch lawsuits, which may mention Rodchenkov by name.

“It’s evident that McLaren just took Rodchenkov’s words at face value. The CAS decision confirms that now. The guilt of the athletes, if it was present, should have been determined with evidence. This did not happen. We await more legal proceedings,” said Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov.

But several top officials say it is too little, too late, not just for those sportspeople who missed the last Olympics, but for Russian sports as a whole.

“This will change nothing,” said Nikolay Durmanov, the ex-chief of the Russian anti-doping agency. “Yes we can enjoy some moral satisfaction, but in the eyes of the world Russian sport has been painted a rich black color, and there is nothing we can do to wash that reputational stain off this generation. This was an information war waged against us.”

April 28, 2018 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

The JFK Cover-Up Continues

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | April 27, 2018

Just as I repeatedly predicted, President Trump, the CIA, and the National Archives decided to continue keeping those 50-year-old JFK-assassination records of the CIA and other elements of the U.S. national-security establishment secret from the American people. On yesterday’s deadline, Trump dutifully issued an executive decree ordering at least three more years of official secrecy.

My new prediction: When the new deadline arrives on October 26, 2021, it will be extended again. The American people will never — repeat never — be permitted to see those records.

Last October, I also correctly predicted that Trump would accede to CIA demands to extend the time for secrecy when the original deadline that had been sent 25 years ago arrived for releasing those 50-year-old records.

Now, before you call me Nostradamus, let me point out that it doesn’t take a psychic or even a rocket scientist to predict that the CIA would do whatever is necessary to keep those records secret, even after 50 years. That’s what guilty people do — they do whatever is necessary to keep their guilt concealed.

Secrecy was always an essential aspect of the regime-change operation that took place on November 23, 1963 (just as secrecy was essential to the U.S. regime-change operations that took place in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Congo, and Chile from 1953-1973). That’s why official investigations were shut down immediately after suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was himself assassinated. It was imperative to the success of the operation that secrecy be maintained. Otherwise, it was a virtual certainty that investigations would pierce through the pat lone-nut theory and discover that the assassination was instead a highly sophisticated regime-change operation, one involving the frame-up of a U.S. intelligence agent, former U.S. Marine Oswald, who had been secretly trained to pose as a communist agent as a way to infiltrate the Soviet Union (America’s WW II partner and ally that had been converted into an official Cold War enemy) and, later, to help destroy domestic “communist” organizations like the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

Keep in mind the top-secret assassination manual that the CIA started developing in 1954, as part of its regime-change operation against the president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, who, like Kennedy, was democratically elected in a national election. That manual, which didn’t come to light until the 1990s, established that the CIA was specializing not only in the art of assassination but also in the art of covering up any CIA involvement in the assassination. Keep in mind also that they were willing to assassinate Arbenz, an innocent man, because they had concluded that he was a grave threat to “national security.”

If you haven’t already read FFF’s ebook JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne, I highly recommend you do so. Horne served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board, which was the enforcement commission of the JFK Records Act, which mandated the release of all records held by the CIA and other federal agencies relating to the assassination.

JFK’s War explains motive. Kennedy’s war with the Pentagon and the CIA was much worse (from their standpoint) than anything Arbenz had done and, for that matter, what Mossadegh in Iran had done, Lumumba in Congo had done, what Castro in Cuba had done, and what Allende in Chile would do. Just as all those foreign leaders were believed to be threats to U.S. “national security” and, therefore, were made targets of U.S. regime-change operations, including assassination, why should it surprise anyone that Kennedy himself would be made a target of a domestic regime-change operation given that what he was doing, from the standpoint of the U.S. national security establishment, was much worse than anything that those other leaders had done or would do? Or to put it another way, if foreign leaders who pose a threat to U.S. “national security” are going to be removed from power, why wouldn’t a domestic leader who posed an even greater threat to U.S. “national security” be removed from power?

Kennedy’s war with the U.S. national-security establishment had to be kept secret, for obvious reasons. If Americans had discovered that that war was going on, they would have become even more suspicious over the pat facts that pointed to a lone-nut assassination. Thus, Americans were led to believe, falsely, that everything had been hunky dory with Kennedy and that Lyndon Johnson, the Pentagon, and the CIA were just continuing his foreign policies, especially by revitalizing the Cold War, which Kennedy had vowed to end, expanding troops in Vietnam, which Kennedy was withdrawing, and ending all negotiations with Soviet Premier Khrushchev and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, which Kennedy had secretly initiated, something the American people wouldn’t discover for decades.

Ask yourself an obvious question: If President Kennedy really was the victim of a random assassination by some lone nut who had no motive to kill him, would it really have been necessary to shroud the Warren Commission hearings in secrecy, based on the ridiculous claim of “national security”?

No matter how good the Pentagon and the CIA were at regime-change operations — and there is no doubt that they were extremely good (as reflected by their success in Iran, Guatemala, Congo, Chile, Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other places), a domestic regime-change operation is extremely difficult, especially one involving a frame-up of an innocent man. There are obviously lots of pieces to that type of sophisticated operation, including the assassination, the frame-up, and the cover-up.

Lots of things can go wrong in that type of operation, and they did. I recommend FFF’s ebook The Kennedy Autopsy, which I authored. It documents many of the things that went wrong with the military autopsy of President’s Kennedy’s body. For example, there were numerous witnesses, including enlisted men, who could confirm that Kennedy’s body was secretly brought into the Bethesda morgue earlier than anyone knew, which then enabled the military pathologists to secretly work on the body before the official autopsy began.

To have those witnesses seeing the body secretly brought into the morgue early clearly could not have been part of the original plan. They could have blown the cover-up sky-high. Thus, U.S. military officials swore those witnesses to secrecy by written oath, with threats of extreme punishment if they ever revealed what they had seen. Secrecy guaranteed their silence … until the 1970s, when the House Select Committee began reinvestigating the Kennedy assassination and the witnesses were released from their vow of silence, which caused the autopsy part of the cover-up to begin unraveling.

For a much more in-depth analysis of the critical role that the Kennedy autopsy played in the JFK assassination cover-up, I recommend FFF’s 5-part video presentation by Horne entitled Altered History: Exposing Deceit and Deception in the JFK Assassination Medical Evidence.

Or consider Mexico City, where Oswald supposedly visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies shortly before the assassination. Isn’t that convenient? The accused assassin does things to confirm that he is a “communist” just before he happens to get a job at a place in Dallas where the president just happens to be passing by. Like I say, the evidence supporting the lone-nut theory has always been a bit too pat.

Except for one thing: Everything obviously went wrong with that part of the frameup, which is why they immediately shut down the official investigation into Mexico City. After all, ask yourself: Why would they shut down the part of the investigation that supposedly confirmed their version of events — that a former U.S. Marine communist had visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies just before the assassination? Don’t you think they would want to investigate all aspects of that part of the story?

Not if everything went wrong. For example, they came up with a photograph of a guy who wasn’t Oswald. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover telephoned Lyndon Johnson and said that they had telephone recordings of Oswald except that the voice wasn’t Oswald. The CIA said that its cameras monitoring the Cuban embassy were broken. Imagine that!

Not surprisingly, the Mexico City operation is still shrouded in mystery. Guess what: Some of those 50-year old records that Trump, the CIA, and the National Archives are still keeping secret pertain to Mexico City. Do you see why they might want to continue keeping them secret?

No, there is no videotaped confession in the still-secret records. No, there is no acknowledgement that the national-security establishment assassinated Kennedy in one of its much-vaunted national-security state regime-change operations. But the CIA knows that the records that are still being kept secret would fill more of the mosaic that has slowly come into view over the decades as more and more circumstantial evidence has been uncovered, a mosaic that points to a domestic regime-change operation against a president that was at war with his own national-security establishment over the future direction of America, a president who was deemed to be an even greater threat to national security than Mossadegh, Arbenz, Castro, Lumumba, and, later, Allende.

To get an excellent depiction of this overall mosaic, I recommend two books: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglas and Regime Change: The JFK Assassination, another book that I authored.

I also recommend two other FFF books:

  1. CIA & JFK: The Secret Assassination Files by Jefferson Morley, the former Washington Post reporter who uncovered the CIA’s long-secret and still highly secret role in an organization called the DRE, which was being secretly monitored and supervised by the CIA, specifically a CIA officer named George Joannides. The DRE was the first organization after Kennedy was assassinated to publicly advertise Oswald’s communist bona fides, only no one but the CIA knew that the CIA was supervising and funding the DRE. Joannides, by the way, would later play an instrumental role in obstructing congressional investigators in the 1970s from accessing the CIA’s records on Oswald’s trip to Mexico City.
  2. The CIA, Terrorism, and the Cold War: The Evil of the National Security State by Jacob Hornberger

In a recent editorial referring to Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen and the attorney-client privilege, the New York Times wrote, “Anyway, one might ask, if … Mr. Trump has nothing illegal or untoward to hide, why does he care about the privilege in the first place?”

The obvious question arises: If the CIA and the rest of the U.S. national-security establishment have nothing to hide from the release of those 50-year-old records, then why keep them secret? The answer is that they do have something to hide, and it has nothing to do with “national security.”

April 27, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

Hamas: Haley’s remarks encourages Israel to commit more crimes

Palestine Information Center – April 27, 2018

GAZA – Hamas Movement on Friday perceived the statements of Nikki Haley, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, in which she claimed that Hamas uses civilians as human shields in Gaza Strip, as untrue offensive remarks.

The Hamas’s spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said, on Twitter, that Haley’s statements encourage Israeli occupation authorities to commit more crimes against the Palestinian people including the killing of children.

Earlier on Thursday, Haley reiterated her allegations against Hamas Movement before the UN Security Council without even mentioning Israeli ceaseless violations against Palestinians including the killing of the participants of the march of return.

Some 41 Palestinians have been killed and over 5000 others have been injured by Israeli forces since March 30, 2018.

April 27, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | 2 Comments

German parliament endorses draft bill recognizing Israel as Jewish State

MEMO | April 27, 2018

The German Bundestag endorsed a draft bill that recognizes the Jewish State of Israel, Thursday.

The bill states that the two- state solution is the only solution to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and stated that Israel’s security and sovereignty is key to Germany’s foreign and security policy.

Three parliamentary blocs; the Christian and Democratic Union led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Socialist Party and the Free Democratic Party submitted the draft bill on the 70th anniversary of Israel establishment.

The draft bill stipulates that the government and its partners in the international community should work towards a two-state solution, which it described as “the only solution to the conflict in the Middle East with emphasis on Israel Jewishness, democracy and independence as well as the establishment of a Palestinian viable and democratic state”.

April 27, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | 2 Comments

Romanian President Demands Prime Minister’s Resignation Over Betrayal of Palestine

By Adam Garrie | Eurasia Future | 2018-04-27

When Romania’s Prime Minister Viorica Dancila announced that her country would move its “Israeli” Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem/Al-Quds in line with the United States, she did not consult her President as Romanian law demands. The move which is considered a grave insult to millions of Arabs, Muslims and Christians throughout the world was apparently taken in a unilateral move that Romania’s President has said violates both national and possibly international law.

President Klaus Iohannis has stated that the Premier’s decision “does not cope with her position of the prime minister of Romania and thus it turns the government into a vulnerability for Romania…. That is why I call publicly for her resignation.”

The rift comes after Prime Minister Dancila recently took a trip to “Israel” which the President said was not cleared with the head of state and therefore cannot be described as an official state visit even though Dancila acted as though it was.

The political turmoil within Romania is a clear sign that even among the few European nations that have been inching towards a US position of moving their embassies in “Israel” to Jerusalem/Al-Quds, such moves are highly domestically divisive.

Today in Palestine, demonstrators continue their Great March of Return protests which are set to continue through Nakba Day on the 15th of May. Thus far, “Israeli” aggression against peaceful demonstrators has resulted in over 40 deaths and the wounding over over 5,500 Palestinians.

April 27, 2018 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Qatari FM Denounces Saudi Calls to Send Troops to Syria

Sputnik – 27.04.2018

The Saudi Foreign Minister had announced that Riyadh was willing to send troops to Syria as part of a wider international coalition if it receives an invitation to do so. He also expressed his opinion that Qatar must do the same.

Hamad bin Abdullah Al-Thani has branded Saudi Arabia’s demands for Qatar to pay for US troops to remain in Syria and the sending of its troops before the US withdraws an attempt to influence public opinion in the Arab world, according to France 24 TV channel.

“This statement [by the Saudi Foreign Ministry] is not worthy of an answer. Qatar refutes the brainwashing of the public opinion in the Arab world in such a way,” Qatar’s Foreign and Prime Minister said.

He also admitted that Qatar’s delegation was informed during its visit to the US about the idea of sending troops to Syria. Al-Thani believes that any decisions on Syria must be made as a part of the comprehensive solution to the Syrian problem.

“[Qatar insists] on developing a political solution to the Syrian problem, which would embed the political transition of power, punishment of war criminals and return stability to Syria,” Al-Thani said.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir stated on April 25 that Qatar must send its troops to Syria prior to the US withdrawal from its base in the country. Earlier US President Donald Trump claimed that Middle Eastern countries must pay for everything that happens in their region as well as deploy their soldiers on the ground, possibly referring to the situations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. He also added that without US protection, “wealthy” Arab states “wouldn’t last a week.”

The Saudi Foreign Minister said on April 23 that Riyadh is ready to send its troops to Syria, but is waiting for an official invitation.

The Iranian Foreign Minister’s advisor Hussein Sheikholeslam has expressed his opinion in an interview with Sputnik that the deployment any additional troops to Syria will not bring about peace, but instead will only complicate the crisis.

April 27, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Former Russian regional leader wins slander lawsuit over Reuters report of ISIS ties

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov at a news conference © Anton Denisov / Sputnik
RT | April 27, 2018

Former president of the Russian internal republic of Kalmykia and the current head of FIDE, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, says he has proved in court that a Reuters report about alleged deals with ISIS was fake and aimed to slander him.

“I have won my court case against Reuters, they have already apologized and now I am expecting them to pay me £50,000 ($69,000) in damages,” RIA Novosti quoted him as saying. “I have already received official apologies from the Washington Times newspaper and there is another newspaper that we have sued for $500,000. Step by step, I am going to win,” he added.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is a Russian politician, businessman and chess grandmaster, who headed the Russian region of Kalmykia between 1993 and 2010, and is currently the president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE).

Ilyumzhinov filed a lawsuit against Reuters in March 2016, claiming that the agency’s report of his alleged oil deals with the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, formerly ISIS) was false, and that it damaged his reputation and honor. He also sued two chess players, who spread similar information on social networks, but the outcome of this case is not yet known.

In November 2015, the United States put Ilyumzhinov on the sanctions list over his alleged material aid and other actions in the interests of the Syrian government, central bank and President Bashar Assad.

In early 2017, Ilyumzhinov accused the US of staging a plot to oust him from the post of FIDE president. “I did not sign anything and I am not stepping down. I believe the Americans are behind this escapade and it looks like a set-up,” he told reporters in comments on reports of his alleged resignation.

Also in early 2017, Ilyumzhinov told reporters that he would be running for FIDE president again in 2018, despite the problems caused by the US sanctions.

April 27, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Western Media Complicit in War Crimes

Strategic Culture Foundation | 27.04.2018

This week saw an horrendous massacre of up to 50 women and children at a wedding party in Yemen, carried out by the US, British and French-backed Saudi air force.

Two wedding halls in Hajjah Province were obliterated in the air strikes. Body parts were strewn among the debris in a hellish scene.

Among the carnage, a little boy was found by civilian rescuers clinging desperately to the body of his dead father. He refused to let go of his father’s bloodied corpse, clinging to the hope that his parent was still alive.

There was hardly any coverage of the slaughter in Western news media.

Yet the incident was nothing other than a massacre of civilians by Saudi warplanes, armed and fueled by the US, Britain and France. A war crime.

Abominably, the Hajjah bombing was just one of many such war crimes committed by the Western-backed Saudi regime on Yemen over the past three years.

Contrast that Western media indifference to Yemen’s suffering with the saturated coverage given to an unverifiable, and as it turns out, fabricated incident in Syria over an alleged chemical-weapons attack in Douma on April 7.

Videos of dubious provenance were played over and over on Western media purporting to show children suffering from chemical exposure in Syria. Strangely, the pitiful scene of the Yemeni wedding hall massacre and the little boy among the carnage gained negligible Western media coverage.

A week after the Douma incident, on April 14, after much hysterical condemnation of the Syrian government and its Russia ally, US President Donald Trump and his British and French counterparts ordered a barrage of missile strikes on Syria in what was supposed to be revenge for the alleged atrocity in Douma.

Trump, Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron made anguished statements about “human suffering” in Syria. On Yemen, they say nothing.

This week, Russian authorities facilitated testimonies by families from Douma at the Hague headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. British and American officials decried it as Russian “theatrics” without even bothering to listen to the testimonies.

Children who had previously appeared in dubious videos released by the militants in Douma, testified that they were orchestrated unwittingly for a propaganda video on April 7 purporting to show chemical weapons had been used. It turns out that no chemical weapons were used. Medics in Douma confirmed that too.

The Douma incident was undoubtedly a false flag. There was no chemical-weapons attack. It was a brazen fiction amplified by Western media.

Shamefully, Western media this week have blatantly dropped the Douma “story” probably in light of the evidence emerging about the false flag.

But based on that stunt, the US, France and Britain launched over 100 missiles on Syria. The US-led air strikes were based on a lie. The strikes were therefore a grave violation of international law. A war crime.

The Western media in their reckless, hysterical coverage of the Douma incident alleging a chemical-weapon attack thus stand accused of complicity in the subsequent criminal US-led air strikes.

But where is the Western media coverage and outcry over a real atrocity which happened this week in Yemen? Like many other real atrocities that have occurred in Yemen from Western-backed Saudi air strikes, the Western media act as conduits for covering up the crimes by omitting to report on the horror.

Another distorted priority in Western media was the massive coverage given to an incident this week in Toronto where some deranged individual killed 10 pedestrians with a van. A terrible crime in Toronto no doubt. But nothing on the scale of dozens of women and children being butchered in Yemen by US, British and French-backed Saudi warplanes.

The near-complete absence of reporting on the barbarity inflicted in Yemen with the support of Western governments is an example of how Western media operate like propaganda services.

No wonder that Western governments get away with such crimes in Yemen and elsewhere when the news media in those countries are shamefully derelict in reporting on the crimes of Western governments, and holding the latter to account.

To accuse Western media of being derelict is perhaps too generous a criticism. They are in fact complicit in war crimes by their deliberate distortion and omission.

Their complicity is compounded by their arrogance in proclaiming to be “independent, professional journalism”. It is sickening when Western media outlets continually boast about their “excellence in journalism”. Celebrity self-inflated journalists like Christiane Amanpour at CNN or Stephen Sackur at the BBC talk about “digging for truth and understanding” and “hard talking”.

Why isn’t Amanpour digging for “truth and understanding” in the blood-soaked rubble of Yemen; why isn’t Sackur hard-talking to Western foreign ministers about their crimes in Yemen and Syria, like he rudely tried to do recently with Russia’s Sergei Lavrov? They don’t because they are vastly overpaid propaganda artists in the service of imperial power.

These people, like the news organizations they work for, are vile charlatans. The Western media are propaganda cleaners for their criminal governments. This week’s distortion about a false flag in Syria and the horror in Yemen is the proof.

April 27, 2018 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | 2 Comments

Syrian children should be seen, not heard

Apparently, evidence is to be claimed, and not shown

By Frank Sellers | The Duran | April 27, 2018

As the Russian delegation to the OPCW conducts a press briefing at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ headquarters, the Western media is blasting the evidences that it is presenting, which includes the testimony of some of the very alleged victims of the suspected chemical attack that took place in Douma on April 7th, allegedly by Syrian government forces under the direction of the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad.

One of those witnesses who has come forward at the briefing is the boy, Hassan Diab, who was featured prominently in the video that the White Helmets NGO released in a twitter post, and which was then used by Western governments and media as evidence of the supposed chemical attack which was utilized as a pretext to conduct an illegal  joint military ‘precision’ strike on the Syrian capital of Damascus.

In the video produced by the White Helmets, the ‘evidence’ of the chemical attack, Hassan Diab is shown allegedly suffering from the symptoms of a chlorine gas attack, and being hosed with water while White Helmets ‘volunteers’ shout ‘chemical attack’, rushing about with children in their arms.

The briefing also hosts medical personnel who witnessed the incident and who also treated people at the site, who are adamant that no one who was treated at the site shown in the White Helmets video was experiencing symptoms of such an attack.

This video footage, which is now being described as showing a scene that is inconsistent with the claims made by Western governments and media, shows no real evidence for a chlorine gas attack, other than the shouts made by White Helmets participants.

To date, this video footage, posted to Twitter, is the only evidence that has been released to the world of a supposed chemical attack in Douma on the 7th of April. Based on the testimony of these witnesses, over a dozen of whose testimonies are presented at the briefing, the video therefore cannot be considered legitimate evidence of a chemical attack, let alone a justification of Western military intervention in Syria.

Russia and Syria are declaring that the video is that of a staged event, and therefore is not genuine, while the testimonies of witnesses at this press briefing are consistent with this finding, as no real victims or casualties of chemical weapons have so far turned up as a result of the alleged chemical attack. Much less evidence that a chemical weapons attack was launched by Syrian government forces, or even at the behest of the Syrian President.

The West is calling the press briefing a ‘mounting propaganda campaign’, with the British Ambassador to the OPCW, Peter Wilson, calling it ‘a stunt’ to ‘misuse’ the OPCW as a ‘theatre’ to ‘undermine the OPCW’s work’.

Similarly, the French Ambassador to the OPCW, Phillippe Lalliot, is denouncing it as an ‘obscene masquerade’, and is indirectly lodging accusations that the contents of the briefing are bogus.

Additionally, the AFP, in this article, is even going so far as to hint that the boy testifying before the press briefing may not actually be Hassan Diab.

In a mounting propaganda campaign, Hassan, who is seen in the footage being hosed down and shivering, told a press conference in a hotel in The Hague that he didn’t know why people began pouring water on him in the hospital.

He was among a dozen people presented as victims or doctors or hospital workers, who all told similar stories — that someone had shouted out “chemical weapons” as hospital staff were treating injured people from a missile bombardment and panic spread.

“Unknown people started creating chaos, and pouring water on people. We were specialists and we could see there were no symptoms of the use of chemical weapons,” said physician Khalil, who said he was on duty in the emergency care unit.

He said “patients with choking symptoms” had begun coming to the hospital about 7:00pm, but it “was the result of people breathing in dust and smoke” from the bombardment.

Everyone was treated and sent home, Khalil added, denying reports from the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) and the White Helmets who jointly said dozens of people had died.

Britain boycotted the group’s earlier briefing at the OPCW, saying it was a stunt, in a move followed by France, the United States and EU countries.

“The OPCW is not a theatre. Russia’s decision to misuse it is yet another Russian attempt to undermine the OPCW’s work,” said British ambassador to the OPCW Peter Wilson in a statement.

French ambassador Philippe Lalliot also denounced the briefing as an “obscene masquerade”.

“This masquerade only betrays the huge nervousness of those who organised it and who have the most to fear from the OPCW investigation,” Lalliot said.

“No-one is fooled. The truth will come out.”

– ‘We saw no poison’ –

Hassan, who was said to be 11 years old, told dozens of journalists: “We were in the basement. We heard cries on the street that we should go to the hospital. We got scared.”

“We went to the hospital through the tunnel. They started pouring water on me in the hospital I don’t know why.”

His father, Omar Diab, said: “The children were taken without explanation. After that we learnt it was fake. We never saw any poison or chemical agents. Neither I nor my family.”

The OPCW has also criticised the meeting in its headquarters, saying it had recommended to Russia that it should wait until its inspectors had completed their work.

AFP then goes on to label the White Helmets organization ‘a humanitarian organization’, who are being unfairly targeted by the Syrian government for the label of ‘terrorists’.

The White Helmets, a humanitarian organisation made up of some 3,000 volunteers, has regularly been the target of disinformation campaigns by the Syrian regime which has labelled them “terrorists”.

But the White Helmets have a history of cooperating with terrorist organizations in Syria, and of conducting horrific atrocities, as documented here:

Meanwhile, Western governments insisted that they were in possession of ‘proof’ of the chemical weapons attack and that the Syrian government perpetrated it. The US has alleged that they are in possession of blood and urine samples from the site of the alleged attack which provided conclusive proof that chlorine and some unidentified nerve agent were used in the attack.

France’s President, Emmanuel Macron, is also insisting that his government is in possession of “proof”, which is declared without providing any details relative to what the proof is or how it was acquired, that not only were chemical weapons employed in this attack, but that Bashar al-Assad’s regime was indeed behind it all. Additionally, the UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, declared that nearly 600 people were killed in the attack, all the while pointing to the video produced by the White Helmets on Twitter.

These alleged ‘proofs’ which were never released for examination by any independent authority, were never publicly presented, but were nevertheless utilized as the catalyst to launch a joint offensive against the Syrian capital of Damascus.

The video in question, however, does not show 575 people suffering from or dying from exposure to a chemical and ‘mystery’ nerve agent. Neither, however, have such casualties appeared in the town of Douma in or around the site as a result of exposure to the banned chemical agents. Hence, evidence that a chemical weapon was utilized in Douma is severely lacking.

It begs the question, from whence the blood and urine tests that the US and WHO are claiming as their ‘evidence’? How was this ‘evidence’ obtained? Where are these victims of chlorine gas and the ‘nerve agent’? Why are the testimonies of witnesses from the site of the alleged attack not describing events consistent with a legitimate chemical attack? Further, why is the West being so rash to judgment against the presentation of the testimonies of these witnesses? Why are France and the US boycotting the briefing? If the chemical research lab in Damascus that was struck by US led coalition air strikes was indeed manufacturing or storing chemical weapons, why has the OPCW declared that their investigation has found no such evidence?

Apparently, evidence is to be claimed, and not shown. Victims are to be seen, and not heard. Claims are to be made, and not verified. Guilt is to be assumed, and not proven. Military strikes are to be conducted, but not justified. Military campaigns are to be carried out, but not for cause. The forces of the West are righteous, but not for reason.

April 27, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

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