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Less fallout, more danger: US ‘low-yield’ warhead pushes Doomsday Clock closer to midnight

RT | January 30, 2019

A new “low-yield” US warhead is less powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima but more capable of igniting a nuclear conflict than bigger nuclear weapons, analysts believe.

Dubbed W76-2, the weapon is now being produced by the Pantex plant in Texas, according to Donald Trump’s nuclear posture review which he signed last year. The Trump administration – whose boss has already shown a fixation on building up nukes – claims the new “low-yield” warhead would give the US a more “flexible” deterrent.

The new “mini-nuke” has less velocity than the Hiroshima bomb as it was designed by taking away one stage from the original two-stage W76 thermonuclear device usually mounted on Trident ballistic missile. The new warhead’s explosive power was reduced from 100 kilotons of TNT, to around five.

Now, an enemy (Russia, for example) could no longer count on Washington being afraid of using its huge nuclear arsenal due to the unimaginable civilian casualties, the US administration says.

However, less damage doesn’t mean no damage at all as the ‘Little Boy’ bomb, which the US dropped on Hiroshima, killed up to 80,000 people in 1945.

Some US mainstream media noticeably voiced concerns about the new weapon and the impact it will have on international peace. Defense News, for instance, cited some non-proliferation advocates who argue “all nuclear weapons are strategic, not tactical.”

Some Democrats in Congress worry that installing a low-yield and high-yield warhead on the same missile creates a dangerous situation where an adversary cannot know which system is being used, the paper wrote. Therefore, it would react as if the larger and deadlier warhead has been launched.

That aside, the W76-2 could give birth to other low-yield projectiles, reducing the threshold for using nuclear weapons, Mikhail Khodarenok, a Russian military expert said. Such nuclear munitions could easily be launched from the B-21 Raider, a US heavy bomber currently under development by Northrop Grumman, or the F-35 jet, he believes.

Other pundits are already sounding the alarm about the danger of the US building low-yield nuclear weapons. “I think it is time for a new meeting of major countries that have nuclear weapons to develop a new treaty or a new agreement that restricts what can be developed and what cannot be developed,” General Paul Vallely, formerly second-in-command of the US Pacific Command told RT.

“The belief that there might be tactical advantage using nuclear weapons – which I haven’t heard that being openly discussed in the United States or in Russia for a good many years – is happening now in those countries which I think is extremely distressing,” former US defense secretary and an arms control advocate William Perry was quoted as saying by the Guardian. “That’s a very dangerous belief.”

January 30, 2019 Posted by | Environmentalism, Militarism | | 2 Comments

International court judge resigns, citing ‘shocking’ interference from ‘above the law’ US

RT | January 30, 2019

A senior judge has resigned from the UN International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, after the United States threatened judges investigating alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan.

The judge, Christoph Flügge, has worked with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) since 2008. More recently, he got involved with preliminary investigations into claims that US military service members and CIA operatives tortured prisoners in Afghanistan.

Flügge told German newspaper Zeit that he handed in his resignation after open threats from US officials, including a speech by hawkish national security adviser John Bolton last September, where Bolton “wished death” on the Court.

“If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the US or investigate an American citizen, he said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted,” Flügge told Zeit, in an interview translated by The Guardian.

“The American security adviser held his speech at a time when The Hague was planning preliminary investigations into American soldiers who had been accused of torturing people in Afghanistan,” Flügge explained. “The American threats against international judges clearly show the new political climate. It is shocking. I had never heard such a threat.”

Bolton’s speech was delivered in September to the conservative Federalist Society in Washington, DC. It came a year after the ICC began investigating claims that at least 61 detained persons in Afghanistan had been tortured by American troops and another 27 by the CIA at secret prisons in Afghanistan and abroad, according to prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

Bolton called the investigation “utterly unfounded” and “unjustifiable,” and promised to “protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court.”

The senior US official also vowed to defend Israeli citizens from the court. US “friend and ally” Israel was at the time accused of perpetrating war crimes against Palestinian civilians. He warned that the US would disregard arrest warrants, ban judges and prosecutors from entering the country, and even try them in American courts.

Flügge said his colleagues were “stunned” that “the US would roll out such heavy artillery,” but added “it is consistent with the new American line: ‘We are No 1 and we stand above the law’.”

American disregard for the ICC is not a new phenomenon. After much debate, President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Treaty that established the International Criminal Court, but the Congress never ratified it. Clinton’s successor George W. Bush symbolically ‘un-signed’ the treaty in 2002, when the war in Afghanistan was in full swing.

Later that year, the Congress passed the American Service Members’ Protection Act, which obliged the president to prevent any ICC prosecution of US armed forces “to the maximum extent possible,” and even authorized military force to free any US service members from ICC custody. Bolton, incidentally, was Bush’s under-secretary of state at the time.

The court has come under fire from more countries than just the US. Russia withdrew its signature from the Rome Treaty in 2016, after the court criticized the reunification of Crimea. China, India, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are among the other nations that never signed the treaty.

January 30, 2019 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Mueller’s Indictments and James R. Clapper Jr.

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | January 30, 2019

Special Counsel’s Robert Mueller’s securing of an indictment against political operative Roger Stone adds to the list of people associated with President Trump who have been charged with making false statements to federal officials.

The question naturally arises: If false statements to federal officials are so important, then why hasn’t the Justice Department secured an indictment against James R. Clapper, Jr., former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under President Barack Obama. Clapper lied to Congress about secret surveillance schemes that were being conducted on American citizens.

According to vox.com, the following is a list of the people who Mueller has prosecuted or is prosecuting for allegedly making false statements to U.S. officials:

Paul Manafort
Roger Stone
Rick Gates
Michael Flynn
Alex van der Zwaan
Michael Cohen

Obviously, Mueller considers it important that people tell the truth when they are talking to federal officials.

So, I repeat: Why hasn’t the Justice Department secured an indictment against James R. Clapper Jr.?

On March 12, 2013, in a hearing of the United States Senate Committee on Intelligence, Senator Ron Wyden asked Clapper, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”

Clapper responded, “No, sir.”

Wyden asked “It does not?”

Clapper said, “Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.”

On June 5, 2013, the Guardian published secret surveillance documents leaked by Edward Snowden. According to Wikipedia, these included “a top secret order showing that the NSA had collected phone records from over 120 million Verizon subscribers.”

Obviously, neither Clapper nor anyone else within America’s deep state could have anticipated that such records would ever see the light of day. Clapper must have believed that his lie to Congress was going to be preserved forever. But then Snowden came along and revealed the truth.

According to Wikipedia, “The following day, Clapper acknowledged that the NSA collects telephony metadata on millions of Americans’ telephone calls.”

It was clear that Clapper had lied to Congress, under oath. Again, from Wikipedia:

Representative Justin Amash became the first congressman to openly accuse Director Clapper of criminal perjury, calling for his resignation. In a series of tweets he stated: “It now appears clear that the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, lied under oath to Congress and the American people,” and “Perjury is a serious crime … [and] Clapper should resign immediately,” U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said “The director of national intelligence, in March, did directly lie to Congress, which is against the law.” Paul later suggested that Clapper might deserve prison time for his testimony.

Why do Justice Department officials consider it bad when people who are associated with President Trump lie to federal officials but no big deal when it is done by people associated with former President Obama?

January 30, 2019 Posted by | Deception | , , | 1 Comment

Newsguard Turns to EU to Push Controversial Ratings System on Tech Companies, Smears MintPress as “Secretly Supported” by Russia

By Whitney Webb | Mint Press News | January 30, 2019

BRUSSELS —  The neoconservative-backed news rating upstart “Newsguard” is now lobbying the European Union to “force the hand” of major U.S.-based tech companies — including Facebook, Google, and Twitter — to integrate its controversial ratings system into the world’s most popular social media platforms and search engines, according to a recent statement made by Newsguard co-CEO Steven Brill during a Tuesday event on “countering online disinformation” hosted by the EU in Brussels.

Brill also announced during his Brussels speech that Newsguard will be fully operational in four EU countries — U.K., Italy, France and Germany — by this April and is hoping to partner with EU-connected and EU-funded fact-checking organizations in order to increase Newsguard’s profits and influence as well as the likelihood of its adoption by major tech companies. Many of those companies have apparently gotten cold feet after concerns were raised about Newsguard’s browser plug-in collecting location and browsing-history information on its users, a practice discovered by independent tech experts who examined the code behind the plug-in. This undisclosed collection of user information was publicly denied by Newsguard despite it clearly being in the code of the plug-in itself.

Newsguard — whose connections to prominent neoconservatives, former government and intelligence officials and powerful PR firms were the subject of a recent MintPress exposé that went viral — has apparently shifted its hopes overseas following domestic backlash within the United States, triggered by critical reporting on the group. Brill, during his brief speech at the EU event on Tuesday, claimed that news sites that have recently criticized Newsguard’s motives — MintPress among them — are “secretly supported” by the Russian government, a claim for which he provided no evidence.

Another consequence of the growing domestic backlash, as evidenced by Brill’s appearance and the content of his speech in Brussels on Tuesday, is that Newsguard is now seeking to partner with the EU bureaucracy in order to pressure social media and other tech companies to pay Newsguard a hefty licensing fee for use of its “nonpartisan” ranking system.

This would not only ensure a steady stream of income for Brill and Newsguard’s other CEO, Louis Gordon Crovitz, but would also ensure the success of Newsguard’s ultimate ambitions of becoming an involuntary part of the internet browsing experience for citizens of the United States, the Europe Union and beyond.

An unexpectedly uphill battle for the giants’ blessing

As MintPress reported earlier this month, Newsguard aims to soon be “running by default on our computers and phones whenever we scan the Web for news” and has been in talks with “online titans” for several months, having already teamed up with Microsoft. Newsguard’s Microsoft partnership is credited with the ranking system, now available only as a browser plug-in, being pushed onto public library systems and even universities throughout the United States.

Newsguard has since used a series of interviews with mainstream outlets (all of which have received high ratings from the company) to promote its “popularity” by citing a Gallup poll that found that “89% of users of social media sites and 83% overall want social media sites and search engines to integrate NewsGuard ratings and reviews into their news feeds and search results.” However, few of the outlets that reported on the poll and Newsguard disclosed that Newsguard itself and one of its top investors funded the poll, that participants were paid to answer questions, and that the poll’s findings “may not be reflective of attitudes of the broader U.S adult population.”

Despite that, for whatever reason, there remains some resistance from social media giants to adopting Newsguard. Such a response was unexpected by the company’s CEOs Brill and Crovitz, however, given that both — when they announced Newsguard’s formation and raising of $6 million in seed funding last March — stated in several interviews that they anticipated near-immediate offers from major tech companies.

For instance, an interview with Business Insider, Crovitz (who is also a board member of Business Insider) had stated that they expected at least one of “the big tech platforms to sign on as a paying customer in a couple of months,” while Brill was quoted in the same article as stating that “We would not have gone forward [with Newsguard]” without at least some interest from these very platforms. Several mainstream reports on Newsguard have noted that if it does not successfully partner with major social media platforms or search engine companies, it is likely to fail.

The tech companies lack of interest could be explained many ways. One possibility is that Newsguard has drawn criticism from big-name, high-traffic websites it has poorly rated, particularly among conservative outlets like the Daily Mail, Breitbart and the news aggregations site Drudge Report, which has resulted in a steady stream of negative reports about the operation since MintPress’ original exposé was first published on January 9.

Such negative reporting has led to a bombardment of negative comments on Newsguard’s Facebook posts and tweets, as well as low ratings for its browser plug-ins. Mozilla, Firefox’s parent company, was recently accused of deleting many of the 1-star ratings for the plug-in, presumably at Newsguard’s request.

In addition, Facebook’s ”third party fact-checking organization” since December 2016 — the Poynter Institute, itself controversial for being heavily funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Open Society Foundations — has openly criticized Newsguard.

In a recent article on Newsguard published in Slate, Alexios Mantzarlis, head of the Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), stated that — while he “appreciates” what Newsguard is trying to do — he found Newsguard’s red-green rating system “reductive,” adding that “it feels like one of those recipes where the ingredients all look right, but then you follow it closely and the result isn’t great.” Mantzarlis brought up the red rating given to Al Jazeera and the green rating given to Fox News as a glaring example of Newsguard’s questionable rankings of news organizations.

Furthermore, internet privacy activists have raised concerns about Newsguard’s plug-in collecting and storing information on the browser history of its users, along with information on the device on which it is installed and geolocation information, among other data.

Though Newsguard has responded to such criticism by stating that it does not share or store the information it collects (the “Trust Us” response), privacy advocates have noted that collecting such information was a choice the company made, not a technical requirement for the stated purpose of the plug-in. It is worth noting that Newsguard’s Crovitz has repeatedly defended illegal NSA surveillance — and the man who oversaw that surveillance operation for several years, former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden, is on Newsguard’s board of advisors.

These factors and others have led some prominent privacy activists and technologists, such as Mozilla co-founder and former CEO Brendan Eich, to call Newsguard “a bad operation all around.” With prominent technologists like Eich and prominent fact-checkers like Mantzarlis lining up against Newsguard, the company’s plans to integrate smoothly into social media aren’t going as planned.

Leveraging the EU

Brill and Crovitz are apparently growing uneasy that large U.S. tech companies are getting cold feet on incorporating Newsguard into their online products and paying Newsguard’s hefty (yet undisclosed) licensing fee, given that licensing fees are the linchpin that would ensure the company’s profitability.

Slate’s recent article on Newsguard, published last Friday, admits as much. Will Oremus, Slate’s senior technology writer, stated that “whether NewsGuard’s shields become ubiquitous or a footnote in the history of online journalism will depend on the willingness of the large tech platforms to license its product.” Oremus then goes on to note that Brill said during an interview that he is confident that “a European Union agreement, little-known stateside, might help to force their hand. Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Mozilla (maker of the Firefox browser) have all signed on this year to the European Commission’s Code of Practice on Disinformation, which commits them to various measures to tackle false news on their platforms.”

Oremus continues:

If it sounds like an empty bureaucratic gesture, well, it might be. But Brill and Crovitz are counting on it to have teeth, and they’ve been making regular trips [emphasis added] to Brussels to try to persuade these platforms that adopting NewsGuard is their best path toward satisfying the agreement. If this or other arguments fail to convince Big Tech, NewsGuard will fail too.”

Indeed, Newsguard is undeniably looking to the EU to “force the hand” of uneasy tech companies in integrating — and licensing — Newsguard’s ranking system. On Tuesday, Brill made yet another of his “regular trips” to Brussels, this time to participate in an EU-hosted conference titled “Countering online disinformation – Towards a more transparent, credible and diverse digital media ecosystem.” Brill participated in a panel discussion with representatives from European fact-checking organizations, titled “How can the fact-checking community help ensure a fair public debate?”

During his brief speech at the conference (link – speech begins around 5:38:30), Brill used many of the same talking points he has used domestically, touting Newsguard’s ostensible nonpartisanship and “growing popularity” with consumers (yes, he cites only the same aforementioned Gallup poll as evidence).

However, a few minutes into his speech, Brill states the real reason for attending the conference:

I am here to announce that by mid to the end of April, we expect to have hired enough native journalists and enough experienced editors and get the process going so that we will have launched in Italy, Germany, France and the U.K. and will have covered at least 90 percent [of the most visited news websites in those countries].”

In other words, Newsguard Europe is soon to open its doors, showing that the company’s global ambitions are speeding up sooner than many observers had expected.

As Newsguard has done in the U.S., Brill also noted that “we [Newsguard] are now talking to library systems here in Europe” and that Newsguard hoped to partner with “the fact checkers on this stage.” The other fact-checking organizations on that panel included representatives from the Poynter Institute’s IFCN, which, as previously mentioned, has recently criticized Newsguard’s rating system; the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the world’s “largest community of public service [read government-funded] media organizations in the world,” whose members include the BBC, France24 and Deutsche Welle; and the EU government- and Google-funded “disinformation observatory” SOMA.

It is currently unclear whether Newsguard has partnered with any of these organizations or is involved in talks to do so. However, Brill’s stated desire to partner with fact-checkers supported by and also funded by the EU government shows that Newsguard Europe is interested in protecting establishment corporate and state-funded media outlets — much as it has in the United States, where Newsguard has targeted independent media sites, particularly those with an “anti-establishment” leaning.

Obviously not a first choice

Given Brill’s recent announcement and his recent statements regarding Newsguard’s shift across the Atlantic, the question then becomes — will it work? Will Brill and Crovitz be able to use the EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation to pressure Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Mozilla — all of whom signed the code last fall — to follow in Microsoft’s footsteps and adopt Newsguard?

On Tuesday, the European Commission commented on the initial reports by Google, Facebook, Twitter and Mozilla on their efforts “to fight fake news.” In a statement, the commission wrote:

There has been some progress, notably in removing fake accounts and limiting the visibility of sites that promote disinformation. However, additional action is needed to ensure full transparency of political ads by the start of the campaign for the European elections in all EU Member States.”

Those elections will take place in May.

As noted by Forbes, the commission will perform a comprehensive assessment at the end of 2019 and “should the results prove unsatisfactory … [the commission] may propose further actions, including of a regulatory nature.” In other words, the commission is threatening tech companies with government regulation if the results of their efforts to fight “fake news” are considered “unsatisfactory” by EU bureaucrats.

If Newsguard is able to partner with groups that are EU-connected and funded like the EBU and SOMA, that conflict of interest alone could be enough to have Newsguard integration promoted by the EU as a “satisfactory” step towards meeting the requirements of the Code. In addition, Newsguard’s ties to one of the largest advertising firms in the world, the French-based Publicis Groupe, could also help it win EU support.

Indeed, Brill showed a subsection of the Code that fits neatly with Newsguard’s stated mission and its description of its own activities during his Tuesday speech. He highlighted the Code’s Commitment 11.D “Empowering Consumers,” which states:

Such transparency should reflect the importance of facilitating the assessment of content through indicators of the trustworthiness of content sources, media ownership and verified identity. These indicators should be based on objective criteria and endorsed by news media associations, in line with journalistic principles and processes.”

Yet, despite EU threats and Brill’s presentation to EU officials and tech company representatives on Tuesday, social media platforms like Facebook seem intent on resisting Newsguard. For example, Facebook, in an effort to pre-empt the commission’s response to its efforts and the “disinformation” conference Tuesday, announced at a Monday press conference in Brussels that it plans to create an “independent content oversight board with the power to overturn company decisions on user posts,” to be composed of 40 “technology and human rights experts free of commercial influences,” who will be selected by Facebook for inaugural three-year terms.

Though it is doubtful that the EU will find Facebook’s new “content oversight board” to be “satisfactory” over the course of the year, it shows that Facebook is willing to try all sorts of alternatives to Newsguard, despite Brill and Crovitz’s heavy lobbying of the popular yet beleaguered social media platform.

Newsguard critics are all Kremlin mouthpieces?

Newsguard’s ambitions seem to be hitting more roadblocks than expected in the U.S., leading the group to turn their attention to unelected EU bureaucrats and to cultivating alliances with establishment media organizations and fact-checkers in Europe in order to pressure U.S.-based tech companies to license its ranking system.

A clear factor in creating this scenario for Newsguard has been initial critical reporting from MintPress and other subsequent reports from various outlets such as RT and Breitbart. Brill, during his Tuesday speech, made his disdain for these reports clear and attempted to write off  all critical reporting on Newsguard as being “secretly supported” by the Russian government. During a short Q&A session following his speech on Tuesday, Brill briefly donned his tinfoil hat and lamented “this sustained attack we’ve been getting from RT and Sputnik for the last 10 days and all of the various websites that they kind of secretly support [emphasis added] in the United States.”

RT’s initial report on Newsguard cited MintPress as having broken the story, and Sputnik’s coverage focused on MintPress’ article as well as a radio interview the author of this article did with a Sputnik radio program a few days after the report had been published. As a consequence, Brill implied on Tuesday that MintPress is “secretly supported” by RT and Sputnik, a bold-face lie that had first been circulated in a January 15 report by Folio that had insinuated that MintPress was a “Kremlin-linked outlet.” Folio was eventually forced make the following clarification after being contacted by MintPress Editor-in-Chief Mnar Muhawesh:

A social media headline on this story, mentioning “Russian-linked news media,” was a reference to RT and Sputnik News. MintPress News is an independent, Minnesota-based news outlet.”

Newsguard and the establishment media it seeks to protect have now made it clear that not only are they unconcerned with the actual opinions of U.S. adults regarding their platform and ranking system, they are also willing to smear any news outlet that points out their numerous conflicts of interest and troubling ambitions as “Kremlin-linked.” The only “evidence” for that smear is absurdly based on the fact that RT and Sputnik have reported on the topic. The hypocrisy is glaring given that RT and Sputnik both regularly write articles based off of stories that were first published by establishment, “green-rated” U.S. outlets; yet, those outlets are not implied as receiving “secret support” from the Russian government by association.

The absurdity of these smears, along with Newsguard’s push to hammer out a deal with EU bureaucracy over the heads of tech companies and global internet users, show growing concern among Newsguard executives and their investors that their project could fail despite their best efforts. Indeed, if they have already resorted to deleting poor reviews for their browser plug-in, it certainly — as one FireFox user noted — “seems like a desperate move.”

Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

January 30, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Project Raven: Using US Spies and Spying Tactics, UAE Snooped on Entire World

Sputnik – 30.01.2019

Thousands of documents and emails reveal that NSA surveillance techniques were central to the UAE’s efforts to monitor opponents.

In an exclusive report, Reuters has documented the work of ‘Project Raven’ — an operation run by the government of the United Arab Emirates, in which former US intelligence agency staff have spied on other governments, human rights activists and even US citizens.

The article primarily focuses on former NSA intelligence analyst Lori Stroud, the only Project operative willing to be named — eight others spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Stroud spent a decade at the NSA, first as military service member 2003 — 2009, then agency contractor for tech giant Booz Allen Hamilton 2009 — 2014. Her specialism was hunting for vulnerabilities in foreign government computer systems — such as China’s — and assessing what data could and should be stolen.

Her glittering career at the agency would be scuppered via an intriguing chain of events, kickstarted in 2013 when she recommended none other than Edward Snowden — then a Dell technician — be promoted to her team.

A mere two months later, Snowden infamously fled the US and passed on thousands of pages of top secret program files to journalists. Stroud and her team were unofficially blamed for enabling the massive security breach, and they became persona non grata at the agency.

Job Opportunity

In the wake of the scandal, Marc Baier, a former colleague of Stroud’s at NSA Hawaii, offered her the opportunity to work for CyberPoint, a US contractor. She was told the job involved counterterrorism work in cooperation with the Emiratis, but little else — although she was assured the project was approved by the NSA, and accepted the offer in May 2014.

A fortnight later, Stroud was in Abu Dhabi, one of over a dozen former US intelligence veterans working under the auspices of Project Raven — their primary task surveillance of citizens critical of the UAE’s ruling monarchy. They would use techniques invented and perfected by the US intelligence community, including a resource called ‘Karma’, which was employed to hack into hundreds of dissidents’ phones and computers. The team also investigated targets’ friends, relatives and associates, placing them under close surveillance too.

The work also involved monitoring social media for negative comments, which Stroud occasionally found difficult.

“Some days it was hard to swallow, like [when you target] a 16-year-old kid on Twitter. But it’s an intelligence mission, you are an intelligence operative. I never made it personal,” she told Reuters.

Raven’s targets eventually evolved to militants in Yemen, and foreign governments including Iran, Qatar and Turkey, all bitter enemies of UAE. On top of employing their existing knowledge of intelligence tactics, the American operatives also developed new software to carry out infiltration and monitoring tasks. An Emirati operative would usually “press the button” on an attack however, in order to give the former US spy agency staff “plausible deniability”.

Moreover, using fake identities and Bitcoin, the Project anonymously rented servers around the world, allowing them to launch attacks from a network of machines that couldn’t be traced back to its true origin.

Human Wrongs

Fake identities also played a role in the targeting of several individuals, including UK journalist and activist Rori Donaghy, who’d authored articles critical of the UAE’s human rights record. The Emiratis were acutely aware spying on Donaghy could harm diplomatic relations with its Western allies, and stressed the need for extreme caution, suggesting Project operatives “ingratiate [themselves] to the target by espousing similar beliefs”.

Posing as a single human rights activist, staff emailed Donaghy asking for his help to “bring hope to those who are long suffering”, managing to convince him to download software that would make messages “difficult to trace.” In reality, the malware allowed the Emiratis to continuously monitor Donaghy’s email account and Internet browsing. The surveillance against Donaghy remained a top priority for the Emirates until 2015, when he learned his email had been hacked.

Prominent Emirati activist Ahmed Mansoor was another key target — he’d criticized the country’s ruling elite for years over the war in Yemen, treatment of migrant workers and detention of political opponents. Evidence the Project collected on him was compiled in a PowerPoint presentation — it would later be used in a secret trial in 2017, which saw him sentenced to 10 years in solitary confinement.

Along the way, staff were told the NSA approved of and was regularly briefed on Raven’s activities — but in 2016, the Emiratis moved responsibility for Project Raven to UAE cybersecurity firm DarkMatter, but the former US spies remained. It would not be long before their mission began to involve the targeting of fellow Americans for surveillance, activity which not only raised serious ethical questions for all involved, but made their activities illegal in their home country.

While Stroud praises the lack of “bull****” red tape” and “limitations” in her work for Project Raven, she also alleges she helped create an policy detailing how data on Americans accidentally harvested by the team’s activities should be deleted, she said after its supposed implementation she kept on finding such information in the organization’s data stores.

At the same time, the Emiratis began hiding an increasing number of sections of Project Raven from the view of the Americans on the team.

Tough Questions

In 2016, FBI agents began questioning American Project Raven employees who’d reentered the US, in particular whether they’d spied on US citizens and shared sensitive information with the Emiratis — Stroud was among them, having been approached at Virginia’s Dulles airport as she was preparing to head back to the UAE after a trip home. She says she refused to tell them “jack”.

However, one morning in spring 2017 Stroud noticed a passport page of an American was in the Project system, and emailed supervisors to complain. She was told the data had been collected by mistake and would be deleted — but her concerns not allayed, she began searching a targeting request list usually limited to Emirati staff, which she was able to access because of her role as lead analyst.

She saw security forces had sought surveillance against two other Americans, and questioned her bosses on the find — their response was a rebuke, on the basis she wasn’t meant to be able to process such information. Days later, she came upon three more American names on the hidden targeting queue — all journalists.

When Stroud kept raising questions, she was put on leave, her phones and passport confiscated. She was allowed to return to her homeland after two months, whereupon she contacted the FBI agents who confronted her at the airport. The Bureau is now investigating Project Raven’s activities — but Stroud’s contributions are limited in specifics, as she claims to not remember the names of the Americans she came across in the files.

January 30, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

Colombia Witnesses Murder of 17th Social Leader in 2019

Dilio Corpus Guetio, a Campesino leader was murdered in Colombia, making it 17th murder in 2019. | Photo: Twitter / @Paola_teleSUR
teleSUR | January 30, 2019

A Colombian Campesino leader Dilio Corpus Guetio, 44, who was a member of Asocordillera (Mountain Area Association of Campesino Workers) and also a member of the local Campesino Guard militia was shot to death Tuesday.

Corpus Guetio left his home in the municipality of Suarez in the department of Cauca, in southwest Colombia, at around six in the morning for work. On the way armed men from a car shot him several times.

“The murderers were in a van which hit him and made him lose control of his bike. At that point, they got out of the car to get close to Dilio, who was already injured and he was shot repeatedly, killing him,” said a representative from the United National Federation of Agricultural Unions (FENSUAGRO).

Studies for Development and Peace, Indepaz, say that within the 29 days of 2019, 16 social leaders have been killed in Colombia, excluding Corpus Guetio.

Dilio was known for his work monitoring rural areas and protecting the territory and its inhabitants. His murder case has been registered in the village of Santa Barbara, his place of work.

This week another community leader from Cuca, Jose Jair Orozco, 52, was also assassinated.

Colombian Attorney General Nestor Humberto Martinez said in early January that the greatest number of Colombians murdered over the past two years since the signing of the peace agreement have been social leaders who serve on Communal Action Boards (JAC).

JACs began in the 1950s and are local-level councils where citizens decide upon, plan and develop community projects based on their own needs. The majority of JACs are in rural areas and members include mainly low-income Campesino, Indigenous, and Afro-Colombian members of society.

According to Martinez, the assassinations of JAC leaders is “passively systematic.” The attorney general said that those responsible are paramilitary groups “such as the “Gulf Clan” that works on behalf of narco traffickers and “Los Caparrapos” he added.

Indigenous people made up 13 percent of those killed and farmers 10 percent. Union leaders and social leaders, Afro-Colombians and LGBTI population were the other main murder victims.

January 30, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , | 1 Comment

US revisits Vietnam Syndrome in Afghanistan after 17 years of war and destruction

By Finian Cunningham | RT | January 30, 2019

It is America’s longest war, costing huge amounts of “blood and treasure” as US leaders claim. Yet, the signs are that Washington is finally accepting an historic defeat in Afghanistan comparable to the ignominious Vietnam War.

Intensive negotiations between American officials and Taliban insurgents have produced the “biggest tangible step” towards ending the nearly 18-year war in Afghanistan, according to the New York Times.

More talks are scheduled in the coming weeks to firm up details, but already it is reported that the US is to withdraw its remaining 14,000 troops from the Central Asian country over the next year without any guarantees of reciprocation by the enemy.

That unilateral pullout is not yet officially admitted by Washington, but analysts believe the US has tacitly accepted the long-held demand by the Taliban for foreign troops to get out.

At the height of the war, US forces numbered up to 100,000 personnel. The remnant American military therefore have no way of countering the growing insurgency. Even with an additional 8,000 NATO troops and thousands of private contractors also present in Afghanistan supporting the US-backed government in Kabul, the sordid game is up.

Zalmay Khalilzad, US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, during the latest round of talks held in Doha, Qatar, sought to portray an “agreed framework for a peace deal” being contingent on the Taliban delivering on three items: a ceasefire; entering into negotiations with the government in Kabul; and a vow to never allow Afghanistan to become a haven for terror groups.

But media reports cite Taliban officials as giving no firm commitment to those US demands, while it appears Washington has accepted its troops are to be repatriated regardless. In other words, the American side is looking for a face-saving, apparent bilateral “deal” when the reality is Washington knows its war is over.

Ryan Crocker, a former US ambassador to Afghanistan, puts it acerbically. Washington is only polishing the optics, while finessing “the terms of surrender.”

He compares the American withdrawal from Afghanistan to the disorderly retreat and defeat that US forces incurred at the end of the Vietnam War in the mid-1970s. “Then, as now, it was clear that by going to the table we were surrendering; we are just negotiating the terms of our surrender,” opined Crocker in the Washington Post.

The defeat of US military might in Indochina gave rise to the Vietnam Syndrome which entailed a grave loss in national confidence and international standing. The war in Afghanistan has already exceeded the duration of the Vietnam debacle by nearly eight years. While the death toll among American forces is a lot less, the financial cost of Afghanistan is potentially ruinous. Up to $2 trillion of taxpayer money is estimated to have been poured into waging war in that country, yet the strategic achievements are arguably zero.

Not only that, but the launching of “Operation Enduring Freedom” in October 2001 by the GW Bush administration was the catalyst for a global so-called “war on terror” which engulfed several countries. The total financial cost for those wars is reckoned to be around $5 trillion – or nearly a quarter of America’s spiraling national debt.

In cost of human lives, the Afghan war and its derivative “anti-terror” operations elsewhere have resulted in millions of deaths and casualties, millions of refugees and the decimation of whole nations, which have further spawned conflict and the spread of terrorism. Suicide rates and pathological self-destruction among US veterans who served in Afghanistan (and Iraq) are off the charts and will have long-term detriment on American society for generations to come.

The Afghan Syndrome is going to haunt the US for decades in the same way the Vietnam forerunner did.

What’s more despicable is the utter waste and futility. When Bush ordered the troops into Afghanistan at the end of 2001, it was supposed to be in revenge for the terror attacks on the US on September 11. Never mind that the evidence linking those attacks to Afghanistan was tenuous at best.

The Taliban regime, which had been in power from 1996, was toppled by the US. But three presidents later, the Taliban now are reckoned to control over half the territory in Afghanistan, and can carry out deadly attacks on US-backed local forces seemingly at will on a daily basis, including in the capital Kabul.

Now it seems only a matter of time until the Taliban will be back in power with the US and allied NATO forces gone.

Richard Haass, a former senior US State Department planner, commented: “The Taliban have concluded that it is only a matter of time before the United States grows weary of stationing troops in a far-off country and spending $45 billion a year on a war that cannot be won… they have little need to compromise.”

The irony is that the Taliban grew out of the tribal militants that the US cultivated and armed to the teeth at the end of the 1970s when Afghanistan was governed by a Soviet-backed administration.

The American policy was gleefully calculated in Washington to give the “Soviets their Vietnam.” The proxy war was indeed a heavy loss for the Soviet Union, but in the longer-term it looks like Uncle Sam ended up getting another Vietnam in terms of creating the longest war ever for Washington, the unfolding ignominious defeat and the global blowback from Islamist terrorism it engendered.

Washington may be pretending it has reached a “framework deal for peace” in Afghanistan. But the brutal truth is Washington has lost another epic war.

The Taliban have always maintained they are not going to negotiate with the US-backed administration in Kabul, headed by President Ashraf Ghani. Like his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, the Taliban view Ghani and his government as a corrupt, venal puppet of the Americans.

The fact that the US sidelined the Kabul regime by talking directly with the Taliban is a crucial concession by Washington. By doing so, the US is effectively admitting that the insurgents are in the driving seat. All the talk out of Washington about supporting “intra-Afghani dialogue” and finding a “comprehensive peace settlement” is window-dressing rhetoric.

US President Donald Trump last month ordered about half of the American troops in Afghanistan – some 7,000 – to withdraw. Trump is said to be growing impatient with the huge financial drain of the never-ending war. His order to pull out forces before the latest round of negotiations in Qatar will have been taken by the Taliban as further proof the Americans know they are beaten.

Astoundingly, prominent voices in Washington are arguing that, in spite of the human calamity and cost of Afghanistan, US troops should remain there indefinitely. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell wants to pass legislation forbidding a withdrawal. The Washington Post’s editorial board – which reflects the foreign policy establishment view – admonished: “The Trump administration’s tentative deal with the Taliban could return Afghanistan to chaos.”

“Return to chaos”?

Afghanistan – known as the Graveyard of Empires – from centuries of defeating great powers is showing that the Americans are up their necks in chaos.

January 30, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | 2 Comments

US warns Israel against keeping up strikes on Syria

Press TV – January 30, 2019

The top US intelligence official has warned Israel of the consequences of keeping up its military strikes on Syrian soil, saying the attacks could eventually trigger a response from Iran, which has its military advisors based in the Arab state.

Speaking at a hearing of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in Washington on Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said that Israel’s continued aerial assaults against Syria would increase the risk of Iran’s retaliation.

“We assess that Iran seeks to avoid a major armed conflict with Israel,” Coats said. “However, Israeli strikes that result in Iranian casualties increase the likelihood of Iranian conventional retaliation against Israel.”

Coats also raised concerns about “the long-term trajectory of Iranian influence in the region and the risk that conflict will escalate.”

He further claimed that Iran pursues “permanent military bases” in Syria and probably wants to maintain a network of “fighters” there despite the Israeli aerial assaults.

The American official was presenting the views of the US Intelligence Community to the congressional committee as part of the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment.

Tehran has been offering military advisory assistance to the Syrian army at the request of the Damascus government. Iran says it is not operating any military bases there.

The Israeli military has on multiple occasions launched air raids against targets inside Syria, some of which it claims belonged to Iranian forces.

Israel – which has been backing the terror groups operating against Damascus — views Iranian advisors in Syria as a threat and has openly pledged to target them until they leave the Arab country.

Earlier this month, the chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) responded to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “ridiculous” threat of strikes against Iranian advisors.

Major General Ali Jafari vowed that the Islamic Republic will protect its military advisory mission against the regime’s acts of aggression.

Just days ago, Iran’s chief military commander raised the possibility of Iran adopting offensive military tactics to protect its interests.

The chief military commander says Iran is prepared to adopt offensive military tactics in order to protect its interests while generally adhering to its broad defense doctrine.

In April 2018, an Israeli airstrike against the T-4 airbase in Syria’s Homs Province killed more than a dozen people, reportedly including seven Iranian military advisors.

In May of the same year, Israel conducted its most intensive airstrikes on Syria in decades. According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, Israel had used 28 warplanes in its Syria strikes and fired 70 missiles. Both Damascus and Moscow said that the Syrian army had managed to shoot down over half of the missiles.

The Tel Aviv regime, at the time, claimed that its assault was in response to a barrage of 20 rockets that had been fired from Syria at Israeli military outposts in the occupied Golan Heights, and it blamed the rocket attack on Iran.

January 30, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , | 2 Comments

McConnell Mulls Introducing Amendment to Stop US Pullout from Syria, Afghanistan

Sputnik – 30.01.2019

WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday he plans to introduce legislation to prevent what he called a “precipitous” withdrawal of US forces from Syria and Afghanistan before terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Daesh are defeated there.

“My amendment would acknowledge the plain fact that al Qaeda, ISIS[Daesh], and their affiliates in Syria and Afghanistan continue to pose a serious threat to our nation”, McConnell said in remarks on the Senate floor.

McConnell said his amendment, which he plans to introduce to a wide-ranging Senate bill on the Middle East, would “recognize the danger of a precipitous withdrawal from either conflict, and highlight the need for diplomatic engagement and political solutions to the underlying conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan”.

He stressed that his amendment would ensure the continued commitment of US forces until “vile terrorists” suffer an enduring defeat in both countries.

Moreover, McConnell emphasized that if the US exit the two countries before defeating the terrorists, the two conflicts would “reverberate in the United States”.

The comments mark a rare break between the Republican Senate majority leader and President Donald Trump, who has signaled that he intends to pull US troops out of both countries.

McConnell said he would introduce the amendment to the “Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act”, a sweeping package of measures that would impose new sanctions against Syria, boost defense spending in the region and punish activists who call for economic boycotts of Israel to protest its policies in Palestine, among other measures.

The bill cleared a first Senate hurdle on Monday in a 74-19 vote, and the chamber is expected to decide on the final version of the legislation in the coming days.

In December, the US-based media reported that Washington planned to withdraw around 7,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan. The reports came in the wake of Trump’s announcement regarding his intention to pull the US troops out of Syria since, according to him, the Daesh had been defeated.

The White House, however, has dismissed the claims about Afghanistan, saying that Donald Trump had no such plans.

January 30, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 1 Comment