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How Israel Controls Its Narrative

Potential critics often self-censor

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • October 1, 2019

It is interesting to note how the Israel Lobby is able to manage and contain the commentary of groups in America that might normally be critical of Israeli policies vis-à-vis the United States. A recent article by Professor Andrew Bacevich entitled “President Trump, Please End the American Era in the Middle East” is a good example of how self-censorship by authors works. The piece appeared as one of Bacevich’s regular weekly contributions to The American Conservative website under the rubric “Realism and Restraint.”

The article particularly focused on the foreign policy pronouncements of Bret Stephens, the resident neocon who writes for The New York Times. Stephens, per Bacevich, has been urging constant war in the Middle East and worrying lest “we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the American era in the Middle East.” Bacevich, unlike Stephens, is a genuine foreign policy expert, a realist, an Army veteran, and always quite sensible. He correctly described how “in the Middle East, the military power of the United States has played a large part in exacerbating problems rather than contributing to their solution.”

The overall message is sound, but in this case, it is interesting to note what Bacevich left out rather than what he included. It is easy to understand the “realism” part when he writes and it is sometimes also possible to perceive the “restraint.” He cited Iran seven times as well as Saudi Arabia, but, strangely enough, he never mentioned Israel at all, which a number of commenters on the piece noted. It rather suggests that there is a line that Bacevich is reluctant to cross. The omission is particularly odd as Israel is absolutely central to and might even be described as driving American policy in the Middle East and Bret Stephens, whom Bacevich excoriates, is a notable Israel-firster who once worked as the editor of the Jerusalem Post. Almost everything Stephens writes is basically a promotion of Israel and its interests coupled with a call for the United States to do what it must to attack and destroy the Jewish state’s principal perceived enemy Iran.

The reticence is perhaps understandable as Bacevich is president of a newly organized group called the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, which I have written about previously, that will have its official launch in November. It claims to promote “ideas that move U.S. foreign policy away from endless war and toward vigorous diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace” and further takes some pride in being non-partisan though bipartisan might be a better description. To be sure, Quincy’s two major donors are the highly controversial George Soros on the globalist left and the equally notorious Koch Foundation on the libertarian-lite right, which leads one to wonder who is ordering the restraint when it comes to Israel. Or is it both of them as neither organization, though very active in foreign policy, has indicated any desire to seriously criticize the many crimes of the Jewish state. I appear to have accurately predicted in my earlier article on Quincy that “… there will inevitably be major issues that Quincy will be afraid to confront, including the significant role played by Israel and its friends in driving America’s interventionist foreign policy.”

Indeed, anyone who wants to be a player in Washington DC has to avoid the Israel hot wire. That it should be so is a tribute to the power of the Jewish lobby coupled with the bulk support and Bible-belt votes of its brain-dead Christian Zionist spear carriers. Congress, once described by Pat Buchanan as “Israeli-occupied territory,” likewise knows whom not to offend lest one be unemployed in the next electoral cycle. That is why criminalizing criticism of Israel or support of a non-violent boycott of the country are regularly introduced in Congress and find themselves with more than one hundred sponsors and co-sponsors. Nearly two dozen such pro-Israel bills are currently at certain points in the legislative process, including one that will enable aggrieved Israelis to sue the Palestinian Authority (PA) in sympathetic U.S. courts for damages, a move that will potentially bankrupt the PA.

And the colleges and universities have not been immune from pressure to conform to the pro-Israel narrative. The White House acting through the Department of Education is functioning as thought police on behalf of the Jewish state. It is currently planning on withholding some federal funding of the University of North Carolina and Duke because their joint Middle Eastern studies program does not meet alleged government standards. The standards involved relate to the fact that the program has had speakers and course content that can be construed as critical of Israel and friendly to Muslims. The message clearly being sent to the schools by the Trump Administration is that if you criticize the Jewish state you will be punished.

The drive to eliminate any pushback against Israeli actions at colleges has been spearheaded by leading Zionist Kenneth L. Marcus, who was appointed the Education Department’s Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights. Marcus, who has worked as a paid pro-Israel activist, has been urging the government to define the BDS movement as anti-Semitic and has used his office to designate any Palestinian advocacy as a violation of Jewish students’ civil rights.

The federal action to enforce educational conformity on Israel is not exactly new as universities have long since been self-censoring, just like Bacevich, normally in response to complaints by Jewish groups. To cite only one example, in 2013, at nominally Catholic Fordham University in New York City, a student group sought to form a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) club. Their paperwork advised that their goal was to “build support in the Fordham community among people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds for the promotion of justice, human rights, liberation and self-determination for the indigenous Palestinian people.” The applicants also revealed that they would support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Three years later, Fordham’s Dean of Education denied the application because of the support for BDS. The students took Fordham to court and in August of this year, three years later, a New York judge finally struck down the decision as “arbitrary and capricious.”

So it took six years and a lawsuit to enable a group of students to form a club that was admittedly political in nature but non-violent and welcoming of everyone. So much for freedom of speech and association at America’s colleges and universities when they run up against the Israel wall.

What is less observed is how Israel’s message is promoted at the state and local levels. At the state level, anti-BDS legislation is now the rule in 26 states, with some requiring government employees to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel. And the same thing is happening among Boards of Education. Fourteen states now require holocaust education, where students are compelled to read fiction like Eli Wiesel’s “Night” while also consuming the established and standard, largely fabricated, account of what the so-called holocaust was all about. In Virginia, for example, a shadowy group called the Institute for Curriculum Services (ICS), which is actually a “partisan group with backing by state and local Israel advocacy organizations,” is seeking to change the information conveyed by the history and social studies textbooks used in K-12 classrooms across the state. ICS recommended changes include: “1. Emphasizing Arab culpability for crisis initiation leading to military action and failure of peace efforts—and never Israeli culpability, even when it is undisputed historic fact. 2. Replacing the commonly used words of “settlers” with “communities,” “occupation” with “control of,” “wall” with “security fence,” and “militant” with “terrorist.” 3. Referencing Israeli claims such as “Israel annexed East Jerusalem” and the Golan Heights as accepted facts without referencing lack of official recognition by the United Nations and most member nation states.”

The ICS is only one example of the persistent Israel Lobby brainwashing of the American public on behalf of the Jewish state to completely alter the narrative about what is going on in the Middle East. Taken all together, the self-censorship of groups and individuals that wish to remain viable by ignoring the Israel problem, the criminalization of non-violent movements like BDS, and the pressure on universities and schools to conform with positive narratives about Israel means that any genuine understanding of that nation’s war crimes and crimes against humanity will, unfortunately, remain on the margins.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

September 30, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 5 Comments

Israeli Authorities Issue Administrative Detention Orders against 101 Palestinians in September

Palestine Chronicle | September 30, 2019

Israeli authorities issued in September administrative detention orders against 101 Palestinians currently held in Israeli jails for periods ranging between two and six months, today said the Commission of Detainees Affairs.

Some of the orders were issued against Palestinians detainees for the first time, while others had their administrative detention renewed.

Meanwhile, seven administrative detainees are currently on an open-ended hunger strike in protest against their prolonged administrative detention.

According to statistics, there are 500 administrative detainees in Israeli jails.

Administrative detention is the imprisonment of Palestinians without charge or trial at orders from a military commander and on the basis of secret evidence. The order normally goes for six-month periods, indefinitely renewable by Israeli military authorities.

September 30, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Three Saudi Brigades Annihilated in Devastating Houthi Offensive in Saudi Arabia

By Federico Pieraccini | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 30, 2019

Many may have hitherto been led to believe that the Houthis were a ragtag armed force lacking in sophistication. Many, seeing the drone and missile attacks on Saudi oil plants, may have declared it to be a false-flag attack carried out by Riyadh to boost Aramco’s market value; either that or it was an operation carried out by Iran or even Israel. On Saturday September 28, the Houthis put paid to such speculation by confirming what many, like myself, have been writing for months; that is, that the asymmetrical tactics of the Houthis, combined with the conventional capabilities of the Yemeni army, are capable of bringing the Saudi kingdom of Mohammed Bin Salman to its knees.

The Yemeni army’s missile forces are able to carry out highly complex attacks, no doubt as a result of reconnaissance provided by the local Shia population within the Kingdom that is against the House of Saud’s dictatorship. These Houthi sympathisers within Saudi Arabia helped in target identification, carried out reconnaissance within the plants, found the most vulnerable and impactful points, and passed this intelligence on to the Houthis and Yemeni army. These Yemeni forces employed locally produced means to severely degrade Saudi Arabia’s crude-oil-extraction and processing plants. The deadly strikes halved oil production and threatened to continue with other targets if the Saudi-conducted genocide in Yemen did not stop.

On Saturday 29 the Houthis and the Yemeni army conducted an incredible conventional attack lasting three days that began from within Yemen’s borders. The operation would have involved months of intelligence gathering and operational planning. It was a far more complex attack than that conducted against Aramco’s oil facilities. Initial reports indicate that the forces of the Saudi-led coalition were lured into vulnerable positions and then, through a pincer movement conducted quickly within Saudi territory, the Houthis surrounded the town of Najran and its outskirts and got the better of three Saudi brigades numbering in the thousands and including dozens of senior officers as well as numerous combat vehicles. This event is a game changer, leaving the US, Mike Pompeo and the Israelis and Saudis unable to lay the blame on Iran as all this took place a long way from Iran.

The large-scale operation was preceded by Yemeni rocket artillery targeting Jizan airport, with 10 missiles paralyzing any movements to and from the airport, including denying the possibility of air support for the encircled troops. The Houthis also hit the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh in a key operation that targeted Apache helicopters, forcing them to leave the area. Nearby military bases were also targeted so as to cut off any reinforcements and disrupt the chain of command. This led to the Saudi forces fleeing in disorganization. Images shown by the Houthis show a road in the middle of a valley on the outskirts of Najran with dozens of Saudi armored vehicles trying to flee while being attacked from both sides by Houthi RPGs together with heavy and light weapons. Visual confirmation of the debacle can be seen in the number of casualties as well as in the number of prisoners taken. Images show lines of Saudi prisoners walking under Yemeni guard towards prison camps. This is something extraordinary to behold: the Saudi army, the third largest purchaser of weapons in the world, getting comprehensively walloped by one of the poorest countries in the world. The numbers say it all: the Houthis were able to control more than 350 kilometers of Saudi territory. Given that the Saudi military budget is almost 90 billion dollars a year, this achievement is made all the more extraordinary.

Houthi forces employed drones, missiles, anti-aircraft systems, as well as electronic warfare to prevent the Saudis from supporting their troops with aviation or other means to assist their trapped men. Testimony from Saudi soldiers suggest that efforts to rescue them were half-hearted and of little effect. Saudi prisoners of war accuse their military leaders of having left them prey to their opponents.

The Yemeni army and the Houthis were within less than 10 days able to inflict a devastating blow to both the credibility of US defense systems and the Saudi military. They did this by employing creative methods suitable for the objective at hand.

They initially revealed the internal vulnerability of the Kingdom through such a level of penetration into Saudi Arabia that they were able to conduct internal reconnaissance through the assistance of infiltrators or local collaborators so as to know exactly where to hit the oil installations for maximum effect and damage.

They subsequently demonstrated their technical and cyber capabilities through an asymmetrical operation employing drones of various types as well as electronic warfare to blind the US Patriot system’s radars, in the process halving Saudi Arabia’s oil production for a period of time Aramco is yet to determine.

Finally, the most surprising and astounding aspect of these recent events is this most recent Yemeni ground operation that was carried out in hostile territory and succeeded in surrounding three brigades consisting of thousands of men and their equipment. Thousands of Yemeni soldiers loyal to Ansarullah (Houthis) took part in this successful operation, supported by drones, ground-attack aircraft and air-defense batteries. Such capabilities are ordinarily better associated with well-trained and well-equipped militaries rather than militaries coming from the Third World.

The Houthis issued a clear message to Riyadh when they hit its oil installations. They effectively let it be known that they had the means and capability to damage the Kingdom irreparably, leading ultimately to the overthrow of the House of Saud.

The Yemeni army spokesman announced, after hitting the Saudi oil facilities, that they would stop all offensive actions using drones and missiles, leaving it up to Riyadh to decide whether things stopped there and they sat down at the negotiating table to end the conflict, or whether Saudi Arabia was in the mood for more of the same treatment.

Mohammed bin Salman would no doubt have received manifold reassurances from the Americans, explaining away the failure of the Patriot systems and assuring him that more American assistance was on the way; and that it would, moreover, be impossible to come to an agreement with the Houthis, especially given that they are considered to be a proxy of the Iranians (a debunked lie); not to mention, of course, the huge loss of prestige that would befall the Saudis, Israelis and Americans were such a capitulation to occur.

There is already talk in Riyadh of receiving new supplies of the THAAD system (similarly useless against Houthi asymmetrical warfare) and other very expensive American air-defense systems. It is too bad for the Saudis that the US has nothing like the Pantsir and the Russian BUK systems, which allow for a multi-layered air defense, ideal for defending against small, low-flying drones and missiles that are difficult to intercept with such systems as the Patriot and THAAD.

Instead of starting peace talks to stop the ongoing genocide in Yemen and being hit again by the Houthis in response, Mohammed bin Salman and his advisors seem to have seen it fit to commit further war crimes in Yemen.

Faced with such intransigence, the Houthis went ahead with a new attack even more devastating for Saudi morale and discombobulating for Western policy-makers. Thousands of men and their equipment were either killed, wounded, or taken captive in a pincer movement reminiscent of the DPR and LNR’s actions in Ukraine in 2015 where Kiev’s forces was similarly surrounded and destroyed.

Usually such pincer movements require thorough reconnaissance to determine where best to surround the enemy. Furthermore, air support and air-defense systems would be necessary to ward off American and Saudi responses. In addition to all this, troops and their equipment are needed together with the necessary training for such assaults that require coordination as well as quick and effective execution of orders. All these requirements were met as a result of the excellent preparation and knowledge of the terrain by the Yemeni army and the Houthis.

If the attack on Saudi oil facilities had such an impact, then the even more dramatic attack of this last Saturday will have forced Mohammed bin Salman and his American allies to face a very harsh reality. Saudi Arabia, it will now need to be recognized, does not have the capacity to defend its borders from Yemen, leaving the Houthis and the Yemeni army free to enter Saudi territory at will while showing little regard for the opinion and feelings of the Saudis and Americans.

This is a triple checkmate for the Houthis against Riyadh. Firstly, they showed that they had enough local support within Saudi Arabia to have ready internal saboteurs in the event of an all-out war with Iran or Yemen. Then they showed they have the capacity to cripple Saudi Arabia’s oil production. Ultimately, Yemen’s conventional forces could redraw the boundaries between Saudi Arabia and Yemen in the latter’s favor should Yemeni leaders decide to invade and occupy a strip of Saudi territory to secure a buffer zone, given that Saudi forces have been violating Yemen’s sovereignty and massacring civilians willy nilly for the last five years.

It bears reflecting on the significance of these events. The third-biggest arms spender in the world is incapable of defeating the poorest Arab country in the world. It is, moreover, incapable of protecting its national interest and borders from this impoverished Arab country. The Houthis are showing to the world what a poor but organized and motivated armed force can do using asymmetrical methods to bring one of the best-equipped militaries in the world to its knees. This conflict will be studied all over the world as an example of how a new means of warfare is possible when technological and cyber capabilities are democratized and available to those who know how to use them appropriately, as the Houthis have shown with their use of drones and electronic warfare.

With the Houthis enjoying a high level of leverage, through a combination of missile capabilities, the holding of many prisoners of war, and saboteurs spread throughout Saudi Arabia (apropos, a strange fire occurred in Jeddah on Sunday at the Al-Haramain railway station), it may be time for Riyadh to accept the tragic consequences of this useless war and sit down at the negotiating table with Ansarullah.

Washington and Tel Aviv will try in every way to prevent such negotiations. But if Mohammed bin Salman and his family wish to save their kingdom, it is better to start talking to the Houthis immediately. Otherwise it is only a matter of time before another attack by Ansarullah leads to the complete collapse and ruin of the House of Saud and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

September 30, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Iran nuclear issue at inflection point

French President Emmanuel Macron met Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani at UN Hqs, New York, Sept 24, 2019
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | September 30, 2019

The unexpected move by the Pentagon to shift the Combined Air and Space Operations Center (CAOC) at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar to the Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina 7,000 miles away from the Middle East took place against the backdrop of the gathering storms in the regional environment. It injects a crisis atmosphere into regional politics.

To put the Pentagon move in perspective, in addition to hosting Qatari forces, the base also hosts the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing of the US Air Force. Other US military has been active in the country as well including the US Navy SEALS. The facility is also used by the British Royal Airforce. The al-Udeid Air Base is one of the few US airbases overseas where B-52 bombers, America’s largest warplane can land due to the long runways.

This is not the first time that the US temporarily relocated the CAOC. The last time it happened was 13 years ago. When tensions erupted between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, there was even talk of relocating the Central Command out of Qatar.

However, in the current scenario, the Pentagon move is undoubtedly related to the US’ mounting tensions with Iran. If push came to shove and a full blown US-Iran conflict erupts, the CAOC would be one of Iran’s priority targets. The CAOC is so critical to providing fire power for the US forces operating in the region that the Pentagon cannot take risks. The US commander of the 609th Air and Space Operations Center has been quoted as saying, “Iran has indicated multiple times through multiple sources their intent to attack US forces.”

How serious are the prospects of a US-Iran military conflict? Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani disclosed after his return to Tehran from New York that the two sides came breathtakingly close to a summit meeting on the sidelines of the UN GA in New York last week. Rouhani said,

“They (Americans) had sent messages to almost all European and no-European leaders that they wanted one-to-one negotiations between the two Presidents, but we had rejected it, saying that negotiations had to be done in the framework of P5+1, and they accepted.”

“Of course, 3 out of the 6 countries, that is the Chancellor of Germany, Prime Minister of Britain, and President of France all insisted for the meeting to be held, saying that the US would lift all sanctions. But the problem here is that under sanctions and maximum pressure, even if we want to negotiate with the Americans within the framework of P5+1, nobody can predict about the end and upshot of the negotiation.”

Significantly, last Tuesday, during the UNGA in New York, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) also spoke with noticeable restraint in a rare interview with CBS’ ’60 Minutes’. MbS warned, “If the world does not take a strong and firm action to deter Iran, we will see further escalations that will threaten world interests. Oil supplies will be disrupted and oil prices will jump to unimaginably high numbers that we haven’t seen in our lifetimes.” And he went on to stay that a “political and peaceful solution is much better than the military one.”

Importantly, he was categorical that there should be a US-Iranian summit meeting, and added, “this is what we all ask for.” Conventional wisdom is that Saudi Arabia is petrified that the US may engage with Iran directly. But that is apparently not the case.

No doubt, the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Saudi Arabia in October will be keenly watched. Prior to the Saudi visit, Putin will be meeting Rouhani on the sidelines of the summit meeting of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in Yerevan on October 1 when the regional situation and the Iran nuclear deal will certainly be on the agenda of discussion.

This is a defining moment in Russian-Iranian relations too, as Iran is about to sign the formal agreement to join a free trade zone with the EAEU, which of course is a prestigious Kremlin project.

Moscow is cautiously optimistic that “Possibly we will achieve some positive solution (on the 2015 nuclear deal) over several months to come, or else the situation will continue to get worse,” to quote Russia’s representative at international organisations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov during a press conference on Friday to highlight that the Iran nuclear issue is approaching an inflection point.

But Iran is potentially inching its way back [?] in the nuclear weapons business, with a fourth step it is expected to take in early November to reduce its commitments under the 2015 deal. A report in the Guardian last week said the European Union has “privately warned Iran that it will be forced to start withdrawing from the nuclear deal in November if Tehran goes ahead with its threat to take new steps away from the deal… The EU told Iran that it would put the issue of Iranian non-compliance into the agreement’s formal dispute mechanism if the next Iranian move away from the deal is significant… Once the deal’s dispute mechanism is triggered, both sides have 30 days to prove significant non-compliance, and if necessary a world-wide sanctions snap-back occurs.”

The Guardian report put across the European dilemma on the following lines: “The difficulty is that Iran says the steps are reversible, but if they learn about building a nuclear bomb, that is irreversible.”

Iran is no longer finding the support it hoped for in Europe and could be susceptible to broad censure. Conversely, the US is getting the opportunity to restore a modicum of credibility with its allies and the international community, which would broaden the pressure on Iran.

On the other hand, a climb-down by Trump is becoming more difficult in the rising tumult of impeachment proceedings. But while he may appear to have boxed himself in, it is still up to him to offer to Iran that resuming compliance with the 2015 agreement would be met with concrete benefits, like the $15 billion bailout package France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has proposed.

Such a turn to events between now and November cannot be ruled out. After the UNGA, Trump hinted at willingness to negotiate. He said on Friday, “I don’t want military conflict. We’ve offered to talk, we’ve offered to discuss things… I’ve shown great restraint and hope that Iran likewise chooses peace.”

It is within these broad parameters that events may unfold in the coming months. Meanwhile, Pentagon is doing advance planning by shifting the CAOC away from the zone of conflict.

September 30, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Twitter editorial executive is British Army ‘psyops’ soldier – report

RT | September 30, 2019

A high-level Twitter executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East is also a part-time British Army officer in their psychological warfare unit, according to a report.

The Middle East Eye (MEE) claim that Gordon MacMillan, head of editorial for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), also serves with the 77th Brigade, a unit set up in 2015 in order to find “non-lethal” ways of waging war.

The 77th Brigade is an ‘information warfare’ operation that utilizes social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to develop “behavioral change” projects in regions such as the Middle East.

It brings together a variety of military units such as Media Operations and the 15 Psychological Operations Group. The group, before it was absorbed into the 77th Brigade, deployed commanders in the provision of psychological operations in operational and tactical environments.

Detailing his army background on LinkedIn, MacMillan wrote that he had trained at Sandhurst, the prestigious British military academy and that he is “a reserve officer in the British Army serving in 77th Brigade, which specializes in non-lethal engagement.”

The MEE report that his page has recently been edited and that all references to MacMillan’s service with the 77th Brigade have been deleted.

At its launch in front of the UK media four years ago, the new Brigade was billed as a unit of 1,500 “Facebook warriors,” consisting of both regular soldiers and reservists. According to the Middle East Eye, in recent months the army has approached British journalists to join the unit as reservists.

Twitter has responded by insisting that they “encourage all our employees to pursue external interests.” The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) claim that the 77th Brigade has no relationship with Twitter, other than using it for communication, according to the MEE.

September 30, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

UK Defence Chief Carter Claims Country ‘at War on Daily Basis’ Against Alleged Russian Cyber Attacks

Sputnik – September 30, 2019

The UK’s Chief of the Defence Staff Nick Carter has claimed that Britain is at war every day due to constant cyber attacks from Russia and other countries.

In Sunday’s address to the Cliveden Literary Festival, which was also attended by former US General and CIA Director David Petraeus, General Carter also argued that “the changing character of warfare has exposed the distinctions that don’t exist any longer between peace and war.”

“I feel I am now at war, but it’s not a war in the way we would have defined it in the past. And that is because great power competition and the battle of ideas with non-state actors is threatening us on a daily basis,” he said.

Carter referred to Russia’s and China’s alleged “interpretation” of the rules governing international engagement which he claimed threatened “the ethical and legal basis on which we apply the rule of armed conflict.”

He described Russia as “much more of a threat today than it was five years ago.”

“The character of warfare is evolving […] there’s a debate we need to have about what does the future of warfare look like,” Carter claimed, insisting that traditional concept of war only being waged on land, sea and in the air is already outdated.

“The key bit that will give you the edge you need is the way in which information connects [it all] together so we are properly integrated at every level,” he argued.

Carter also claimed that “future warfare is going to be very much information-centric” and that the UK military should clinch a balance between training the armed forces for the new forms of warfare and keeping up a powerful traditional military deterrent, something that is still in place in the Baltic states.

Additionally, Carter made it clear that he shares Petraeus’ view about Russian President Vladimir Putin being “the greatest gift to NATO since the end of the Cold War.”

“NATO’s got some serious political challenges at the moment. “Putin has been very helpful in getting us to make the case as to why we need to modernise,” Carter claimed.

Moscow Rejects Cyber Attacks Involvement Accusations

Russia has repeatedly denied its involvement in cyber-attacks abroad, with presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressing that “these are absolutely unfounded accusations, which are often quite absurd and are not supported by concrete facts.”

He was echoed by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova who said last year that as far as cyber crimes are concerned, “in Western countries, it has become common courtesy to systematically accuse Russia” in such crimes.

“Speaking about reality, all this differs widely from the imaginings of western political consultants because our country is one of the more active participants in international interactivity, especially in information and communication technology,” Zakharova pointed out.

September 30, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Impeachment… or CIA Coup?

By Ron Paul | September 30, 2019

You don’t need to be a supporter of President Trump to be concerned about the efforts to remove him from office. Last week House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced impeachment proceedings against the President over a phone call made to the President of Ukraine. According to the White House record of the call, the President asked his Ukrainian counterpart to look into whether there is any evidence of Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election and then mentioned that a lot of people were talking about how former US Vice President Joe Biden stopped the prosecution of his son who was under investigation for corruption in Ukraine.

Democrats, who spent more than two years convinced that “Russiagate” would enable them to remove Trump from office only to have their hopes dashed by the Mueller Report, now believe they have their smoking gun in this phone call.

It this about politics? Yes. But there may be more to it than that.

It may appear that the Democratic Party, furious over Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss, is the driving force behind this ongoing attempt to remove Donald Trump from office, but at every turn we see the fingerprints of the CIA and its allies in the US deep state.

In August 2016, a former acting director of the CIA, Mike Morell, wrote an extraordinary article in the New York Times accusing Donald Trump of being an “agent of the Russian Federation.” Morell was clearly using his intelligence career as a way of bolstering his claim that Trump was a Russian spy – after all, the CIA should know such a thing! But the claim was a lie.

Former CIA director John Brennan accused President Trump of “treason” and of “being in the pocket of Putin” for meeting with the Russian president in Helsinki and accepting his word that Russia did not meddle in the US election. To this day there has yet to be any evidence presented that the Russian government did interfere. Brennan openly called on “patriotic” Republicans to act against this “traitor.”

Brennan and his deep state counterparts James Comey at the FBI and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper launched an operation, using what we now know is the fake Steele dossier, to spy on the Trump presidential campaign and even attempt to entrap Trump campaign employees.

Notice a pattern here?

Now we hear that the latest trigger for impeachment is a CIA officer assigned to the White House who filed a “whistleblower” complaint against the president over something he heard from someone else that the president said in the Ukraine phone call.

Shockingly, according to multiple press reports the rules for CIA whistleblowing were recently changed, dropping the requirement that the whistleblower have direct, first-hand knowledge of the wrongdoing. Just before this complaint was filed, the rule-change allowed hearsay or second-hand information to be accepted. That seems strange.

As it turns out, the CIA “whistleblower” lurking around the White House got the important things wrong, as there was no quid pro quo discussed and there was no actual request to investigate Biden or his son.

The Democrats have suddenly come out in praise of whistleblowers – well not exactly. Pelosi still wants to prosecute actual whistleblower Ed Snowden. But she’s singing the praises of this fake CIA “whistleblower.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer once warned Trump that if “you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” It’s hard not to ask whether this is a genuine impeachment effort… or a CIA coup!

Copyright © 2019 by RonPaul Institute.

September 30, 2019 Posted by | Deception | , , , | 4 Comments

The Biden Affair in the Ukraine

By Israel Shamir • Unz Review • September 30, 2019

The Borderlands of the Ukraine have been a decisive battlefield for centuries. Here Stockholm, Berlin and Moscow vied for dominance. Karl XII had lost here to Peter the Great; Stalin defeated Hitler; now the Clintonites are likely to suffer in the Ukraine their ultimate defeat. The Democrats had made their biggest political mistake of the century in attacking Trump for the Biden affair — that is, if the Americans retain any common sense.

Vice-President Biden extorted millions of dollars in personal bribes from the vulnerable Ukrainian client state. When this sordid affair came under investigation, he blackmailed Ukrainians, using his position and American taxpayer money to force the sovereign state to fire its Attorney General for investigating the bribes.

Instead of covering their face in shame and dismissing Biden as a potential party candidate in the 2020 race, the Dems led by the superannuated Mrs Pelosi decided to impeach the President for uncovering this rogue. In the well-remembered flick Dirty Harry the lawyers tried to save a criminal by attacking the policeman who didn’t observe the niceties of a Miranda warning. This was the model for the Dems in their impeachment attempt.

Biden’s criminal extortion wasn’t a secret. He boasted of this racket at a public occasion. He famously admitted that:

I said, I’m telling you [the Ukrainian leaders], you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.

The Ukrainians put in place someone who was solid at the time, so solid that he terminated the investigation of Burisma oil company. This company was the vessel to transfer bribes to VP Biden, via his son Hunter Biden. John Solomon of The Hill wrote:

“U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden’s American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts — usually more than $166,000 a month — from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia.”

The fired prosecutor Mr Viktor Shokin said that Biden fils had been under investigation. After he was dismissed due to Biden père interference, the money continued to pour out of poor Ukrainian pockets to well-stuffed Biden coffers. My Kiev acquaintances had a memory of a good-for-nothing young man, keen on coke and broads, who by himself would never get such a salary.

You would ask, why Biden admitted to the crime? He considered himself untouchable like Mrs Clinton and other people of her circle. Mischievous President Trump decided to prosecute Biden for bribery and extortion, as if he were an ordinary mortal. This was a direct threat to the Clintonites (let us use this nickname for the power variously described as Democrats, Liberals, Internationals, financiers, Masters of Discourse or Deep State). This challenge caused them to abandon caution and to start a furious pre-emptive campaign against cocky Trump.

Their accusation is outright ridiculous: they claim Trump’s intention to bring Corrupt Joe to justice was criminal per se, as Biden was a likely contender for the Dem nomination. As it happens, the US Constitution didn’t find it fit to provide likely contenders with full immunity for past and future crime prosecutions. It’s just the Clintonites were used to be above the law. Indeed, for three years President Trump avoided to touch them. Crimes of Mrs Clinton were well known, from the simple affair of the email server to the Libya murders.

It was expected victorious Trump would unleash the law against the defeated dowager for Mrs. Clinton’s role in the Obama administration’s decision to allow the Russian nuclear agency to buy a uranium mining company. Conservatives have long pointed to donations to the Clinton family foundation by people associated with the company, Uranium One, as proof of corruption, reported the New York Times. The Clintonites saved the old lady’s skin by starting the Russiagate hoax. In 2016 election debate Trump told Clinton that, if he was in charge of the nation’s laws, “you’d be in jail”. But a year later he was in charge, and she wasn’t in jail, not even charged. The ruse of Russiagate worked wonders: the President accused of collusion with Russia did not dare to charge his adversary with this very offence.

Now the Clintonites decided to repeat their feat and began impeachment procedure hoping it will keep Trump busy and away from uncovering the Ukrainian Hell’s Kitchen.

What actually had happened in the Ukraine? In 2014, Clintonites had managed the regime change in this former Soviet republic. They removed the legitimate president by using the full spectre of illegal operations. The Ukraine became a Clintonite colony, and Joe Biden their viceroy in the Ukraine. Biden’s involvement in the coup d’état was his biggest crime, but nobody speaks of that, noticed Joe Lauria. They had turned Ukraine against Russia and instigated the civil war in the East of the poor country, despite strong efforts of president Putin to keep Russia out of Ukrainian turmoil. But they also gave a thought to personal profiteering, like they did in Russia in 1990.

Joe Biden had been treated royally in Kiev. He was asked to chair government meetings and proudly sat on the Presidential seat. The Ukrainians are not famous for their subtlety. Nice people, but rather simple ones, even by East European measure. They became involved in 2016 election campaign on the Clintonite side. There is no doubt VP Biden was the man who directed this “foreign involvement in the US elections”. The obliging Ukrainians delivered to him the dirt on Paul Manafort, and Manafort went to jail.

The Ukraine is the second home for CrowdStrike, the cyber-security company that was instrumental in accusing Russia of meddling. Its founder and head, a Russian Jew and American citizen Dmitry Alperovich is a pathological Russia hater on the model of Masha Gessen and Max Boot. People in Kiev say he had built the case against Russia on the strength of a single server allegedly used for hacking the DNC. The server is located in the Ukraine, not in Russia. President Trump asked for its whereabouts in his conversation with the Ukrainian President Mr Zelensky.

The subject of the server makes many people in the Clintonite camp extremely nervous. They already marked it with “conspiracy” marker, meaning you may not touch it. In another “conspiracy debunking” item they created a straw man, saying “the notion that there is some missing “server,” and that the server might exist somewhere—like in Ukraine—has no basis in reality. The DNC’s network consisted of many servers and computers”. However, the server Trump asked about is not the DNC server, but the server allegedly used to hack DNC server. It had left some Russian-language traces, and it was presented as a proof of Russian involvement. But Alperovich’s hackers in the Ukraine also use Russian as their working language, and this allowed the Russia-hating Jew an opportunity to create the whole chain of “proofs” of Russian hackers’ activity with fancy names. Recovery of the server would put paid to the whole myth of Russian hacking, and would make the Clintonite case untenable.

Alperovich, obsessed with his hatred, could cook the case of Russian meddling, but it had to be ordered and utilized by somebody up the feeding chain, most probably Joe Biden. And now Joe Biden, the real criminal, who took bribes and blackmailed the friendly state officials, who orchestrated foreign involvement in the US elections, went on to become the leading contender for Dem party.

The Dems claimed Trump threatened to withdraw funds from the Ukraine if they won’t cooperate with the US enquiry. This claim had been debunked after the full transcript of two Presidents’ chat had been published. But even if it were sterling truth, it would be business as usual for the US. You probably remember the threats of cutting aid that were issued by the US representative in the UN in order to force sovereign states to vote for Israel. The execrable Nicky Haley said, ‘The US will be taking names’, and Donald Trump added his own threats to cut aid.

How could they find fault in Trump allegedly threatening to cut aid to Ukraine if they think Biden was perfectly all right for doing exactly that? But these guys aren’t playing cricket.

The forthcoming Presidential race is becoming a global affair, it seems. In so many countries the US influence had been delivered by agents of Clintonite clan, and all of them are tempted to do what the Clintonites ask, that is to help them to undermine President Trump. In the Ukraine, the struggle of Clintonites and Trumpers is far from over. President Zelensky promised President Trump to help him; but the oligarchs of the Ukraine are in Clintonite camp.

All but one: Igor (Benny) Kolomoysky, a maverick Jewish oligarch and a friend of the President, is an enemy of Clintonites. He also stands against IMF, International Monetary Fund, the powerful bankers’ body that issued many loans to the Ukraine. Just this year, Kiev has to pay six billion dollars to the IMF to remain solvent, and IMF refused to refinance it. The loans were mainly stolen by the gang of the former President, Mr Poroshenko. People in Kiev say that about 1.7 billion dollars of the latest loan had been pocketed by the American supporters of Poroshenko, meaning Joe Biden and his ilk. Now Mr Kolomoysky suggests the new Ukrainian president may default on IMF loans.

Kolomoysky is also the only oligarch who is not in bed with the liberals. The balance of power in the Ukraine is not in favour of Trumpers. The Ukrainians like to back winners; once they made a mistake supporting Mrs Clinton, as they were sure she would win. Perhaps they will make this mistake again. It would depend on the actual Dem contender. Joe Biden had cooked his goose by taking too many bribes in the Ukraine, but another contender may have a better chance, the Ukrainians think. Mrs Warren, perhaps?

They even fiddle with the idea of Mrs Hillary Clinton running again and winning this time. The Ukrainian oligarchs, and first of all Mr Victor Pinchuk, a Jewish billionaire from Dnepro city, No. 1 among the rich Ukrainians, would do anything for her. He contributed many millions to her fund; he finances the Atlantic Council, the Clintonite think-tank, fighting against Russia and Euro-sceptics. He is ‘the wealthy businessman’ Trump referred to in his talk with Mr Zelensky. Judging by Trump’s interest in the Ukrainian server, the President is aware that the old lady is still able to do some mischief, and his promise to take her to jail is still unfulfilled.

It is possible in the presidential race 2020, the Dems will use drafting technique, as the long-distance runners (or bikers, or cross-country skiers) do. The first leading contender (in our case, Biden) would get the flak, get exhausted, and in the last moment he would withdraw from the race yielding the nomination to his well-rested comrade, be it Warren or Clinton or whoever. Bearing that in mind, Trumpers could keep some of the ammo they have on Biden (and there is a lot to find in the Ukraine) until (or rather if) he gets the nomination.

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net

September 30, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Russophobia | , , | 1 Comment