British Government Covert Anti-Russian Propaganda and the Skripal Case
By Craig Murray | December 21, 2018
It is worth starting by noting that a high percentage of the Integrity Initiative archive has been authenticated. The scheme has been admitted by the FCO and defended as legitimate government activity. Individual items like the minutes of the meeting with David Leask are authenticated. Not one of the documents has so far been disproven, or even denied.
Which tends to obscure some of the difficulties with the material. There is no metadata showing when each document was created, as opposed to when Anonymous made it into a PDF. Anonymous have released it in tranches and made plain there is more to come. The reason for this methodology is left obscure.
Most frustratingly, Anonymous’ comments on the releases indicate that they have vital information which is not, so far, revealed. The most important document of all appears to be a simple contact list, of a particular group within the hundreds of contacts revealed in the papers overall. This is it in full:
Tantalisingly, Anonymous describe this as a list of people who attended a meeting with the White Helmets. But there is no evidence of that in the document itself, nor does any other document released so far refer to this meeting. There is very little in the documents released so far about the White Helmets at all. But there is a huge amount about the Skripal case. With the greatest of respect to Anonymous and pending any release of further evidence, I want you to consider whether this might be a document related to the Skripal incident.
The list is headed CND gen list 2. CND is Christopher Nigel Donnelly, Director of the Institute for Statecraft and the Integrity Initiative and a very senior career Military Intelligence Officer.
The first name on the list caught my eye. Duncan Allan was the young FCO Research Analyst who, as detailed in Murder in Samarkand, appears in my Ambassadorial office in Tashkent, telling me of the FCO staff who had been left in tears by the pressure put on them to sign up to Blair’s dodgy dossier on Iraqi WMD. During the process of clearing the manuscript with the FCO, I was told (though not by him) that he denied having ever said it. It was one of a very few instances where I refused to make the changes requested to the text, because I had no doubt whatsoever of what had been said.
If Duncan did lie about having told me, it did his career no harm as he is now Deputy Head of FCO Research Analysts and, most importantly, the FCO’s lead analyst on Russia and the Former Soviet Union.
Now let us tie that in with the notorious name further down the list; Pablo Miller, the long-term MI6 handler of Sergei Skripal, who lived in Salisbury with Skripal. Miller is the man who was, within 24 hours of the Skripal attack, protected by a D(SMA) notice banning the media from mentioning him. Here Pablo Miller is actively involved, alongside serving FCO and MOD staff, in a government funded organisation whose avowed intention is to spread disinformation about Russia. The story that Miller is in an inactive retirement is immediately and spectacularly exploded.
Now look at another name on this list. Howard Body. Assistant Head of Science Support at Porton Down chemical weapon research laboratory, just six miles away from Salisbury and the Skripal attack, a role he took up in December 2017. He combines this role with Assistant Head of Strategic Analysis at MOD London. “Science Support” at Porton Down is a euphemism for political direction to the scientists – Body has no scientific qualifications.
Another element brought into this group is the state broadcaster, through Helen Boaden, the former Head of BBC News and Current Affairs.
In all there are six serving MOD staff on the list, all either in Intelligence or in PR. Intriguingly one of them, Ian Cohen, has email addresses both at the MOD and at the notoriously corrupt HSBC bank. The other FCO name besides Duncan Allan, Adam Rutland, is also on the PR side.
Zachary Harkenrider is the Political Counsellor at the US Embassy in London. There are normally at least two Political Counsellors at an Embassy this size, one of whom will normally be the CIA Head of Station. I do not know if Harkenrider is CIA but it seems highly likely.
So what do we have here? We have a programme, the Integrity Initiative, whose entire purpose is to pump out covert disinformation against Russia, through social media and news stories secretly paid for by the British government. And we have the Skripals’ MI6 handler, the BBC, Porton Down, the FCO, the MOD and the US Embassy, working together in a group under the auspices of the Integrity Initiative. The Skripal Case happened to occur shortly after a massive increase in the Integrity Initiative’s budget and activity, which itself was a small part of a British Government decision to ramp up a major information war against Russia.
I find that very interesting indeed.
With a hat-tip to members of the Working Group on Syria, Media, and the Propaganda, who are preparing a major and important publication which is imminent. UPDATE Their extremely important briefing note on the Integrity Initiative is now online, prepared to the highest standards of academic discipline. I shall be drawing on and extrapolating from it further next week.
White Helmets Engaged in Looting, Human Organ Trafficking in Syria – Watchdog
Sputnik – 21.12.2018
Members of the organization White Helmets were engaged in the forced removal of human organs as well as theft and corruption in Syria, according to evidence presented at the United Nations by Foundation for the Study of Democracy Director Maxim Grigoriev on Thursday.
“People evacuated by the White Helmets often did not come back alive,” Grigoriev said quoting a witness who lives in an area where the White Helmets operated. “For example, a person receives a minor injury, is rescued, evacuated and then brought back with their stomach cut open and with their internal organs missing.”
Grigoriev noted that according to multiple witnesses, including members of the White Helmets, the organization was also involved in looting wounded individuals in Syria, especially women, as well as plundering stores and damaged buildings.
“Sometimes we came to help, entered a flat, and, if we found gold or jewelry, seized it,” Grigoriev quoted a White Helmets member in Douma. “In one flat, there was a woman who felt ill, we came to help her, found some gold and stole it.”
Members of the White Helmets in Saqba also reported about the extensive system of corruption and theft among sponsors in the organization. Referring to the information provided by a White Helmets member, Grigoriev said the leaders of the organization took for private gain parts of donations they received.
Moreover, the White Helmets constructed the fortifications for terrorists and illegal armed groups in Syria, the Foundation for the Study of Democracy revealed.
“There is overwhelming evidence which proves that the White Helmets centers were permanently engaged in building fortifications for battle positions for terrorist and illegal armed groups who had been supplying them with water and food and evacuating wounded terrorists from the front line,” Grigoriev reported on Thursday on the research completed by the Foundation in Syria.
Grigoriev said that a White Helmets member in Douma told him the group constructed earthen mounds, dug trenches, transport fighters, weapons and ammunition for the fighters.”
“For instance, we dug trenches in the towns of Mesraba and al-Shaifuniya and constructed an earthen mound,” Grigoriev quoted the White Helmets member as saying.
The report on the activities of the White Helmets was prepared using information provided by more than 100 Syrian eyewitnesses, including members of the organization, Syrian Civil Defence, former fighters from illegal groups and terrorist groups, and people living in the areas controlled by terrorists where White Helmets conducted their activities.
The White Helmets, a non-governmental organization that operates in parts of rebel-controlled Syria and Turkey, claims to be a group of volunteer rescue workers.
Both Damascus and Moscow have accused the White Helmets of staging several provocations involving chemical weapons to influence public opinion and justify foreign intervention in Syria.
In August, US State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said that Washington would continue to provide life-saving and needs-based humanitarian assistance to vulnerable Syrians and support for the White Helmets operating in Syria.
Influencing Foreigners Is What Intelligence Agencies Do
By Philip M. GIRALDI | Strategic Culture Foundation | 20.12.2018
The Rand Corporation defines America’s influence operations as… “the coordinated, integrated, and synchronized application of national diplomatic, informational, military, economic, and other capabilities in peacetime, crisis, conflict, and post-conflict to foster attitudes, behaviors, or decisions by foreign target audiences that further US interests and objectives. In this view, influence operations accent communications to affect attitudes and behaviors but also can include the employment of military capabilities, economic development, and other real-world capabilities that also can play a role in reinforcing these communications.”
In a world where communications and social networks are global and accessible to many ordinary people, influence operations are the bread-and-butter of many intelligence agencies as a means of waging low intensity warfare against adversaries. During the past week there have been two accounts of how influencing foreign audiences has worked in practice, one relating to Russia and one to Great Britain.
The Russian story is part of the continuing saga of Russiagate. On Monday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released two reports on Russian operations before during and after the 2016 election to influence targeted groups, to include African-Americans, evangelical Christians and Second Amendment supporters to confuse voters about what the candidates stood for. Russia Internet Research Agency, headed by Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, alleged to be a friend of President Vladimir Putin, reportedly coordinated the effort.
The New York Times, slanted its coverage of the story, claiming that Moscow was “weaponizing” social media and that it was intended to support the candidacy of Donald Trump who “had a Russian blind spot and an army of supporters willing to believe convenient lies and half-truths.” They also dubbed it “a singular act of aggression that ushered in an era of extended conflict.” Of course, one might note that in 2016 the Times itself had a blind spot regarding Hillary Clinton compounded by a bias against Trump and his “deplorable” supporters, while one must also point out that Russian intentions are unknowable unless one were a fly on the wall inside the Kremlin when the US election was under discussion, so one might conclude that the newspaper is itself spreading something like disinformation.
It is undoubtedly true that Russia had a vital national interest in opposing Clinton, whose malevolent intentions towards Moscow were well known. It is also undoubtedly true that there was a campaign of manipulation of social networks by the Kremlin and its proxies to influence readers and also to assess the development of the two major party campaigns. But it also should be observed that the claim that it was seeking to suppress Democratic voters is not really borne out given the other much more conservative demographics that were also targeted. Indeed, involvement by Russia did not alter the outcome of the election and may have had virtually no impact whatsoever, so the claims by the Times that the world is seeing a new form of warfare is clearly exaggerated to reflect that paper’s editorial stance.
The fact that the Times is trying to make the news rather than reporting it is clearly indicted by its sheer speculation that “The Internet Research Agency appears to have largely sat out the 2018 midterm elections, but it is likely already trying to influence the 2020 presidential election, in ways social media companies may not yet understand or be prepared for. And Russia is just the beginning. Other countries, including Iran and China, have already demonstrated advanced capabilities for cyberwarfare, including influence operations waged over social media platforms.” It is certainly convenient to have all one’s enemies collectivized in two sentences, but the Times manages that quite neatly.
The second story, much less reported in the US media, relates to how the British intelligence services have been running their own disinformation operations against Russia, also using social networks and the internet. The British government has been financing a program that was given the name Integrity Initiative. It has been tasked with creating and disseminating disinformation relating to Russia in order to influence the people, armed forces and governments of a number of countries that Moscow constitutes a major threat to the west and its institutions.
Former British intelligence officer and established Russo-phobe Christopher Nigel Donnelly (CND) is the co-director of The Institute for Statecraft and founder of its offshoot Integrity Initiative. The Initiative ironically claims to “Defend Democracy Against Disinformation.” According to leaked documents, the Initiative plants disinformation that includes allegations about the “Russian threat” to world peace using what are referred to as journalists ‘clusters’ in place both in Europe and the United States.
Even though the Institute and Initiative pretend to be independent Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), they are both actually supported financially by the British government, NATO and what are reported to be other state donors, possibly including the United States.
The Integrity Initiative aside, the United States has also long been involved in influence operations, sometimes also referred to as perception management. Even before 9/11 and after the breakup of the Soviet Union the State Department, Pentagon and National Security Agency were all active on the internet in opposing various adversaries, to include terrorist groups. The CIA has been spreading disinformation using paid journalists and arranging foreign elections since 1947. Sometimes US federal government agencies are operating openly, but more often they are using covert mechanisms and cover stories to conceal their identities. America’s internet warriors are adept at spreading misinformation aimed at target audiences worldwide.
The fact is that spreading disinformation and confusion are what governments and intelligence services do to protect what they consider to be vital interests. It is naïve for the US Senate and America’s leading newspapers to maintain that intelligence probing and other forms of interference from Russia or China or Iran or even “friend” Israel occur in a vacuum. Everyone intrudes and spreads lies and everyone will continue to do it because it is easy to understand and cheap to run. In the end, however, its effectiveness is limited. In 2016 the election result was determined by a lack of trust on the part of the American people for what the establishment politicians have been offering, not because of interference from Moscow.
WaPo: Trump Needs to Destroy Venezuela to Save It
By Joe Emersberger | FAIR | December 17, 2018
Tamara Taraciuk Broner of Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Johns Hopkins professor Kathleen Page took to the pages of the Washington Post (11/26/18) to whitewash Donald Trump’s successful efforts to make Venezuela’s economic crisis much worse. Appropriately enough, at the end of the piece, the Post recommended four other articles (11/23/18, 9/11/18, 6/20/18,8/21/18) that either attacked Venezuela’s government or stayed conspicuously silent about the impact of US economic sanctions.
Propaganda works primarily through repetition. The vilification of Venezuela’s government in the Western media has been relentless for the past 17 years, as Alan MacLeod pointed out in his book Bad News From Venezuela.
A WaPo op-ed called on international governments to “put considerable pressure on Venezuela” in response to health problems that are largely a result of international pressure.
NGOs like HRW play an important role in framing the Western imperial agenda from a supposedly “independent” and “humanitarian” perspective, as dramatically illustrated after the death of Sen. John McCain (FAIR.org, 8/31/18) when several HRW officials joined the US media in sanctifying an overtly racist warmonger. In contrast, a few hours after Hugo Chavez’s death in 2013, HRW rushed out a statement vilifying Chavez’s years in office, displaying total indifference to his achievements in reducing poverty and improving health outcomes, despite the violent, scorched-earth tactics of his US-backed opponents to prevent this from happening. No such statement was rushed out by HRW to attack George H.W. Bush—the recently departed butcher of Panama and initiator of the decades-long mass slaughter in Iraq, to mention only a few of his crimes.
HRW has repeatedly invoked the impact of an economic crisis in Venezuela to call for more US-led “pressure” on Venezuela’s government, as was done by Taraciuk and Page. They wrote:
But most sanctions—imposed by the United States, Canada and the European Union—are limited to canceling visas and freezing assets of key officials implicated in abuses and corruption. They have no impact on the Venezuelan economy.
In 2017, the United States also imposed financial sanctions, including a ban on dealings in new stocks and bonds issued by the government and its state oil company. But even these include an exception for transactions to purchase food and medicines. In fact, the government has purchased food from abroad, but these efforts have given rise to corruption allegations.
The idea that “most sanctions” have “no impact on the Venezuelan economy” is appalling nonsense (FAIR.org, 3/22/18). Trump has extended Obama’s cynically declared “national emergency” over Venezuela, and escalated by directly threatening holders of Venezuelan government bonds, making it it impossible for Venezuela to “roll over” any bonds governed under US law (i.e., borrow to pay off principal when a bond comes due, as governments usually do). In January, a Torino Capital report on Venezuela’s economy stated that “all foreign-currency bonds are denominated in dollars, and all are governed by New York law.” Trump also prohibited the Venezuelan government–owned CITGO corporation, based in Texas, from sending any profits or dividends back to Venezuela.
The US allies Taraciuk and Page mentioned mainly provide propaganda cover for a US-led assault. Bear in mind that the United States, Canada and other countries within the European Union are supplying weapons and other essential military support to Saudi Arabia, even as it inflicts famine on Yemen. Why do you suppose governments barbaric enough to arm Saudi Arabia also target Venezuela with economic sanctions? Does concern over human rights and corruption, which Taraciuk and Page uncritically cited as a rationale, pass the laugh test?
It should be said that the financial sanctions the US has applied to Venezuela could not even be justified against Saudi Arabia which, unlike Venezuela, really is a dictatorship. In fact, Saudi Arabia is perhaps the most brutal and backward dictatorship on Earth, and one engaged in horrific aggression abroad. What would be justified against Saudi Arabia is cutting off arm sales and all military collaboration. That appears to be a real possibility in the United States at the moment, but recall that support for the Saudis may be funneled through Israel and other allies, as was done decades ago in Guatemala when the atrocities of US clients became overly embarrassing.
Francisco Rodriguez, the Venezuelan chief economist of Torino Capital and a longtime Chávez (and Maduro) government opponent, produced the graph below, which clearly shows the impact of Trump’s financial sanctions on Venezuelan oil production, which Venezuela depends on to get almost all the foreign currency it uses for trade. The piece Rodriguez wrote calling attention to this alarming fact was ignored by the media, according to a Nexis search done two weeks after it first appeared.
Venezuelan and Colombian oil production both fell when oil prices collapsed—but Venezuelan production kept falling after prices rose again, due to the effect of economic sanctions. (WOLA.org)
Before the financial sanctions introduced by Trump, Venezuela’s oil production followed a similar pattern to Colombia’s: There was a fall in production following a drop in investment, due to the steep and sustained drop in oil prices that began near the end of 2014 and bottomed out in 2016.
However, after Trump imposed financial sanctions in August 2017, Venezuela’s oil production plummeted, while Colombia’s stabilized. The impact of US sanctions therefore became much worse, but also easier to calculate. It works out to $6 billion in lost revenue to Venezuela’s government in the first year after the sanctions alone, even if one assumes that Venezuela’s oil production would have continued to decline along its pre–financial sanctions path. That’s over 600 times more than the emergency aid the UN has just approved for Venezuela.
The “exception for transactions to purchase food and medicines” Taraciuk and Page pointed to in Trump’s financial sanctions is a laughable smokescreen. The sanctions deprive the Venezuelan government of billions of dollars to buy foods and medicine, regardless of whether there are dubious “exemptions” to illegal sanctions.
According to Datanálisis, an opposition-aligned pollster whose directors appear regularly in Venezuela’s private media, more than 60 percent of Venezuelan households received subsidized food and other basic products this year, through a government program known as CLAP (in its Spanish language acronym). Taraciuk and Page mention these “corruption allegations”—like the allegations that the government has used this system to “buy support”—to falsely suggest that what concerns the US and its accomplices are revenues lost to corruption (hardly a problem unique to Venezuela).
On the contrary, the US concern is that Venezuelan government revenues might benefit the public. The worry—apparently shared by apologists like Taraciuk and Page—is that the Maduro government has been able to retain popular support by responding to the economic crisis. Sanctions take direct aim at Venezuela’s population by denying the government the revenues to do that—a depraved objective, but consistent with the behavior of the governments of the United States, Canada, France and UK, which continue to arm Saudi Arabia.
I’ve cited Venezuelan opposition sources above, not because I think they should be assumed the most reliable, but to show how extremist commentary on Venezuela has been in Western media. Even Venezuelan opposition sources are ignored when they can’t be used to support US belligerence.
In recent years, HRW officials have taken to calling Venezuela a dictatorship (CBC, 4/1/17). Pinning this label on Venezuela has been crucial to removing all legal and moral constraints on US policy. Taraciuk and Page refrained from using that label explicitly, but readers were clearly meant to get that idea:
Maduro’s government remains as opaque and repressive as ever. In January, the president called those who spoke out about the crisis “traitors to the fatherland.” His threat should be taken seriously in a country without judicial independence, where critics have been arbitrarily jailed and tortured, and hunger has been used for social and political control.
In fact, basic democratic freedoms in Venezuela remain at a level the US government would never tolerate were it faced with similar circumstances: a major economic crisis deliberately worsened by a foreign power that openly backs the most violent elements of the opposition. Just consider that, in far less dire circumstances, the liberal end of US opinion is either ignoring or viciously applauding the likelihood of Julian Assange being imprisoned in the United States for publishing government secrets.
Aggressive Maduro government critics appear constantly in Venezuela’s private media. Francisco Rodriguez traveled all over Venezuela in May, campaigning for opposition presidential candidate Henri Falcón, whom he advised on economic policy. Rodriguez made numerous appearances in Venezuela’s media during the campaign in which he lashed out at Maduro’s government (examples here, here and here).
Falcón (defying US threats) launched his presidential campaign with a 35-minute speech on Venezuelan state media. In that speech, Falcón repeatedly called Maduro the “hunger candidate,” and said that it is now common to see Venezuelans looking through trash for food. Falcón said democracy has been destroyed, and that all Venezuela’s institutions are “slaves” to the executive, that Maduro’s government has made Venezuela into a “hell,” that Venezuela faces the risk of civil war. Falcon pledged the release of all “political prisoners” and demanded that the election be held at a later date. The election was then moved back a month to May 20.
In an interview on a large private network during the campaign, Falcón said that Maduro’s government was an “unscrupulous monster,” but also “beatable” if voters turned out. Unfortunately for Falcón, much of the opposition leadership not only advocated abstention to discredit the election, but also hurled wild accusations at Falcon, saying he was in cahoots with Maduro.
About 23 minutes into the interview, Falcón advised government opponents that it’s foolish to wait for a “military invasion to save Venezuela.” The contradictions and absurdity of the opposition’s discourse, including the moderate faction, beggar belief. One shudders to think what would become of such opposition figures in Paris or Washington, but you will be shielded from such considerations reading Western media—and from understanding why Maduro easily prevailed in the 2018 election, despite an economic depression. Most importantly, you’ll be prevented from understanding how the Western media’s lies and distortions over the past 17 years have allowed the US to now pose a grave military threat to a democracy.
Albania fell prey to Israeli-US scenario by targeting Iran diplomats: Tehran
Press TV – December 20, 2018
Tehran has denounced Albania for expelling two Iranian diplomats, saying the Balkan country fell prey to a scenario fabricated by the US and Israel.
Albania’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that it had expelled two Iranian diplomats suspected of “involvement in activities that harm the country’s security.”
A ministry spokesman told the Associated Press that the expulsions followed talks with others, including Israel.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Thursday that Albania’s move was “in line with previous such scenarios meant to damage Iran-Europe relations at the current sensitive juncture.”
He said the expulsions come while Tehran has “always had appropriate relations with Albania and respected all of its domestic regulations in a move based on principles of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s foreign policy.”
US National Security Adviser John Bolton was quick to publicly support Albania’s decision.
“We stand with PM [Edi] Rama and the Albanian people as they stand up to Iran’s reckless behavior in Europe and across the globe,” he tweeted.
Qassemi said that Washington’s stance on the issue and Albania’s declaration that its move had been coordinated with foreign security services, prove that the US and the regime in Israel had been behind the expulsions.
Albania, he added, had fallen prey to a scenario fabricated by the US and the Israeli regime and certain terrorist groups.
The Iranian official further called on the Albanian government “to defend its sovereignty, independence and security” in the face of the US-Israeli scenario,” stressing that the country “must not allow others to affect and hamper its relations with Iran due to special political reasons.”
Albania hosts thousands of members of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), a notorious anti-Iran terror group.
The MKO has carried out numerous attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials over the past three decades and is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community.
Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist assaults since the victory of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, about 12,000 have fallen victim to MKO’s acts of terror.
Albania is not the first European country to make such claims against Iran.
Back in June, Belgian authorities said that an Iranian diplomat had been arrested along with a 38-year-old man and a 33-year-old woman, suspected of plotting a bomb attack on an MKO meeting in Paris attended by US President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and several former European and Arab ministers.
Assadollah Assadi, 46, was arrested in Germany and later extradited to Belgium in defiance of Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961.
Later on October 30, Danish intelligence chief Finn Borch Andersen claimed that an Iranian intelligence service had tried to carry out a plot to assassinate an Iranian Arab opposition figure on Denmark’s soil.
Swedish security police also said a Norwegian citizen of Iranian descent had been arrested on October 21 in connection with the alleged plot and extradited to Denmark.
Israeli media later revealed that the Israeli spy agency Mossad had provided Denmark with “intelligence” concerning the alleged plot by Tehran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has admitted that Tel Aviv is behind what Iranian Foreign Minister described as “false flags” in Europe.
Tehran said “invisible hands” were at work to damage Iran’s ties with Europe at the time when the two sides are closely cooperating to save the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal following the US’s pullout.
UK and US PSYOP Collusion
By Margaret Kimberly | Black Agenda Report | December 19, 2018
Russiagate hysteria is an international conspiracy, with British spooks spreading lies on three continents. Now Black Americans are slandered as “dupes” of Moscow.
For more than two years the corporate media, elite think tanks, NATO leaders, and most Democratic Party politicians have insisted that Russia interferes in American and European elections. The charge doesn’t withstand scrutiny but the lies are repeated. There is proof that surveillance state meddling in the affairs of democratic nations is real, but Russia isn’t the culprit. It is the United Kingdom and the United States who lead in skullduggery and meddling with the rights they claim to uphold.
Thanks to the Anonymous hacker community the work of the Integrity Initiative has been exposed to the public. The Integrity Initiative is a British “charity” founded in 2015. Its mission is to “bring to the attention of politicians, policy-makers, opinion leaders and other interested parties the threat posed by Russia to democratic institutions in the United Kingdom, across Europe and North America.” That mission is suspect in and of itself, a phony trope meant to cover up its own imperialist wrong doing. The Integrity Initiative is an arm of the British government and has received more than $2 million in funding from the British Foreign Office and Defense department. It has also raised money from NATO, Facebook and rightwing foundations.
The Integrity Initiative is a means of undermining the sovereignty of the British people by manipulating them with lies. It engaged in numerous efforts to libel Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and prevent him from ever being elected prime minister. Corbyn has been accused of Soviet era espionage, anti-Semitism and anything else his enemies choose to use against him. Academics and writers who spoke out against UK involvement in attacks on Syria were likewise targeted by The Timesand other influential British media. The reporters involved were part of this Integrity Initiative campaign. The attacks are consistent and are obviously coordinated at a very high level.
Integrity Initiative director Christopher Donnelly is a former member of the British Army Intelligence Corps. He also helped to create the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, and served as an advisor to several Secretaries General at NATO. After the NATO instigated coup against the elected Ukrainian government Donnelly recommended placing mines in the Sevastopol harbor, an obvious provocation.
When Integrity Initiative isn’t planning to start wars it plots to interfere in the affairs of other countries through orchestrated “clusters” of journalists and academics. The Spanish cluster quashed the appointment of a new defense secretary through the use of a coordinated social media campaign. They were also involved in subverting the Catalan independence vote.
Clusters are operating not just in the UK and Spain but in France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway and Lithuania. After Julian Assange revealed the extent of interference in Spain the cluster targeted the Ecuadorean government to end his asylum.
There is evidence that the Integrity Initiative sent an operative into the Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. An Englishman named Simon Bracey-Lane got much media attention for volunteering in the Sanders Iowa caucus campaign. Bracey-Lane is now a research fellow at the Institute for Statecraft, the Integrity Initiative’s parent company. There was foreign meddling in the 2016 election but it came from British spooks like Christopher Steele and undercover operatives, not Russian agents.
The only Americans aware of the Integrity Initiative are those who use social media to gather information outside of the corporate media bubble. The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC haven’t covered this story. They repeat what Robert Mueller says about crooked and amateurish Trump allies who cheat on taxes or pay off porn stars. They repeat flimsy evidence of Russian collusion while America’s allies in the UK cheat their own citizens of their rights. It is miraculous when the people are able to find out anything they need to know.
These miracles occur when Wikileaks or Anonymous steal secrets the powerful want to keep hidden. Americans wouldn’t know about the existence of the FBI Counter Intelligence Program if a group of activists hadn’t stolen the documentary evidence. That is why the leakers and the hackers deserve support from anyone who wants to live in a truly democratic society.
While British spies operate covertly, their American counterparts work in the open as they make a profit off of their disinformation campaigns. The story of a Russian troll farm swaying Americans to vote for Donald Trump was relegated to old news but it was resurrected by a Silicon Valley surveillance state operation.
New Knowledge is a tech firm created with venture capital cash and founders who are former operatives from the National Security Agency, U.S. military, and State Department. New Knowledge was hired by the Senate Intelligence Committee and tasked with finding out the extent of supposed Russian influence on social media.
As expected, they produced a report claiming not only that the Russians meddled in the election but that African Americans were the most targeted group . This is a rehash of the discredited story that click bait ad selling schemes amounted to espionage. It also confuses with claims of millions of online interactions that are a drop in the bucket in comparison with American political sites.
Of course phony concern for black people is the last refuge of many scoundrels. Now that there has been no evidence presented of Russian government collusion with Donald Trump, the rehashing will be more frequent. The Democratic Party and the corporate media cannot let this story die. They depend upon it and they must keep covering up their own lies. Russiagate is the gift that keeps on giving.
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and their establishment supporters are responsible for the Donald Trump presidency. They were more concerned with covering up her scandals, attracting Republican voters and raising corporate money than they were about getting out the black vote that they always rely upon for victory. Despite raising more than $1 billion they presided over one of the worst debacles in American political history. Any outrage about the Trump presidency must be pointed in their direction.
No one should fear terms like conspiracy theory when there are proven conspiracies operating at the highest levels of government and media. There are no coincidences when certain people suddenly come under attack. There is every reason to be paranoid because collusion is quite real. But the stories we’re told about it are the most fake news of all.
UK Report Falsely Claims Russia Went All-Out Trying to Help Elect Trump
By Stephen Lendman | December 18, 2018
The claim is the Big Lie that won’t die – no matter how often accusations and allegations are debunked. Imagine the following:
If endless political, media, think tank, fake reports, and other efforts spent trying to prove nonexistent Russian US 2016 presidential election meddling went for promoting world peace, social justice, and other positive actions, imagine how much better the state of America and world might be today.
Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Research Project (COMPROP) claims to investigate “how tools like social media bots are used to manipulate public opinion by amplifying or repressing political content, disinformation, hate speech, and junk news.”
A report it prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee yet to be released, perhaps in cahoots with the Theresa May regime and anti-Trump undemocratic Dems, falsely claims the Kremlin used social media platforms to help Trump triumph over Hillary.
Exhaustive House and Senate investigations since January 2017 found no evidence linking Trump or his team with Russia – nor anything suggesting Kremlin election meddling.
Special council Mueller’s probe since May 2017 fared no better – nor the US intelligence community might of the DNI, FBI, CIA, NSA, and other US agencies.
US sophisticated investigatory powers, including countless millions of dollars spent, failed to find credible evidence of Russian US election meddling, nor an improper or illegal Trump team connection to Moscow – because none of the above exists no matter how long probes continue.
Did Oxford University’s COMPROP find a way to uncover information that eluded America’s best and brightest, or is its report the latest example of Russia bashing based on nothing but invented rubbish?
It reportedly analyzed material provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee, its report to be released in days.
The neocon/CIA-connected Washington Post said it saw a draft of the report, leaked so the broadsheet could bash Russia more than already, other US-led Western media to follow suit on their own.
According to WaPo, COMPROP’s data “were provided by Facebook, Twitter and Google and covered several years up to mid-2017, when the social media companies cracked down on the known Russian accounts,” adding:
“The report, which also analyzed data separately provided to House Intelligence Committee members, contains no information” beyond the mid-2017 period.
COMPROP claims “all of the messaging (information it analyzed) sought to benefit the Republican party,” adding:
“Trump is mentioned most in campaigns targeting conservatives and right-wing voters, where the messaging encouraged these groups to support his campaign.”
“The main groups that could challenge Trump were then provided messaging that sought to confuse, distract and ultimately discourage members from voting.”
According to WaPo, “(t)he report offers the latest evidence that Russian agents sought to help Trump win the White House” – despite no credible evidence proving it, an indisputable fact.
It’s unclear what information Facebook, Twitter and Google provided to COMPROP. Last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed what he called the “full extent” of possible (not proved) Russian meddling in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.
In House Judiciary Committee testimony, he said “we undertook a very thorough investigation, and, in 2016, we now know that there were two main ad accounts linked to Russia which advertised on Google for about $4,700 in advertising.”
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the total amount spent by candidates for all offices in US 2016 elections was around $6.5 billion (with a “B”), including for primary races.
The amount spent by 2016 presidential aspirants was $2.4 billion, including for primaries. In all races, Republicans and Dems each spent around 48% of the total amount (96% combined).
Trump spent $398 million compared to Hillary’s $768 million, nearly double DLT’s amount.
What possible impact could $4,700 have – even 10x over on all social media platforms – compared to billions of dollars spent by candidates?
Facebook explained that 56% of ads linked to Russia on its platform appeared after the US 2016 presidential election.
Alleged Internet Research Agency Russian hackers spent $100,000 from mid-2015 to mid-2017 on 3,000 ads. One-fourth of them were never shown to anyone.
Only around 1,000 ads appeared during the presidential campaign. Many ads expressed no preference for any candidate.
Facebook said US presidential candidates spent hundreds of millions of dollars in online political advertising – “1000x more than any problematic ads we’ve found” – admitting virtually no evidence of Russian use of the platform for improper meddling.
Asked to examine 450 accounts Facebook flagged as fake, no evidence connecting them to Russia was found, just groundless suspicions.
Twitter’s vice president Colin Crowell explained “(w)e have not found accounts associated with this activity to have obvious Russian origin but some of the accounts appear to have been automated.”
Twitter found and suspended 22 suspicious accounts – once again, nothing connecting them to Russia.
Another 179 were suspended for terms of service violations – none of the 201 accounts registered as advertisers.
Twitter found over 3.2 million automated accounts, providing no evidence of any connected to the Kremlin.
RT, RT America and RT en Espanol spent $274,100 for 1,823 US ads – none supporting one US presidential aspirant over another.
The bottom line conclusion is indisputable. No Russia US meddling occurred online or in any other way. No evidence suggests it. Claims otherwise are spurious.
Yet they persist endlessly, the latest from the dubious COMPROP report – rubbish masquerading as credible analysis.
A previous article said Russiagate should be called Hillarygate. With considerable media help, she, her campaign, and the DNC cooked the books for her to be Dem standard bearer.
She and the DNC hired former MI6 spy Christopher Steele to produce a dodgy dossier on Trump – filled with unverified accusations and allegations, an effort with no credibility.
No Russiagate witch hunt investigation was warranted. No special counsel should have been appointed. The whole ugly business should be terminated straightaway.
All the allegations and accusations about Russian election meddling were and continue to be bald-faced Big Lies.
Not a shred of credible evidence indicates otherwise.
Stephen Lendman’s newest book as editor and contributor is titled Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.
Is Canada Huawei Arrest Attempt to Sabotage Trump Xi Talks?
By F. William Engdahl – New Eastern Outlook – 19.12.2018
The arrest of the CFO of the China’s largest telecoms equipment company, Huawei, carries hallmarks of deep state or behind-the-scenes sabotage designed to rupture recent progress between US President Trump and China President Xi Jinping on strategic issues. Here are some elements of the case that smack of insider sabotage from the US side, with complicity of Five Eyes member Canada.
After months of trade tariff clashes between USA and China, US President Donald Trump met with China President Xi Jinping during the Buenos Aires G-20 Summit. There the two issued a positive joint statement in which it was stated that the US on January 1 will impose a “cease-fire” and freeze current tariffs at 10% on the $200 billion of Chinese imports to the US, not raising it to 25% as scheduled. For his part, Xi agreed to resume buying US soybeans and other agriculture and energy products to cut the trade imbalance. Most interesting and little-discussed in western media coverage, on the US request, Xi also agreed to list the controversial chemical Fentanyl as a Controlled Substance, meaning that people selling Fentanyl to the United States will be subject to China’s maximum penalty under the law.
As well, they agreed to immediately begin negotiations on key US issues including forced technology transfer, intellectual property protection, non-tariff barriers, cyber intrusions and cyber theft, services and agriculture to be completed within 90 days or face resumption of the planned 25% tariff raise.
The offer by Xi to control Fentanyl, one of the most deadly synthetic drugs that has caused tens of thousands of deaths in the USA, was notable. According to U.S. law enforcement and drug investigators, China is the main supplier of fentanyl to the United States. There criminal organizations mix the Fentanyl powder with heroin. Also according to the US DEA, China companies ship Fentanyl to key points in Canada and Mexico. From Mexico it is usually repackaged by the Mexican drug cartels and smuggled into the US.
Canada Surprise?
In other words China had agreed to open strategic issues in bilateral relations that could have major positive implications for resolving the trade conflicts and other issues not public. On December 5 in Vancouver Canadian authorities arrested Meng Wanzhou, the CFO and board member of China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. She is also daughter of the founder and CEO.
The arrest, reportedly on charges of illegal activities in regard to US sanctions on Iran, is unprecedented. In August the US President signed an order banning Huawei hardware in US government communications networks on grounds of national security. Huawei is at the heart of China’s vigorous effort to dominate the emerging 5G communications networks. The company is today the world’s second largest smartphone maker after Samsung and ahead of Apple and the world’s largest manufacturer of telecom network equipment with $92 billion in sales. US President Trump in August authorized a ban on the company’s hardware in US government networks, citing national security concerns – particularly in relation to the rollout of 5G networks.
That there have been growing conflicts between China and Washington over Huawei is clear. What is bizarre about the Canadian arrest of Meng, now on bail and awaiting extradition to the US, is the fact that it took place on the same day Trump and Xi in Buenos Aires were engaged in critical trade talks. According to Trump National Security adviser, John Bolton, the President was not informed beforehand of the Canadian arrest plan.
Whatever the case with many charges of hidden espionage devices embedded in Huawei technology, or Iran sanctions violations, the Canadian arrest of CFO Meng Wanzhou is having explosive consequences inside China. The CCP People’s Daily, in an editorial, wrote on December 9, “To treat a Chinese citizen like a serious criminal, to roughly trample their basic human rights, and to dishonor their dignity, how is this the method of a civilized country? How can this not make people furious?”
In an unusual step, in the midst of the fray, Donald Trump announced that if necessary to conclude positive China trade talks, he would be ready to intervene with the US Justice Department into the controversy. On December 12 in a Reuters interview Trump stated, “Whatever’s good for this country, I would do. If I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made – which is a very important thing – what’s good for national security – I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary.”
Beijing Response
So far there are more unanswered questions than answers. However, it appears that Beijing is being extremely careful not to allow the affront–ordinarily a huge face loss for the Chinese to have one of their national champion company senior people treated so–to disrupt relations with the Trump Administration. Rather than retaliate by going after the many top US executives in China, it arrested a former Canadian diplomat in Beijing on suspicion of “endangering national security,” as well as a Canadian entrepreneur with business ties to North Korea.
The connections of that former Canadian diplomat are more than interesting.
Michael Kovrig previously worked as a Canadian diplomat in Beijing, Hong Kong and the United Nations. Chinese national security police took him into custody on December 10 in Beijing. Kovrig is officially listed as “North East Asia adviser” for something called the International Crisis Group.
The International Crisis Group is an NGO with a knack for being involved in key conflict zones such as Myanmar. The magazine Third World Quarterly in a peer-reviewed article in 2014 accused the ICG of “manufacturing” crises.
It was founded by Trump nemesis and Hillary Clinton supporter, George Soros. The Trustees of Kovrig’s employer, the International Crisis Group, include some very notable names. One is of course founder and funder, George Soros. Another trustee is a Canadian billionaire, Frank Guistra. Make a note of the name as it is likely to appear in the news in coming weeks as details emerge of FBI and other US investigations into illegal or shady dealings of the tax-exempt Clinton Foundation. Frank Giustra President & CEO, Fiore Financial Corporation, is a big donor to the Clinton Foundation where he also sits on the board.
His Giustra Foundation works with Elevate Social Businesses, formerly Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, the International Crisis Group, Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative, and other partners. Guistra’s UrAsia Energy Ltd. appears in the investigation of the infamous Uranium One scandal during Hillary Clinton’s term as Secretary of State, which some believe is the real “Russiagate” scandal. Soon we will know more as litigation in the US proceeds.
In sum, it appears that Xi Jinping has chosen a highly interesting target for retaliation in the Canadian arrest of Huawei’s CFO. To date it appears that, if it were the aim of certain dark networks in US and Canadian governments and intelligence to sabotage any constructive USA-China dialogue by the unprecedented arrest of the Huawei senior executive, it may have backfired. The next weeks will tell more.
Goldman Sachs faces criminal charges in Malaysia for helping billions vanish from state fund
RT | December 18, 2018
Malaysia filed criminal charges against Goldman Sachs and two ex-bankers over the multi-billion dollar looting of state fund, 1MDB. The US bank denies the accusation, claiming it was deceived by the previous Malaysian government.
The subsidiaries of the Wall Street banking giant and its former key employees, ex-chairman of Goldman’s South East Asia, Tim Leissner, and ex-managing director, Roger Ng, are accused of giving false statements when helping to arrange bonds for 1MDB, Malaysia’s Attorney General Tommy Thomas announced on Monday.
Malaysia says the accused wanted to misappropriate $2.7 billion from $6.5 billion in bonds, issued by 1MDB and underwritten by Goldman Sachs, in three separate offerings between 2012 and 2013.
Malaysia also filed charges against former employee of 1MDB Jasmine Loo Ai Swan and local financier Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, who maintains his innocence. The prosecution believes the duo conspired with Leissner and Ng to bribe officials in order to procure the selection, involvement and participation of Goldman Sachs in these bond issuances.
Now Kuala Lumpur is seeking to take back the misappropriated $2.7 billion from Goldman Sachs as well as $600 million in fees received by the bank. The prosecution is demanding fines and up to 10 years behind bars for each of the accused. The fines may amount to at least 1 million ringgit ($240,000), according to the charge sheets, seen by Reuters.
Billions of dollars from the Malaysian fund were reportedly used to buy everything from Beverly hills mansions, yachts and a private jet to artworks among other things in a fraud that allegedly involved former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
As Malaysia brought the charges, the bank hit back, claiming that it was the victim of deceptive Malaysian officials. The long-running scandal has already rocked the bank’s shares this year, which dropped more than 30 percent.
“Certain members of the former Malaysian government and 1MDB lied to Goldman Sachs, outside counsel and others about the use of proceeds from these transactions,” Goldman said in a statement cited by media. It added that the charges have no effect on its “ability to conduct our current business globally.”
Analysts warn that the scandal is just the tip of the iceberg of the bank’s “criminal” deeds. Despite being investigated in several countries, including in the US, no matter the crimes, Goldman chiefs will never go to jail as they are too close to both sides of the US political aisle, Jack Rasmus, professor of political economy at St. Mary’s College told RT. He also warned that the bank is driving the world to the next financial crisis.
“They just haven’t been caught in the other places,” Rasmus said in an interview to RT. “We’re on the verge of another financial crisis that will make the last one pale in comparison and Goldman Sachs and businesses like them are at the center of the cause of this.”
Christopher Steele Admits He Was Hired To Help Hillary Challenge 2016 Election
By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 12/17/2018
Former UK spy Christopher Steele admitted in a London court that he was hired to help Hillary Clinton contest the results of the 2016 election in case Trump won, according to the Washington Times.
Steele assembled an anti-Trump “dossier” of opposition research investigative firm Fusion GPS, which was in turn hired by DNC law firm Perkins Coie LLP. The document used “a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure,” and “a former top level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin,” according to Vanity Fair. In other words, Hillary Clinton – through Steele and other intermediaries – was working with Russians against Donald Trump.
He said the law firm Perkins Coie wanted to be in a position to contest the results based on evidence he unearthed on the Trump campaign conspiring with Moscow on election interference.
His scenario is contained in a sealed Aug. 2 declaration in a defamation law suit brought by three Russian bankers in London. The trio’s American attorneys filed his answers Tuesday in a libel lawsuit in Washington against the investigative firm Fusion GPS, which handled the former British intelligence officer.
In an answer to interrogatories, Mr. Steele wrote: “Fusion’s immediate client was law firm Perkins Coie. It engaged Fusion to obtain information necessary for Perkins Coie LLP to provide legal advice on the potential impact of Russian involvement on the legal validity of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election.
“Based on that advice, parties such as the Democratic National Committee and HFACC Inc. (also known as ‘Hillary for America’) could consider steps they would be legally entitled to take to challenge the validity of the outcome of that election.” – Washington Times
During the election, Clinton told voters that Donald Trump would “threaten democracy” if he didn’t promise to accept the results of the 2016 election – after Trump suggested he might not accept the results of a “rigged” contest.
😂Hillary Says:”Not Accepting the results of the Election is a direct assault on our Democracy,Dont b a Sore Loser”😂pic.twitter.com/l0pGRuYcoG
— Sandi-The Ice cube that Kav threw!😂 (@sandiv11) November 15, 2016
Now listen to Hillary when she thought she was going to win the election:
Meanwhile Clinton was open to challenging the election more than ten months after her historic loss – if only there were a way. “There are scholars, academics, who have arguments that it would be, but I don’t think they’re on strong ground. But people are making those arguments. I just don’t think we have a mechanism,” Clinton told NPR in September 2017.
The dossier Steele produced was used as the basis for an FBI FISA surveillance warrant application to spy on members of the Trump campaign. Notably, the agency never told the FISA court that the dossier their application hinged on was paid for by the DNC and Clinton’s campaign, although it did indicate that it was opposition research.
The mainstream media used still-unverified key claims within the dossier to fuel a conspiracy theory that President Trump conspired with the Russian government to win the 2016 US election.
Meanwhile, as we reported earlier Monday, FBI and CIA sources told a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter that they didn’t believe a key claim contained in the “Steele Dossier,” the document the Obama FBI relied on to obtain a surveillance warrant on a member of the Trump campaign.
The Post‘s Greg Miller told an audience at an October event that the FBI and CIA did not believe that former longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen visited Prague during the 2016 election to pay off Russia-linked hackers who stole emails from key Democrats, reports the Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross.
“We’ve talked to sources at the FBI and the CIA and elsewhere — they don’t believe that ever happened,” said Miller during the October event which aired Saturday on C-SPAN.
We literally spent weeks and months trying to run down… there’s an assertion in there that Michael Cohen went to Prague to settle payments that were needed at the end of the campaign. We sent reporters to every hotel in Prague, to all over the place trying to – just to try to figure out if he was ever there, and came away empty. -Greg Miller
Meanwhile, Trump is still living under the spectre of Russian collusion, while Hillary Clinton actually colluded Russians in her plan to challenge the 2016 election.
British minister ‘misled Parliament’ over state-funded NGO ‘smearing’ Corbyn, Labour MP says
RT | December 17, 2018
A Labour MP has said that Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan chose to ‘bury his head in the sand’ as he denied allegations that state funds granted to a shadowy ‘disinformation-fighting charity’ were used to attack Jeremy Corbyn.
“There is a real concern” that Duncan “was misleading Parliament whether that was wittingly or unwittingly,” Chris Williamson said on Sunday.
He was commenting on the official’s response to a question posed earlier by another Labour MP, Emily Thornberry, about government funding for the controversial Scotland-based ‘charitable body,’ the Institute for Statecraft (IfS).
Labour politicians demanded an official probe into the organization, insisting it participated in a campaign to “smear” the party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Duncan, who serves as Minister of State for Europe and the Americas, said he had “established the facts” concerning the NGO and was “satisfied that our money does not go towards funding any kind of UK domestic activity.”
The Institute for Statecraft came under fire when Sunday Mail reported that the think tank used its ‘Integrity Initiative’ project to promote newspaper articles denouncing Labour chief Jeremy Corbyn as a “useful idiot” whose views “helped the Kremlin cause.” The project styles its mission as “revealing and combating propaganda and disinformation.”
In practice, nearly all materials published on its website are focused on fighting so-called ‘Russian propaganda.’
Citing the organization’s leaked documents, the Sunday Mail said that IfS received £2 million from the Foreign Office. The paper also reported that the charity itself is, in fact, registered at a derelict rural mill.
Faced with the Labour backlash, Duncan admitted that the government funded IfS’ Integrity Initiative with £296,500 in financial year 2017-2018 and is giving it £1,961,000 for the year 2018-2019. He refused, however, to publish the government’s correspondence on grant agreements with the project, saying that such information could be used by Moscow “to actively attempt to disrupt and undermine” its effectiveness.
Duncan’s claim that no state funds were used for an alleged campaign against Corbyn did little to quell the anger coming from Labour MPs. Williamson suggested that the minister “needs to realize that this isn’t going to go away and he must come up with some real answers rather than burying his head in the sand.”
His colleague Emily Thornberry told the Sunday Mail that Duncan’s words “just didn’t make sense.”
I found it genuinely confusing. I have never heard a minister say with such confidence that he is telling the truth.
Thornberry suggested that Duncan was simply reading the answers prepared by other government officials and “they just don’t stack up.”
Underwater VIDEO Reveals HUGE Damage to ‘Torn Apart’ Norwegian Frigate
Sputnik – December 17, 2018
The inexplicable collision involving the frigate KNM Helge Ingstad returning from NATO naval drills has set the Norwegian Navy back billions of kronor, while the Maltese-flagged and Greek-owned oil tanker is expected to return to service by the end of December.
Norway’s Defence Ministry has released underwater footage showing, for the first time, the extent of the damage to its frigate KNM Helge Ingstad, which sank after colliding with an oil tanker erroneously taken for an immobile object.
The footage, uploaded to Dropbox due to temporary website failures, was taken by a marine diving unit (MDK) normally used for planting and disarming underwater mines, ammunition and bombs. Its members have been diving around the mostly sunken wreckage of the frigate for weeks, removing ammunition, weapons and other hazardous material.
Previously, the damage to the hull of the frigate was believed to be a long gash in the starboard side. The footage taken from the depth of the Hjelte Fjord, where the vessel lies half-submerged, indicated that the damage is much worse than thought. The gash was estimated at around 45 metres long and eight metres high. By contrast, the tanker only suffered minor damage and is expected to become operative again by the end of December.
The video shows cabins and rooms smashed, flooring torn up and ventilation fans hanging from what’s left of ceilings. The footage also shows what used to be the vessel’s accommodation area, sleeping quarters, machine rooms and a generator room.
“It’s really something to see one of our frigates lying under water”, Commander Bengt Berdal, the leader of MDK, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. “When we see the hull torn apart in this way, you can only imagine what it was like for those on board”.
Berdal called it “sheer luck” that all 137 people on board the frigate survived the collision, with only a few sustaining minor injuries before successfully being evacuated in the early hours of 8 November.
Meanwhile, Rolf Ole Eriksen, former accident preparedness official for oil company Norske Shell and now a maritime security consultant, has penned a searing commentary in the newspaper Aftenposten. In Eriksen’s own words, “only a miracle averted a gigantic catastrophe that had potential for large loss of life, fire, explosions and extensive pollution”. The frigate was returning to its home port at Haakonsvern in Bergen after participating in NATO’s huge drill Trident Juncture around Trondheim and was carrying weapons, ammunition, missiles and helicopter oil in addition to its fuel.
Eriksen was highly critical of the preliminary report released by Norway’s accident investigation commission, venturing that the investigators were downplaying the severity of the collision between a fixture of the Norwegian Navy and fully loaded oil tanker, and clouding the responsibility. According to Eriksen, the responsibility lies with the crew on the bridge of the KNM Helge Ingstad, which the report was “under-communicating”, he claimed. The frigate was sailing at a high speed of 17-18 knots, with its crew oblivious of their own whereabouts or the appearance of the tanker, which was sailing out of the Sture terminal in Øygarden northwest of Bergen.
“With its top modern radar and navigational equipment on board, the frigate was capable of following every movement of all vessels in the area”, Eriksen wrote.
A more detailed and conclusive report may take months to be released. Meanwhile, the frigate lies mostly underwater. Around 350 people are now working every day in connection with the salvage of the frigate.
Commander Berdal calls the divers’ work “challenging” and dependent on good weather. So far, the salvaging mission has been delayed several times by storms. The vessel won’t be raised until 25 December at the earliest. The collision has cost the Norwegian Navy billions of kronor and resulted in the nation’s maritime defence being greatly reduced.
READ MORE:
Ex-Norwegian Official Slams Sunken Frigate Probe as ‘Smokescreen’ Hiding Facts
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Robert Faurisson and the Study of the Past
By Gilad Atzmon | October 23, 2018
The history of ideas provides us with the names of those few men and women who challenged the boundaries of tolerance. Professor Robert Faurisson was one such man. Faurisson, who died last Sunday at age 89, was a French academic who didn’t believe in the validity of parts of the Holocaust narrative. He argued that gas chambers in Auschwitz were the “biggest lie of the 20th century,” and contended that deported Jews had died of disease and malnutrition. Faurisson also questioned the authenticity of the Diary of Anne Frank many years before the Swiss foundation that holds the copyright to the famous diary “alerted publishers that her father (Otto Frank) is not only the ‘editor’ but also legally the ‘co-author’ of the celebrated book” (NY Times ).
In the France of the late 1960s-1970s Faurisson had reason to believe that his maverick attitude toward the past would receive a kosher pass. He was wrong. Faurisson may have failed to grasp the role of the Holocaust in contemporary Jewish politics and culture. And he did not grasp that Jewish power is literally the power to silence opposition to Jewish power.
In 1990 France made holocaust revisionism into the crime of history denial. Faurisson was repeatedly prosecuted, beaten and fined for his writings. He was dismissed from his academic post at Lyon University in 1991.
I am bothered by the question of why Jews and others attached to their politics are desperate to restrict the story of their past. This question extends far beyond the holocaust. … continue
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