Violent Coup Fail in Nicaragua
By Kevin Zeese | CounterPunch | July 24, 2018
On Clearing The FOG radio and podcast, Margaret Flowers and I interviewed Stephen Sefton, who lives in Nicaragua and is a founder of Tortilla con Sal. He names the names behind the violence and describes what is happening in Nicaragua.
Lessons Learned From The Failed Violent Coup In Nicaragua And Next Steps
The violent coup in Nicaragua has failed. This does not mean the United States and oligarchs are giving up, but this phase of their effort to remove the government did not succeed. The coup exposed the alliances who are working with the United States to put in place a neoliberal government that is controlled by the United States and serves the interests of the wealthy. People celebrated the failure of the coup but realize work needs to be done to protect the gains of the Sandinista revolution.
People Celebrate Revolution, Call For Peace, Show Support for Government
The people of Nicaragua showed their support for the democratically-elected government of Daniel Ortega with a massive outpouring in Managua in a celebration of the 39th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution. In addition to the mass protest in Managua, various cities had their own, in some cases very sizeable ones.
People have wanted peace to return to Nicaragua. They have also wanted the roadblocks removed, which have resulted in closed businesses, job loss and loss of mobility. Roadblocks have been removed, even in the opposition stronghold of Masaya. There were two opposition deaths and one police officer killed in the removal. There was also an earlier death of a policeman in Masaya, captured when he was off-duty, tortured and burnt to death. This brings the total of police killed since April up to at least 21 with hundreds injured. With the opening of the main road on the east side of Masaya, all Nicaragua’s main routes are open to traffic and buses etc are operating normally.
At the rally, President Ortega called on the people of Nicaragua to defend peace and reinstate the unity that existed in the nation before the violent opposition protests. He described how the violent coup attempted to destabilize the country and ended the peace that has existed through the eleven years of his time in office. He said, “Peace must be defended every day to avoid situations like these being repeated.”
He also criticized the Catholic Bishops for their role in the failed violent coup. Ortega described the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua as “coup leaders” for collaborating with the opposition during the protests. Not only did the Catholic leadership side with the opposition during the national dialogue, but priests were involved in kidnapping and torture. Pope Francis has a lot of work to do to rein in the Catholic Church in Nicaragua. If their role in these violent protests and opposition to an economy for the people is not stopped, this will become a scandal for the Catholic Church.
Other Latin American leaders spoke out against involvement in the coup. Bolivian President Evo Morales condemned US “interference” in Nicaragua, denouncing the “criminal strategies” used against the government of Daniel Ortega. Morales accused the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) of “openly supporting violence” in Nicaragua. Also at the celebration were the foreign ministers of Cuba and Venezuela, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, and Jorge Arreza, all supporting Nicaragua over the violent coup of the United States and oligarchs.
The United States is Escalating Economic War and Support for Opposition
The United States is not giving up. Also on the anniversary of the revolution, the NICA Act, designed to escalate the economic war against Nicaragua, was introduced in the Senate. It has already been passed by the US House of Representatives. The Senate bill, called the Nicaragua Human Rights and Anti-corruption Act of 2018, imposes sanctions, calls for early elections and escalates US intelligence involvement in Nicaragua. It is a law that ensures continued US efforts to remove the democratically-elected government.
At the same time, USAID announced an additional $1.5 million for Nicaragua to build opposition to the government. This will fund the NGOs that participated in the protests, human rights groups that falsely reported the situation, media to produce the regime change narrative and other support for the opposition.
The coordination between Nicaraguan opposition and the United States was shown by Max Blumenthal’s attempted visit to an organization that funnels USAID and NED money to the opposition. He visited the Managua offices of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Public Policies (IEEPP in Spanish), but it was closed because its director, Felix Maradiaga, who was at the heart of the violent unrest, was in Washington, DC seeking more funding from USAID.
On July 18, the US-dominated OAS passed a resolution concerning “The Situation in Nicaragua.” An earlier effort to endorse a report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) was so biased that it failed. The report ignored the opposition’s widespread violence or inaccurately attributed it to the government. It also failed to recognize government actions in self-defense. The resolution approving the IACHR report was supported by only ten out of 34 countries.
The resolution, which was finally passed by the OAS, condemned violence on all sides and urged Nicaragua to pursue all options including the national dialogue to seek peace begun by Ortega. On the issue of elections, the resolution urged Nicaragua “to support an electoral calendar jointly agreed to in the context of the National Dialogue process.” Only this mainly symbolic resolution could pass muster in the OAS, despite US domination.
What Happened and What Was Learned
In our article “Correcting the Record: What Is Really Happening In Nicaragua,” Nils McCune and I describe what was behind the violent coup attempt. We reported that there was a lot of misinformation on what was occurring in Nicaragua, indeed the false narrative of regime change was part of the tactics of the failed coup. Perhaps most importantly we described the alignment of forces behind the coup.
The coup was a class war turned upside down. The Ortega government includes none of the oligarchic families, a first in the history of Nicaragua. He has put in place a bottom-up economy that has lifted people out of poverty, provided access to health care and education, given micro-loans to entrepreneurs and small businesses and created an economy energized by public spending. Ortega expanded coverage of the social security system; as a result, a new formula was required to ensure fiscal stability.
Ortega made a counter-proposal to the IMF/business proposal, which would cut social security and raise the retirement age. He proposed no cuts to social security and increasing employer contributions by 3.5% to pension and health funds, while only slightly increasing worker contributions by 0.75% and shifting 5% of pensioners’ cash transfer into their healthcare fund. These reforms were the trigger as it was the business lobby who called for the protests.
The forces aligned with the violent coup included the oligarchs, big business interests, foreign investors (e.g. Colombian financiers), the US-funded NGO’s and the Catholic Church, a long-term ally of the wealthy. Also involved was the Movement for Renovation of Sandinismo (MRS), a tiny Sandinista offshoot party, of former Sandanistas who left the party when Ortega lost an election in 1990 who are aligned with the US State Department.
Regarding students, there were already student protests around university elections, and these were redirected by the violent coup effort and supported by a small minority of students from private universities, the April 19th Movement. Some of these students had been brought to the US by the Freedom House, which has long ties to the CIA and met with far-right interventionist members of the US Congress, including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Sen. Marco Rubio, and Sen. Ted Cruz.
These groups acted in opposition to the bulk of Nicaraguan society and showed their true colors. This includes:
No doubt more will come out about this in the future as the coup is researched and analyzed. As the facts become clear, the opposition will lose more political power and be even less likely to win elections. The blockades of roads with violence undermined the economy and had a negative impact on the poor and working class. If it becomes evident that this was a strategy of the opposition, they will lose power. NGO’s that are funded by the US and run by members of the MRS will be noted for their dishonest narrative and will be seen as an arm of the United States and not trusted by the people of Nicaragua. Media outside of Nicaragua will come to understand that human rights groups and NGOs are not reliable sources of information but need to be questioned. They need to be pushed to break their ties with the United States.
This does not mean all is well on the Sandinista side of the alliance of forces. The coup is an opportunity for self-reflection and self-criticism that is already happening, as seen in this list of 20 results from the coup, which begins with “A more consolidated and United FSLN.” In addition, the Action Group of the Solidarity with Nicaragua Campaign put forward seven propositions to unify around. The protest took advantage of challenges the Nicaraguan government faces in continuing to lift up the poor and economically insecure. It shows their need to build their capacity to quickly let the public know their side of the story. And, it shows the need for planning for a post-Ortega Sandinista government, as the president is in his third term.
The anniversary of the revolution was a good beginning at strengthening the unity of the Sandinista movement and celebration of the defeat of the coup, but there will be challenges ahead. Nicaragua is a poor country that needs foreign investment. If the United States escalates the economic war, which seems to be the intent, it will make it challenging to continue the social and economic programs that are lifting up the poor. Nicaragua had relied on investment from Venezuela, but it is also in the midst of an economic war, which along with the low oil prices has created economic challenges for them. Nicaragua has begun to build economic relationships with China, Russia, Iran and other countries; these will likely need to expand.
The misinformation was deep and widespread. Inside Nicaragua, there were stories of students being killed that never happened but that escalated the protests. The opposition claimed to be nonviolent when their strategy was to use violence to force regime change while the government quartered the National Police. False news and videos of attacks on neighborhoods and universities never stopped being manufactured. One example, students calling for help and claiming they were under attack, was later exposed in a video showing the students practicing the false social media narrative.
Peace and justice activists in the United States and western nations have learned they need to be much more careful believing reports on what is occurring in Nicaragua. The US-funding of NGOs involved in women’s issues, environmental protection and human rights in Nicaragua make them questionable sources of information for justice advocates. In addition, US-funded regime change efforts are getting more sophisticated at social media; and thus, care must be taken as social media is abused by regime change advocates. We must look to other sources that have shown the ability to report accurately e.g., Tortilla con Sal, Telesur, Redvolucion. Peace and justice advocates must be grounded in anti-imperialism and nonintervention by the United States.
Western States Salvage Terror Assets in Syria
By Finian CUNNINGHAM | Strategic Culture Foundation | 24.07.2018
Western states made a dramatic intervention in the Syrian war earlier this week to extricate hundreds of terrorist militants. The militants are to be fast-tracked for resettlement in Europe and Canada.
But in saving their terror assets, Western governments are risking future public safety as well as sowing seeds for increasing multicultural strife.
In a stunning revelation of the foreign links to the extremists in Syria, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his military forces to evacuate up to 800 militants belonging to the so-called White Helmets. They are the propaganda merchants for Nusra Front and other al-Qaeda-linked terror organizations.
Netanyahu announced that the blatant intervention to rescue the jihadists in southwest Syria was made at the personal request of US President Donald Trump and the Canadian premier Justin Trudeau, “among others”.
Separately, there were reports of four senior jihadist commanders being given safe passage by Israeli forces out of Syria as the Syrian army closed in on the last-remaining militant strongholds around the southwest city of Daraa and Quneitra province.
Nor was it coincidental that the evacuation operations were accompanied by Israeli air strikes on Syrian government facilities in Hama province.
Damascus condemned the extraction of hundreds of jihadists by Israel and its Western allies as a “criminal operation” and further proof of the foreign sponsoring that has fomented the nearly eight-year war.
Of course, Netanyahu, Western governments and news media sought to portray the evacuation of the “White Helmets” as a “humanitarian gesture”. This was at the same time that Israeli warplanes and snipers were stepping up the killing of medics and civilians in Gaza.
Britain’s newly appointed foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt described the Israeli “rescue” of “White Helmets” as “fantastic news”, saying that the militants were the “bravest of the brave”.
We won’t delay too much here on this fraud. The so-called first responders of the “White Helmets” are a CIA, MI6-backed propaganda outfit working hand-in-hand with the terrorist militia. Their fake videos of chemical weapons attacks and air strikes have been a key propaganda device aided and abetted by the Western news media to demonize the Syrian armed forces and its Russian ally.
The fictitious propaganda stunt alleging a chemical weapon attack in Douma on April 7 this year resulted in a barrage of air strikes by the US, Britain and France.
Created in 2013 by a British MI6 agent and former British army officer James Le Mesurier, the so-called White Helmets have been funded with hundreds of millions of dollars by the governments of the US, Britain and other NATO states.
There is abundant video evidence showing members of this fake rescue group participating in gruesome executions by the al Qaeda-aligned militants with whom they associate. One such video shows an execution of a Syrian army soldier in Daraa, the city from where the latest evacuation of jihadists by Israel took place. Daraa is also, by the way, mendaciously referred to in the Western media as the “cradle of the revolution” or the “birthplace of the uprising” against President Assad’s government back in March 2011. The only thing that Daraa was a birthplace of was the US-led foreign covert war for regime change in Syria.
Now here’s a curious thing about the latest salvaging of terror assets in Syria. The United States and Israel are not taking any of the 800 militants for resettlement. Independent investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley, who has done much to expose the real macabre nature of the White Helmets and their terror links, says that both the US and Israeli no doubt realize that by taking in such “war refugees” they are inviting terrorists into their own societies.
Which makes you wonder why Britain, Germany and Canada are stepping up to the plate to offer the 800 White Helmets a home?
The case of Germany is particularly odd. Interior minister Horst Seehofer has personally authorized the resettlement of White Helmets spirited out of Syria by Israel. This is the same Seehofer who has mounted such a strong challenge to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “open door” policy towards immigrants.
What we are witnessing is a suicidal ignorance by Western governments to take in these cadres of White Helmets. Perhaps Seehofer and other government ministers like Britain’s Jeremy Hunt are simply woefully misinformed. But surely the state security agencies of their respective countries know all too well the criminal, psychotic nature of the people whom they are allowing into their societies.
Such a callous disregard for public safety is not unprecedented. In his well-researched book, My Fight For Syrian Freedom, Irish peace activist Dr Declan Hayes details numerous cases of how jihadist assets were knowingly cultivated by British and French state security services for the purpose of waging the covert war for regime change in Syria and Libya. These assets have been allowed to return to Britain and France under the cover of being “refugees”, with the security services turning a blind eye to their true identity.
The nefarious relationship has resulted in these terror assets committing atrocities in Europe. For example, as Hayes points out, the Manchester concert bomb attack that killed 22 people in May last year was carried out by operatives belonging to a Libyan jihad cell that MI5 and MI6 had previously overseen for their objective of prosecuting the regime-change war in Libya against Muammar Gaddafi.
Similar murky connections between jihadists “blooded in Syria” and state secret services have been uncovered in terror attacks in France and Belgium. It is not clear if these terror assets go rogue or whether they are being used by British, French and other military intelligence as a deliberate provocation in order to promote tighter national security laws and greater surveillance powers over their citizens.
Declan Hayes reckons that the problem of Western-sponsored terrorists returning to Britain and other European countries under the cover of claiming to be “war refugees” is much greater than Western governments or their media are admitting.
Hayes says that in his experience of visiting Syria many times during the war, most families loyal to the government were adamantly defiant about staying in the country and defending their communities. He reckons that there is a legitimate concern that many of the refugees fleeing from formerly militant-held cities like Aleppo and Daraa are jihadists and their families.
This view supports the right of some European governments to be wary about taking in large numbers of refugees from Syria and other war-torn countries. There is a case for rigorous vetting, but such a case is often emotionally blackmailed by naive media commentary as being “heartless” or “racist”.
There is no doubt that Western government agencies have fomented terrorist groups in Syria and elsewhere to do their dirty work for destabilizing target governments.
Now that the war in Syria is all but over with the Syrian army, backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, rooting out the last jihadist remnants, we are seeing Western states taking in their terror assets. Maybe as a desperate intervention to stop them from revealing the dirty secrets of Western government collusion.
The repatriation of the White Helmets terrorist propagandists to the UK, Germany and Canada is a classic illustration.
Western authorities are playing with fire. Not only are they running the risk of public safety from future terrorist incidents. They are also stoking the flames of xenophobia, racism and culture wars against many innocent refugees who have been given shelter in Western countries.
The Burden Of Proof Is On The Russiagaters
By Caitlin Johnstone | Medium | July 23, 2018
I saw a Twitter thread between two journalists the other day which completely summarized my experience of debating the establishment Russia narrative on online forums lately. Aaron Maté, who is in my opinion one of the clearest voices out there on American Russia hysteria, was approached with an argument by a journalist named Jonathan M Katz. Maté engaged the argument by asking for evidence of the claims Katz was making, only to be given the runaround.
I’m going to copy the back-and-forth into the text here for anyone who doesn’t feel like scrolling through a Twitter thread, not because I am interested in the petty rehashing of a meaningless Twitter spat, but because it’s such a perfect example of what I want to talk about here.
Are you aware of what Russian agents did during the 2016 presidential election, by chance?
— Jonathan M. Katz 🐱 (@KatzOnEarth) July 19, 2018
Katz: Are you aware of what Russian agents did during the 2016 presidential election, by chance?
Maté: I’m aware of what Mueller has accused Russian agents of — are we supposed to just reflexively believe the assertions of prosecutors & intelligence officials now, or is it ok to wait for the evidence? (as I did in the tweet you’re replying to)
Katz: Why are you even asking this question if you’re just going to discard the reams of evidence that have supplied by investigators, spies, and journalists over the last two years?
Maté: Why are you avoiding answering the Q I asked? If I can guess, it’s cause doing so would mean acknowledging your position requires taking gov’t claims on faith. Re: “reams of evidence”, I’ve actually written about it extensively, and disagree that it’s convincing.
Katz: Yeah I’m familiar with your work. You’re asking for someone to summarize two years of reporting, grand jury indictments, reports from independent analysts, give agencies both American and foreign, and on and on just so you can handwave and draw some vague equivalencies.
Maté: No, actually I’ve asked 2 Qs in this thread, both of which have been avoided: 1) what evidence convinces you that Russia will attack the midterms 2) are we supposed to reflexively believe the assertions of prosecutors & intel officials now, or is it ok to wait for the evidence?
Katz: See this is what you do. You pretend like all of the evidence produced by journalists, independent analysts and foreign governments doesn’t exist so you can accuse anyone who doesn’t buy this SF Cohen Putinist bullshit you’re selling of being a deep state shill.
Maté: Except I haven’t said anything about anyone being a “deep state shill”, here or anywhere else. So that’s your embellishment. I’m simply asking whether we should accept IC/prosecutor claims on faith. Mueller does lay out a case, that’s true, but no evidence yet.
Katz: No. You should not accept a prosecutor’s claims on faith. You should read independent analyses, evidence gathered by journalists and other agencies, and compare all it to what is known on the public record. And you could if you wanted to.
Katz continued to evade and deflect until eventually exiting the conversation. Meanwhile another journalist, The Intercept‘s Sam Biddle, interjected that the debate was “a big waste of” Katz’s time and called Maté an “inverse louise mensch”, all for maintaining the posture of skepticism and asking for evidence. Maté invited Katz and Biddle to debate their positions on The Real News, to which Biddle replied, “No thank you, but I have some advice: If everyone has gotten it wrong, you should figure out who really did it! If not Russia, find out who really hacked the DNC, find out who really spearphished American election officials. Even OJ pretended to search for the real killer.”
Biddle then, as you would expect, blocked Maté on Twitter.
If you were to spend an entire day debating Russiagate online (and I am in no way suggesting that you should), it is highly unlikely that you would see anything from the proponents of the establishment Russia narrative other than the textbook fallacious debate tactics exhibited by Katz and Biddle in that thread. It had the entire spectrum:
Gish gallop — The tactic of providing a stack of individually weak arguments to create the illusion of one solid argument, illustrated when Katz cited unspecified “reams of evidence” resulting from “two years of reporting, grand jury indictments, reports from independent analysts, give agencies both American and foreign.” He even claimed he shouldn’t have to go through that evidence point-by-point because there’s too much of it, which is like a poor man’s Gish gallop fallacy.
Argumentum ad populum — The “it’s true because so many agree that it is true” argument that Katz attempted to imply in invoking all the “journalists, independent analysts and foreign governments” who assert that Russia interfered in a meaningful way in America’s 2016 elections and intends to interfere in the midterms.
Ad hominem — Biddle’s “inverse louise mensch”. You have no argument, so you insult the other party instead.
Attempting to shift the burden of proof — Biddle’s suggestion that Maté needs to prove that someone else other than the Russian government did the things Russia is accused of doing. Biddle is implying that the establishment Russia narrative should be assumed true until somebody has proved it to be false, a tactic known as an appeal to ignorance.
I’d like to talk about this last one a bit, because it underpins the entire CIA/CNN Russia narrative.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
~ Sagan
“What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”
~ Hitchens
“We have to believe that Russia is attacking our democracy because the TV and the CIA told us to.”
~ Russiagaters— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) July 22, 2018
As we’ve discussed previously, in a post-Iraq invasion world the confident-sounding assertions of spies, government officials and media pundits is not sufficient evidence for the public to rationally support claims that are being used to escalate dangerous cold war tensions with a nuclear superpower. The western empire has every motive in the world to lie about the behaviors of a noncompliant government, and has an extensive and well-documented history of doing exactly that. Hard, verifiable, publicly available proof is required. Assertions are not evidence.
But even if there wasn’t an extensive and recent history of disastrous US-led escalations premised on lies advanced by spies, government officials and media pundits, the burden of proof would still be on those making the claim, because that’s how logic works. Whether you’re talking about law, philosophy or debate, the burden of proof is always on the party making the claim. A group of spies, government officials and media pundits saying that something happened in an assertive tone of voice is not the same thing as proof. That side of the Russiagate debate is the side making the claim, so the burden of proof is on them. Until proof is made publicly available, there is no logical reason for the public to accept the CIA/CNN Russia narrative as fact, because the burden of proof has not been met.
This concept is important to understand on the scale of individual debates on the subject during political discourse, and it is important to understand on the grand scale of the entire Russia narrative as well. All the skeptical side of the debate needs to do is stand back and demand that the burden of proof be met, but this often gets distorted in discourse on the subject. The Sam Biddles of the world all too frequently attempt to confuse the situation by asserting that it is the skeptics who must provide an alternative version of events and somehow produce irrefutable proof about the behaviors of highly opaque government agencies. This is fallacious, and it is backwards.
I understand why skeptics are eager to come up with counter-narratives which contradict the 2016 Russian hacking allegations, but remember: that’s not how the burden of proof works. You don’t need to prove the Russians didn’t do it, the US government needs to prove that they did.
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) July 16, 2018
There are many Russiagate skeptics who have been doing copious amounts of research to come up with other theories about what could have happened in 2016, and that’s fine. But in a way this can actually make the debate more confused, because instead of leaning back and insisting that the burden of proof be met, you are leaning in and trying to convince everyone of your alternative theory. Russiagaters love this more than anything, because you’ve shifted the burden of proof for them. Now you’re the one making the claims, so they can lean back and come up with reasons to be skeptical of your argument. Empire loyalists like Sam Biddle would like nothing more than to get skeptics like Aaron Maté falling all over themselves trying to prove a negative, but that’s not how the burden of proof works, and there’s no good reason to play into it.
Until hard, verifiable proof of Russian election interference and/or collusion with the Trump campaign is made publicly available, we are winning this debate as long as we continue pointing out that this proof doesn’t exist. All you have to do to beat a Russiagater in a debate is point this out. They’ll cite assertions made by the US intelligence community, but assertions are not proof. They’ll cite the assertions made in the recent Mueller indictment as proof, but all the indictment contains is more assertions. The only reason Russiagaters confuse assertions for proof is because the mass media treats them as such, but there’s no reason to play along with that delusion.
There is no good reason to play along with escalations between nuclear superpowers when their premise consists of nothing but narrative and assertions. It is right to demand that those escalations cease until the public who is affected by them has had a full, informed say. Until the burden of proof has been met, that has not even begun to happen.
An Open Letter From a Salisbury Resident to Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu
By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | July 23, 2018
Dear Mr Basu,
I am a Salisbury resident, and I am concerned with some aspects of the investigation into the poisonings that occurred in March and June this year in Salisbury and Amesbury respectively.
Let me begin by quoting some words from your predecessor as Head of Counter Terrorism Policing, Mark Rowley, who made the following statement on 7th March, shortly before his retirement:
“We would like to hear from anybody who visited the area close to the Maltings shopping centre where these two people were taken ill on Sunday afternoon, and may have seen something that could assist the investigation. The two people taken ill were in Salisbury centre from around 1.30pm. Did you see anything out of the ordinary? It may be that at the time, nothing appeared out of place or untoward but with what you now know, you remember something that might be of significance. Your memory of that afternoon and your movements alone could help us with missing pieces of the investigation. The weather was poor that day so there were not as many people out and about. Every statement we can take is important.”
Understandably, Mr Rowley was keen to receive as much information and as many details from local people as possible, in order to help the investigation. This is of course entirely natural for someone in overall charge of an investigation, and so I assume that you would echo his sentiments.
However, more than four months into the investigation into the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, along with D.S. Nick Bailey, there are a couple of rather obvious things which investigators could have done, which would have facilitated the kind of information from the public called for by Mr Rowley, but which they have conspicuously failed to do.
The first is with regard to CCTV footage from the day. Since 4th March, the public has been shown almost no footage in connection with the case. We have seen footage of Mr Skripal in a newsagents, days before the poisoning, which it has to be said is of little use in terms of jogging memories of local people for details of what happened on 4th March. We have also been shown approximately two seconds of blurred footage of a nameless couple, one of whom was carrying a red bag, walking through Market Walk at 15:47 on 4th March. However, neither of these people are Mr Skripal or his daughter, although it has to be said that it has never been satisfactorily cleared up publicly whether these people are considered persons of interest in terms of the inquiry.
The lack of CCTV footage is very odd, since:
a) CCTV footage of Mr Skripal on 4th March certainly does exist (for example, I know for a fact that there is clear footage of Mr Skripal feeding ducks with some boys near the Avon Playground, at around 1:45 that day).
b) Releasing such footage is surely exactly the sort of thing that is likely to jog peoples’ memories and lead to the kind of information requested by Mark Rowley.
The second point is with regard to Mr Skripal’s and Yulia’s movements on the morning of 4th March. Many early reports stated that investigators were trying to establish their movements, but one of the things that had hampered this was the fact that they both had their mobile telephones switched off.
I understand that at that time, these details might have been puzzling, and indeed I get the sense that investigators were keen to find out as much as possible about the movements of the pair, so that they could:
a) Put an end to the media speculation and
b) Relate these details to the general public, again in the hope that the information given out might lead to vital information coming in.
Forgive me for sounding somewhat facetious here: Mr Skripal and his daughter are both alive. In fact, both have been awake and well for around four months. It is not as if they died, taking with them the secret of their movements on the morning of 4th March to the grave.
And so what was once a mystery is surely a mystery no more. Isn’t finding out what their movements were on that morning now the simplest thing in the world, requiring no more detective work than just asking Mr Skripal some straightforward questions, such as:
- Where did he go that morning?
- What was he wearing that day?
- Why did he have his phone switched off?
- Did he see anyone or anything suspicious near the house that day?
- Why was he agitated in Zizzis?
- Was it caused by ill health, or was there another reason?
- What did he do after leaving Zizzis?
- Does he recognise the identity of the couple seen on CCTV in Market Walk?
- Did the red bag found at the bench belong to Yulia?
- What are his last memories before collapsing at the bench?
If it is somewhat strange that no CCTV footage of Mr Skripal and Yulia from 4th March has been released, frankly it is nothing short of astonishing that details of their movements on the day have not been released. Surely Mr Skripal and Yulia would want this information to be released, in the hope that it might jog someone’s memory, and so help catch the people who poisoned them? Surely as the head of this investigation, you would also want this information to be made public, in the hope that it might lead to new information?
I suspect that your response might run something along the lines of: we cannot release this information, as there is a counter-terrorism investigation going on. However, it is precisely because there is a counter-terrorism investigation going on that this vital information – which your team surely possesses – must be released.
If it is released, it can only do good, helping the investigation by jogging the memories of people who may have seen something important that day.
If it is not released, then I fear that it will only continue to arouse the suspicions of increasing numbers of people that the public are being grossly misled as to what really happened on that day.
And so as someone who loves my City, who desires to see the truth come to light, and who wants to see the perpetrators caught, I respectfully ask you and your team to release all the CCTV footage you have of Mr Skripal and his daughter from 4th March, and to allow Mr Skripal to publicly testify about what happened to him and Yulia on that day. These two simple acts would surely help you in your investigations, as well as allaying public fears that the truth is being withheld.
Best wishes,
Rob Slane
TRUDEAU TO ADMIT TERRORIST AUXILIARIES INTO CANADA
The Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War | July 23, 2018
The fact that Canada is admitting as refugees at least 250 White Helmets and their family members exposes the involvement of the Trudeau government, like the Harper government before it, in the illegal, US-led, regime-change operation in Syria.
These two federal governments are collectively responsible for setting up and continuing the international coalition that produced the proxy war against Syria, using terrorist mercenaries as its foot soldiers; leading the international regime of brutal economic sanctions against Syria which turned about four million Syrians into refugees – (the international sanctions regime was drawn up in a meeting in Ottawa in June 2013); demonizing the legitimate government of Syria, breaking off diplomatic relations with it, and trying to delegitimize it in international forums; supporting armed rebels against Syria, a member state of the United Nations, by bringing their leaders to Ottawa and giving them funds; overflying Syria on military missions without the express consent of its government; and supporting the propaganda arm of the regime change operation through the White Helmets.
Now that the Syrian government has liberated Deraa, where the western-sponsored regime-change operation began in 2011, the “rebels” and their auxiliaries have had to scramble to find places of refuge. Thus, the Trudeau government has felt obliged to admit as refugees to Canada some of their foreign policy assets, namely the White Helmets.
Who are the White Helmets? The White Helmets claim to be a “fiercely independent” organization of volunteer first responders in Syria helping Syrian civilians injured in the war.
In fact, the White Helmets are a fiercely partisan organization of relatively well-paid employees, set up by British and US intelligence services inside of Turkey (a belligerent in the war against Syria) in 2013. A Madison Avenue public relations firm was contracted to develop the concept of the White Helmets as a humanitarian agency for public consumption in the West – to provide a ‘sugar-coating’ to an ugly and illegal imperial war. John Lemesurier, a former British military intelligence officer and later “military contractor”, was hired to front the organization, which has been funded to the tune of about 150 million dollars by the governments of the USA, UK, France, Holland, Denmark, Japan, New Zealand, and Canada, among others. In 2016, Canada donated $4.5 million dollars to the White Helmets. Currently, a Freedom of Information request is seeking to determine if the Canadian government has made repeated donations of $4.5 million in 2017 and 2018. On top of the donations, the Canadian government has organized two cross-Canada publicity tours of White Helmet personnel in recent years in various cities. This past March, a delegation of White Helmets was welcomed to speak to the Canadian parliament’s Human Rights Committee. In addition, the New Democratic Party endorsed the White Helmets for the Nobel Peace Prize, which it failed to win.
The White Helmets are embedded in the Al-Qaeda terrorist network and operate exclusively in terrorist-held areas of Syria. Though it also calls itself the Syrian Civil Defence, the government of Syria created the real Syrian Civil Defence in 1953 and was a founding member of the International Civil Defence Organization.
Once in place inside the terrorist-occupied enclaves inside of Syria, the true role of the White Helmets emerged. The group specialized in making videos of dramatically-staged rescues of children from among the rubble of part of cities which Al-Qaeda (and sometimes other terrorist groups) had managed to seize and occupy. Two notorious staged videos stand out: the staged rescues of Omran Daqneesh in Aleppo and Hassan Diab in Douma. Occasionally, however, the White Helmets joined in recreational video competitions, such as the Mannequin Challenge. The twofold principal purposes of the child-rescue videos was, first, to demonize the Syrian government as a brutal tyranny, even though it was lawfully defending its sovereign territory against foreign invasion, and, secondly, to promote the western regime change operation in Syria as a humanitarian intervention.
Specifically, the White Helmet videos were timed to promote calls by western governments for direct military intervention in Syria by such means as a no-fly zone (similar to the one imposed on Libya in 2011) or a “civilian corridor”. And, on at least two occasions, the tactic worked. In April 2017, the White Helmets staged a false flag chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun which prompted a US missile attack on the Sharyat Air Base in Syria. A recent outstanding example of the propaganda use of such videos was the staging of a fake nerve agent attack in Douma, Syria, on April 7 of this year. The incident, though later revealed as a hoax by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), nonetheless resulted in over one hundred missile strikes by the USA, UK, and France on Syria on April 13, 2018.
In addition, the White Helmets’ true role as an auxiliary to terrorism was captured on film on several occasions when they participated in Al-Qaeda summary executions and by Facebook postings by numerous White Helmets on their personal accounts showing themselves moonlighting as armed Al-Qaeda fighters and heaping praise on Al-Qaeda leaders. Contrarily, civilians inside the enclaves in Syrian cities liberated from Al-Qaeda and ISIS told many western reporters that the White Helmets provided no medical help or assistance to them, but rather only to the armed terrorists. Moreover, real Syrian Civil Defence workers testified that many of their comrades were killed by Al-Qaeda fighters and their equipment and vehicles given to the White Helmets.
The rescue of the White Helmet “rescuers” by Israel through the Golan Heights should not come as a surprise because Israel has been a major player in the illegal, failed, regime change operation in Syria. Israel has bombed Syria more than one hundred times during the war. Israel openly supported FSA fighters with arms, intelligence, and funding in southern Syria and routinely transferred wounded terrorists to hospitals inside Israel for medical treatment before returning them to the front. Israeli PM Netanyahu posed for photos in one of those hospitals at the bedside of wounded terrorists last year. Today (July 22, 2018), in a tweet, Netanyahu stated that both President Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau personally asked for his help in rescuing the White Helmets from Syria.
Syria is well rid of these White Helmets. But, if Canadians understood who these people really were, they would strongly object to the settling of terrorists in our midst. Last November in the House of Commons, Trudeau asserted that Canadians returning from terrorist activities in Syria and Iraq would not be charged with criminal offences. Rather, he asserted, “We also have methods of de-emphasizing or de-programming people who want to harm our society, and those are some things we have to move forward on.” At the end of the day, then, the Trudeau government in effect embraces terrorist fighters and their auxiliaries.
That the Canadian government is planning to admit White Helmets personnel to Canada as refugees should gravely concern Canadians. These civil defence poseurs are ideologically committed to terrorism, personally connected to Al Qaeda, and have the blood on their hands of many Syrians whose country they helped to invade and occupy. The potential for them to cause harm in Canada is high.
We urge Canadians immediately to contact their MP’s about this matter, to spread the alarm via social media, and to write letters to newspapers. We also urge the Canadian government to do the following:
- withdraw from the US-led military coalition in Syria and Iraq;
- end Canada’s punishing economic sanctions against Syria;
- re-establish diplomatic ties with the Syrian government;
- participate in the reconstruction of Syria through payments of reparation.
Published by the Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War
hcsw.ca
hcsw@cogeco.ca
For further info, please contact Ken Stone at 289-382-9008 or at kenstone@cogeco.ca
Salisbury & Amesbury Cases: Top 5 Unsubstantiated Pieces of ‘Evidence’
Sputnik – July 23, 2018
Since March the UK government has been offering up a wild grab-bag of alleged evidence of Russian involvement in the attack on the ex-GRU colonel Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, having followed through with the same pattern in a similar Amesbury incident earlier this month. Yet, they seem to have failed to substantiate their claims.
Here are some of the most widely speculated pieces of evidence London has presented.
Photo of Amesbury Perpetrator
Earlier in the day, the police investigating the alleged poisoning of the Skripal family in Salisbury and Charlie Rowley and the now-deceased Dawn Sturgess in Amesbury have reportedly obtained the picture of a potential suspect. There’s only a slight problem – the photo in question has not been released to the public so far, albeit the investigators have purportedly shown it to the “key witnesses.”
The police have suggested that a group of four people, including a woman, who is believed to be Russian assassin ordered to poison Sergei Skripal, was behind the Amesbury attack.
Local media speculated that the police obtained those images from CCTV camera footage using facial recognition technology, which according to an investigative report by The Independent, proved to be only 2 percent effective.
Mysterious Novichok Perfume Bottle
In a desperate search for the source of contamination in Amesbury, the police declared nearly two weeks ago they had discovered a small bottle that stored the deadly nerve agent the UK authorities call Novichok.
In the meantime, British media cited Charlie Rowley’s brother Matthew as saying that the victim told him he had found “something that looked like a perfume bottle,” with his partner, Dawn, spraying the content on her wrists and then passing it to Charlie.
The object that by a twist of fate appeared in Rowley’s apartment somehow “splintered or broke in his hands,” Matthew said – and yet the police later managed to find some bottle, ostensibly containing the nerve agent.
The entire case has been largely questioned by ordinary Britons, with some highlighting that both Amesbury and Salisbury are, by an odd coincidence, located just 7-8 miles away from one of the UK’s government’s main chemical research facilities, the Porton Down lab.
A friend of the couple earlier suggested that they might have been contaminated while “dumpster diving outside of charity shops, going through the stuff they used to chuck out.”
Two Hitmen With Close Ties to Russia
Earlier this month, British media cited sources in Scotland Yard as saying that “a two-man hit team with close ties to Russia” orchestrated the alleged attack on the Skripals in March. According to the sources, the police were sure they had made a “huge breakthrough” by finding the two suspects, who had ostensibly fled the country within 24 hours of the assault.
With an accuracy of “highly likely,” British law enforcement officials reportedly said that the perpetrators are “now thought to be back in Russia and under the protection of President Vladimir Putin.”
Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found unconscious in March after allegedly being exposed to a toxin, later identified by the UK police as the lethal nerve agent Novichok, “developed in Russia.” Despite the initial claims that the two might never recover, they were discharged from the hospital, with medics saying they were no longer in critical condition.
Different City, Same Old Novichok
Immediately after the UK authorities reported that two people, later identified as Rowley and Sturgess, had been hospitalized after being exposed to an unknown substance in Amesbury, Home Secretary Sajid Javid claimed that it was the same nerve agent – Novichok – that was used against the Skripals.
“It is now time that the Russian state comes forward and explains what has gone on,” he said.
Javid was so convinced that Russia was behind the attack, that he failed to provide any evidence to support his bold accusations. He, however, added that London didn’t “want to jump to conclusions,” and that it wasn’t planning to impose additional sanctions on Moscow for the incident.
At the same time, the police said that detectives have been unable to confirm whether the nerve agent was from the same batch.
“They are unable to say at this moment whether or not the nerve agent found in this incident is linked to the attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal. However, this remains our main line of inquiry,” the counter-terrorism office representative, Neil Basu, said early in July.
UK Government’s Skripal Slides
The UK authorities have turned to PowerPoint to make the case that Russia orchestrated the attack on Sergei Skripal – and the slideshow was leaked.
Slide Two in the UK Government’s Presentation to Foreign Governments on Sergei Skripal’s Poisoning
Instead of presenting evidence of Russia’s alleged involvement or wait until the investigation is over, the British government simply concluded that Moscow was “without doubt responsible” just because “there is no plausible alternative explanation.” Very convincing.
Moscow has on multiple occasions denied any involvement in the Salisbury and Amesbury incidents, with the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman describing the presentation as a “massive manipulation of world public opinion” on the basis of “six pictures.”
READ MORE:
UK Investigators Reportedly Obtain Photo of Amesbury Poisoning Perpetrator
Amesbury Poisoning: Deceased Woman Reportedly Sprayed Nerve Agent on Herself
Moon-Strzok No More, Lisa Page Spills the Beans
By Ray McGovern | Consortium News | July 23, 2018
Former FBI attorney Lisa Page has reportedly told a joint committee of the House of Representatives that when FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok texted her on May 19, 2017 saying there was “no big there there,” he meant there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
It was clearly a bad-luck day for Strzok, when on Friday the 13th this month Page gave her explanation of the text to the House Judiciary and Oversight/Government Reform Committees and in effect threw her lover, Strzok, under the bus.
Strzok’s apparent admission to Page about there being “no big there there” was reported on Friday by John Solomon in The Hill based on multiple sources who he said were present during Page’s closed door interview.
Strzok’s text did not come out of the blue. For the previous ten months he and his FBI subordinates had been trying every-which-way to ferret out some “there” — preferably a big “there” — but had failed miserably. It is appearing more and more likely that there was nothing left for them to do but to make it up out of whole cloth, with the baton then passed to special counsel Robert Mueller.
The “no there there” text came just two days after former FBI Director James Comey succeeded in getting his friend Mueller appointed to investigate the alleged collusion that Strzok was all but certain wasn’t there.
Strzok during his public testimony earlier this month.
Robert Parry, the late founder and editor of Consortium News whom Solomon described to me last year as his model for journalistic courage and professionalism, was already able to discern as early as March 2017 the outlines of what is now Deep State-gate, and, typically, was the first to dare report on its implications.
Parry’s article, written two and a half months before Strzok texted the self-incriminating comment to Page on there being “no big there there,” is a case study in professional journalism. His very first sentence entirely anticipated Strzok’s text: “The hysteria over ‘Russia-gate’ continues to grow … but at its core there may be no there there.”(Emphasis added.)
As for “witch-hunts,” Bob and others at Consortiumnews.com, who didn’t succumb to the virulent HWHW (Hillary Would Have Won) virus, and refused to slurp the Kool-Aid offered at the deep Deep State trough, have come close to being burned at the stake — virtually. Typically, Bob stuck to his guns: he ran an organ (now vestigial in most Establishment publications) that sifted through and digested actual evidence and expelled drivel out the other end.
Those of us following the example set by Bob Parry are still taking a lot of incoming fire — including from folks on formerly serious — even progressive — websites. Nor do we expect a cease-fire now, even with Page’s statement (about which, ten days after her interview, the Establishment media keep a timorous silence). Far too much is at stake.
As Mark Twain put it, “It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” And, as we have seen over the past couple of years, that goes in spades for “Russia-gate.” For many of us who have looked into it objectively and written about it dispassionately, we are aware, that on this issue, we are looked upon as being in sync with President Donald Trump.
Blind hatred for the man seems to thwart any acknowledgment that he could ever be right about something—anything. This brings considerable awkwardness. Chalk it up to the price of pursuing the truth, no matter what bedfellows you end up with.
Courage at The Hill
Page: Coughs up the meaning of ‘there.’
Solomon’s article merits a careful read, in toto. Here are the most germane paragraphs:
“It turns out that what Strzok and Lisa Page were really doing that day [May 19, 2017] was debating whether they should stay with the FBI and try to rise through the ranks to the level of an assistant director (AD) or join Mueller’s special counsel team. [Page has since left the FBI.]
“‘Who gives a f*ck, one more AD [Assistant Director] like [redacted] or whoever?’” Strzok wrote, weighing the merits of promotion, before apparently suggesting what would be a more attractive role: ‘An investigation leading to impeachment?’ …
“A few minutes later Strzok texted his own handicap of the Russia evidence: ‘You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.’
“So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative — as well as Rosenstein’s decision to appoint Mueller — apparently knew all along that the evidence was going to lead to ‘nothing’ and, yet, they proceeded because they thought there was still a possibility of impeachment.”
Solomon adds: “How concerned you are by this conduct is almost certainly affected by your love or hatred for Trump. But put yourself for a second in the hot seat of an investigation by the same FBI cast of characters: You are under investigation for a crime the agents don’t think occurred, but the investigation still advances because the desired outcome is to get you fired from your job. Is that an FBI you can live with?”
The Timing
As noted, Strzok’s text was written two days after Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2016. The day before, on May 16, The New York Times published a story that Comey leaked to it through an intermediary that was expressly designed (as Comey admitted in Congressional testimony three weeks later) to lead to the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Hmmmmm.
Had Strzok forgotten to tell his boss that after ten months of his best investigative efforts — legal and other—he could find no “there there”?
Comey’s leak, by the way, was about alleged pressure from Trump on Comey to go easy on Gen. Michael Flynn for lying at an impromptu interrogation led by — you guessed it — the ubiquitous, indispensable Peter Strzok.
In any event, the operation worked like a charm — at least at first. And — absent revelation of the Strzok-Page texts — it might well have continued to succeed. After Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein named Mueller, one of Comey’s best buddies, to be special counsel, Mueller, in turn, picked Strzok to lead the Russia-gate team, until the summer, when the Department of Justice Inspector General was given the Strzok-Page texts and refused to sit on them.
A Timeline
Here’s a timeline, which might be helpful:
2017
May 16: Comey leak to NY Times to get a special counsel appointed
May 17: Special counsel appointed — namely, Robert Mueller.
May 19: Strzok confides to girlfriend Page, “No big there there.”
July: Mueller appoints Strzok lead FBI Agent on collusion investigation.
August: Mueller removes Strzok after learning of his anti-Trump texts to Page.
Dec. 12: DOJ IG releases some, but by no means all, relevant Strzok-Page texts to Congress and the media, which first reports on Strzok’s removal in August.
2018
June 14: DOJ IG Report Published.
June 15; Strzok escorted out of FBI Headquarters.
June 21: Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces Strzok has lost his security clearances.
July 12: Strzok testifies to House committees. Solomon reports he refused to answer question about the “there there” text.
July 13: Lisa Page interviewed by same committees. Answers the question.
Earlier: Bob Parry in Action
Journalist Robert Parry
On December 12, 2017, as soon as first news broke of the Strzok-Page texts, Bob Parry and I compared notes by phone. We agreed that this was quite big and that, clearly, Russia-gate had begun to morph into something like FBI-gate. It was rare for Bob to call me before he wrote; in retrospect, it seemed to have been merely a sanity check.
The piece Bob posted early the following morning was typical Bob. Many of those who click on the link will be surprised that, last December, he already had pieced together most of the story. Sadly, it turned out to be Bob’s last substantive piece before he fell seriously ill. Earlier last year he had successfully shot downother Russia-gate-related canards on which he found Establishment media sorely lacking — “Facebook-gate,” for example.
Remarkably, it has taken another half-year for Congress and the media to address — haltingly — the significance of Deep State-gate — however easy it has become to dissect the plot, and identify the main plotters. With Bob having prepared the way with his Dec.13 article, I followed up a few weeks later with “The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate,” in the process winning no friends among those still suffering from the highly resistant HWHW virus.
VIPS
Parry also deserves credit for his recognition and appreciation of the unique expertise and analytical integrity among Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) and giving us a secure, well respected home at Consortium News.
It is almost exactly a year since Bob took a whole lot of flak for publishing what quickly became VIPS’ most controversial, and at the same time perhaps most important, Memorandum For the President; namely, “Intelligence Veterans Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence.”
Critics have landed no serious blows on the key judgments of that Memorandum, which rely largely on the type of forensic evidence that Comey failed to ensure was done by his FBI because the Bureau never seized the DNC server. Still more forensic evidence has become available over recent months to be soon revealed on Consortium News, confirming our conclusions.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years and, in retirement, co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
One FBI text message in Russia probe that should alarm every American
By John Solomon | The Hill | July 19, 2018
Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, the reported FBI lovebirds, are the poster children for the next “Don’t Text and Investigate” public service ads airing soon at an FBI office near you.
Their extraordinary texting affair on their government phones has given the FBI a black eye, laying bare a raw political bias brought into the workplace that agents are supposed to check at the door when they strap on their guns and badges.
It is no longer in dispute that they held animus for Donald Trump, who was a subject of their Russia probe, or that they openly discussed using the powers of their office to “stop” Trump from becoming president. The only question is whether any official acts they took in the Russia collusion probe were driven by those sentiments.
The Justice Department’s inspector general is endeavoring to answer that question.
For any American who wants an answer sooner, there are just five words, among the thousands of suggestive texts Page and Strzok exchanged, that you should read.
That passage was transmitted on May 19, 2017. “There’s no big there there,” Strzok texted.
The date of the text long has intrigued investigators: It is two days after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein named special counsel Robert Mueller to oversee an investigation into alleged collusion between Trump and the Russia campaign.
Since the text was turned over to Congress, investigators wondered whether it referred to the evidence against the Trump campaign.
This month, they finally got the chance to ask. Strzok declined to say — but Page, during a closed-door interview with lawmakers, confirmed in the most pained and contorted way that the message in fact referred to the quality of the Russia case, according to multiple eyewitnesses.
The admission is deeply consequential. It means Rosenstein unleashed the most awesome powers of a special counsel to investigate an allegation that the key FBI officials, driving the investigation for 10 months beforehand, did not think was “there.”
By the time of the text and Mueller’s appointment, the FBI’s best counterintelligence agents had had plenty of time to dig. They knowingly used a dossier funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign — which contained uncorroborated allegations — to persuade the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to issue a warrant to monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter Page (no relation to Lisa Page).
They sat on Carter Page’s phones and emails for nearly six months without getting evidence that would warrant prosecuting him. The evidence they had gathered was deemed so weak that their boss, then-FBI Director James Comey, was forced to admit to Congress after being fired by Trump that the core allegation remained substantially uncorroborated.
In other words, they had a big nothing burger. And, based on that empty-calorie dish, Rosenstein authorized the buffet menu of a special prosecutor that has cost America millions of dollars and months of political strife.
The work product Strzok created to justify the collusion probe now has been shown to be inferior: A Clinton-hired contractor produced multiple documents accusing Trump of wrongdoing during the election; each was routed to the FBI through a different source or was used to seed news articles with similar allegations that further built an uncorroborated public narrative of Trump-Russia collusion. Most troubling, the FBI relied on at least one of those news stories to justify the FISA warrant against Carter Page.
That sort of multifaceted allegation machine, which can be traced back to a single source, is known in spy craft as “circular intelligence reporting,” and it’s the sort of bad product that professional spooks are trained to spot and reject.
But Team Strzok kept pushing it through the system, causing a major escalation of a probe for which, by his own words, he knew had “no big there there.”
The answer as to why a pro such as Strzok would take such action has become clearer, at least to congressional investigators. That clarity comes from the context of the other emails and text messages that surrounded the May 19, 2017, declaration.
It turns out that what Strzok and Lisa Page were really doing that day was debating whether they should stay with the FBI and try to rise through the ranks to the level of an assistant director (AD) or join Mueller’s special counsel team.
“Who gives a f*ck, one more AD like [redacted] or whoever?” Strzok wrote, weighing the merits of promotion, before apparently suggesting what would be a more attractive role: “An investigation leading to impeachment?”
Lisa Page apparently realized the conversation had gone too far and tried to reel it in. “We should stop having this conversation here,” she texted back, adding later it was important to examine “the different realistic outcomes of this case.”
A few minutes later Strzok texted his own handicap of the Russia evidence: “You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.”
So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative — as well as Rosenstein’s decision to appoint Mueller — apparently knew all along that the evidence was going to lead to “nothing” and, yet, they proceeded because they thought there was still a possibility of impeachment.
Impeachment is a political outcome. The only logical conclusion, then, that congressional investigators can make is that political bias led these agents to press an investigation forward to achieve the political outcome of impeachment, even though their professional training told them it had “no big there there.”
And that, by definition, is political bias in action.
How concerned you are by this conduct is almost certainly affected by your love or hatred for Trump. But put yourself for a second in the hot seat of an investigation by the same FBI cast of characters: You are under investigation for a crime the agents don’t think occurred, but the investigation still advances because the desired outcome is to get you fired from your job.
Is that an FBI you can live with?
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He is The Hill’s executive vice president for video.
In Nicaragua, is Operation “Contra bis” failing?
By Alex Anfrus | Journal of Our Americas, Investig’Action | July 21, 2018
Thrown under the spotlight since mid-April, the homeland of Sandino is still facing an intense political crisis. From now on, the crisis seems to be approaching its final resolution. On the one hand, the Nicaraguan people are mobilizing more and more alongside the authorities to help them dismantle barricades in insurgent spots. And on the other hand, in one week two big demonstrations for peace took place. Against the wishes of an opposition camp and spokespersons of the US administration, the message of Daniel Ortega during the march for peace of July 7 in Managua was crystal clear: “Here it is the people who set the rules in the Constitution of the Republic. They will not change overnight by the will of some coup leaders. If the putschists want to come to the government, let them seek the people’s vote in the next elections. With all the destruction they have provoked, we will see what support they will have.” But these facts are minimized by the private media and major news agencies, which continue to hide the evolution on the ground and blow on the embers of the dispute. Which side will tip the scales?
A dreadful propaganda scheme
In a recent article, I examined a number of contradictions in the treatment by international media of Nicaragua. Notably, one can recognize one of the principles of war propaganda which is to reverse the aggressor and the victim. The scheme works as follows: first, an opposition sector, one that refuses dialogue with the government, plans to control some parts of the capital and other cities by means of barricades. These areas are then considered “liberated from tyranny”, and thus represent the hearth of insurgency that must recur throughout the country, to defeat the operations of “repression” of police forces. This tactic of deploying barricades has been theorized as an effective means of preventing the authorities from gaining control over the national territory, because it is “impossible for the government to have enough personnel to control every inch of the country”. The first obvious thing to emphasize is that this is not a completely spontaneous crisis that emerges from a massive popular mobilization, but that there is indeed an insurrectional plan in place capable of standing up to the authorities for months. We are witnessing the first phase in the development of an unconventional war to overthrow a democratically elected government.
Then, a number of clashes take place in these areas “liberated” by the opposition. At this point, it is not trivial to note that the activists who defend these barricades are no longer peaceful protesters that the mainstream media has portrayed. Images of hooded youths handling homemade mortars and other explosive devices are impossible to conceal. In fact, they even contribute to the creation of a “romantic” dimension of popular resistance in the context of face-to-face contact with the professional police corps. This is where the second phase of the unconventional war comes in, namely the decisive role of media corporations that contribute to the production of a dominant and one-sided narrative of the crisis. It is easier to identify with a young demonstrator who is rebelling than a young police officer compelled to use force to enforce the law. Thus, when there have been deaths around the barricades, it becomes complicated for an outside observer to know the truth.
Who is not concerned with these victims?
A simple and quick tour of private media news will make anyone realize that the idealized dimension mentioned above serves only to delegitimize government action. No one is asking themselves this simple question: “Was the victim a pro-government Sandinista helping the police dismantle the barricades, or an opponent who defended them?” Many testimonies in favor of the first version have been systematically dismissed! Indeed, the role of the private media is fundamental in order to give maximum credibility to the opposition’s side of the story. Would the latter be manipulating the victims’ memory with the complicity of some private media in Nicaragua? This is quite a strong point for us: what about the many cases of victims whose membership in the pro-government camp has been proven?
In the framework of the peace talks, the Nicaraguan government first accepted that the IACHR (Note: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, organ of the Organization of American States (OAS)) lead a human rights observation mission. But it went on to denounce that its report does not include the description of many cases of attacks against civilian victims, including public officials, as a result of the violence unleashed by the opposition. Are the dice loaded? Here are some recent examples that illustrate a much more nuanced situation than that described by some media:
– On June 19, the authorities launch an operation in Masaya to release the Deputy Director of the National Police Ramon Avellan and his agents, who were entrenched in the police station, surrounded by barricades since June 2. Every night, protesters fired mortar at the police station, accompanied by threats: “What do you think? That there were only “güevones” (rascals) in this fight? Here again, here is my little sister… ” Then, the mortar fire would start again near the police station… Under the pretext of playful action, a video shows how protesters positioned behind a barricade sing menacing songs against General Avellan, accompanied by shots. According to the Pro-Human Rights Nicaraguan Association ANPDH organization, as a result of the police rescue operation, six people – including three whose identity remains to be verified – were murdered in several surrounding neighborhoods.
– On June 30, in the context of an opposition march, a protester was shot dead. Recorded a few minutes before the tragedy by a journalist who was there, a video shows how opposition members surround a private security officer and ask him to handover his weapon, simulating a hostage situation in order to justify their action. Then, the images show a person who stands behind the agent, points a pistol at his temple and steals his rifle. Later, the protesters will attribute the death to government repression.
– On July 3, two people were kidnapped in Jinotepe by a group of armed hooded men: police major Erlin García Cortez and Enacal worker Erasmo Palacios. Three days later, Bismarck de Jesús Martínez Sánchez, a worker from the Managua City Hall, was also kidnapped. A week later, relatives had still not received any sign of life from them.
– On July 5, the lifeless body of National Police officer Yadira Ramos was found in Jinotepe. She had been kidnapped, raped and tortured. She had been forced to get off her vehicle and her husband had been killed on the spot.
– On July 6, FSLN member Roberto Castillo Cruz was killed by opposition hoodlums who held barricades in Jinotepe. His son, Christopher Castillo Rosales had been killed just a week before him. In a video published shortly before his own murder, Castillo Cruz denounced the murderers: “This criminal gang of the right has killed my son, I only ask for justice and that peace prevails so that our children do not lose their lives!”
– On July 8, during a nighttime clash in Matagalpa, a 55-year-old man named Aran Molina was killed while rescuing Lalo Soza, a Sandinista activist who was under attack. The following day, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) paid tribute to him through a procession. The same day, two other people were killed: social worker Tirzo Ramón Mendoza, executed by hooded people after being kidnapped, and a third victim whose identity remains unknown.
– On 9 July, the authorities dismantled the barricades that prevented free movement in the towns of Diriamba and Jinotepe. Many residents then testified about the many violent actions of the opposition, including torture against the Sandinistas. At the same time, representatives of the Episcopal Conference arrived. Citizens of Jinotepe then entered the church, where they found opposition members disguised as members of the clergy. Residents accused church officials of protecting them and not saying anything or doing anything to stop the violence unleashed in the last two months. In Diriamba, the inhabitants also discovered an arsenal of mortars hidden in the church of San Sebastian.
– On July 12, a criminal gang attacked the Morrito Town Hall in Rio San Juan. A historical Sandinista fighter, Carlos Hernandez, was kidnapped there. Seriously wounded and unable to escape, a youth Sandinista activist, two police officers and their superiors are murdered. A Sandinista activist received a bullet in the abdomen. Later, schoolmaster Marvin Ugarte Campos would succumb to his injuries. The version of the opposition? It says the massacre was … a “self-attack by paramilitaries”!
It seems that some deaths and violent acts have no value, while others are erected as martyrs for a sacred cause. In the end, does everything depend on the prism through which we look at reality? Are we already placed in a camp in a conflict without knowing it or even suspecting it? In this case, would it be a waste of time to try to form one’s own opinion from fact analysis? The search for peace and truth prevents us from succumbing to such resignation.
In a remarkable 46-page work entitled “The monopoly of death – how to inflate figures to assign them to the government”, Enrique Hendrix identified the numerous inconsistencies in the various reports presented by the three main human rights organizations, the CENIDH (Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights), the IACHR and the ANPDH. Comparing the various reports from the beginning of the crisis to the date of the last reports presented (from April 18 to June 25), he concluded that the three organizations recorded a total of 293 deaths. In 26% of cases (77 citizens), information on the deaths is incomplete and remains to be verified. In 21% of cases (60 citizens), the dead are persons murdered by the opposition, either public officials or Sandinista militants who were murdered for helping the authorities dismantle the barricades. In 20% of the cases (59 citizens), the dead were protesters, opposition members or people who erected barricades. In 17% of cases (51 citizens), the dead do not have a direct relationship with the demonstrations. Finally in 16% of the cases (46 citizens), the dead were passers-by who did not take part in the clashes.
As can be seen in this study, the balance sheets of these organizations are sorely lacking in rigor and mix all sorts of victims (fights between gangs, road accidents, murders in the context of vehicle theft, conflict between land owners, police officers, a pregnant woman in an ambulance blocked by barricades …). Conclusion: if we take into account the exact circumstances of each death, it is obvious that we cannot attribute the responsibility to the government alone. In light of these elements, we have the right to challenge the international media about their lack of objectivity. Why such an alignment with a sector of the opposition who has declared itself fiercely hostile to any dialogue?
Who is not interested in dialogue?
This propaganda mechanism is completed by the “blackout” of other information that is not considered relevant. However, while the media focuses on the clashes, other sectors of the opposition continue to participate in the various sessions of the “dialogue tables for truth, peace and justice”, organized to listen to different points of view and seek to establish responsibility in the wave of violence ravaging the country. Moreover, the final conclusions of the various human rights observation missions in the country had not yet been made, they were to be discussed and include new elements. But what can we expect from the dialogue between the two parties, when a number of observers have already decided in advance that the government alone is responsible for the violence?
All over the world, the role of the police is to repress in case of “disturbance of public order”. But we struggle to understand why the authorities would order it to attack civilians wildly and arbitrarily at the same time as the peace dialogue is taking place. On the other hand, one could expect such an attitude from those who, refusing to participate in the dialogues, would seek to sabotage it, having an interest in the derailment of this process. In this case, it is not unlikely that hooded thugs have been posing as police forces on several occasions.
In any case, it is no less credible than the version of these same hooded thugs, who say that the government of Daniel Ortega would have given the green light to disguised civilians to destroy infrastructure and kill other civilians! Still, the government did not deny that at the beginning of the crisis some police officers sometimes acted using disproportionate violence, and it responded that justice will have to determine their responsibility in actions punishable by law. The National Assembly, for its part, has launched an initiative to create a “Commission for Truth, Justice and Peace” with the aim of reporting on the responsibilities of human rights violations within three months.
But in the fairy tale that the mainstream media is manufacturing from dawn to dusk, and on the internet 24 hours a day, it is not even conceivable that the government of Nicaragua is facing difficulties whose causes would be complex and numerous. The media hype and the positions of foreign political figures serve as irrefutable proof! As has been the case in Venezuela in recent years, taking the public hostage in this way is an insult to its intelligence. Of course, not everything is explained by the tentacles of the imperialist octopus. But for those who are interested in the history of inter-American relations for the last two centuries, it is not serious to forget about its weight and consider that this influence is a thing of the past.
How to export democracy in dollars
It seems that few observers are really shocked by the rapid progression of these events, which are shaped like a breadcrumb trail towards a single objective: condemning the Ortega government and demanding early elections. That’s where the hiccup is: Latin American countries where assassinations of trade unionists, peasants and social leaders have been a common thing for years, where the peace efforts of governments are considered, at best, as totally ineffective, and at worst as non-existent, such as Colombia, Honduras or Mexico, are not at all worried about the image of their “democracies”. There is something wrong, isn’t it? To shed some light on this mystery, a reminder of the history of the twentieth century is worth the detour.
The coups and destabilizations fomented from abroad, such as in the Dominican Republic or in Guatemala, show that in the second half of the 20th century the Latin-American context was still marked by the military interventionism of the Monroe Doctrine and the “manifest destiny” of the United States. It was nothing more than an imperialist policy of controlling the resources and raw materials of Latin America, now presented as an anticommunist “crusade” in the context of the Cold War. On the other hand, the dominance of the United States would not be limited to a demonstration of force based on the “regime change” and the sending of troops on the ground, but it would also take forms of cultural domination, in particular through the so-called “development aid” policies.
In his speech in January 1949, US President Harry Truman described non-industrialized countries as “underdeveloped” countries. Thus, in 1950, the American Congress passed an Act for International Development (AID). On September 4, 1961, a US Congress law replaced the AID by USAID, which was to implement a new, more comprehensive vision of “development assistance” directed anywhere in the planet. As can be seen in the coup against Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, the anti-communist struggle was only a pretext. The main concern of the US government was to prevent the development of national consciousness within the armies and police of “underdeveloped countries”. That is why, from 1950 to 1967, “the United States government spent more than $ 1,500 million on military aid to Latin American countries.” (1)
After the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, John Kennedy announced the Alliance for Progress in 1961. It was a similar initiative to the Marshall Plan in Europe. Between 1961 and 1970, the Alliance for Progress provided $ 20 billion in economic assistance to Latin America. One of the objectives was the stabilization of the regimes that fought against communism and the influence of Cuba.
“John F. Kennedy and his advisers are developing an action plan for the region, the Alliance for Progress, consisting of a $ 20 billion investments for economic development and massive military assistance. The decade of the sixties is marked by the formation of a new generation of Latin American military and the transfer of capital and technology from the US military to Latin America. The Pentagon and the CIA draw their strategy to halt the advance of socialism: the US Army-run Panama School trains the cadres of the Latin American armed forces “. (2)
Under the fallacious concept of “development aid policies”, the “creation of strong armies and police” and “military aid to reactionary and pro-imperialist regimes” served to offer to the monopolies “the most favorable conditions of exploitation of underdeveloped countries “. (3) In other words, this “aid” represented above all a political weapon in favor of the economic interests of the countries of the Global North. These were represented in the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), founded in 1961 and also known as the “Rich Country Club”. It consisted of 27 countries, mostly those of North America, Western Europe and Japan.
Resistance emerges sooner or later
But the new reality resulting from decolonization in Asia and Africa also represented an awareness: the strength of the liberated countries now resided in their unity. This would enable them to exercise some orientation on the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly, and to defend the autonomous “right to development”. Thus, in the 1970s, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) would play an important role in defending the interests of the Group 77. Created in 1964, UNCTAD was characterized by the Common Declaration of the 77 countries as a “historic turning point”.
The invasion and the military occupation of Nicaragua by the United States makes it possible to better appreciate the historical value of the Sandinista Popular Revolution and the resistance to the interferences which it showed in the 1980s. The scandal of the financing of Contras by the CIA through the drug trade in Central America was proof that these plans are not infallible. Despite the many interferences and destabilizations suffered throughout history, the peoples of the South have an advantage over the powerful: collective memory and intelligence.
After the dictatorships’ repression, the debt crisis and the rule of the IMF in the 1970s and 1980s, Latin America was to experience many social revolts in the 1990s, paving the way for the arrival of new progressive governments in Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela or Bolivia. The next step was to launch the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), a regional cooperation body created in 2004 to defeat the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (ALCA in Spanish) by the United States.
What remains today of yesterday’s meddling?
Since the 1990s, at the end of the Cold War, US aid no longer had the pretext of restraining communism. It then took the form of “counter-terrorism” or “security and anti-drug policies”. Here are the main recipients of US aid in Latin America: $ 9.5 billion for Colombia; $ 2.9 billion for Mexico; and since 2016, aid to all countries in the Northern Triangle of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) has exceeded that of the first two. (4) Which explains why we systematically condemn some countries and not others… regardless of reality and the degree of violence.
Yet the Cold War is not over in the minds of some. Thus, OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro believes it is necessary in 2018 to comply with White House requirements, and to harass night and day countries such as Nicaragua or Venezuela at the risk of being ridiculed. Indeed, when in a special session of the OAS the US spokesperson has just criticized the violence in Nicaragua and attributed it exclusively to the government, can we take his word for it? It would be better to remind him that his country does not have the slightest legitimacy to talk about Nicaragua, because it invaded and occupied it militarily for 21 years, then went on to support the clan of the dictator Somoza for another 43 years!
The “conservative restoration” of recent years, with the “soft coups” to overthrow Lugo in Paraguay, Zelaya in Honduras, Rousseff in Brazil; the failure of the peace process in Colombia, the judicial persecution against Jorge Glas, Lula Da Silva and now Rafael Correa, is the ideal context for the OAS, this obsolete organization, to try to put an end to the memory of the social achievements of recent years.
Since the US did not invent hot water, to reach their ends they must use the means at hand. Unsurprisingly, Freedom House, funded among others by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), decided to create a special task force to fight the FSLN in Nicaragua in 1988. It is always opportune to hear NED Co-Founder Allen Weinstein: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA. The biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential is close to zero. Openness is its own protection.”. (5)
Today, the interference keeps going through the financing of opposition movements, framed by training programs for “young leaders” ready to defend tooth and nail the values of the sacrosanct “democracy” and to overthrow “dictatorships” from their countries of origin. From 2014 to 2017, the NED has dedicated up to $ 4.2 million to Nicaraguan organizations such as IEEPP (Institute for Strategic Studies and Public Policy), CPDHN (Human Rights Permanent Commission in Nicaragua), Invermedia, Hagamos Democracia and Fundacion Nicaraguense para el Desarrollo Economico y Social. When we remind this to young opponents and their sympathisers, they pretend not to understand…
While it may have been extremely effective in some countries like Ukraine in 2014, the pattern we have described must be confronted with the reality and political traditions of each country. In Nicaragua, the FSLN is the dominant political force that has won democratically in the last three elections. It is significant that opposition sectors that rely on the support of the US, the right wing, and local employers are forced to use references to Sandinismo in an attempt to gain credibility. However, this practice goes too far when it tries to compare the Sandinista government and the dictatorship of Somoza, thus demonizing Daniel Ortega.
The march for peace convened by the FSLN on July 13, in tribute to the 39th anniversary of the historic “tactical retreat” of Sandinism in Masaya, was a new show of strength of the Nicaraguan people and its willingness to defeat the violent strategy of the opposition. Will the peoples of the world live up to the solidarity that this moment demands?
Notes
1) Yves Fuchs; La coopération. Aide ou néo-colonialisme ? Editions Sociales. Paris, 1973, pp. 55 (Cooperation. Help or neo-colonialism?)
2) Claude Lacaille; En Mission dans la Tourmente des Dictatures. Haïti, Equateur, Chili : 1965-1986. Novalis, Montreal, 2014. p 23. (In Mission in the Torment of Dictators. Haiti, Ecuador, Chile: 1965-1986)
3) Gustavo Esteva, “Desarrollo” in SachsWolfgang (coord.) Diccionario del Desarrollo, Lima, PRATEC, 1996. p. 52.
4) https://www.wola.org/es/analisis/ayuda-militar-de-estados-unidos-en-latinoamerica/
5) Washington Post, 22 September 1991.
The Salisbury Poisonings: “Novichok” – The Odourless Nerve Agent That Stinks to High Heaven
By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | July 20, 2018
Here is a little primer for the British Government on basic logic. Actions have consequences. What this means is that consequences must stem from actions. And the two must be connected. So far so good?
Let me give an example. If I spill boiling hot coffee on my foot, it will cause me pain and possibly even a blister. To flip that over, if I have a blister on my foot, you might ask me, “Oh, how did you get that?” If I told you that I spilt hot coffee on my foot, you would probably wince and say something like, “Ouch, that must have hurt.” And the chances are that you would be satisfied with my explanation. Why? Because boiling hot coffee split on the foot is quite capable of causing a blister.
But what if, in answer to your question of how I came to get the blister, I told you that I spilt some orange juice on my hand. Would you accept my answer? Would you wince and say, “Ouch, that’s gotta hurt”? Would you go away and say to others, “Poor guy, he spilt orange juice on his hand, and now he’s got a horrible blister on his foot”? Probably not!
Your reaction would probably be more along the lines of, “Huhhh??? You spilt orange juice on your hand, and you got a blister on your foot? What are you talking about?” And the reason for this reaction is that you understand that actions have consequences, and consequences stem from actions. And we all know that whereas spilling boiling hot coffee on the foot might well cause the foot to blister, spilling orange juice on your hand will not have that effect.
This is why the Government’s explanation of the Salisbury and Amesbury poisonings is so obviously false. It fails the test of basic logic. All of the pre-2018 literature on the substance known as A-234 (one of the strains of so-called “Novichok”) states that it is lethal, and most sources tell us that it is around 5-8 times more toxic than VX. What happens if you get some of it on you? One of its creators, Vladimir Uglev, has told us what happened after he got a tiny amount of this agent on his hand:
“‘I rinsed my hands with sulfuric acid and then put them under tap water,’ he said, adding it was the only way to survive. Another researcher who was contaminated in 1987 died of multiple illnesses five years later [my emphasis].”
The only way to survive? Sulfuric acid followed by lots of running water? Has there been any confirmation that after the Skripals and DS Bailey allegedly came into contact the substance, they immediately washed their hands with sulfuric acid and water? I haven’t come across this particular detail yet, but if anybody has, do let me know. And lest anyone says that the substance that the Skripals got on their skin might have been less potent than the substance Mr Uglev got on his hand, the OPCW report of 4th May claimed that traces of the substance, allegedly on the door handle, weeks after the incident, were of “high purity”.
So they got the same substance on their hands as Mr Uglev, yet whilst for him it meant:
Sulfuric Acid + Water or Face Instant Death
For Mr Skripal and his daughter it meant:
Feeding the Ducks + Drink + Meal
Mr Uglev is no friend of the current Russian Government, but in case anyone is not satisfied with his testimony, note that it was essentially backed up recently by Alistair Hay, Professor of Environmental Toxicology at the University of Leeds, who said this in relation to the more recent Amesbury case:
“A few millilitres would be sufficient to probably kill a good number of people and you could store that in a small ampoule, or it might be in a small container like for nail varnish.”
His testimony regarding the container is particularly useful, I’m sure, and is just the sort of thing that sets Professors apart from the rest of us. I mean, who knew that liquid can be stored in a container? But it’s the other part of it that is truly fascinating. He is of course correct to say that a few millilitres of military grade nerve agent is enough to kill many people – sulfuric acid and water notwithstanding. This is what it is designed to do. So doesn’t he think it mighty odd that it somehow didn’t do this, even thought it was apparently “high purity” and “military grade”? Furthermore, doesn’t he find it odd that underneath his claim, Public Health England once again advised people who thought they might have come into contact with it to:
“Wipe personal items such as phones, handbags and other electronic items with cleansing or baby wipes and dispose of the wipes in the bin (ordinary domestic waste disposal) … Please thoroughly wash your hands with soap and water after cleaning any items.”
Wot no sulfuric acid??? Or are they now making baby wipes with traces of sulfuric acid these days? Just in case.
Coming into contact with more than a few millilitres of high purity A-234, and then going to feed ducks, have a drink and eat a meal is no more plausible than the claim that spilling orange juice on the hand leads to blisters on the foot.
But this is not all. I have consciously avoided commenting much on the Amesbury case, and this for two reasons. Firstly, because the level of disinformation and propaganda around the case means that trying to keep up with it is nigh on impossible. But more importantly, it is because the second case is being used by the authorities to shore up the first case, by a very clever sleight of hand, as if the claims made in the first case have been proven. Which they haven’t.
I’ll show you what I mean. In her statement to the House of Commons in 14th March, Mrs May said the following:
“And there were only two plausible explanations. Either this was a direct act by the Russian State against our country. Or conceivably, the Russian government could have lost control of a military-grade nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others. [my emphasis]”
Since then, not only has the Government singularly failed to provide the evidence to back up either of these “plausible alternatives”, but it has become abundantly clear that there are actually a good many others. Yet on 5th July, the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, stated the following to the House of Commons:
“The decision taken by the Russian government to deploy these in Salisbury on March 4th was reckless and callous – there is no plausible alternative explanation to the events in March other than the Russian state was responsible [my emphasis].”
See the sleight of hand? In March, there were apparently two plausible alternatives. Since then, neither of those alternatives has been backed up by any evidence whatsoever. Yet come 5th July, with the second case, the number of plausible alternatives is down to zero. There is one explanation, and one explanation alone. “Do not mistake me for a conjurer of cheap tricks,” said Gandalf to Frodo. “Do not mistake me for a person with integrity,” said Sajid Javid, conjurer of cheap tricks, to the House as he performed his sleight of hand.
Did no one in Parliament think to ask Mr Javid how the Government had managed to rule out “the other plausible alternative” between March and July? Did nobody demand to know what evidence they had discovered, which they haven’t told us about, to warrant this claim? Of course not. They never demanded to see any evidence of the two plausible alternatives back in March, and the likelihood that they might have developed some integrity and inquisitiveness in the four months following was slim. No, they accepted Mr Javid’s sleight of hand, his unsubstantiated claim dressed up as fact […]
I view the Amesbury case as a tragedy, in that Dawn Sturgess lost her life. But as far as the case itself is concerned, it seems to me to be something of a rabbit trail, with a mountain of disinformation – whether wittingly or unwittingly – which not only keeps us scratching our heads trying to figure it all out, but which is also being used to pretend that the official version of events in the first case has been proven. Which — I reiterate — it most certainly hasn’t.
Nevertheless, let’s debunk it where we can. I had understood from some of the original reports about Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, that both of them had a “high dose” of “Novichok” on just one hand. I understood this to be the case because that’s what the authorities told us, although I am of course by now well aware that Rule Number One in this case is to take everything the authorities say with a bucket of salt:
“‘This means they must have got a high dose and our hypothesis is that they must have handled a container that we are now seeking.’ It is understood the couple each had nerve agent on one of their hands.”
What is a “high dose? Is it more than the tiny amount Vladimir Uglev got on his hands, which forced him to resort to washing it off with sulfuric acid immediately? Is it more than the few millilitres Alistair Hay says, “would be sufficient to probably kill a good number of people”?
I don’t suppose it matters now, however, because the “facts” have since changed. Apparently they now didn’t get it on one hand. No, Ms Sturgess apparently sprayed it on both wrists. Wrists, not hand. Two wrists, not one hand. Got that?
“Novichok victim Dawn Sturgess died after spraying perfume laced with the nerve agent onto both her wrists, her boyfriend, who was also exposed to the deadly substance, has revealed. They are believed to have stumbled upon the same batch of Novichok used to try to assassinate Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in nearby Salisbury in March.”
So it was the same batch of high purity A-234 that was found on Mr Skripal’s door handle – the type that Vladimir Uglev needed to cleanse immediately with sulfuric acid and water, but which sent Mr Skripal and Yulia off to feed the ducks etc? Remember the orange juice and the blister.
But there’s more. Mr Rowley’s brother, Matthew, who apparently spoke to Charlie, had this to say:
“He also mentioned that he vaguely recollects there being an odd ammonia-type smell from the perfume. We don’t know yet if he had direct contact with the nerve agent like Dawn appears to have done or whether it was after he had touched her.”
The ammonia-type smell is odd, in more ways than one. The pre-2018 scientific literature not only states that A-234 is far deadlier than VX (see here), and that its effects are rapid, usually within 30 seconds to 2 minutes (see here), but it also describes it, along with all nerve agents, as odourless (see here). But according to the latest narrative, it smelt of ammonia.
I think we have another orange juice on the hand and blister on the foot moment. If it’s odourless, it can’t very well smell of ammonia, can it? In fact, it can’t very well smell of anything, can it? It’s odourless, and odourless things don’t tend to smell of ammonia. Or anything else, come to that.
Ah, but maybe it was contaminated? Really? But didn’t the OPCW state that the stuff allegedly placed on Mr Skripals door handle – the stuff they touched before feeding the ducks, going to a pub and then going to a restaurant – was high purity? I believe they did. And this was the same batch? A batch of the stuff that certain experts were telling us could last for decades? From whence cometh the ammonia then? From the odourless “Novichok”, of course.
Folks, what we have is a substance with astonishing properties. It is lethal, but non-lethal. It is military grade, but not really military grade. It is fast acting, but slow working. It can be in the form of a gel, but morph into a liquid. It is odourless, and yet really smelly. Or are we to believe that after placing their high purity “Novichok” gel on the door handle, the assassins then spent time turning it into a liquid, which they then poured into an ammonia-laced perfume bottle? Oh, and then instead of legging it to Heathrow, they took a detour to go for a walk in the park, where they dumped the bottle of odourless but ammonia-smelling nerve agent on the floor. What do they teach them in Professional Assassin schools these days?
Hands to Wrists. Gel to Liquid. Odourless to Ammonia. Orange juice on the hand to blisters on the foot. It’s all the same to me.
From a purely logical point of view, I understand that this is all complete and utter nonsense. But I do wish I’d paid more attention in chemistry classes at school so I might at least be able to debunk it from that point of view. But alas it was not to be. However, since I know nothing about that side of things, I thought I’d ask someone who does. David Collum is a world-renowned Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University, with a PhD, MS and MA from Columbia University, and a BS from Cornell. I asked him what he thought of the claim being made in the UK media that Dawn Sturgess was poisoned by “Novichok” and this gave off an “an odd ammonia-type smell”. His answer, which I will leave you with, whilst not what you might call eloquent, was certainly to the point:
“Democratic Institutions?” – 10 Lessons from history that will destroy your trust in the CIA
Did everyone urging us to trust the CIA forget this happened? Or do they just want us to?
By Kit | OffGuardian | July 20, 2018
In the hysterical wake of the Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki, President Donald Trump was roundly criticised in the media for taking the side of a “hostile state” over his own intelligence agencies. The Guardian referred to Mueller as a “heroic marine” who Trump disbelieved in favour of a “Russian dictator”.
In the past, when Trump has criticised the FBI, CIA or NSA he has been accused of “undermining faith in our institutions”. He’s been blamed for a collapse of trust in the government. But was this trust ever earned?
At every corner, we are urged to simply believe what we are told. Whether it is about believing Porton Down and MI6 about “novichok”, or believing the White Helmets about Sarin, or believing the FBI about “collusion”, we are presented with no facts, just assertions from authority. Those who question those assertions are deemed “bots” at best or “traitors” at worst.
Well here, fellow traitors, are the Top Ten reasons to question anything and everything the CIA – or any intelligence agency – has ever told you.
10. OPERATION PAPERCLIP – we’ll start with an oldie but a goody. In 1945, as the allies were advancing on Berlin from both sides, American Army Intelligence (this was before the CIA were founded) were “capturing” (read: recruiting) over 1,600 Nazi scientists and engineers. Most famous of them was Werhner von Braun… sorry, SS Sturmbannführer von Braun.
Whilst Allied soldiers died in the name of defeating fascism, the CIA’s predecessors were actively recruiting Nazis to come and build bombs for them.
9. OPERATION NORTHWOODS – The original, and important, precedent for accusations that the CIA et al. might engage in false-flag attacks. Operation Northwoods was a joint CIA/Pentagon proposal designed around the idea of escalating a war with Cuba by stoking public anger:
The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or other U.S. government operatives to commit acts of terrorism against American civilians and military targets, blaming it on the Cuban government, and using it to justify a war against Cuba.
The idea was vetoed by President Kennedy. Fifty years later, the CIA and Pentagon still very much exist, but there’s no longer a Kennedy there to veto their more psychopathic ideas. Funny how that worked out.
8. ALLENDE COUP – In 1970 Salvador Allende was elected to the Chilean Presidency. A Physician and dedicated socialist, Allende was the first socialist president elected in South America. The Nixon-lead government of the United States immediately implemented “economic warfare” (as they do, to this day, against Cuba, Venezuela and others). The economic warfare did not work, and in 1973 Allende’s socialist party increased their parliamentary majority.
In response, the US “assisted” (read: instructed) the Chilean military in carrying out a coup. Allende allegedly shot himself, and Augusto Pinochet was placed in power as the first dictator in Chile’s history. Pinochet was a fascist who executed Chilean “subversives” by the thousand… and was the darling of Western leaders.
7. MOSADDEGH COUP – I could just copy-and-paste the above paragraph and the change the names for this entry. In 1953, the Prime Minister of Iran – Mohammad Mosaddegh, a democratic socialist – wanted to audit the income of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company with an eye to limiting foreign control of Iran’s oil. Within a few months, a joint US/UK operation – Operation Ajax – had removed Mosaddegh’s elected government and turned over full control of the state to the Shah. He was a brutal absolute monarch, but the question of Western control of Iran’s enormous oil reserves wasn’t raised again under his leadership.
6. OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD – A CIA operation that you could deduce existed, even if were not proven…. and it is proven. Mockingbird was the CIA project to coerce, train, control or plant CIA-friendly journalists in major news networks all across the country and in every medium. It’s existence is no longer disputed, thanks to FOIA releases of internal memos.
Mockingbird was allegedly shut down in 1976 – just after its existence was leaked – then CIA director George HW Bush claiming:
… effective immediately, CIA will not enter into any paid or contractual relationship with any full-time or part-time news correspondent accredited by any U.S. news service, newspaper, periodical, radio or television network or station.”
If you’re willing to stake anything on the word of a Bush, well, good luck with that. It’s a decision that flies in the face of historical evidence.
Remember this one when you hear about the need to trust the CIA from some pundit on CNN or MSNBC.
5. MASS SURVEILLANCE – It’s not really talked about much these days – what with the vast majority of the media and huge sections of the supposedly “anti-establishment” progressive left marching in-step with the Deep State – but the NSA spied on the whole world. The whole world. We know this to be true because an employee of the Deep State – Edward Snowden – leaked the information.
When challenged on this issue, representatives of the NSA and CIA lied. They lied to the public, and they lied to congress. When they were proven to have lied, they carefully qualified their lies.
A qualified lie is still a lie.
There is no indication they have stopped this illegal surveillance, but they may have passed laws to make it legal.
4. NAYIRAH – A classic of “atrocity propaganda”, Nayirah should be required reading material for anybody looking top hop on a pro-war bandwagon. Nayirah – who originally gave only her first name – was a fifteen year old girl who testified in front of the United States Congress. She claimed to be a volunteer from at a Kuwaiti hospital, and to be an eye-witness to Iraqi soldiers throwing Kuwaiti babies out of incubators and leaving them to die:
I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital with twelve other women who wanted to help as well. I was the youngest volunteer. The other women were from twenty to thirty years old. While I was there I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators and left the children to die on the cold floor. It was horrifying.
It was later revealed, not only that her full name was Nayirah al-Sabah and she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador, but that she had never volunteered at a hospital and had seen no babies, soldiers or incubators. The whole thing was a fiction. A fiction paid for by the “Citizens of Free Kuwait”, an NGO (and obvious CIA front) set up to lobby the US to intervene in the Iraq-Kuwait war.
By the time this fiction was revealed it was too late, and the US had launched Operation Desert Storm…. which was, of course, the entire point of the exercise.
Remember this, when you hear about Assad gassing children or bombing kittens.
3. COINTELPRO – The FBI’s long running (and sometimes illegal) COunter INTELligence PROgram, COINTELPRO was a series of domestic projects carried out by the FBI (with cooperation from other agencies), over decades, with the aim of “surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations”.
These political organizations included anti-Vietnam protestors, civil rights groups (including both MLK and Malcolm X), socialists, Communist Party USA, environmental groups and feminist organizations.
The brief for these “disruptions” came straight from J. Edgar Hoover who wanted the FBI to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise Neutralize” people he perceived to be enemies of the state. The capital N in “neutralise” is no accident, as the FBI was implicated in the deaths of several Black Panther leaders, including Fred Hampton.
COINTELPRO didn’t just involve undermining left-wing groups, but also creating right-wing groups:
The FBI also financed, armed, and controlled an extreme right-wing group of former Minutemen, transforming it into a group called the Secret Army Organization that targeted groups, activists, and leaders involved in the Anti-War Movement, using both intimidation and violent acts.
Whether this was done to actually push a right-wing agenda, create a fake threat to step up police powers, or just sow division and chaos, is unclear. But it definitely happened.
Much like MKUltra (below), COINTELPRO was “officially shut down”, not long after the public found out it existed. However, the accidental outing of undercover policeman at a rally in Oakland, and recent relaxation of the laws limiting the FBI’s powers, means that COINTELPRO – or a modern successor – is very likely still a thing.
The aim of COINTELPRO was to “Neutralize” anti-establishment political figures – the vast majority of targets were left wingers – through “smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media”. Remember that when you see Rand Paul called a “traitor” on twitter, or read about “Russian collusion”, or see Jeremy Corbyn branded an anti-Semite.
Remember that it is proven that the Deep State – our trusted intelligence agencies – pay people to plant false stories and discredit political opponents.
2. PROJECT MKULTRA – It might sound like something from a 70s sci-fi TV series, but it is unfortunately real. MKUltra was a series of (illegal) experiments carried out by the CIA from 1953 until it was *cough* “officially halted” in 1973 (just after its existence was leaked). The experiments were wide-ranging, achieved varied levels of success, but pretty uniformly brutal and unethical. They included, but were not limited too:
– Giving LSD to unsuspecting soldiers to see what happened.
– Mass hypnosis and mass suggestion
– Torture studies
– Studies on the effect of verbal and/or sexual abuse
We’ll never know the full range of studies, or how they were carried out, because in 1973 Richard Helms, then director of the CIA, ordered all MKUltra files destroyed. Only a fraction of them survive, thanks to FOIA requests, but it’s reasonable to assume they destroyed the worst parts and kept the more quote-unquote innocent files.
The CIA were not unique in this regard either, MKUltra was their baby – but there were parallel projects in other quarters of the deep state. Army Intelligence had Edgewood Arsenal, whilst the Department of Defense had Project 112. All these projects were “officially halted” in the early 70s… just around the time the public found out they existed.
The CIA (et al.) have strongly denied that these experiments and projects have ever been continued in any way, shape or form…but if you’d asked them in 1969, they would have denied they had ever taken place at all.
1. THE IRAQ WAR – This might not be the most callous, the most dangerous, the most recent, the most secret or the most insidious of the items on this list, nevertheless it is – must be – number one… because it is the most brazen.
The war was started in the name of “weapons of mass destruction” that everyone – everyone – knew never existed. They all knew the truth, but they lied.
The President lied, the vice-president lied, the secretary of defence lied, the secretary of state lied. The Prime Minister lied, the defence minister lied, the foreign minister lied. They lied to the press, the people and the UN.
The CIA, the NSA, the FBI – then headed by the “heroic marine” Robert Mueller – they lied too. The press repeated these lies, without question (see: Operation Mockingbird). They weren’t “misinformed”, they weren’t “mistaken”. They lied, they lied repeatedly – and provably – and they did it in order to start a war, make money, take control, spread influence.
One million Iraqis died.
Our ruling class is peopled with psychopaths and war criminals, who have so little regard for the people they lie to they recycle the same childishly simple falsehoods to further their evil agenda again and again and again. They tried the same in Libya… it worked again. They tried again in Syria… luckily, it didn’t work there.
Our “democratic institutions” lie to start wars. There’s no reason to think they aren’t doing – or wouldn’t do – the same thing about Iran, North Korea… or Russia.
That’s our list, and there’s really only one lesson you can take away from it:
These people, agencies and institutions deserve no trust, have earned no trust and have abused every micron of trust ever placed in them. To suggest we have a duty to believe them – or that they have ever done anything to serve the public good – is to live in a dream world.
This list is not a full catalogue of Deep State crimes, it would be 1,000s of entries long if it were, but these ten are important. They’re important because they are admitted, proven and beyond debate. They are important because they show the many facets of dishonesty, hypocrisy and abuses of power that Intelligence agencies engage in, and they are important because they form the best riposte to the disingenuous clamour for “trust” in our “democratic institutions”.
Never trust the CIA, they have proved they don’t deserve it.
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As Hillary Clinton kisses up to Henry Kissinger, RT looks at 4 of his most heinous acts
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