Hillary’s ‘Russian Hack’ Hoax: The Biggest Lie of This Election Season
By Patrick Henningsen | 21st Century Wire | Noember 1, 2016
The longer this soap opera drags on, it’s becoming more and more evident that the Russia government did not ‘hack’ into the DNC, and Moscow is not feeding John Podesta’s emails to Wikileaks. For those who are deeply invested in this now official conspiracy theory, this might be a hard pill to swallow.
The White House and the Hillary Clinton campaign are now married to the idea that ‘Putin is hacking the US elections.’ In response, the President is weighing his options – tougher economic sanctions, revoking diplomatic status to Russian envoys in the US, or even deploying his newly developed ‘malicious cyber-activity’ tools.
Even VP Joe Biden wants in on the action, threatening Moscow by saying,”We’re sending a message. We have the capacity to do it.”
It seems that where ever you turn nowadays, someone in Washington is issuing a threat against Russia. Are US-Russian relations really that bad, or does this trend have more to do with the defense industry and power struggles within the US?
What was previously a stance reserved for right-wing neoconservative hawks and Cold War hold-outs has now infected America’s left-wing, and is a firm plank in the Democratic Party platform, as evidenced by Hillary Clinton’s constant anti-Russian rhetoric throughout this 2016 election cycle. Along with the White House, Clinton has now transformed the Democrats into the vanguard of Washington’s new anti-Russia movement.
On July 27th, Josh Rogin from the Washington Post wrote, “The Clinton campaign has decided to escalate its rhetoric on Russia. After Trump suggested Wednesday that if Russia had indeed hacked Clinton’s private email server it should release the emails, the Clinton campaign sent out its Democratic surrogates to bash Russia and Trump in a manner traditionally reserved for Republicans.”
Anyone who was paying attention back then knew this ‘Russian hack’ talking point was purely political, but then again, who’s really paying attention these days? Certainly not the US media.
Backed by the Obama White House, Clinton and the media pressed ahead blaming Russia – not only for the controversial DNC leaks, but also for hacking into US election systems in Arizona – a charge devoid of any evidence other than innuendo and speculation. The media’s coverage on this issue was deceptive from the onset. In a leading news release, entitled, Russian hackers targeted Arizona election system, we can see how after the cock-sure headline, the first paragraph would always sound definitive:
“Hackers targeted voter registration systems in Illinois and Arizona, and the FBI alerted Arizona officials in June that Russians were behind the assault on the election system in that state.”
But then by the time you advanced down the story, the report would quickly retreat into a zone of uncertainty:
“The bureau described the threat as “credible” and significant, “an eight on a scale of one to 10,” Matt Roberts, a spokesman for Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan (R), said Monday. As a result, Reagan shut down the state’s voter registration system for nearly a week.”
And then, down to almost nothing…
“It turned out that the hackers had not compromised the state system or even any county system. They had, however, stolen the username and password of a single election official in Gila County.”
At no point was any evidence ever given. Only ambiguous statements like, “Cyber security officials agree that this looks very much like a Russian government-directed hack.”
Are American politicians so callous as to tempt geopolitical conflict in order to further their short-term political ambitions? Better yet, has American political life really arrived such a dark cul de sac (translated in French: ‘bottom of the bag’) where politicians in power are so insecure as to make-up and propagate wild international conspiracy theories – in the middle a national election cycle? It’s a very depressing prospect, and yet, this is exactly what we are seeing in this 2016 Presidential Election.
Behind Clinton’s wild hyperbolic rants about the Kremlin and Wikileaks, you will find the White House…
On October 7th, the Obama Administration formally accused the Russian government of stealing emails from the Democratic National Committee and other high-profile individuals including Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta – giving them to Wikileaks.
Soon, there was a queue of ‘national security’ politicians eager to hitch a ride on this bandwagon. Senator Ben Sasse (NE-R), a member of the Homeland Security Committee spouted out, “Russia must face serious consequences. Moscow orchestrated these hacks because [Russian President Vladimir] Putin believes Soviet-style aggression is worth it. The United States must upend Putin’s calculus with a strong diplomatic, political, cyber and economic response.”
According to a Washington Post report by technology editor, Ellen Nakashima, the only ‘evidence’ that seems to be available on this story is a corporate analysis of the alleged ‘Russian government hacks’ – provided by a US cyber security company called Crowdstrike. No actual specifics are given, so we are meant to take private firm Crowdstrike’s word for it.
IMAGE: Crowdstrike cyber security.
The Post’s Nakashima then added:
The administration also blamed Moscow for the hack of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the subsequent leak of private email addresses and cellphone numbers of Democratic lawmakers.
An online persona calling himself Guccifer 2.0 has claimed responsibility for posting the material. Those sites and that persona are “consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts,” the joint statement said. “… We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.
Moscow’s press secretary’s reply: “This is some sort of nonsense,” said Dmitry Peskov.
Despite the constant repetition by Democrat media surrogates, and as CNN’s Maria Cardona said last night, no US national intelligence agency has really “confirmed” that Russia was behind the email hacks – and still no evidence, other than speculative guesswork, has been presented.
Likewise, US intelligence agencies have never actually said definitively on record that “Russia did it,” thus, leaving the door open to walk-back the accusation at a later date. Standard Washington procedure of ambiguity. This little detail doesn’t seem to matter in this hyperbolic political climate though. It seems that the White House, Hillary Clinton and media operatives like Cardona – are quite happy living in what John Kerry recent dubbed as a ‘parallel universe.’
Still, during the final Presidential debate, Hillary Clinton proudly crowed how “17 US intelligence agencies” aka the “Intelligence Community” all agreed that Russia did it. Some might call that propaganda.
“We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin, and they are designed to influence our election,” said Clinton. “I find that deeply disturbing.”
What’s even more disturbing is the fact that Clinton is lying in front of a national audience. The highest levels of the Kremlin? Really? Here are Clinton’s ’17 agencies’:
Air Force Intelligence, Army Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, Coast Guard Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency, Energy Department, Homeland Security Department, State Department, Treasury Department, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Marine Corps Intelligence, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency, Navy Intelligence and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
What does the Coast Guard Intelligence, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency or the Drug Enforcement Administration know about John Podesta’s emails? Answer: nothing.
The exact same thing happened following Wikileaks first trove of DNC emails back in July 2016. The US government issued a vague accusatory statement, but would not actually name the culprit.
In both instances, the Obama Administration refused to present any evidence. Translated: there was no evidence. If there had been, the White House would have been shouting from the rooftops and using it as leverage to apply muscle in the UN over Washington’s flagging efforts in Syria. Both Obama Administration announcements were nothing more than dog whistles for Democrats and “journalists” working for hopelessly partisan outlets like New York Times and CNN – none of whom have bothered to press the White House for one ounce of evidence pertaining to the Party’s decree that “Russian is hacking the US election process.”
To be fair, Hillary would have every reason to believe that the Kremlin is behind the hack – because her staff read it to her from the campaign’s daily intelligence briefings, presumably, supplied from the US government’s much vaunted Intelligence Community. Of course, that’s the same Intelligence Community that briefed George W Bush about Saddam’s nonexistent nuclear weapons program, and who also briefed Cowell Powell about Iraq’s imaginary “Winnebagos of Death” aka mobile anthrax labs disguised as senior double-wide camper vans. So, of course, they would know if Putin directed the DNC leaks and Podesta email hacks.
For those us who are skeptical of the great oxymoron known as ‘Washington Intelligence,’ I can almost hear the mainstream rebuttal now, “No, that was Iraq, that was Bush. We’re not like that. No, this time it’s different. This time we are sure the Russians did it!”
In 2014, Obama claimed that Kim’s notorious “Bureau 121” hacked into Sony Pictures.
This isn’t the first time that President Obama has cried wolf on a foreign ‘hack’ and then tried to sell it for political purposes. Back in December 2014, Obama claimed that North Korea had hacked Sony Pictures in Hollywood. Pentagon-CIA media proxy CNN quickly chimed in to support Washington’s conspiracy theory, floating a colorful story that Kim Jing-Un had deployed a secret underground hacking unit called ‘Bureau 121.’ Just like with today’s “Russian Hack” theory, no member of the mainstream press dared to question the White House’s ridiculous North Korean claim, and like the ‘Russian Hack’ claims, the only source cited for Sony hack was analysis provided by US firm Crowdstrike.
Jumping the Shark
After their Democratic Party Convention on July 27th, the Clinton campaign machine put all of its chips on their Putin narrative.
Soon after, a cadre of top Clinton national security surrogates then accused Trump of emboldening Russia in their evil plot to “destabilize and dominate the West.” Tom Donilon, a former national security adviser then accused Russia of ‘interfering’ with elections all over Europe and then accused Trump is helping Russia directly. At that point, they were in too deep to turn back.
Clinton spin doctors Josh Schwerin and Michael Fallon would stoop even lower by accusing RT of having possession of the Podesta emails even before Wikileaks did. Their only ‘evidence’ seemed to be Twitter posts by RT News which Clinton held up as ‘proof’ that the Kremlin was front-running Wikileaks email dumps. The Clinton braintrust failed to note that the Podesta emails were posted on Wikileaks own website well before RT News had tweeted about them. At that point that it became obvious that the Clinton campaign was panicking and hysterically grabbing for any excuse they could get their hands on. We then watched, as one RT reporter after another dismantled the Clinton campaign’s desperate claims. It was embarrassing.
They could not face the uncomfortable fact that it was WikiLeaks head Julian Assange who chose the timing of the release of the DNC and Podesta emails. Rather than attack Assange himself, who happens to be popular with millennials (the very group Clinton struggles to connect with), her operatives opted to target Russia and Trump instead.
Either way, the political strategy here is clear – to shoot the messenger. The Clinton campaign is stuck in permanent rear-guard mode, because based on the content of both the DNC Leaks, Wikileaks files, and Project Veritas video – their own Democratic Party has been discredited and exposed as a corrupt political organization.
Their other big problem is that despite all the outrage from Democrats and their mainstream media surrogates, none of the leaked content has been challenged on the basis of its authenticity. The results speak for themselves. The initial DNC leak of 20,000 emails resulted in the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. They revealed the unthinkable: the Democratic National Committee actively worked to undermine the Presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders in favor of the establishment choice in Hillary Clinton. Sanders never had a chance. Honest commentators called this an affront to the democratic process, while party insiders and Clinton supporters pretended to be aloof as if it never happened.
To prove this point, both President Obama and Hillary Clinton then gave Wasserman-Schultz glowing endorsement on the way out. “For the last eight years, Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has had my back. This afternoon, I called her to let her know that I am grateful,” said Obama. Not surprisingly, Clinton thanked Wasserman Schultz, presumably for helping to knock her only competitor Sanders out of the Democrat primary race. “I am grateful to Debbie for getting the Democratic Party to this year’s historic convention in Philadelphia, and I know that this week’s events will be a success thanks to her hard work and leadership,” said Clinton.
The party had sold its soul to devil and no one seemed to care too much about it.
Party Meltdown
Wasserman Schultz’s replacement didn’t fair much better. DNC Vice Chairwoman Donna Brazile was installed to serve as interim chair through the remainder election, but Brazile was soon skewered by subsequent Wikileaks batches – showing how, on more than one occasion, she fed debate questions obtained from corrupt mainstream media operatives – straight to Hillary Clinton.
“A March 12 email exchange shows Brazile stating that she received a town hall question from Roland Martin, a TV One host who co-moderated a March 13 town hall with CNN’s Jake Tapper.”
“A March 5 email shows that she shared a question with Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and communications director Jennifer Palmieri that was to be asked in a March 6 debate hosted by CNN in Flint, Mich.” (Source: Daily Caller)
Brazile’s audacious fraud also helped contribute to her party’s planned sabotage of Democrat challenger Bernie Sanders. Watch Brazile go into full meltdown when confronted here:
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Completely corrupt and still, Brazile even had to temerity to deny doing it when pressed on FOX News last week. Brazile’s reputation is so bad now that even CNN has severed ties with her – and that’s saying a lot.
In addition, it was also revealed how CNN’s head political commentator, Gloria Borger, was named by Podesta as one of a shortlist of ‘journalists’ the Clinton campaign would “work with” to gain favorable coverage. You’d think that CNN would have dropped Borger after this was revealed, but no. Amazingly, Borges is still leading CNN’s election coverage.
Clearly, CNN cannot be trusted to police itself when it comes to matters of outright collusion with Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
Worse Than Watergate
Perhaps a bigger scandal which the Obama White House and Clinton campaign operatives would like to bury – is the FBI’s investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal confirmed the existence of an internal feud between the FBI and the Justice Department, over whether or not to pursue an investigation into Clinton issue:
“Some investigators grew frustrated, viewing FBI leadership as uninterested in probing the charity, these people said. Others involved disagreed sharply, defending FBI bosses and saying Mr. McCabe in particular was caught between an increasingly acrimonious fight for control between the Justice Department and FBI agents pursuing the Clinton Foundation case. It isn’t unusual for field agents to favor a more aggressive approach than supervisors and prosecutors think is merited. But the internal debates about the Clinton Foundation show the high stakes when such disagreements occur surrounding someone who is running for president.”
There’s more. It was also revealed last week how Jill McCabe, the wife of FBI Deputy Director, Andrew McCabe, received $467,500 in campaign funds in late 2015 for her Virginia State Senate run. This unusually large donation came via a political action committee run by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe – a Clinton Foundation board member. After the funds were donated, Andrew McCabe was then put in charge of the Clinton Email case. In normal times, this one scandal would be bigger than Watergate, but these are not normal times.
So why is Washington going all out to deflect to Russia, and cover-up the Clinton scandals, and the Wikileaks document dumps? One reason is because the Clinton email issue goes all the way to the top – to the President himself.
What 21WIRE reported on Oct 21st is how President Obama lied when first confronted about whether or not he knew about the existence of Hillary’s unauthorized private server. Obama told CBS News on March 7, 2015 that he only found out about Clinton’s server “the same time everybody else learned it through news reports.” The President’s lie was confirmed when newly released FBI documents showed that:
“Obama used a pseudonym [bobama@ameritech.net] when communicating with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by email, and at least one of those emails ended up on Clinton’s private email server.”
So, not only did Obama lie on national TV, but he also broke strict White House security protocols by carelessly exchanging private emails “off grid” with Hillary Clinton on a unsecured and unauthorized mail server – maybe to avoid the same scrutiny one would have on a government system. Who knows why he did it.
Sure, he’s not the first US President to lie, but like, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, Obama just joined that exclusive liars club – caught out lying to the American people.
On top of this, any communications made by the President of the United States are de facto labeled as “born classified.” The same goes for any State Department communications with other foreign ministers.
COVER-UP: John Podesta and Huma Abedin on the Hillary campaign jet (Image: ABC News)
It should be well known by now after watching both Attorney Generals Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch in action – that the Obama Justice Department (DOJ) is one of the most politicized in history. Bear that in mind when looking at the latest leg of the Hillary Email case.
On Friday, FBI Director James Comey set the election alight after announcing that the FBI would be reopening the Clinton email case – currently examining 650,000 emails found while investigating a laptop belonging to former US Congressman Anthony Weiner (estranged husband of top Clinton aid and long-time confidant Huma Abedin) who was snared in a ‘sexting’ scandal, allegedly involving a under-aged female. So which DOJ person is in charge of this investigation? None other than Assistant Attorney General Peter J. Kadzik. Who is Kadzik? Zero Hedge reports:
“Oh yes. Recall our post from last week, “Clinton Campaign Chair Had Dinner With Top DOJ Official One Day After Hillary’s Benghazi Hearing” in which we reported that John Podesta had dinner with one of the highest ranked DOJ officials the very day after Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi testimony? It was Peter Kadzik.”
Incestuous is an understatement, and on the whole, Americans are sick of it.
Blame the Russians
These are just a few scandals surrounding the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign, along with the many exposés revealed through Wikileaks, and the Podesta email batches. Those are actual scandals with real tangible evidence – unlike the ‘Russians hacking the DNC and John Podesta and passing those to Wikileaks.’
Suffice to say, the Democratic Party machine has already demonstrated that it is prepared to say anything in order to deflect and divert attention away from the damning Wikileaks material, and also blame Donald Trump in the process. It should be obvious by now that in their desperation to push a highly comprised Hillary Clinton over the finish line on November 8th, the Washington establishment has concocted the story that ‘Putin is trying to influence our electoral process in the US.’ They’ve tried to lay this at the feet of Donald Trump, who Obama and Clinton claim has some secret special relationship with Vladimir Putin. The liberal mainstream media have made a meal out of this talking point, and anti-Russian war hawks on the Republican side love it too. For the White House and the Clinton campaign this seemed like the ultimate clean sweep – a perfect double entendre.
The geopolitical strategy behind this move was twofold. First, this non event would be used to advance immediate calls for sanctions against Russia. Secondly, the US could continue to lean on Russia in the UN over Syria. Previously, 21WIRE reported how Washington’s State Dept and UN delegations, led by the dynamic trio of John Kerry, Samantha Power, and John Kirby, already lied when levelling charges against Russia for war crimes in Aleppo, and again while accusing Russia and Syria of conducting an airstrike on a UN Aid Convoy in Syria. As we have already shown – that raid was mostly likely a ground attack carried out of US-backed ‘rebels’ Al Nusra Front, or Nour al-Din al-Zenki.
With so much at stake geopolitically, why would Washington lie about a potential World War III trigger event? If they are prepared to lie about this, what else are they prepared to lie about?
The demonization of all things Russian has definitely accelerated since late 2013 when the US engineered a coup d’etat in Kiev, Ukraine. Ever since then it’s been a go-to talking point for ginning-up and new transaltlantic arms race, as with Republican war hawks – and a convenient scapegoat for any politician requiring misdirection, like Clinton and the Democrats. When the new year rang in 2015, the newly appointed head of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, Andrew Lack, announced the new challenges facing America’s own state-run media arm that includes U.S. overseas propaganda assets including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Free Asia. Lack said, “We are facing a number of challenges from entities like Russia Today which is out there pushing a point of view, the Islamic State in the Middle East and groups like Boko Haram,” He was forced to resign shortly after that.
What’s clear is that when it comes to all things Russian, there is an established pattern of compulsive lying by this US Administration. The list is too long to chronicle here, although ‘Russian-backed Rebels Shooting Down MH17,’ and ‘Assad Regime Sarin Attack in Damascus in 2013‘ certainly comes to mind.
That said, it’s hard to imagine a lie as egregious and potentially destructive than one which accuses the Russia government, a world nuclear power and member of the UNSC, of ‘Hacking Into the US Electoral Process.’ When you examine history however, you will plenty of evidence documenting exactly how the US government and the CIA have altered and flipped 100 foreign elections throughout history, the attempted assassination of over 50 foreign leaders. Knowing all this, one might find it hard to take seriously Washington’s claims that Putin and Trump are trying manipulate the 2016 Election.
On Oct 9, 2016, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov laid it all on the table:
“We have witnessed a fundamental change of circumstances when it comes to the aggressive Russophobia that now lies at the heart of U.S. policy towards Russia. It’s not just a rhetorical Russophobia, but aggressive steps that really hurt our national interests and pose a threat to our security.”
Self-serving, career political operatives in Washington are playing a dangerous game. History will mark this as one of the biggest political follies of the Obama-Clinton era.
Still, we’re waiting for the emergence of an adult in the room in Washington – before its too late.
Western Nations Under Pressure to Probe Clinton Foundation Spending – Analyst
Sputnik – 01.12.2016
Western European nations are facing growing pressure to end their financial contributions to the Clinton Foundation and investigate its spending, investment analyst Charles Ortel told Sputnik.
“The penny has dropped: The governments have decided not to fund Clinton Foundation activities anymore,” Ortel said Tuesday. “Canada, Sweden and Ireland are countries that may undertake investigations or end their practice of contributing large sums to the Clinton Foundation.”
He was commenting after Norway and Australia announced last weekend that they were ending their annual contributions to the charity, founded in 1997 by then-US President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton.
According to the New York Post, the incoming presidential administration of Donald Trump will ask foreign governments investigate how the foundation spent hundreds of millions of donor dollars that it said went to provide low-cost medicine to treat AIDS patients in Africa, among other programs.
Ortel explained that government leaders around the world who had approved big yearly donations to the foundation presumed Hillary Clinton would be elected president on November 8. Her unexpected loss to Trump, however, has led to popular pressure in those countries for governments to disclose the fate of their donations.
“Governments now realize to their shock and horror there are numerous questions that regulators should have asked,” Ortel asserted. “Why didn’t regulators in different countries ask these questions about the enormous unmonitored donations to the Clinton Foundation before?” Germany’s Environment Ministry is being investigated about a donation to the Clinton charity of 4.5 million euros.
In an interview with Sputnik in Germany that was published Tuesday, left-wing member of parliament Niema Movassat questioned why information about his government’s connection to the foundation scandal is coming out only now.
In Ortel’s view, the German investigation illustrates the importance of a provision in New York state law requiring charities to specify in detail how they spend donors’ money.
“The Clinton Foundation has not complied with that requirement,” according to Ortel, a former executive at financial firms Chart Group and Dillon, Tead & Co. He predicted that questions about the foundation will fuel a “media frenzy” worldwide, as public demands for investigations into individual governments’ donations grow. “The German people and the American people deserve answers,” Ortel said. “We need an accounting: How many governments around the world have sent money to the Clinton Foundation? For what projects? In what amounts?”
In 2007, the UK government – led by Prime Minister Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown, both close political allies and personal friends of the Clintons – approved a grant of 1 billion pounds over 20 years to the charity, Ortel pointed out.
Justifying the Saudi Slaughter in Yemen
By Gareth Porter | Consortium News | October 31, 2016
The Obama administration has carried out a deliberately deceptive campaign accusing Iran of covertly sending arms to the Houthis by sea, a claim that Washington cites to help justify the Saudi massive air attack against the Houthis that began last year.
By repeating the accusation over and over, the administration has been largely successful in turning a dubious allegation into accepted fact, even though it is contradicted by evidence that is well-documented on the public record.
Secretary of State John Kerry introduced the new variant of the Obama administration’s familiar theme about Iran’s “nefarious activities” in the region two weeks after Saudi Arabia began its bombing in Yemen on March 26, 2015. Kerry told the PBS NewsHour, “There are obviously supplies that have been coming from Iran,” citing “a number of flights every single week that have been flying in.” Kerry vowed that the United States was “not going to stand by while the region is destabilized.”
Later, the administration began accusing Iran of using fishing boats to smuggle arms to the Houthis. The campaign unfolded in a series of four interceptions of small fishing boats or dhows in or near the Arabian Sea from September 2015 through March 2016. The four interceptions had two things in common: the boats did have illicit weapons alright, but the crews always said the ship was bound for Somalia – not Yemen and the Houthis.
But instead of acknowledging the obvious fact that the weapons were not related to the Iran-Houthi relationship, a U.S. military spokesman put out a statement in all four cases citing a U.S. “assessment” that the ultimate destination of the arms was Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen.
The choice of wording was significant. The intelligence community says that it “assesses” that something is true only when it does not have clear-cut proof on the matter. In the case of the alleged Iranian use of fishing dhows to smuggle arms to the Houthis, the U.S. spokesmen did not cite a single piece of evidence for that “assessment” in any of the four cases. In fact, when asked for some justification for it, the military spokesman refused.
The first fishing dhow was intercepted in the Arabian Sea on Sept. 25, 2015, by a member of a 31-nation coalition called the Combined Maritime Forces patrolling the Arabian Sea and nearby waters for piracy. The coalition ship found the dhow to be carrying 18 Konkurs anti-tank missiles, 71 other anti-tank shells and 54 missile-launchers.
Blaming Iran
The U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet later issued a statement that said, “Based on statements from the dhow’s crew the port of origin of the dhow and its illicit weapons cache is believed to be Iran.” It also said the anti-tank missiles were thought to be of Iranian and Russian origin, and that the papers on the ship had indicated that it had been checked by ports and customs officials in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province.
But the crew of the vessel had said that it was bound not for Yemen but for Somalia, as the spokesman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet acknowledged to The Associated Press. A Saudi military spokesman suggested that Iran intended to reroute the arms later from Somalia to Yemen, but offered no evidence.
On Feb. 27, 2016, an Australian ship intercepted a second fishing dhow off the coast of Oman. The Australians found 1,989 AK-47 assault rifles, 100 rocket-propelled grenades and 40 PKM machine guns on board. The Australian Defense Force issued an official statement on the seizure that did not mention Iranian involvement. It said the boat appeared to be “stateless” and that its cache of weapons was “destined for Somalia.” The Australian Defense Force spokesman explained to CNN that the conclusion was based on interviews with crew members.
But a spokesman for U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command, Lt. Ian McConnaughey gave an entirely different political slant to the interception. In an e-mail to NBC News, McConnaughey said. “Based on the dhow’s course, Iran is believed to be its port of origin and the source of the illicit weapon,” he said. McConnaughey said the crew was “assessed” to be Iranian – implying that the crew itself had not indicated that.
McConnaughey acknowledged to NBC and The Telegraph, “According to coalition forces it is believed that the vessel’s destination was in the vicinity of Somalia.” But the CENTCOM spokesman indicated that it didn’t matter; the U.S. was insisting on its narrative about covert Iranian arms to the Houthis.
“[T]he initial U.S. assessment is the weapons’ final destination was likely to be the Houthis in Yemen,” McConnaaughey told NBC and The Telegraph.
When this writer asked McConnaughey by e-mail why the U.S. “assessed” that the weapons were intended for Yemen, despite the evidence to the contrary, he responded, “We are not going to discuss the intelligence and other information that led us to our assessment.”
A Third Shipment
On March 20, a French navy destroyer intercepted a third fishing dhow off the Island of Socotra in the northern Indian Ocean and found several hundred AK-47 assault rifles, machine guns and antitank weapons. The official statement on the seizure from the Combined Maritime Forces stated categorically, “The dhow was spotted heading toward Somalia.” 
And because the weapons were “deemed to be destined for Somalia,” it explained, they “were seized under the United Nations Security Council mandated arms embargo in accordance with UNSCR 2244(2015).” That Security Council resolution mandates an embargo on Eritrea.
Australia and other states participating in the Combined Maritime Forces were thus challenging the U.S. propaganda line. But again the U.S. military used the news media to reinforce the line about Iran smuggling arms to the Houthis. Commander Kevin Stephens, a spokesman for the Fifth Fleet, told CNN that “according to a U.S. assessment,” Yemen was the “likely destination” of the arms.
A fourth interception – the third in three weeks – occurred on March 28 by a U.S. Navy ship that was not operating as part of Combined Maritime Forces but directly under U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. That allowed the Naval Forces Central Command to issue its own news story on April 4.
In its lead paragraph, the report said the United States “assessed” that the shipment of illicit arms on board the dhow “originated in Iran and was likely bound for Houthi insurgents in Yemen.”
An Earlier Ruse
The Obama administration also had sought to promote the charge that Iran was covertly sending weapons to the Houthis by sea more than two years earlier. In January 2013, the Yemen client government backed by the United States and Saudi Arabia had claimed that its forces had intercepted a ship with a large cargo of weaponry that came from Iran and was on its way to Yemen to deliver them to the Houthis.
The Obama administration supported that charge in briefings to journalists. After the Saudi air war against Yemen began in 2015, the U.S. pushed for a report by an experts group on sanctions against Iran that would give the charge credibility.
But the 2013 claim was soon exposed as a ruse. A Security Council Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea revealed in a June 2013 report that the crewmembers had told diplomats who interviewed them that ship’s cargo of diesel fuel was bound for Somalia, not Yemen. And, since the weapons were hidden under the diesel fuel tanks, the weapons could be accessed only after those tanks had been emptied, in other words after the ship docked in Somalia.
The monitoring group learned from authorities in the Puntland region of Somalia, where most of the smuggled weapons have entered the country, that this was a widely used method of smuggling arms into the country.
Furthermore, the monitoring group determined that the wide range of types of weapons on board the ship, which was intercepted in January 2013, as well as of their original sources indicated that the weapons cache had been assembled by arms merchants. Authorities in Puntland provided data to the monitoring group showing that most of the shipments of weapons into Puntland in the months before January 2013 had come from politically well-connected arms merchants in Yemen.
Some of the fishing boats that were intercepted with illicit arms on board in 2015-16 had Iranian owners. But the monitoring group report reveals that the real reason is the role of such Iranian fishing vessels in illegal fishing in Somali waters. The vast majority of the hundreds of fishing vessels involved in such illegal fishing networks were either Iranian or Yemeni. As many as 300 were believed to be Yemeni-owned, while Iranian-owned 180 of them.
The monitoring group said it was investigating unconfirmed reports that some of those illegal fishing vessels were also being used to carry out arms smuggling and that it had established “other connections between the illegal fishing networks and networks involved in the arms trade and connected to al-Shabaab in northeastern Somalia.”
But the Obama administration has no interest in the considerable evidence gathered by the monitoring group that provides a more credible explanation for the arms found on those four fishing dhows.
Such an explanation isn’t political useful, whereas the accusations of Iranian smuggling of arms to the Houthis fulfilled multiple political and bureaucratic interests, justifying Saudi Arabia’s bloody U.S.-backed air campaign over Yemen and endless Washington alarms about “Iranian aggression.”
Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and winner of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. He is the author of the newly published Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.
Brazile out at CNN after WikiLeaks reveals she gave debate questions to Clinton camp
RT | October 31, 2016
Democratic party chair Donna Brazile is no longer at CNN, as WikiLeaks revealed that she sent debate questions to Hillary Clinton’s campaign at least twice. Confirming Brazile’s dismissal, CNN said it was “completely uncomfortable” with her conduct.
Brazile’s role as a Democratic pundit at CNN was suspended in July, when she took on the role of interim chair for the Democratic National Committee following the scandal-ridden departure of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. She resigned from the network on October 14, after revelations that she had given advance notice to the Clinton campaign of questions to be asked at a CNN-hosted debate.
“We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor,” the network said in a statement Monday, announcing Brazile’s dismissal and maintaining that they never gave her any questions or other materials in advance of debates.
Emails published by WikiLeaks earlier show otherwise, however. A March 12 email from Brazile to Clinton’s communications director Jennifer Palmieri – published by WikiLeaks on October 11 – was titled: “From time to time I get the questions in advance,” and gave the campaign notice of a question about the death penalty at the upcoming CNN-hosted town hall between Clinton and her rival for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders
Another email, published Monday, shows Brazile giving advance notice to Palmieri and Clinton campaign chief John Podesta about the upcoming debate in Flint, Michigan. Brazile was vice chair of the DNC at the time.
“One of the questions directed to HRC tomorrow is from a woman with a rash,” says the subject line of Brazile’s email dated March 5, followed by: “Her family has lead poison and she will ask what, if anything, will Hillary do as president to help the ppl of Flint.”
Both CNN and Brazile emphatically denied any wrongdoing prior to Monday’s release.
“To be perfectly clear: We have never, ever given a town hall question to anyone beforehand,” said CNN.
“As it pertains to the CNN Debates, I never had access to questions and would never have shared them with the candidates if I did,” Brazile said in a statement earlier this month.
On Monday morning, before CNN acknowledged her October 14 resignation, Brazile tweeted about “campaign hell” and quoted a Miami Herald article indicating that Donald Trump’s campaign had a “back channel” to WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange through political operative Roger Stone.
Brazile and other senior Democrats have accused Assange of being a “Russian agent” and alternately dismissed the WikiLeaks publications as either forgeries or attempts by Russia to influence US elections by backing Trump.
Stone has rejected both claims. “I bet there is no evidence of a Russian conspiracy to fix the election,” he told the Herald.
“He’s not a Russian agent,” Stone added, speaking of Assange.
Democrats accuse FBI of hiding ‘explosive truth’ about Trump-Russia ties
RT | October 31, 2016
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid has accused the bureau of hiding “explosive” information about Donald Trump’s alleged ties with Russia, which he believes might inflict “critical” damage ahead of the election.
The allegation comes after FBI Director James Comey announced on Friday that a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server had been reopened, sending a letter notifying Congress of the email review.
In it Comey revealed the finding of some 650,000 emails which were discovered by the agency in early October on a laptop belonging to ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner and apparently also used by his wife, Clinton’s closest aide Huma Abedin.
The unexpected announcement came just 11 days before Americans head to the polls to determine the winner in the race for the White House between Democrat Clinton and Republican Trump.
Concerned by the FBI’s move to re-open the investigation that was closed in July, Reid sent a letter to Comey accusing him of double standards and potentially breaking the law.
“Your actions in recent months have demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be a clear intent to aid one political party over another,” Reid wrote on Sunday.
He added that through Comey’s “partisan actions, you may have broken the law,” namely the Hatch Act, which bars the use of an executive branch position to influence an election.
Furthermore, Reid accused the FBI chief of using a “highly selective approach” in publicizing information, and claimed that the timing of the announcement so close to election date was “intended for the success or failure of a partisan candidate or political group.”
While the alleged ties of the Republican candidate with Russia have long been touted by the Clinton camp as one of Trump’s greatest sins, no proof of such a relationship has ever been made public. Reid however once again claimed it was “clear” to him that a relation exists between Trump and the Russian government, and that Comey is hiding it.
“In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity,” Reid stated.
While Kremlin has on numerous occasions denied any links to the Trump camp, the US media continues to pursue the allegations of Moscow’s alleged involvement, which Russian President Vladimir Putin this week called “absurd.”
“I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public…and yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information,” the US politician added.
Reid has sent the letter to Comey just before it was revealed that the FBI has reportedly obtained a warrant to dig through hundreds of thousands of newly-discovered emails. In the meantime, the NYT reported that senior Justice Department officials vowed to make all resources available to conduct the investigation as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN) urged the FBI director to resign, accusing him of restarting Clinton’s email probe “apparently before seeing any evidence.” In a statement Cohen called Comey’s move “plainly premature, careless and unprecedented in its potential impact upon a Presidential election.”
Palestinian Man Seriously Injured By Israeli Army In Ramallah
IMEMC | October 29, 2016
Israeli soldiers shot and seriously wounded a young Palestinian man, near Ein Yabroud town, east of the central West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday at dawn after he reportedly attempted to “ram Israeli soldiers with his car, then tried to stab them.”
The Israeli army claims that the soldiers shot and injured the young man, identified as Ahmad Ayman Hamed, 21, after he “tried to run over them” near a military base, close to the illegal Ofra colony.
It added that the soldiers fired at the Ahmad’s vehicle, forcing him to stop, and that he allegedly stepped out of his car and “tried to stab a soldier, before he was shot and injured.”
An Israeli ambulance was called to the scene and moved Ahmad to a hospital for treatment.
Palestinian eyewitnesses said while the young man was driving his car, he was surprised to see a group of soldiers in his way on the main road, before the army opened fire and seriously wounded him.
They added that the wounded young man was shot with three live round in his abdomen, and was left bleeding, without any first aid, until the Israeli ambulance arrived and took him away.
Following the shooting, the soldiers invaded Ahmad’s home, and interrogated his family while searching their property.
Many Palestinians have been shot dead by the soldiers since last year under similar allegations of attempting to ram soldiers with their car.
In September, the soldiers shot and killed a young Palestinian man, identified as Mustafa Nimir, 25, after alleging he attempted to ram them with his car, but later admitted that the man was not even the driver of the vehicle, to blame his brother-in-law for “driving erratically”
Mustafa Nimir, 25, was returning home along with his brother-in-law Ali after the two had gone shopping and purchased clothes for Ali’s six-year-old daughter, and baked goods for the family.
Excavating America’s Forgotten History of Political Repression
A review of Brad Schreiber’s Revolution’s End
By Kara Dellacioppa | Dissident Voice | October 28, 2016
America is a Haunted House.
– Peter Levenda, author of Sinister Forces
There is probably no other historical era more misunderstood by Americans than the 1960s and 1970s. From the political assassinations of major political figures and political assassinations of ordinary civil rights and antiwar activists to the emergence of government secret intelligence programs designed to monitor and ultimately crush dissent in the United States, most Americans remain vaguely, if at all, aware of how this hidden history impacts our lives today. And this lack of awareness has unfortunately allowed for these same forces to deal some crushing blows to our “democracy.”
The American public learned of the FBI’s Cointelpro and the CIA’s Operation CHAOS and MKUltra through the Senate Hearings on government intelligence abuses led by Senator Frank Church in 1975 as well as through the work of independent journalists after the break-in of FBI offices in Media Pennsylvania in 1971.1 These government and journalistic investigations brought to light an array of systematic abuses of government authority against Americans, partially illuminating the covert and ruthless attacks against the movements of the era.
The Johnson administration’s failure to deliver on its promises of genuine and meaningful civil rights reforms led to a series of urban riots beginning in Harlem in 1964 and were followed by those in Watts, Detroit and Newark as well as in a host of other cities across the country. These riots terrified the establishment and prompted the government to create programs designed to federalize local police departments rather than address the underlying social problems that gave way to the riots in the first place.2 Through the Law Enforcement Assistance Act of 1965 and the subsequent Omnibus Safe Streets Crime bill signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) was created as a mechanism to launch an unprecedented “War on Crime.”3 The purpose of the LEAA was ostensibly “violence prevention. ” The LEAA funded the creation and training of SWAT teams in Los Angeles in order to destroy the Black Panther Party and other perceived political threats. The LEAA funded “anti-violence” research in prisons and hospitals and worked alongside the CIA’s MK ULTRA program engaging in such delightful activities as drug experimentation, surgical, and chemical lobotomies on prisoners and psychiatric patients. LEAA funds also went into the school system and developed testing of young black children to “predict” whether or not these children would become violent in the future.4 (For more information of how the LEAA funded projects in schools that led to the psychiatric drugging of Black and poor children, please see the work of psychiatrist Peter Breggin).
The other widely misunderstood factor in the development of America’s police state is the relationship between the deepening of America’s involvement in a genocidal enterprise called the Vietnam War and the growth and over-determination of the American National Security State on political life in the US. While it is a fact that the United States lost the Vietnam war, the lessons learned by the military/intelligence establishment were employed in future counter-insurgency campaigns in El Salvador and Iraq and in the United States as well.5
This is where Brad Schreiber’s Revolution’s End: The Patty Hearst Kidnapping, Mind Control, and the Secret History of Donald DeFreeze and the SLA comes in. Revolution’s End is a careful examination of the relationships among various government intelligence, police and prison agencies that colluded to create a synthetic terror group called the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). Their assassination of Oakland School Superintendent Marcus Foster and subsequent kidnapping of heiress and closet revolutionary Patricia Campbell Hearst dominated the news cycle for years. While other researchers of the shadow state have examined the SLA and the Patty Hearst trial in depth such as Paul Krassner and Mae Brussell, Schreiber’s exposure of government involvement in the creation of the SLA is nothing short of explosive.
Schreiber was handed a folder full of documents from Dick Russell, the legendary journalist and author of The Man Who Knew Too Much. These documents came from private investigators working on Patricia Hearst’s defense team including the private detective and former Las Vegas police officer Lake Headley who was hired by Dr. L.S. Wolfe, father of slain SLA member Willie Wolfe. Schreiber utilizes the contents of that file to great effect. They include startling facts such as Patti Hearst’s pre-SLA relationship with Donald Defreeze (the petty thief, turned LAPD informant, turned provocateur and fake revolutionary). Using a college friend’s student ID, Hearst was allowed to visit Defreeze in prison at the Vacaville Psychiatric Unit as a part of a project called the Black Cultural Association (BCA). BCA was ostensibly a rehabilitative project but in effect it was a behavior modification program run by Colston Westbrook, a former CIA officer who worked with Pacific Architects and Engineers, a known CIA front company that was responsible for building the prison interrogation centers (PICS) in Vietnam as part of the CIA’s deplorable Phoenix program. The Phoenix program was a covert CIA coordinated program of counter-insurgency/counter-subversion against the South Vietnam’s civilian population.6 And here lies one of Schreiber major achievements, exposing a direct link between the Vietnam pacification program as Phoenix was euphemistically coined, and America’s pacification program at home.
The BCA received many visits from a prison rights group largely associated with another shady “revolutionary” movement of the era The Venceremos Organization, a Maoist group based out of Stanford and at the time led by English Professor H. Bruce Franklin. Venceremos had originally had a Chicano leadership but this leadership was displaced in the wake of the split of the Bay Area Revolutionary Union (BARU). BARU included H. Bruce Franklin and Bob Avakian. Having formed the organization after the destruction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Franklin and Avakian split over disagreements about the role of armed struggle in the United States. Venceremos, was, along with the August 7th Guerrilla movement, the bases from which the SLA drew its white cadre. In the last few years before the dissolution of Venceremos, many of its members became involved with the United Prisoners Union (UPU) created by Popeye Jackson.7 It is within these circles that Patti Hearst becomes connected with Vacaville and Defreeze. During the visits to Vacaville, Patty Hearst was able to carry on a sexual relationship with Defreeze with the blessing of Westbrook. As Schreiber tells it, as Defreeze starts to become more unhinged as his treatments continue at the hands of the Vacaville prison authorities, he gradually changes his identity to that of Cinque, the Black revolutionary. He speaks of violence and kidnapping to Hearst. She becomes understandably unnerved and breaks off the relationship with Defreeze. Here according to Schreiber begins the plotting of revenge against Hearst. Importantly, Schreiber points out that Vacaville as a psychiatric hospital was a way station for inmates going on to serve their sentences in other facilities. The vast majority of them were passing through receiving their “treatment” and then moving on. Defreeze, in contrast, stayed at Vacaville for well over a year which was highly unusual. Defreeze’s situation even caught the attention of “thorn in the side of the CIA” Congressman Leo Ryan who investigated Defreeze’s case and the prison authorities use of mind control experiments.
Defreeze, a failed criminal, who couldn’t find consistent work to take care of his children and who had been handled by the forces of the state for a number of years was sent on a mission at the behest of Colston Westbrook, to assassinate the first Black superintendent of a public school district in the United States, Dr. Marcus Foster.
Schreiber points out that the political targeting of Marcus Foster was beyond bizarre. Foster’s assassination has never been fully explained. SLA members Russ Little and Joe Remiro were convicted of the crime but Schreiber reveals that it was Nancy Ling Perry and Patricia Soltysik along with Cinque (Defreeze) that actually riddled Foster’s body with nine cyanide tipped bullets. Schreiber speculates that the reason that Foster was targeted by Westbrook was that public schools were coming under attack for doing too well a job at educating Black and other minority children. After his election in 1966, Governor Reagan’s California launched a crusade against political activism in schools regarding them (along with the California prisons) as a breeding ground for radicalism.8
Schreiber casts Donald Defreeze in a rather compassionate light. A failed criminal, Defreeze like thousands of others, was recruited by the LAPD to become an informant and provocateur. This is the story of thousands of others who are pressured with time in prison for noncooperation. Or if they were in prison, they often were threatened with chemical or physical psychosurgery or indefinite solitary confinement. Yes, many did it for the money but as Schreiber points out Defreeze hardly earned a living from what was paid to him by the LAPD’s Criminal Conspiracy Section (CCS).
The one revelation that nearly made me fall out of my chair as I was reading it was the revelation that according to Schreiber’s research, the SLA was created within the California Department of Corrections (CDC) as an interracial prison gang that would spy on the other gangs and provide intelligence to the leadership of the CDC. There were chapters of the prison SLA at San Quentin, Vacaville, and Soledad. Inmate Robert Hyde, a long term prisoner, was pressured to become the head of the prison SLA and he was told to inform on any legal action inmates were planning against the CDC regarding abuses against prisoners. Hyde decided that becoming an informant inside the prison was a death wish so he refused. Eventually Hyde appeals to the FBI for help. At a certain point, Hyde was informed that there was to be an SLA formed outside of the prison to infiltrate dissident groups. Schreiber then discusses the effect of the assassination of George Jackson and the effect that it had on the climate inside the California prison system.
Schreiber provides many other fascinating insights into the formation and eventual destruction of the SLA. He points out that most of the left viewed the SLA with great suspicion, accusing the SLA of having been created by the CIA. So their mission to infiltrate the left was largely a failure. However, in the Bay Area, there were many in the urban poor communities that helped hide them from the police. Schreiber highlights how the SLA was able to artfully manipulate the media into broadcasting their communiques including the demand that William Randolph Hearst fund the People in Need (PIN) program. Hearst spent millions to fund this food distribution program that led to chaotic scenes of distribution workers tossing palettes of food off of truck beds to angry and hungry people.
On the fateful night of May 17th 1974 in a house in South Central Los Angeles, located, as Schreiber points out, a mere 3 miles from the epicenter of the Watts Riots, six SLA members lost their lives. Nancy Ling Perry, Camille Hall, and Patricia Soltysik died from gunshots wounds. Angela Atwood and Willie Wolfe died from smoke inhalation. Defreeze reportedly died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Schreiber goes into the serious inconsistencies of the official reports of the SLA deaths. His research shows that, in fact, the SLA members were not given a chance to come out alive. Nancy Ling Perry, it would later be shown, was shot in the back presumably as she was trying to turn herself in. He also found evidence that incendiary/explosive devices were thrown into the house by the LAPD. Given the secret origins of the SLA and Defreeze’s relationship with the LAPD and the CDC, it is very plausible that the LAPD had decided ahead of time that there would be no peaceful resolution to the standoff.
Lastly, Schreiber makes a critical point that the live television broadcast of the police shootout and bombing of the South Central Los Angeles SLA hideout was the introduction of the LAPD SWAT team to America’s night time television viewing audience. The live broadcasting of the LAPD destruction of the SLA could be seen as a terrifying prelude to our current War on Terror.
Revolution’s End is a remarkable book. However, it would have been even better if Schreiber had included some of the documents he cites. More thorough footnoting would have improved it as well. However, footnoting would have made it a less readable book. I hope that Schreiber (if he hasn’t already) made copies of the documents he possesses and donates them to a local university or library. The information age has inundated the public with information/disinformation overload. And due to increasing government restrictions with regard to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), documents like these are becoming more difficult to get your hands on and they are just too precious for any one person to keep to themselves.
Revolution’s End is a highly readable book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in unearthing the secret history of government repression in America. Schreiber had to decide where to go in-depth. His focus on the background of Defreeze and Westbrook are laudable choices as is his focus on the assassination of Dr. Marcus Foster. There are many threads of research that can and should be followed up on including Congressman Leo Ryan and his research into the mind control experiments in prisons, and the post SLA creation New World Liberation Front (NWLF) which according to Schreiber was credited with many more domestic bombings than the Weather Underground. One wonders what shadowy origins the NWLF had. Schreiber’s book is a great contribution to the study of the government repression and the shadow state. Importantly, it has the capacity to inspire people, especially young people, to learn about this history in depth and allow this history to inform their analysis of what is happening today.
- United States Senate. Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate, (94th Congress, Second Session, Report No. 94-755) Government Printing office; April 23, 1976.
- Horne, Gerald. 1997. The Fire this Time: The Watts Riots and the 1960s. De Capo Press.
- Thompson, Heather Ann. Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy. New York: Pantheon Book. p. 18-21.
- Breggin, P. R. and Breggin, G. R. (1994). The War Against Children: How the Drugs, Programs, and Theories of the Psychiatric Establishment Are Threatening America’s Children with a Medical ‘Cure’ for Violence. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
- Valentine, Douglas. 2016. The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World. New York, NY: Clarity Press.
- Valentine, Douglas. 2000. The Phoenix Program. iUniverse: Lincoln, NE.
- For a fascinating inside look at the rise and fall of Venceremos at Stanford, see Max Crawford’s The Bad Communist, a thinly veiled “fictional” account of Crawford’s time with Venceremos at Stanford. It includes detailed of the gruesome murder of Black Panther Fred Bennett supposedly at the hands of James Carr at the Venceremos training compound in the Santa Cruz Mountains. After the book was published in 1979, Crawford exiled himself to Paris for a while to escape the heat generated after he published his book.
- Rosenfeld, Seth. 2012. Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals and Reagan’s Rise to Power. New York: NY, Farrar, Giroux, and Strauss.
Kara Z. Dellacioppa is chair of the sociology department at California State University, Dominguez Hills. She is the author of This Bridge Called Zapatismo: Building Alternative Political Cultures in Mexico City, Los Angeles, and Beyond (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009) and co-editor of Cultural Political and Resistance in the 21st Century: Community-Based Social Movements and Global Change in the Americas (Palgrave, 2011).
“Democracy Now!” Gets Nuclear Ban Vote Totally Wrong
By Sam Husseini | October 28, 2016
“Democracy Now” sadly continues its descent, which I’ve alluded to occasionally on twitter. To fully tell this story would require a very long and detailed piece, but the latest chapter of this is worth noting in more than a tweet as it happens. On this morning’s headlines, Amy Goodman claimed:
The United Nations on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to start talks aimed at abolishing all nuclear weapons. The landmark resolution will see the U.N. convene a conference next year to negotiate a legally binding instrument for worldwide nuclear prohibition. The vote was 123-38, with 16 countries abstaining. Voting against were all nine known nuclear states: China, Russia, France, Britain, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea as well as the United States. [Note, this is wording as broadcast, the transcript is minorly different.]
In fact, China, India and Pakistan abstained. North Korea actually voted for the resolution. As even the AP correctly reported: “The United States, Russia, Israel, France and the United Kingdom were among the countries voting against the measure.” See country by country breakdown results from International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. See excellent map from ILPI. If you’re still skeptical, see actual pic of vote board.
As Ira Helfand — past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and currently co-president of that group’s global federation, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War — noted in Nukes and the U.N.: a Historic Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons:
The ‘No’ votes came from the nuclear weapons states, and U.S. allies in NATO, plus Japan, South Korea and Australia, which have treaty ties to the U.S., and consider themselves to be under the protection of the ‘U.S. nuclear umbrella.’
But four nuclear weapons states broke ranks, with China, India and Pakistan abstaining, and North Korea voting in favor of the treaty negotiations. In addition, the Netherlands defied intense pressure from the rest of NATO and abstained, as did Finland, which is not a member of NATO but has close ties with the alliance.
So, what actually happened is that the U.S. and various client states — especially, but not limited to, NATO members — voted against the nuclear weapons ban. China, India and Pakistan abstained — not voted against as “Democracy Now!” claimed. And North Korea actually voted for the resolution — U.S. client state South Korea voted with the U.S. against.
It would be interesting to see how a mistake like this could possibly happen. Icing on the cake is the way it was phrased, even above and beyond the outright falsehoods about China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Goodman claimed “as well as the United States” — as if the U.S. were an afterthought when it’s obvious that the U.S. government has been leading the effort against the vote. As the German Press Agency reported: “Due to U.S. pressure, 27 of the 28 NATO member states voted against the resolution with the Netherlands abstaining.”
Such errors are likely a consequences of a world view that seems to not fully grasp, or perhaps not want to grasp or communicate, the threat the U.S. government poses to much of humanity in terms of the actual nature of U.S. foreign policy.
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USS Liberty Massacre: A Pivotal Moment in the Hostile Takeover of America
By Kevin Barrett | Crescent | Dhu al-Qa’dah 24, 1445
In corporate America, hostile takeovers are commonplace. They occur when an aggressor—a larger corporation or rich individuals—seizes control of a smaller corporation without asking permission.
What few recognize is that the United States itself has been subjected to a hostile takeover. Since the aggressor, the illegitimate settler colony known as “Israel,” is much smaller than the US, the takeover has necessarily been surreptitious.
As of June, 2024, Israel’s gradual takeover of the US has become obvious and undeniable—a proverbial “elephant in the living room.” … continue
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- Putin Conveys to Trump Iran’s Vision on Possible Conflict Resolution – Kremlin
- The Search for Truth: Charlie Kirk’s Assassination One Year Later
- ‘Harsh reality’: Iran says France seeks monopoly on power and intimidation, not peace for all
- When Will This White House Madness End?
- If Americans Knew
- For three years, Israel has killed a child in Gaza every 71 minutes – Daily Update
- Israeli forces kill another child in Gaza – Daily Update
- Gaza ceasefire exists in name only, say more than 100 organizations
- Nearly 2 Million in Gaza Need Urgent Shelter Assistance as Winter Looms: IOM Chief Warns
- Suppressing Palestinian resistance: US charity under fire for AI monitoring of Gaza classrooms
- Thousands Are Held in Israeli Torture Camps. This Is What Happens Inside
- Israel puts Gaza’s sick, injured, newborn in peril – Daily Update
- Report claimed Mark Levin used by Israeli government to influence Trump
- Over 2,000 Gazans have died awaiting medical evacuation amid Israel’s continued siege
- How a U.S. Diplomat Suppressed and Altered Reports Critical of Israel
- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
