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Reporters Without Borders’ Attack on Sputnik and RT Highlights NGO’s Status as ‘Media Wing of NATO’

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 30.09.2024

Reporters Without Borders has published a sensationalist report on Russian media’s work in the Balkans as part of a new project known as ‘The Propaganda Monitor’, accusing Sputnik and RT of spreading “disinformation” and demanding a crackdown by the EU. Balkan affairs expert Stevan Gajic tells Sputnik why such fearmongering doesn’t work on Serbs.

Reporters Without Borders’ (French acronym RSF) new ‘Propaganda Monitoring’ multimedia minisite promises to “promote reliable journalism” by exposing “the many faces and tactics behind propaganda worldwide, bolstering the public’s understanding of the information space and helping them navigate it more safely.”

Russian media, including Sputnik and RT, have become the self-anointed Paris-headquartered media watchdog’s first target, with RSF rolling out a series of articles on Russian media’s ability to find evade censorship, custom-tailor content, and in Serbia’s case, transmit so-called “Kremlin propaganda in the Balkans despite EU sanctions.”

RSF wants the European Union and its members to “hold Serbia accountable for hosting Vladimir Putin’s factory of lies,” spending much of its investigation complaining about Russian media’s refusal to answer its loaded questions, whining about its successes captivating local audiences, and crying about Serbia’s receptiveness to hosting Russian outlets.

“Reporters Without Borders cannot be regarded as a reliable source because every line in this report is soaked with biased language,” Belgrade-based Balkan affairs expert and Institute of European Studies research associate Stevan Gajic told Sputnik, commenting on RSF’s report.

“The motivation” behind RSF’s demands for a crackdown comes down to its status as “a media wing of NATO, a media wing of the collective West. This is a pure Freudian projection. They are accusing others of what they are doing themselves,” Gajic stressed.

“Where were Reporters Without Borders when Radio Television of Serbia was bombed in 1999 and when 16 TV staff were murdered in cold blood?” the observer asked, referencing the 78-day NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999. There is no credibility from people like this who did not act when they should have,” the observer recalled.

Narratives by RSF and others about Sputnik and RT being threats that need to be silenced have a clear end goal: “to nullify any kind of information coming from the other side to hush, to silence everybody who is not playing along NATO’s narrative. And this is especially a problem for NATO and for these puppet organizations, such as journalists with Reporters Without Borders, during times of war,” Gajic said.

As for RSF claims about RT’s spreading of “Kremlin narratives” in Serbia, Gajic emphasized that “pro-Russian sentiment amongst the Serbs has nothing to with the Kremlin, and everything to do with Washington and NATO.”

“Serbs are now more militantly pro-Russian because we were in a war against NATO and actually NATO was conducting and still is conducting hybrid aggression against us. I think that this speaks volumes about the falsehood of the presumptions and of the conclusions [made by RSF, ed.]. You can see how unrealistic and completely detached these people are from the reality, and how they are not really conducting deep research to see what is going on and how come,” Gajic said.

RSF’s conclusions are patently ridiculous, the observer suggested, highlighting the absurdity of “the presumption… that if it weren’t for RT and Sputnik, everybody, I guess in the Balkans and in Serbia and amongst the Serbs especially would be thrilled with the EU and NATO and so forth.”

“The new wave of the pro-Russian sentiment in Serbia was primarily created by the West. It was created by the West systematically targeting the Serbs for the last 30 years, since the moment of the breakdown of the bipolar global system” in place during the Cold War. Serbs became “the prime target,” a “Voodoo doll” for the West to “sting the Serbs in order for the Russians to feel pain,” according to Gajic.

“They were always demonstrating on us what they would like to do with Russia. That’s why many Serbs in the past said that all the wars we had with NATO and their proxies in the Balkans were actually just a preparation for a war that we are now seeing against Russia. That’s why I think the conclusion [of the RSF’s report, ed.] is false, because it comes from the presumption that if there were no ‘Russian propaganda’, quote-unquote, somehow people would feel different toward NATO.”

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | Leave a comment

“under the Intermediate Scenario”

Tony Heller | September 24, 2024

NOAA has launched a new sea level website which is based on unsupportable claims and appeals to authority.

September 29, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Obligations to Probe Nord Stream Blasts Not Fulfilled Despite Russia’s Calls – Moscow

Sputnik – 28.09.2024

MOSCOW – Obligations to investigate the terrorist attacks on Nord Streams in accordance with international treaties are not being fulfilled, despite Russia’s constant calls, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Sputnik.

“The bombing of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines is a flagrant act of international terrorism which falls under a number of international treaties establishing obligations to prevent such acts, suppress them, investigate them, bring those responsible to justice and cooperate with other states to achieve these goals. Unfortunately, we see that these obligations are not being fulfilled, despite constant calls from Russia,” Zakharova said.

Switzerland, where the Nord Stream operator-company is registered, has made no attempt to investigate the incidents, the diplomat said, adding that Germany, which is a final destination of the pipelines, had not presented any positive results of its probe.

“The West is not interested in conducting an effective investigation into the terrorist act, despite the colossal damage caused to the European economy and ecology by blowing up the gas pipelines,” Zakharova said.

Moscow has officially filed pre-trial claims against Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland in connection to the investigation of the Nord Steam blasts, based on a number of conventions on terrorism, Maria Zakharova said, adding that other states, which might have part in these acts, are next in line.

“Russia has officially filed pre-trial claims against Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland on the basis of the 1997 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings and the 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism … Next in line are other states that might be involved in the attacks on the Nord Streams,” Zakharova said.

If the issue with the pre-trial claims is not resolved, Moscow will appeal to the UN International Court of Justice in connection with the violation by the countries in question of their conventional obligations, the diplomat added.

“Russia is firmly determined to identify and strictly hold accountable all perpetrators, organizers and accomplices of the terrorist act,” Zakharova added.

The Nord Stream pipelines, built to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, were hit by explosions on September 26, 2022. Denmark, Germany and Norway have left Russia out of their investigations into the attack, prompting Moscow to launch its own probe on charges of international terrorism.

Russia has repeatedly requested data on the explosions from the European countries, but has never received it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

September 28, 2024 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , , | 1 Comment

Americans queueing to assassinate Trump, yet Iran is blamed

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 27, 2024

The United States does not have an impressive history of truth-telling when it comes to finding the culprits of presidential assassinations.

Indeed, the opposite. Cover-up and scapegoating are par for the course. So, bear that in mind about hyped reports this week about Iran allegedly trying to assassinate Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

In 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine, was officially blamed for killing John F Kennedy. It was also mooted at the time that Oswald was working as a sympathizer for Communist Cuba or the Soviet Union.

Despite decades of the U.S. mainstream media and academia sticking to the preposterous narrative of Oswald as the lone shooter in Dallas, there is cogent evidence that JFK was assassinated by the American deep state of CIA and corporate power because of the president’s opposition to Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union.

For more than six decades, the official narrative of JFK’s assassination has not changed despite the absurdities of the official account. Three fatal bullets in quick succession from a notoriously poor shot (Oswald) and the third to the front of the president’s head, supposedly from Oswald perched in a high-rise building hundreds of feet to the rear. Give us a break.

Fast forward to the summer of 2024. Two attempts have been made on the life of Republican candidate Donald Trump. On both occasions, the attacks were carried out by American citizens. On July 13, Thomas Matthew Crooks was shot dead by Secret Service agents after he fired his assault rifle at Trump during a rally in Pennsylvania. On September 15, Ryan Routh was arrested for trying to kill Trump at his golf course in Florida. It’s not clear what the shooters’ motives were. But both incidents involve American citizens as would-be assassins.

Moreover, there are disturbing questions about the lax conduct of the state security services and bigger forces who might want Trump dead. The first assassination attempt in Pennsylvania saw gaping lapses that allowed the shooter to breach the security perimeter. In the second case, the suspect had active ties with recruiting foreign mercenaries for the NATO-backed Ukrainian regime and presumably U.S. intelligence networks.

Yet this week, the U.S. intelligence services accuse Iran of plotting to kill Trump. The story has been doing the rounds in the U.S. media for weeks, having first been reported by CNN shortly after the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. The unsubstantiated Iranian connection smacks of a blatant distraction from possibly more homegrown culprits.

Gullibly, Trump this week appeared to buy the accusations against Iran. He threatened to blow Iran to “smithereens” if he were president.

This is while Trump has previously blamed his Democrat rivals for responsibility, pointing out how they have labelled him as a “threat to American democracy”.

There is no evidence from the U.S. spooks to substantiate their high-flown claims against Iran. The accusations come at an extremely tense time when Israel is threatening to drag the Middle East into an all-out war with Lebanon and Iran. The latest U.S. intel accusations against Iran serve to give Israel a cover for its regional aggression.

Trump’s unquestioning reaction to blame Iran is no doubt driven by his desire to act tough for electioneering gain. Threatening to blow a country to smithereens might play well with some voters.

No doubt, too, Trump is living out his own fears of Iranian revenge. He ordered the assassination in 2020 of Iran’s top military commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.

Tehran has never officially declared its intention to kill Trump out of revenge for Soleimani. This week at the United Nations General Assembly, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke of Iran not wanting war and of seeking diplomatic negotiations with the US to avoid further conflict in the Middle East. It would, therefore, be irrational for Tehran to jeopardize the region by engaging in a vendetta against a presidential candidate.

The fingering of Iran with allegations of plotting to assassinate Trump comes at a suspicious time.

The U.S. presidential race is heading to a tight finish, with the Democrat candidate Kamala Harris receiving endorsements from the Washington establishment, including former Republican administration officials. Harris is the deep-state favorite to ensure the continuation of foreign policy goals of confronting Russia and China. Trump is too much of a maverick and unreliable for the powers-that-be. The stakes are high to make sure he does not get back to the White House, as far as the interests of the U.S. imperial planners are concerned. His talk about cutting military aid to the Ukrainian regime and calls for a peace settlement are not what the military-intel-imperialist deep state wants.

What if a third assassination attempt on Trump succeeds? There are plenty of grounds to suspect that he could be taken out by “executive action” sanctioned by enemies within the U.S. power nexus because of the high stakes of this election. The deep state needs to pursue confrontation with Russia and China to prop up waning American global power. The stakes could not be higher.

Against all the evidence of Trump being threatened by Americans who have nothing to do with Iran, there now emerges a false flag of an Iranian threat.

One has to wonder if Iran is being set up as a patsy for eliminating an American presidential candidate.

September 27, 2024 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , | Leave a comment

Nord Stream Pipelines Must Be Restored – German Lawmaker

Sputnik – 26.09.2024

Nord Stream gas pipelines were blown up by enemies of German energy sovereignty, and the pipelines must be rebuilt and secured, the co-leader of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party, Tino Chrupalla, said on Thursday.

“Today marks two years since the enemies of German energy sovereignty blew up Nord Stream. An artery of German industry was cut. Our faction in the Bundestag demands an investigation and punishment for all those responsible. Nord Stream must be repaired, launched and secured!” Chrupalla said on his social media.

The Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, built to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Europe, were rocked by explosions in September 2022.

The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office opened an investigation into the blasts as an act of international terrorism. Russia has repeatedly requested information about the explosions but has received nothing, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

September 27, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Economics, False Flag Terrorism | | Leave a comment

Iran slams US ‘absurd scenarios’ to implicate it in alleged assassinations

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani
Press TV – September 26, 2024

Iran says US claims of Iranian threats to senior American officials are “ridiculous scenarios” fabricated by Washington.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday said the US was “intensely tracking an ongoing threat by Iran against a number of senior officials, including former government officials like president [Donald] Trump, and some people who are currently serving the administration.”

In a statement on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani dismissed Blinken’s “accusations as absurd and completely baseless.”

“It is clear that the formulation of such claims is merely part of the electoral atmosphere in the US and is driven by specific political goals, to the extent that they do not even warrant a response,” Kan’ani noted.

“The formulation of such false attributions and political accusations in the current tense conditions of the region cannot in any way diminish the international responsibility of the US government in aiding and participating in various international crimes against Palestine and Lebanon by the Zionist regime.”

Kan’ani said public opinion worldwide holds “the US regime” and its officials accountable for such humanitarian atrocities.

“The absurd and baseless stunts and scenarios created by the US government against the Islamic Republic of Iran will not hinder Iran’s determination to pursue legal and international accountability for the perpetrators and instigators of crimes committed against the Iranian people,” he said.

“The passage of time will not protect these criminals from trial and punishment.”

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Deception | , | 3 Comments

Anglo-Americans attacked ally with Nord Stream sabotage – Russian intelligence

RT | September 26, 2024

The US and UK masterminded the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in an act of economic warfare against their EU allies, Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service has claimed.

The assessment released on Thursday, on the second anniversary of the undersea bombing, detailed an alleged effort by Washington and London to interfere in the investigation and blame another party.

The intelligence “definitively points to the pipeline attack being an act of international terrorism and an act of economic war [by the US and UK] against European allies, primarily the Federal Republic of Germany,” the statement said.

The SVR claimed that Washington and London have been conducting a sustained campaign to “remove the issue of the Nord Stream sabotage from international agenda,” ramping up their efforts in August.

“Media answering to Washington and London are promoting the narrative that the attack was conducted exclusively by Ukrainian extremists, who acted independently,” it said, adding that the scenario “does not hold water”. German investigators are being pressured to accept this version as the main one, and “wrap up the probe before the year ends,” the statement alleged.

Berlin has been issued with an ultimatum, demanding that it name “Russia-hating Ukrainian desperados” as the culprits and “deflect a blow to trans-Atlantic cooperation,” the SVR stated.

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were built under the Baltic Sea to deliver Russian natural gas directly to Germany. The attack in September 2022 was blamed by Western media on a privately funded group of Ukrainian divers, who supposedly acted on orders from General Valery Zaluzhny, who was later dismissed and became Kiev’s ambassador to the UK.

Prior to the attack, senior US officials, including President Joe Biden and veteran diplomat Victoria Nuland, had issued threats against Russian energy infrastructure, particularly the Nord Stream 2 project, which was completed in September 2021, a decade after Nord Stream 1 went on stream.

Nord Stream 2 significantly expanded the capacity of the network, but was never used due to Germany’s refusal to license it amid tensions with Russia over Ukraine.

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Economics, False Flag Terrorism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden behind Nord Stream sabotage – Russia’s top MP

RT | September 26, 2024

US President Joe Biden “was behind” the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz helped him tank his country’s economy in the aftermath, Vyacheslav Volodin, the head of the Russian State Duma, has claimed.

The senior legislator commented on Thursday on the second anniversary of the explosions, which disabled the undersea connectors built to deliver Russian natural gas directly to Germany, noting the failure of European investigators to name the culprit. There have been accounts in the media suggesting possible scenarios, “which were occasionally laughable,” he said.

“Washington and Biden personally were behind the Nord Stream bombing. His interest was to cut Western Europe off from cheap Russian gas and force it to buy it from America at a price three times higher,” he said.

The German economy took a hit and is now in recession due to a loss of competitiveness, Volodin added, “which means that the people of Germany were punished instead of Washington, as Biden and Scholz took money out of their pockets.”

“You cannot pin this one on some ‘pro-Ukrainian group’ and civilian divers,” Volodin stressed.

On Tuesday, the German news outlet Der Spiegel published its latest retelling of the events of September 2022. It mostly repeats the story that a privately-funded operation masterminded by a now-disgraced Ukrainian intelligence officer conducted the sabotage with the blessing of former General Valery Zaluzhny. The Western press has been repeating similar versions of this story for months.

Spiegel claimed to have identified the divers, saying that most were civilians, but the group was led by a commando. The operation was first contemplated years before the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022, it stated.

Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh alleged that Biden had ordered the sabotage of Nord Stream in a February 2023 article. He said US military divers had secretly planted explosives to destroy the pipelines at a significant depth, using a NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea as a cover. The White House has denied the accusations, but Russian officials have called the story plausible.

Prior to the destruction of Nord Stream 1 and 2, senior US officials, including Biden, had issued threats to destroy the Russian-German pipelines.

September 26, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , , | 2 Comments

USAID memo exposes Blinken’s involvement in starving Palestinians

Al Mayadeen | September 25, 2024

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration have said that “Israel” is blocking humanitarian aid heading to the Gaza Strip.

In a 17-page memo sent to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in April, USAID told top US diplomats that US law requires the administration to cut off weapons shipments to governments that prevent the delivery of US-backed humanitarian aid. The refugees bureau also delivered a similar evaluation.

If acted upon, the assessment would cause tremulous changes to the Israeli regime’s supply of weapons, as the US delivers the majority of weapons through which the regime carries out its aggression.

According to ProPublica, both Blinken and the administration of President Joe Biden refused to accept the conclusions reached by the two US agencies.

“We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of US humanitarian assistance,” Blinken said on May 10 to Congress, after receiving the reports.

Crimes, recommendations ignored 

USAID’s memo also highlighted a series of grave actions by the Israeli regime, including the killing of aid workers, the destruction of agricultural infrastructure, the bombing of ambulances and hospitals, the occupation of supply depots, and the frequent rejection of trucks carrying vital food and medical supplies.

Moreover, the head of the State Department’s refugees bureau determined that the Israeli regime was blocking humanitarian aid and that the Foreign Assistance Act should be triggered to stop nearly $830 million in taxpayer dollars allocated for military aid to the Israeli occupation, according to ProPublica, which cited emails it had obtained.

Stacy Gilbert, a former senior civil-military advisor in the Refugees Bureau, resigned in protest over the wording of Blinken’s report to Congress, which she had been helping to draft. In a statement released shortly after her departure, and reported by The Washington Post and other outlets, she wrote, “There is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid. To deny this is absurd and shameful.”

Hamas: Blinken, Biden’s actions are shameful

Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas released a statement, commenting on ProPublica‘s report on Wednesday.

Hamas condemned Bliken and Biden’s deliberate concealment of evidence of “Israel’s” non-compliance with US aid missions during his addresses to Congress.

The movement said that Blinken did so, in complicity with Biden, “Out of fear that it would impact weapons supplies to the occupation’s military.”

It said that the revelations serve as evidence of Washington’s involvement in the genocide of the Palestinian people.

“This criminal conduct by Blinken demands that honorable members of the US Congress and American judicial bodies investigate his actions, which have led to the deaths of thousands of our people,” Hamas underlined.

“We call on international judicial institutions, foremost among them the International Criminal Court, to take these reports seriously and take the necessary legal action against Blinken,” the movement urged.

Hamas stressed that Blinken had participated in the deliberate starvation and the genocide of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip through his actions.

September 25, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Germany’s BfV intelligence agency includes Remix News on list of websites tied to Russian propaganda campaign

Remix News | September 25, 2024

Remix News has been included on a list of websites accused of being used in a Russian propaganda operations, according to a controversial report from the powerful Office of the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), although Remix News has no ties to Russia.

The report, labeled “Doppelgänger,” made headlines across Germany due to its claims that certain media outlets were pushing Russian narratives or producing news reports that the Russians could use to promote propaganda campaigns. As a result, many of these media outlets, including Der Freitag, Junge Freiheit, and Berliner Zeitung successfully sued the BfV concerning a passage in the report which stated that “from the perspective of the actor, the content in question supports the Russian narrative.” The Bavarian BfV further wrote, “For this purpose, some of the articles were deliberately taken out of context.”

The report describes how Russia was allegedly using a number of news websites to promote its own narrative on social media platforms, and even in some cases, created duplicate news websites that appeared to be authentic to end users.

The lawsuit was successful and the secret service was forced to change part of the report, which then was updated to read: The BayLfV does not explicitly assume that those responsible for the websites listed here are spreading Russian propaganda or are aware of it or approve of their content being disseminated as part of the ‘doppelgänger’ campaign. Furthermore, the BayLfV does not make any assessment of the content of the websites in question.”

While Remix News is not among the websites mentioned in the actual main body of the report, it is instead included in a table at the end of the report along with about 350 news websites. Many of the news website are smaller, but Reuters, Zerohedge, Newsweek, and top German news outlets, such as Welt, Berliner Zeitung, and Junge Freiheit, are also included.

Many of these websites may not even be aware they are included in this report, as they are too large to be concerned about what a German intelligence agency operating from a single German state is publishing. However, the inclusion of Remix News on this list is problematic. For one, malicious journalists or activists may attempt to smear Remix News for being included on such a list from the German intelligence services, as the list tangentially ties our site to so-called Russian propaganda efforts. Without the proper context, such a list could be deemed extremely harmful to Remix News.

Second, there are no examples given of how Remix News was used by the Russians in their campaign. We are simply left to speculate how our website may have been allegedly used by these “Russian actors.”

For the record, Remix News has no ties to Russia in any form whatsoever.

The entire report appears to be somewhat of a debacle for the German intelligence services and has been heaped with criticism.

Speaking to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Vice President of the Bundestag and FDP politician Wolfgang Kubicki said it was a good thing that the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution had been forced to correct its report.

“This correction should also give food for thought to all those who believe that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s assessments are sacrosanct per se. We must continue to be careful that authorities do not restrict the right to freedom of expression for political reasons — not just in Bavaria, but throughout Germany,” he stated.

Media lawyer Joachim Steinhöfel criticized the Bavarian BfV’s failure to act without the threat of a lawsuit, which he said was “certainly one of the most blatant examples of how state bodies try to disparage the media.”

Notably, many of the media outlets listed in the report are seen as critical of the German government. It is unclear how Remix News landed on this list, but it is concerning that we were included with no context whatsoever. Our publication does not have the resources at this time to take legal action against the BfV, and the report remains part of the public record, albeit with an updated correction thanks to the legal battle waged by German media outlets.

Some commentary pieces Remix has published from Poland are strongly critical of Russia and the war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, some content we have published that conveys arguments from a Hungarian perspective, simply state the official position, which has never condoned Russia’s invasion. These pieces have simply stated Hungary will not send weapons to Ukraine and has consistently called for a ceasefire. However, in both media markets, there is a broad range of opinions, and Remix News has endeavored to publish a wide range of perspectives on this complex issue.

The report is also concerning due to the fact that Remix News has reported a number of times in a critical manner in relation to the BfV. As Remix News has previously reported, the BfV is a highly politicized agency, with a special focus on targeting critics of the government, perhaps most notably the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The BfV is focused on Germany’s domestic sphere and is tasked with ensuring Germany’s constitution is protected. This role has increasingly morphed into fighting parties deemed outside the mainstream, with many analysts viewing the agency as a growing threat to democracy.

It features incredible spying powers, which enable it to monitor political activists and even people who have done nothing wrong besides being members of political parties deemed a threat by the ruling class. The AfD, for instance, is labeled in some states as a “suspected threat” to democracy and a “confirmed right-wing extremist” party, which enables security forces in the BfV to monitor all communications, including email, phone and text messages of all its members.

September 25, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Leaked documents reveal US intel cutout’s Iranian counter-revolution plans

By Kit Klarenberg and Max Blumenthal · The Grayzone · September 19, 2024

Leaks expose a secret effort by retired National Endowment for Democracy leader Carl Gershman to consolidate war-hungry neoconservative control over Iran’s opposition, while channeling US government funds into his own pet regime change initiatives.

Leaked documents and emails obtained by The Grayzone reveal a seemingly covert effort by American regime change operatives to impose radical leadership on the remnants of Iran’s protest movement against the mandatory hijab, in order to topple the government of Iran.

The initiative was spearheaded by Carl Gershman, the longtime director of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US government-funded non-profit which advances regime change operations across the globe. Originally conceived by the Reagan administration’s CIA, the NED has meddled in elections and sponsored coup leaders from Nicaragua to Venezuela to Hong Kong, and beyond.

The leaks reveal how Gershman privately plotted to channel US State Department resources into the construction of an “Iran Freedom Coalition” composed of pro-Western Iranian activists and US neoconservative operatives who clamor for an American military assault on Iran.

While aiming to “mobilize international support” for the Women, Life, Freedom Movement, “and to do what is possible to aid [their] struggle,” the Freedom Coalition represents a clear attempt to impose an exiled leadership over the grassroots Iranian opposition which is directed and sponsored by the most belligerent elements in Washington.

Attempts by The Grayzone to reach several members of the Coalition for comment were unsuccessful. We were therefore unable to determine if those listed by Gershman had explicitly committed to participating, or had been named by the NED veteran as prospective leaders.

Regardless of the listed members’ level of participation, the composition of Gershman’s proposed Iran Freedom Coalition demonstrates how Iran’s self-proclaimed pro-democracy movement has become a plaything for the Bomb Iran lobby. Among those handpicked by Gershman to lead the initiative was William Kristol, the neocon impresario who has led a decades-long lobbying campaign for a US military invasion of Iran. Also selected was Joshua Muravchik, a flamboyant supporter of Israel’s Likud Party who insists that “war with Iran is probably our best option”

The Freedom Coalition’s Iranian members consist heavily of US government-sponsored cultural figures and staffers at interventionist Western think tanks like the Tony Blair Institute. While these figures are quoted in Western media as the leaders of Iran’s “freedom” struggle, their involvement in US government-backed campaigns like the one conceived by Gershman reveals them as little more than Persian front people for Washington warmongers.

Protests erupted in Iranian cities in September 2022 after the death of a young Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini, who was briefly taken into police custody in Tehran after violating moral codes mandating that women wear a hijab. The movement attracted the zealous support of Western governments, celebrities and feminist NGOs, which cheered it on even after it fizzled out in the streets.

As Gershman’s leaked proposal illustrates, these elements quickly hijacked the protests, inserting US government-sponsored exiles as the movement’s international face and voice, thus ensuring that their ultimate effect would be a deepening of US sanctions on average Iranians.

In an investigation published this August, The Grayzone revealed that after retiring from his longtime post as leader of the NED in 2021, Gershman became locked in a vicious power struggle with his younger, more socially progressive successors. The Iran leaks we have obtained show how even in retirement, Gershman has attempted a bureaucratic end-around, marshaling his connections in US foreign policy networks to channel government resources into his own pet regime change projects.

Seeking a cut of “illegitimate” $55 million State Dept fund

When Gershman sought to kickstart his latest Iran regime change plot, he reached out to a longtime ally who recorded a three-minute-long “retirement tribute” honoring his tenure at the NED. It was Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, a Republican powerbroker of the South Florida-based Cuban American lobby. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Department of State in the House Committee on Foreign Relations, Diaz Balart had substantial influence over the pursestrings of US foreign operations.

On August 27 2023, Gershman fired off an email to Díaz-Balart and the lawmaker’s “legislative assistant,” Austin Morley, stating that one of his “retirement initiatives” was “to work with Freedom House to create a coalition of working groups.” Calling it the Iran Freedom Coalition (IFC), Gershman claimed the Coalition was already “established.” However, no trace of its existence can be found online.

Gershman explained to Díaz-Balart that his “Iranian friends were taken aback” by the guidelines of the State Department’s 2023 Iran Democracy Fund, which earmarked $55 million for proposals to “strengthen civil society engagement in electoral processes.” According to Gershman, because the Women, Life, Freedom movement driving national protests “doesn’t recognize the legitimacy of the regime that will be managing those ‘electoral processes,” some of the money should be funneled to a more hardline initiative.

The Coalition was to consist “of a dozen solidarity working groups representing…women, civil society and human rights groups, parliamentarians, trade unionists, and physicians that help the injured and traumatized protesters.” Bizarrely, though the protests had been extinguished in Iran, Gershman pitched his IFC to “support…the mass uprising” in Iran, as if it were contemporary.

He suggested Díaz-Balart use his influence within Congress to “direct…maybe 10%” of the $55 million annual budget for the State Department’s controversial Iran Democracy Fund to his own NED.

“The funds could be managed by the NED,” Gershman wrote, “that has a small Iran grants program already and is in very close touch with groups in the US and elsewhere that are trying very discreetly to aid the resistance movement.  In effect, this would enable NED to expand what it’s already doing. Taking such an initiative at this time would be an important act of solidarity.”

US-backed interventionists marketed as Iranian “freedom” leaders

Initially led and organized by Iranian citizens, the Women, Life, Freedom Movement quickly became a cause celebre for notorious, high-profile anti-Islamic Republic exiles. They included Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran’s eldest son and pretender to the country’s now non-existent throne, and Masih Alinejad, a prominent veteran of Western-funded propaganda efforts targeting Tehran, who has reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars from the US government for her anti-Iran agitation – which includes calls for Israeli attacks on the country of her birth. In a September 2022 New Yorker interview, she claimed to be “leading this movement.” Alinejad has also called for Israel to assassinate Iranian leaders.

The Women, Life, Freedom movement’s co-optation by Western interventionists was so flagrant, activists on the ground in Iran complained their efforts had been “hijacked” by foreign forces. Protests in Tehran tapered off after a few weeks, and were forgotten inside Iran.

Yet, Pahlavi and Alinejad continued to hype the movement, earning an invite to the February 2023 Munich Security Conference, where they were presented as prospective leaders of a future “democratic” Iran. Three months later, the US government-funded NGO Freedom House presented the defunct Women, Life, Freedom movement with its annual Freedom Award.

With the introduction of his Iran Freedom Coalition, Gershman aimed to consolidate control of any future protests in the hands of the most belligerent elements in Washington, who advocate crushing sanctions, assassinations of Iranian leaders, and US airstrikes, while claiming concern for the human rights of average Iranians.

Gershman seeks US funds for defunct protest movement

Attached to Gershman’s email to Díaz-Balart was a document setting out his vision for the Iran Freedom Coalition. Touting the defunct Movement as somehow continuing to “represent momentous challenges to the Iranian theocracy and its clerics,” the file called for a “new approach to dealing with Iran.” This was considered particularly urgent in light of the coming termination of the Iran nuclear deal, and what he believed was the Islamic Republic’s “burgeoning military assistance to Russia”:

“The confluence of these factors urgently requires… a focus on building international support for the Iran protest movement and holding the regime accountable for human rights abuses and other violations of international law, as well as thwarting the regime’s ability to sustain its repressive practices and finance its malign activities inside the country and regionally… Through actions outside Iran, the Coalition will also help connect, strengthen, and mobilize constituencies within Iran, namely women, youth, trade unions, civil society, and others.”

The IFC would thus seek to “[shape] international political discourse” on Iran, “[helping] support national discussions about power and democracy.” This work might include “[coordinating] boycotts or divestment campaigns to bring economic pressure to bear” on Tehran, “denying them resources to sustain their repressive activities.” In turn, the Coalition would “bring increased visibility to the efforts of Iranians and empower them to advance change.”

Gershman wrote that Freedom House was committed to “[nurturing] the formation” of IFC, “a coalition of like-minded and influential groups and individuals working on Iran.” It would seek to “inform public opinion in the US and abroad” about “Iran’s freedom struggle,” while focusing “public and diplomatic pressure…on isolating the regime and stopping the flow of funds to the regime.”

A rogue’s gallery of regime change operatives

Gershman’s proposal also provided an accompanying list of “individuals involved or to be involved” in the IFC. Those assembled as the leaders of the longtime NED leader’s coalition represent a veritable rogue’s gallery of neoconservative chickenhawks, pro-war think tankers, and Western-backed Iranian regime change activists.

A full proposed membership list appears at the end of this article.

Mahnaz Afkhami – Afkhami was Minister of Women’s Affairs under the Shah from 1976 to 1978, at a time when the Shah’s brutal Savak security forces were disappearing, torturing and killing thousands of protesters.

William “Bill” Kristol – Kristol is perhaps the leading neoconservative demagogue in Washington, and known for his extensive history of lobbying for war with Iran. In 2010, he declared that Washington’s calamitous, bloody “interventions” in Muslim countries, of which he was invariably a top cheerleader, should be considered “liberations,” and not invasions at all.

Joshua Muravchik – One of the most virulent advocates for a US war on Iran, Muravchik declared “WE MUST bomb Iran” in a 2006 LA Times editorial. Again in 2015, Muravchik declared in a Washington Post editorial, “War with Iran is probably our only answer.” A neoconservative admirer of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party, Muravchik has insisted with his usual knack for subtlety, “Israel keeps saving the world” by carrying out assassinations inside Iran.

Leopoldo Lopez – The de facto leader of Venezuela’s putschist, US and EU government-sponsored opposition, Lopez participated in a failed military coup to remove the democratically elected President Hugo Chavez in 2002, then assisted the Trump administration’s plot to oust President Nicolas Maduro which appointed a phony president, Juan Guaido, to steal Venezuela’s foreign assets, and initiated another failed military coup. Lopez is the aristocratic son of a right-wing Spanish legislator, Leopoldo Lopez Sr., and currently resides in Spain.

Kasra Aarabi and Saeid Golkar – Aarabi and Golkar both work at the Tony Blair Institute, the think tank and influence peddling operation of the pro-war former British Prime Minister. The outfit is known to have received £9 million for advising the government of Saudi Arabia. In November 2022, the Blair Institute published an extraordinary report on the Women, Life, Freedom Movement, excitedly cheering how “removal of the hijab became a symbol of regime change” in Iran. The report made a number of frenzied claims, including that the overwhelming majority of the Islamic Republic’s population are secularists, if not atheists, wholeheartedly supporting their government’s overthrow.

It went on to boast that the Blair Institute had “developed on-the-ground intelligence in Iran through a network of contacts on the streets,” which it has exploited to forecast” protest trends in Iran for the past five years, including the ongoing nationwide uprising.” While the Institute’s claim is unsubstantiated, it raises questions about whether the former UK PM’s outfit played a clandestine role in instigating the Women, Life, Freedom Movement protests.

Roya Hakakian – An Iranian-Jewish author and darling of the Israel lobby, Hakakian has denigrated protests against Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza as proof that “Iran [has] arrive[d] on US campuses,” and fervently defended Israel as a robust democracy striving for peace.

Maziar Bahari – A Canadian-Iranian journalist, Bahari was the subject of Jon Stewart’s 2014 film, Rosewater, about his detention in Iran’s Evin prison. Today, Bahari serves alongside former State Department and USAID officials, and Western interventionist NGO leaders, as director of the board of Journalism For Change. As the independent outlet Noir reported, Journalism For Change receives at least 95% of its budget from the US State Department, which also funds IranWire, an anti-Tehran partner outlet that publishes Bahari’s articles.

Mariam Memarsadeghi – A self-proclaimed “Iran democracy activist” who features both the Ukrainian and Israeli flags on her Twitter/X bio, Memarsadeghi directs the Israel lobby-adjacent Cyrus Forum, which is dedicated to promoting regime change in Iran.

Despite her own flamboyant advocacy for toppling Iran’s government, Memarsadeghi conceded that Reza Pahlavi’s own campaign to dismantle the Islamic Republic floundered because “his most visible associates” were deranged far-right ultranationalists who alienated average Iranians. “[Spending] most of their time peddling distrust and attacking other opposition leaders on social media,” they also “publicly [called] for retributive violence, summary executions, the purging of leftists, vilification of human rights defenders, and antagonism towards free media outlets.”

In her criticism of Pahlavi, Memarsadeghi could have also been describing the neocon-controlled Iran Freedom Coalition to which she apparently lent her name and reputation.

September 24, 2024 Posted by | Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

Measles “Outbreak” In Maine Was Vaccine-Induced All Along

Informed Consent Action Network | September 24, 2024

ICAN’s attorneys obtained documents related to the widely reported May 2023 “outbreak” of measles in Maine. As it turns out, test results from the CDC confirmed that the measles case was “consistent with vaccine strain,” meaning there was no “outbreak” and, instead, it was the vaccine that caused the child’s rash.

On May 5, 2023, the Maine CDC reported that a child had “tested positive” for measles. News outlets immediately began fearmongering, hinting that the “outbreak” was due to low vaccination rates:

The Maine CDC reported that even though the child had received a dose of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, it was “considering the child to be infectious out of an abundance of caution.” In the meantime, the Maine CDC indicated it had sent a specimen to CDC headquarters to determine the specific strain of measles; however, it did not mention how the child would have been exposed to the wild strain of measles, such as international travel, nor did it share how recently the child may have received the vaccine.

According to a WHO report, about 2% of those who receive the measles vaccine develop a rash, called VARI (vaccine-associated rash illness). In fact, one study recommends assuming the rash is vaccine-caused and that “testing should only be considered if exposure to the wild-type (not vaccine-strain) virus is strongly suspected.”

So, it is unclear why the Maine CDC raised the alarm and then took so long to confirm the specific strain. The child was diagnosed on May 3, but it took the Maine CDC five days to ship the sample to the CDC. It then took the CDC seven days to report the results and for the Maine CDC to announce the child was not infectious.

ICAN, through its attorneys, requested relevant records and received them. Incredibly, they reveal that the positive measles test was “[c]onsistent with vaccine strain,” which is apparently an “acceptable” form of measles because, as the Maine CDC announced, the strain that the child tested positive for was not considered “an infectious strain of the virus,” despite causing traditional symptoms of the disease. Decidedly absent from Maine’s announcement was the fact that the child got measles as a result of the vaccine. Maine and the CDC simply hid this fact from the public.

Maine’s actions make sense, however, when considering that it may have just been following a CDC marketing presentation which states that the perfect “recipe” for creating demand for vaccines “requires creating concern, anxiety, and worry” by, for example, having medical experts and public health authorities “state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes)” and show “[v]isible/tangible examples of the seriousness of the illness (e.g., pictures of children, families of those affected coming forward) and people getting vaccinated (the first to motivate, the latter to reinforce)” — all things we saw implemented during this “outbreak.”

Lead Counsel, Aaron Siri, Esq. lays out the details here.

ICAN will continue to follow-up on reported outbreaks across the country. In the meantime, catch up on some of ICAN’s additional work on vaccine policy:

September 24, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | 2 Comments

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