Law Enforcement Misrepresentation of Orlando Killer’s 911 Call Ignores U.S. Foreign Policy Motivation
By Matt Peppe | Just the Facts | June 14, 2016
In the aftermath of the horrific mass murder at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando over the weekend in which 50 people were killed, media including CNN, USA Today, NPR, NBC News, and CBS News, all reported that the gunman called 911 during his murderous rampage and pledged allegiance to ISIS. None of the journalists writing for any of these news outlets heard the call themselves; they all cite the FBI as their source.
The U.S. government has been engaged in a war against the self-professed Islamic State for the last two years. Their military intervention consists of a bombing campaign against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria. Hyping the threat members connected to the terror group – or spiritually loyal to it – pose to American citizens is supportive of U.S. foreign policy. If ISIS, or people claiming to act on behalf of ISIS, are a real danger to Americans, it bolsters the notion that the group is a threat to national security and helps justify the government’s military response.
The FBI seems eager to show itself as disrupting ISIS plots in the States. As Adam Johnson has written in FAIR, the FBI has put Americans in contact with informants who claim to represent ISIS and then led the targets to believe they would help the targets join the terrorist organization. The media have then conflated this with an “ISIS Plot” and “ISIS Support,” when no members of ISIS were ever involved in any way.
The FBI’s motivation to portray events in a way that supports U.S. foreign policy, and its history of portraying its actions in a way that has served to hype an ISIS threat should make journalists cautious about taking officials’ words at face value. Especially in the case of a 911 call, which is a public record in Florida, proper journalistic due diligence would be to consult the actual source of the claims being disseminated.
Instead, not a single journalist appears to have done this with Orlando killer Omar Mateen’s 911 call.
On Tuesday, CNN aired interviews of eyewitnesses to the shooting spree who described their harrowing encounters with the gunman inside the club. Patience Carter, who was inside a bathroom stall feet from the gunman when he called 911, said he told the dispatcher that “the reason why he was doing this is because he wants America to stop bombing his country.” (Mateen is a native of the United States, but he was presumably referring to Afghanistan, where both of his parents are from.) She said he then declared that “from now on he pledges his loyalty to ISIS.”
This demonstrates that his primary motive for his terror attack was retaliation for the U.S. aggression in Afghanistan, where nearly 100,000 people have been killed since the illegal U.S. invasion in 2001. His mention of ISIS seems merely adjunct to what he admits was his justification for the attack. His motivation precedes his ideological alignment with ISIS, not the other way around.
Anti-war activists have long argued that overseas military operations endanger not only the populations whose countries are invaded, occupied and bombed, but Americans in the United States who are at risk of terrorist retaliation from people outraged by the death and destruction war inevitably produces to the point of being willing to resort to violence themselves.
Carter’s version of the 911 call reveals a very different picture than the partial one revealed by the FBI and reprinted by each of the largest news organizations. The complete conversation depicts Mateen as indicating that he considered his actions a response to U.S. foreign policy. Of course, the murder of innocent civilians is always reprehensible and can never be justified by claiming they are a response to a state’s military aggression, regardless of how deadly and devastating such military operations are. But it should be predictable that some people will use this rationalization regardless and seek out soft targets in the country whose government they claim to be retaliating against.
The FBI chose to omit Mateen’s professed motive entirely when recounting the 911 call to the media, and merely state that he professed allegiance to ISIS. Perhaps they recognized how putting Mateen’s call in context may lead people to question whether U.S. wars in Afghanistan (and Iraq) raise the terrorist threat at home.
After all, this is not the first time this has happened. The surviving Boston Marathon bomber cited the U.S. wars abroad as his motivation for committing the attack that killed three people and maimed dozens more.
It is not clear whether any journalist even asked to hear the 911 call themselves. But it is clear that they chose to disseminate second-hand information when the primary source should have been easily accessible. If it was not made available (as required by law), the public deserves to know that it was suppressed and be given an explanation why.
Media stenographers parroted government officials’ descriptions of the call, which left out the killer’s professed motivation for his politically motivated attack and failed to put the ISIS claim in any context. Unsurprisingly, their misrepresentation served the government’s policy agenda and avoided having the incident serve as an example of a negative consequence of U.S. foreign policy – one that anti-war dissenters have used in arguing against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since the War on Terror was launched more than a decade and a half ago.
An Armenian American Group Caves in to the Anti-Defamation League
By David Boyajian | Dissident Voice | June 14, 2016
For several decades the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other leading Jewish American organizations (AIPAC, AJC, B’nai B’rith, and JINSA) have deliberately colluded with Turkey and Israel to defeat U.S. Congressional resolutions on the Christian Armenian Genocide and to diminish the factuality of that genocide.
Yola Habif Johnston, a director at JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs), once admitted that “the Jewish lobby has quite actively supported Turkey in their efforts to prevent the so-called Armenian genocide resolution from passing.”
The hypocrisy is breathtaking given these organizations’ loud, endless demands for recognition of, and legislation on, the Jewish Holocaust.
Starting in 2007, Armenian Americans in Massachusetts and elsewhere made international news by exposing the national ADL’s hypocrisy. In disgust, 13 Massachusetts cities and the umbrella Massachusetts Municipal Association kicked out the ADL’s alleged anti-bias program, “No Place for Hate.” Human rights advocates and many honest Jews supported those efforts. The Turkish government raged that its collaboration with Israel, the ADL, and other Holocaust hypocrites had been blown wide-open.
But in mid-May, a small group of Armenian Americans in Massachusetts — including the politically ambitious Sheriff of Middlesex County Peter Koutoujian and a few members of the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) and the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) — struck a horrible “deal” with the two-faced ADL.
For his part of the “deal,” ADL National Director Jonathan Greenblatt casually “blogged” that his organization now “unequivocally” acknowledges the Armenian Genocide and “would support” (not “do support”) American recognition of that genocide.
Even Andrew Tarsy, former Director of the New England ADL, termed the pact “inadequate“. The ADL “ought to lead the conversation about reparations for these [Armenian] families … assets, land … everything that Holocaust reparations … has represented should be on the table.”
Of the many things wrong with this “deal,” let’s list a few.
The Horrible “Deal”
- The “deal” was concocted behind the backs of the Armenian American community and the hundreds of activists — Armenian and non-Armenian — who started the campaign in 2007 and have battled the ADL since. Why haven’t the verbal or written details of the negotiations and “deal” been made public? Why the lack of transparency?
- Greenblatt (former Starbucks VP and Special Assistant to Pres. Obama) isn’t the ADL’s highest official and may not have the authority to set policy. Have the ADL’s National Commission and National Executive Committee (its “highest policymaking bodies”) formally approved of Greenblatt’s “blog” post? We don’t know.
- The ADL has long played word games with the Armenian Genocide. In 2007, for example, it disingenuously dubbed it “tantamount to genocide” but not genocide. Greenblatt’s conditional claim that “we would support U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide” is similarly suspect. Why not just “we support”?
- The Armenian American activist website “NoPlaceForDenial.com” demands that the ADL “support U.S. affirmation of the Armenian Genocide, as it does with the Holocaust.” I authored those last six words years ago. They mean that as partial atonement the ADL must work as hard for acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide as it has for the Holocaust. Nothing in Greenblatt’s statement remotely suggests that the ADL would do that.
- For three decades or more, the ADL has attacked Armenian Americans and worked with Turkey and Israel to defeat U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Yet the ADL has never apologized for its atrocious conduct. Ironically, the only ADL apology came in 2007 when National Director Abe Foxman apologized to Turkey because publicity surrounding the Armenian issue had embarrassed that country. The failure to obtain an apology from the ADL is scandalous.
- Americans deserve to know the details of the ADL’s longtime Genocide-denial pact with Turkey and Israel. Where are the documents, and why was their release not part of the “deal”?
The Berman Affair
Armenian Americans won a major victory in 2014 when Attorney Joseph Berman, an ADL National Commissioner, lost his bid to become a Massachusetts Superior Court judge. Governor Deval Patrick had nominated him in 2013. I testified against Berman.
Following a widely publicized fight, the eight elected Governor’s Councilors refused to confirm Berman. His leadership position in the hypocritical ADL was one reason why Councilors opposed him.
While I was in close touch with several Councilors, an incident occurred that has never before been made public.
A Councilor who opposed Berman told me of receiving several calls asking that the Councilor vote for Berman. One such caller was Sheriff Peter Koutoujian, an Armenian American prominent in the recent ADL “deal.” I remain deeply troubled by that call. Why would Koutoujian do such a thing? I think I know, but only Koutoujian can answer that question. He did not return my recent call asking about his past activities in the campaign against the ADL.
The final Council vote on Berman was 4 to 4. Had the Councilor voted as Koutoujian asked, the ADL’s candidate and the ADL would have triumphed, and Armenian activists would have been defeated.
That and other significant incidents raise questions as to whether the recent ADL “deal” was negotiated in the tough, adversarial way required to defend Armenian interests.
Failing to Confront
When a few activists and I launched the battle against the ADL in July 2007 and events were moving quickly, AAA and ANCA initially delayed even issuing a statement. Perhaps they were concerned about retaliation or being called anti-Jewish.
The following year, moreover, several activists and I became convinced that these organizations were not fully committed to the ADL fight. At one point, we were told that at least one of the organizations would no longer try to convince cities to sever ties with the ADL.
In 2015, even the NoPlaceForDenial.com website, an essential news resource maintained by ANCA persons, disappeared. It reappeared after I persisted in complaining about its removal.
Indeed, the ADL came under renewed pressure months ago only because I informed ANCA and a pro-AAA person that Newton, MA had, perhaps unintentionally, invited in the ADL after having booted it out in 2007.
Sheriff Koutoujian himself has long been very close to various Jewish organizations. He once received an award from the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston. He has taken two trips to Israel. The second one, last year, concerned “counter-terrorism.” It was organized by the ADL and funded by Israel’s Gal Foundation, which sponsors ADL programs. Of the 14 Massachusetts law enforcement personnel on the trip, Koutoujian was the only sheriff. Koutoujian later co-narrated a slideshow of the trip at a synagogue in Burlington, MA. Koutoujian has also spoken at other Jewish venues.
He recently wrote this on his Facebook page: “Thank you to the ADL and the Boston Globe for recognizing this terrible moment [Armenian Genocide] for what it is.” So after three decades of the ADL’s conspiring with Turkey to abuse Armenians, defeat Armenian Genocide resolutions, and damage the cause of genocide prevention, the ADL is thanked and all is forgiven, while hundreds of Armenian American activists get no thanks whatsoever? Incredible.
It’s well-known that Americans often interact with powerful Jewish American political organizations in two related ways. First, a person may hesitate to publicly disagree with such organizations due to concern about retaliation and being labeled anti-Jewish. On the other hand, being friendly and deferential to these organizations may advance one’s career in politics, academia, business, and other endeavors.
This question must be asked: Could these two types of interactions have adversely affected the post-2007 Armenian American campaign against, and the recent “deal” with, the ADL?
The Anti-Human Rights ADL
The ADL has an appalling anti-Armenian record. Despite this, recent stories about the “deal” in the Boston Globe and an Armenian American newspaper depicted the ADL as now somehow virtuous. Neither told readers about the ADL’s three decades of hypocrisy and collusion with Turkey.
The ADL claims to be “the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency [which] protects civil rights for all.” What nonsense! If that were so, it would never have been in the business of covering up genocide. Nor can acknowledging the Armenian Genocide magically now make the ADL a human rights organization. Indeed, the Armenian issue is just one of many that have unmasked the ADL.
The ADL, therefore, is not about civil or human rights. It’s just a Jewish political organization. For instance, it lobbied for an oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey. Human rights organizations don’t do that sort of thing.
What about nice-sounding ADL programs such as “No Place for Hate,” “World of Difference,” and “Combatting Bullying”? They’re covers. The ADL uses them to penetrate schools, colleges, corporations, and communities to enhance its visibility and political influence.
So that’s the organization that some Armenian Americans just made a “deal” with – a deal that was fatally flawed from the day it was conceived. True human rights advocates and perceptive Armenians reject it.
Oh the Joys of Dimona!
By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | June 14, 2016
Happy shiny Dimona’s website home page
The subtitle of this post might be the same as the subtitle of the film, Dr. Strangelove: “How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.” Dimona’s bombs, that is.
In the past year, the Israeli Atomic Energy Agency launched a website dedicated to extolling the virtues of its Dimona. Not the place itself, which is a bit of a backwater company town devoted to the community’s main (perhaps only) industry. But to Israel’s plutonium reactor around which the town coalesced. That’s the reactor that churned out its first nuclear weapon around 1970 just in time for Moshe Dayan to suggest it should be used as a warning shot during the 1973 War when the fighting was going badly for Israel in the initial stages. It’s the same reactor which churned out another 200 or so nuclear weapons since then, making Israel the most dangerous–and so far, the only–nuclear power in the region.
This report on the world nuclear arsenal indicates Israel has only 80 nuclear weapons. But it adds that Israel is testing a new generation of ballistic missile, which is a substantial escalation of the regional nuclear arms race.
Dimona is also the same reactor which has poisoned hundreds or even thousands of workers who’ve died of various cancers. The same one which has poisoned the water in the plant’s vicinity. None of which may be reported openly by the Israeli press.
But if you examine the website you wouldn’t know any of this. From the “History” page, you wouldn’t know Dimona produced nuclear weapons at all; which is the main, indeed only reason it exists. You’d see bright shiny faces; the pretty blond locks of a female white-coated scientist presumably seeking a cure for cancer. Or the delicate toes of a baby held in the firm, supporting hands of an adult under the caption: “a secure, responsible place of work.” You’d see flowers. You’d see copy that reads like a Hallmark greeting card. Copy which extols Dimona’s mission as a “matter of national social responsibility.” That is, the authors of this tripe would have you believe that the production of nuclear weapons in Dimona is done in a manner that is environmentally responsible. This is real Alice in Wonderland stuff. Where words mean what the liar speaking them wants them to mean, “nothing more, nothing less.” It’s something like extolling Alamagordo or Auschwitz as environmental sanctuaries.
The website’s About page is titled: “Vision and Values, a Social Responsibility.” It continues: “In recent years the values of the Negev Center for Nuclear Have Been Articulated Anew.” Those values include the reactor staff volunteering in various projects to make their communities better places. Not a single word about the mass destruction Dimona’s products are capable or raining down on the world.
The launch of the website is in itself interesting. It indicates that some bureaucrats running the nuclear program felt it was important to join the modern age and feature a website to promote Dimona. That’s a break from six decades of total opacity regarding the nuclear program. Six decades of lies and denial regarding the purpose of the reactor. Avner Cohen notes in his recent Haaretz op-ed that Israel’s nuclear program isn’t even ratified under law. Rather, it exists in a netherworld called “residual powers.” This means the government may engage in any activity which the law doesn’t preclude it from doing.
Though on the surface, the new website does mark a break from the past, in reality the change is little more than cosmetic. Little has changed. Israel and the website still live in a state of denial. Israel can’t even admit in its website what the real purpose of this place is. … Full article
‘US govt, MSM give no evidence to confirm ex-Gitmo detainees reengage in terrorist activities’
RT | June 12, 2016
The US government isn’t providing any evidence to confirm reengagement of former Guantanamo detainees in terrorist activities. They give numbers they allege are accurate but provide no facts, said Andy Worthington of the Close Guantanamo group.
The US government’s greatest fears about releasing Guantanamo Bay prisoners are that inmates might re-emerge on the ‘battlefield’ and re-engage in terrorist activities. Seventeen percent of former detainees, or 118, are confirmed to have re-engaged in militant activity, while 13 percent, or 86, are suspected of re-engaging.
Author of “The Guantanamo Files” and co-founder of the group Close Guantanamo, Andy Worthington, told RT America’s Simone Del Rosario that the US government isn’t supplying any evidence to confirm their fears.
RT: You’ve dedicated a chunk of your life to documenting files and stories from Guantanamo not as an attorney, but as an investigative journalist. After all of your research, what do you consider to be the most pressing reason to close Guantanamo for good?
Andy Worthington: From the very beginning it’s been a bad idea. If you’re going to deprive people of liberty, there are only two ways to do that, if you claim to respect the rule of law. That is that you either charge them with a criminal offence and put them on trial in a Federal court – that would be in the US; or they’re soldiers protected by the Geneva conventions and you can hold them until the end of hostilities.
But after 9/11 the US did neither of those things. So the men held in Guantanamo were held initially without any rights whatsoever. Human beings deprived of all rights, which is a really shocking thing. Although, over the years there have been various efforts to give them legal rights – going up to the Supreme Court, the situation still is that the people held in Guantanamo are effectively prisoners of the political system – we can almost describe them as political prisoners. There is no recognizable justice in their cases. The releases from Guantanamo end up being down to a political process. That is just an unfair way for a country like the US, which claims to be founded on the rule of law and to respect the rule of law, to behave.
RT: As Obama’s term comes to a close are you finding yourself more or less hopeful that he will fulfill his promise to close Guantanamo Bay?
AW: I am certainly more hopeful than I was a few years ago. There was a period in the middle of Obama’s presidency when he’d faced a lot of abstraction from Congress; he was unwilling to spend political capital overcoming that. And for a period of nearly three years only five men were released from Guantanamo.
In 2013, a massive prison-wide hunger strike brought Guantanamo back into sharp focus and put pressure on President Obama to do something about it. Since then he has been releasing many prisoners. We are now in the best position that we’ve been in during his presidency – only one tenth of the men held in Guantanamo is still held there – just 80 men. Thirty of those men have been approved for release by a variety of review processes under President Obama. We have a promise from the administration that they will be released by the end of the summer. Of the rest of the men – so the other 50 – just 10 are facing trials, or have had trials. The other 40 are undergoing this latest review process called the periodic review boards. We don’t know how many of those are going to be approved for release, but at the current rate of the reviews three out of four of the men have been recommended for release – there are currently 24 out of 33 men recommended for release.
Now these are men who were initially described as “too dangerous to release,” but the Task Force that looked at their cases said there was insufficient evidence to put them on trial; or they are men who were initially put forward for prosecution by a Task Force that President Obama set up in his first year in office. But the basis for prosecution has since collapsed. Appeals Court judges ruled that the war crimes for which the majority of the men were being convicted had actually been invented by Congress and were not internationally recognized. That is just a little summing up of the extraordinary ways in which Guantanamo is a shame and embarrassment on every level.
RT: A Washington Post article came out citing the Obama administration and the Pentagon saying that at least 12 released Guantanamo detainees are implicated in attacks on Americans that have resulted in American deaths. Do some of those Congressional members, who are against the closure, have a point in wanting to keep some of these men locked up?
AW: I think, first of all, they would have to provide us with evidence and they never do. In the early days of the defense department providing information on prisoners who they said have returned to the battlefield, or … have engaged in some kind of anti-American activity. They would provide information about who these men were. For around five years now they have provided nothing. They tell us numbers that they allege accurate, but they don’t provide any further information so that people can do some investigation to judge whether the information is correct or not. They have people that they say are confirmed of engaging in anti-American activities and ones that are suspected. Those figures generally get lumped together by the right-wing lawmakers and by most parts of the mainstream media – very irresponsibly… But, as I said, they don’t provide the information. This latest article in the Washington Post is unfortunately yet another lazy example of propaganda masquerading as journalism, without giving us the facts how are we supposed to accept that there is any truth to this.
Signal from Russian sub lurking near Sweden in 2014 ‘came from Swedish object’
RT | June 12, 2016
A sonar signature, which Swedish military claimed to be crucial evidence of a foreign submarine’s presence near Stockholm during the 2014 hunt, came from a “Swedish object,” the country’s defense minister has admitted.
Peter Hultqvist would not go into details about the source of the signal, but said the military reconsidered their assessment of its nature in September 2015, he told Sveriges Radio.
The hunt for a foreign submarine, presumed to be Russian by the Swedish media, was launched off Stockholm in October 2014. The media reported that an emergency hail on a frequency used by the Russian Navy prompted the hunt. An amateur photo of the supposed boat was widely circulated. Hultqvist took up office earlier the same month.
At the time of the search Swedish military reported having crucial evidence of the presence of a foreign submarine in the country’s waters. The perceived threat to national security was used to justify a multimillion-dollar boost to military spending.
In April 2015, the supposed intruder was revealed to have been a workboat by Swedish media.
Sweden is not the only nation where Russian submarines have been blamed for things they didn’t do. In April last year, a fishing vessel collided with an unidentified submarine off Scotland, with British media speculating that it must have been Russian. The Royal Navy admitted in September that the boat was actually theirs.
Western media blame Russia sometimes bizarrely for various incidents, including the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in 2014 to the vandalizing of a Swedish TV mast last month.
READ MORE: ‘Oops, it was us’: Military concedes British sub, not Russian, damaged UK trawler in April
State Department Emails Reveal How Unqualified Clinton Donor Was Named to Intelligence Board
By Peter Van Buren | We Meant Well | June 11, 2016
Emails recently released by the State Department give more information on how a securities trader and big-money Clinton donor was appointed by her office to the International Security Advisory Board (ISAB), a group that advises the Secretary of State on nuclear weapons and other security issues.
According to the State Department’s own website, members are “national security experts with scientific, military, diplomatic, and political backgrounds.” The current members show a lot of generals, ambassadors and academics.
So it seemed odd to ABC News that Clinton felt that Rajiv K. Fernando, pictured, qualified for the group, since his background is in high-frequency stock trading and Internet “ventures.” He has donated heavily both to the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton’s two presidential campaigns, and the Obama campaigns.
The newly released emails show he was added to the panel by then Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills. ““Raj was not on the list sent to [the Secretary of State]; he was added at their insistence” reads one 2011 email from Wade Boese, Chief of Staff for the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, to a press aide.
Fernando’s appointment even confused some staffers, the emails reveal. One press aide wrote internally, “it appears there is much more to this story that we’re unaware of,” and “it’s natural to ask how he got onto the board when compared to the rest of the esteemed list of members.”
That press aide wrote in a separate email: “We must protect the Secretary’s and Under Secretary’s name, as well as the integrity of the Board. I think it’s important to get down to the bottom of this before there’s any response.”
— Fernando declined to comment at the time, and promptly resigned from ISAB.
— The Clinton campaign declined to comment. Why did she decline to comment on a person she hand-selected to advise her? If it’s all just a witch hunt, say so, and explain why.
— The State Department put out a statement saying the ISAB is meant to reflect “a balance of backgrounds and points of view.” Including apparently unqualified points of view. That’s diversity, Clinton-style!
BONUS: Raj Fernando is a superdelegate for Clinton!
‘No magic thing can reverse this’: RT investigates water crisis aftermath in Flint
RT | June 11, 2016
RT traveled to the site of the most avoidable public health emergency of the decade, interviewing those who defied authorities and spent their time and money to uncover the lead poisoning that has affected thousands of residents of Flint, Michigan.
“The water is not safe yet. And we are traumatized by the unknowns of tomorrow: what is this lead going to do for our community? What does it mean? Moms are coming to clinic, they just hear “brain damage” and “irreversible neurotoxin,” Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha told documentary-maker Miguel Francis-Santiago, when he visited the city earlier this year, to find out that while Flint may have left the headlines, the impact of years of errors and cover-ups has not been smoothed over.
“There is no treatment for lead, there is no lead pill, there is no lead antibiotic… There’s not some magic thing that we can do to reverse this,” said Hanna-Attisha.
A prominent pediatrician, Mona Hanna-Attisha personally undertook testing for blood lead levels in local children, following hundreds of complaints of fatigue, nausea and malaise resulting from drinking the discolored, often strange-smelling liquid that flowed from Flint’s faucets after it changed its water source in 2014.
Hanna-Attisha noted that dangerous lead levels had doubled in just a matter of months, but her findings were disregarded by top local officials, who repeatedly claimed that the water was safe in public, even as they already noted concerns in private.
As her claims have been verified, her critics have been forced to apologize, while Hanna-Attisha’s research has been published, and she has been awarded a PEN prize for speaking out.
Hanna-Attisha said she was doing her job, but Virginia Tech Engineering Professor, said he went “a bit crazy” – spending over $100,000 of his own money to conduct a study to definitively prove contamination after being dispatched to conduct a study in 2015.
Edwards correctly pinpointed the problem with the multi-million dollar filtration plant the local authorities began using just over two years, to save money by pumping and treating water from Flint River, instead of purchasing it from Lake Huron.
“If they had just followed the law, if they’d added a corrosion inhibitor, that switch to Flint River water would have actually saved money, none of these problems would have happened, you know. If they had just put that phosphate in the water, we wouldn’t have had the pipe leaks, wouldn’t have had the lead in water, wouldn’t have had the legionella,” said Edwards, referring to an outbreak of the disease that killed 10 people in the months while the plant was operational.
But Edwards reserves his harshest words for senior regional Environmental Protection Agency official Susan Hedman, who he says “incredibly” used her role to “cover-up” the crisis, keeping Flint residents oblivious to the harm they were doing themselves, just as Edwards himself was going round houses and warning residents to avoid the water. Hedman has since resigned.
While many lives were saved through the intervention of several public crusaders, others were not.
Nakiya Wakes already suspected something was amiss when her two children’s hair started falling out after being washed with local water, but pregnant with twins at the time, she did not know that worse was to come.
Late last year, she suffered two miscarriages, losing one child after the other.
“I feel like if they would’ve let the city of Flint know this, my babies would have been born on February 11 of 2016. Back in 2015 when I was coming home from the hospital I got a letter from the City of Flint saying that pregnant women and people 55 and over should not be drinking this water,” she told Miguel-Santiago.
“So I got to thinking then, I just lost my babies, what is in the water? So… I immediately had my kids tested for lead, and they tested 5.0, they tested positive for high levels of lead. They can’t tell me long-term what’s going happen to my kids?”
The full documentary will be broadcast on RT on June 12, and every day until June 14 on RTD.
FBI increase use of anti-ISIS undercover agents, sting operations
RT | June 8, 2016
Sending someone undercover was once a last resort for the FBI – despite popular law dramas where it seems to happen every few weeks. But the FBI’s use of undercover agents in the fight against Islamic State has some questioning its legality.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has significantly increased its use of agents and informants in terrorism cases according to a report from the New York Times. In fact, the FBI uses it so intensively that it is used in about two out of three prosecutions related to suspects believed to be supporting the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
When agents and informants go undercover, they pose as anything from weapons and arms dealers to jihadists or just friends on social media. However, defense lawyers, civil right activists and Muslim leaders have all compared the tactics used by the FBI to entrapment.
“They’re manufacturing terrorism cases,” Michael German, a former undercover agent with the FBI and national security law researcher at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, told the New York Times, adding: “These people are five steps away from being a danger to the United States.”
For example, Emanuel Lutchman of Rochester, New York, was arrested in relation to a plot to abduct and kill the patrons at a Rochester bar on New Year’s Eve. His grandmother, Beverley Carridice-Henry, told the Democrat and Chronicle that Lutchman had suffered from mental illness and was sent to prison when he was 16 years old. While there, he converted to Islam to gain protection after another inmate attempted to rape him.
Carridice-Henry told the Democrat and Chronicle that he had been hospitalized at least three times for suicide attempts and that his difficulties with mental health made him vulnerable to coercion, saying: “I’m not going to say he’s a saint, but the thing about him is, he’d meet somebody and they were automatically his friend,” adding, “And I told him, ‘Not everyone you meet is your friend.’ But to him they were.”
She explained her frustration with the sting operation involving her allegedly homeless grandson, saying: “They sent this guy to befriend him and set him up in a sting. How is that right? For the federal government to set up youths that they know are vulnerable?… He didn’t have money to buy Pampers for his son. How would he find money to go buy these [weapons]?”
The New York Times explained that the informant provided Lutchman with the $40 necessary to purchase the materials he needed for his plot from Wal-Mart.
Karen J. Greenberg, the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University, told the New York Times that these tactics may not be giving the FBI the results they want. “I think the FBI is really going down the wrong path with a lot of these ISIS cases.”
The FBI has defending its methodology, saying that the warrantless use of undercover operatives and informants is justified by the accelerated timeline that causes Islamic State loyalists to attack as soon as days or weeks after their radicalization. Michael B. Steinbach, who leads the FBI’s national security branch, told The New York Times : “We’re not going to wait for the person to mobilize on his own timeline,” adding that the FBI cannot “just sit and wait knowing the individual is actively plotting.”
The FBI claims its agents go to great lengths to avoid entrapment by asking the subject of their stings to confirm their intent multiple times. In the case of James Gonzalo Medina, a convert also known as James Muhammad, he had initially attempted to distance himself from a plot to attack a synagogue.
When Medina, 40, pointed out a “David’s triangle star” outside of a synagogue, an FBI informant suggested that he attack the temple during a Jewish holiday. Medina responded to this suggestion, saying: “Now that’ll be a good day to go and bomb them.”
The informant introduced him to a person that was said to have experience with explosives. Unbeknownst to Medina, he was an undercover FBI agent. The agent told Medina: “You need to be sure, brother,” and even said: “You know you don’t have to do any of this.”
These dubious tactics have lead judges to consider whether what the FBI is doing is entrapment. In 2011, Judge Colleen McMahon, of the US District Court in Manhattan, said that a case involving four men was potentially crossing the line, saying: “I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that there would have been no crime here, except the government instigated it, planned it and brought it to fruition.”
However, Judge McMahon upheld the charges.
Saudis to Receive Combat Choppers After Removal From UN Child Killing List
Sputnik – 08.06.2016
Saudi Arabia is set to receive 24 Hellfire-armed AH-6i Little Bird helicopters from US aeronautics contractor Boeing, a sale that would have been banned had the UN not removed the Kingdom from their war crimes against children list.
On Wednesday, Boeing announced that they will begin delivering AH-6i Little Bird light attack and reconnaissance helicopters to Saudi Arabia by the end of the month, as the aircraft begin to come off the production line in Mesa, Arizona by the end of this week.
The contract faced uncertainty late last week when the United Nations included Saudi Arabia on a blacklist as part of their annual report on Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC), for their role in indiscriminate bombings of schools and hospitals in Yemen.
Pursuant to the Leahy Law, the US Department of State and Department of Defense are prohibited from providing military assistance to foreign military units that violate human rights, precisely what the United Nations initially certified in their original report. This prohibition extends to approval of foreign arms sales by private US contractors, which would stop the lucrative sale of US weapons to Riyadh.
However, the United Nations announced on Monday, after feverish lobbying by the Saudi envoy to the UN, in conjunction with US and UK officials, to temporarily remove Saudi Arabia from the blacklist, pending further investigation of the statistics provided in the report.
Many interpret the purported temporary move to delete Saudi Arabia from the list of child-killers as a permanent step, including the Saudi delegation, which loudly announced that the decision was “final.”
With human rights atrocities ignored for the sake of political and economic expediency, the path is now paved for the light attack helicopter to make its debut in the skies above Yemen. The Saudi-led mission to combat the Houthi political opposition faction and prop up Saudi-freindly leadership in Yemen has the full support of the US and the UK, despite consistent reports of war crimes conducted by Kingdom forces.
The combat helicopter is said to have a maximum speed of 175 mph, with a range of 267 miles. The aircraft is typically armed with Hellfire missiles, Hydra 70 rockets, air-to-air Stingers, automatic grenade launchers, and five high-caliber machine guns.
Leaked Audios Reveal Plot to Oust Dilma Rousseff
By Aline C. Piva | Council on Hemispheric Affairs | June 6, 2016
The already fragile legitimacy of Michel Temer’s interim government in Brazil took a huge blow last week. Leaked audios involving Temer’s closest allies revealed a plot to oust democratically elected Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff as part of a plan to put an end to Operation Carwash (Operação Lava Jato), the operation that is investigating the scheme involving bribery and kickbacks in Petrobras, the Brazil state-owned oil company. [1][2]
On May 23, the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo published the transcripts of a conversation between Romero Jucá, Planning Minister in Temer’s interim government, and Sergio Machado, former Senator and President of Transpetro, another Brazilian state-owned oil company. This conversation – and other records leaked since then – were recorded in March, before the first vote of the impeachment process that took place in the Chamber of Deputies.[3]
After discussing their own involvement in the Carwash investigation –both are being investigated for corruption-, Jucá states his solution for the “problem”: “We have to change the government to be able to stop this bleeding.” Machado followed by agreeing: “The easiest solution would be to put in Michel [Temer].”[4]
A “National Pact” to topple Dilma Rousseff
In this conversation, Jucá talked about a “national pact” to impeach Dilma and stop the investigations of the corruption scheme. This included justices of the Supreme Court, the compliance of the military forces and the pacts amongst the opposition forces in Congress. These clandestine arragements were formed in complete disregard for the political will expressed by the majority of Brazilians at the ballot box. According to Jucá, important members of Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (the Brazilian Social Democratic Party; PSDB), the center-right party that lost the last four presidential elections in Brazil, were aware that Dilma’s removal was an imperative to stop the “bleeding” brought on by Lava Jato.[1]
When asked what he meant by “bleeding”, Jucá said that he was referring to the economic effects of Operation Carwash. Interestingly, he never mentioned the economic situation in Brazil in this conversation. In fact, the dialogue begins with Machado speaking about the risk that plea bargaining deals would become more frequent, which could implicate even more politicians and their close allies. Machado then asked to set up “a structure” to prevent this from happening, should he be prosecuted. In the context of preventing the Lava Jato’s prosecutors from getting Machado’s confession, Jucá suggested that they needed to “stop the bleeding.”[2]
In the audio, Jucá goes even further in demonstrating the possibility of foul play as he describes the role of the military and various members of the Brazilian Supreme Court. Jucá stated that the military supported the coup: “I’m talking to the generals, the military commanders. They are fine with this, they said they will guarantee it”. Temer’s short-lived Planning Minister also affirmed that the military is “monitoring the Landless Workers Movement”, one of the largest Brazilian popular movements that has been at the forefront of protests against the impeachment process. Jucá also has claimed that he had access to a “small number” of the Supreme Court Justices, and that he discussed the extent of the investigations with them. According to Jucá, the justices told him that the corruption investigation – and the popular and media pressure for it to continue – would not stop as long as Rousseff remained in power.[3]
Another two audio leaks, published by Folha, from Renan Calheiros and José Sarney – both had been speaking with Machado, who recorded the conversations – reveal that the plans to stop the investigations of Operation Carwash were in the works for a long time now.
José Sarney, former Brazilian President who now holds a seat in the Brazilian Senate, confided to Machado that key figures of the opposition were reluctant about the idea of a transition government headed by Michel Temer. He also indicated that Michel Temer was negotiating “certain conditions” (not spelled out in the audio) with those opposition representatives, in order to constitute his government. Sarney also made it clear that there was “no way out” for Dilma, except being impeached, and expressed the need to stop the plea-bargaining deals within Operation Carwash. [4]
Renan Calheiros, the President of the Brazilian Senate and former close ally of Dilma Rousseff’s government, also expressed his concerns on the plea-bargaining deals in Operation Carwash. In his conversation with Sergio Machado, Calheiros said that he supported changes in the laws that regulate plea bargaining deals in order to prevent someone who had already been incarcerated from becoming an informer, which is one of the main procedures used by Operation Carwash’s prosecutors for obtaining information on the corruption scheme. This change would benefit many politicians involved in the scandal.[5]
Calheiros also suggests that, in order to deal with this matter, they would have to “negotiate” with members of the Brazilian Supreme Court about the “transition” of Dilma’s government. Effectively, there are now eight different proposals being discussed in the Brazilian Congress on how to change the way plea-bargain deals are made. [6]
Most recently, Sergio Machado leaked his conversations with Fabiano Silveira, former counselor of the Conselho Nacional de Justiça (National Justice Council; CNJ), which is responsible for supervising the Judiciary, and newly appointed Minister of Transparency, Superintendence and Control in Temer’s government. In this audio, Silveira criticizes Operation Carwash and guides Renan Calheiros on how he should prepare his defense for the charges of corruption. The Minister of Transparency has supposedly also sought members of the Lava Jato task force to request information on the investigation involving Calheiros.[7]
These statements alone are serious indications that what is taking place in Brazil is a coup with the purpose of stopping the corruption investigations in the country. Also, one is witnessing a blatant attempt to implement a political project that has been repeatedly defeated in democratic elections since 2002 (recent polls also show high rejection rates for Temer’s government), and there are many other indications that the ouster of Dilma was, in fact, a political plot.[8]
O Estado de São Paulo reported that, during the past 12 months, over 80 members of both houses of the Brazilian Congress held regular meetings to discuss Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment. Among them were former senators José Serra, now Minister of Foreign Relations, and Mendonça Filho, now head of the Ministry of Education. Nelson Jobim, former president of the Brazilian Supreme Court also attended many of these meetings “to help deepen the technical and jurisdictional comprehension of the impeachment.”[9]
The Corruption Narrative
This report and the content of the leaked conversations show that Dilma’s impeachment is the result of a carefully planned and executed plot to benefit a small political group threatened by Operation Carwash. Temer and his closest allies played an important role in this scheme. Moreover, the nomination of his cabinet also reflects how the impeachment process was likely motivated in order to stop the anti-corruption investigations: a third of Temer’s ministers are either under investigation or being charged for corruption or bribery; the leader of Temer’s government in the lower house of Congress is under investigation for homicide; and Temer himself was found guilty last May of mismanagement of his campaign budget, and deemed ineligible to run for office for eight years.[10]
Evasion of corruption charges is not the only motivation behind the impeachment show put on by the various pacts besides the obvious involvement of many of Temer’s ministers in corruption schemes and other crimes. The choosing of those politicians makes it clear that their target is to impose a political agenda that has been repeatedly rejected by the Brazilian people on the ballot box. The leaked audios with compromised conversations signal a political motivation different from the allegedly legal argument presented to the Brazilian Congress for the impeachment. Together with a speedy process of reversing social, economic and cultural policies of the Dilma administration, these are clear signs that what took place in Brazil was an illegal alteration of the constitutional order – and not the result of a democratic process.
The audios are hard proof that the political elite behind Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment perceived that removing her from office was the only way to keep themselves from being held accountable for their illegal deeds, and to maintain their profitable scheme of corruption. They demonstrate what impeachment opponents have been saying from the beginning: rather than to “clean” the Brazilian government of corruption, the oust of Dilma was the only way to guarantee that those under investigation would be shielded.[11]
[1] “Por Que Foi Um Golpe – Crítica Constitucional.” Crítica Constitucional. Accessed May 27, 2016. http://www.criticaconstitucional.com.br/por-que-foi-um-golpe/
[2] “Folha De S.Paulo.” Jucá Não Falou Sobre Economia Ao Citar ‘sangria’; Ouça. Accessed June 01, 2016. http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2016/05/1774182-juca-nao-falou-sobre-economia-ao-citar-sangria-ouca.shtml.
[3] “Folha De S.Paulo.” Em Diálogos Gravados, Jucá Fala Em Pacto Para Deter Avanço Da Lava Jato. Accessed May 27, 2016. http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2016/05/1774018-em-dialogos-gravados-juca-fala-em-pacto-para-deter-avanco-da-lava-jato.shtml
[4] “Folha De S.Paulo.” Leia a Transcrição Dos áudios De Sarney E Do Ex-presidente Da Transpetro. Accessed May 27, 2016. http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2016/05/1775011-leia-a-transcricao-dos-audios-de-sarney-e-do-ex-presidente-da-transpetro.shtml
[5] “Folha De S.Paulo.” Em Conversa Gravada, Renan Defende Mudar Lei Da Delação Premiada; Ouça. Accessed May 27, 2016. http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2016/05/1774719-em-conversa-gravada-renan-defende-mudar-lei-da-delacao-premiada.shtml
[6] “[Lupa] Tramitam No Congresso Oito Projetos De Lei Para Alterar Uso De Delação Premiada.” Lupa Tramitam No Congresso Oito Projetos De Lei Para Alterar Uso De Delação Premiada. 2016. Accessed May 27, 2016. http://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/lupa/2016/05/26/congresso-tramita-oito-projetos-de-lei-para-alterar-uso-da-delacao-premiada/
[7] “Em Gravação, Ministro De Temer Critica Lava Jato E Aconselha Renan”. Accessed May 31, 2016. http://m.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2016/05/1776200-ministro-da-transparencia-de-temer-criticava-lava-jato-mostra-gravacao.shtml?mobile
[8] “O Que as últimas Pesquisas Revelam Sobre Apoio Ao Impeachment E a Temer?” BBC Brasil. Accessed May 27, 2016. http://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil/2016/05/160511_temer_rejeicao_lab
[9] “G-8 Do Impeachment Teve Reuniões Durante Um Ano – Política – Estadão.” Estadão. Accessed May 27, 2016. http://politica.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,g-8-do-impeachment-teve-reunioes-durante-um-ano,10000026435
[10] “Folha De S.Paulo.” Ministros Do Governo Temer São Alvo De Investigações Além Da Lava Jato. Accessed May 30, 2016. http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2016/05/1772725-ministros-do-governo-temer-sao-alvo-de-investigacoes-alem-da-lava-jato.shtml
“Temer é Ficha-suja E Está Inelegível, Diz Procuradoria Eleitoral.” Fausto Macedo Temer Ficha suja E Está Inelegível Diz Procuradoria Eleitoral. Accessed May 30, 2016. http://politica.estadao.com.br/blogs/fausto-macedo/temer-e-ficha-suja-diz-procuradoria-eleitoral/
“Folha De S.Paulo.” Líder Do Governo Temer é Alvo Da Lava Jato, Suspeito De Tentativa De Assassinato E Réu Em Três Ações No STF. Accessed May 30, 2016. http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2016/05/1772497-lider-do-governo-temer-e-alvo-da-lava-jato-suspeito-de-tentativa-de-assassinato-e-reu-em-tres-acoes-no-stf.shtml
[11] The Intercept. “New Political Earthquake in Brazil: Is It Now Time for Media Outlets to Call This a “Coup”? Accessed June 02, 2016. https://theintercept.com/2016/05/23/new-political-earthquake-in-brazil-is-it-now-time-for-media-outlets-to-call-this-a-coup/
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