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A ‘Silent Coup’ for Brazil?

By Ted Snider | Consortium News | March 30, 2016

Brazil keeps its coups quiet (or at least quieter than many other Latin American countries). During the Cold War, there was much more attention to overt military regime changes often backed by the CIA, such as the overthrow of Guatemala’s Jacobo Arbenz in 1954, the ouster of Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973 and even Argentina’s “dirty war” coup in 1976, than to Brazil’s 1964 coup that removed President João Goulart from power.

Noam Chomsky has called Goulart’s government “mildly social democratic.” Its replacement was a brutal military dictatorship.

In more modern times, Latin American coups have shed their image of overt military takeovers or covert CIA actions. Rather than tanks in the streets and grim-looking generals rounding up political opponents – today’s coups are more like the “color revolutions” used in Eastern Europe and the Mideast in which leftist, socialist or perceived anti-American governments were targeted with “soft power” tactics, such as economic dislocation, sophisticated propaganda, and political disorder often financed by “pro-democracy” non-governmental organizations (or NGOs).

This strategy began to take shape in the latter days of the Cold War as the CIA program of arming Nicaraguan Contra rebels gave way to a U.S. economic strategy of driving Sandinista-led Nicaragua into abject poverty, combined with a political strategy of spending on election-related NGOs by the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy, setting the stage for the Sandinistas’ political defeat in 1990.

During the Obama administration, this strategy of non-violent “regime change” in Latin America has gained increasing favor, as with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s decisive support for the 2009 ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya who had pursued a moderately progressive domestic policy that threatened the interests of the Central American nation’s traditional oligarchy and foreign investors.

Unlike the earlier military-style coups, the “silent coups” never take off their masks and reveal themselves as coups. They are coups disguised as domestic popular uprisings which are blamed on the misrule of the targeted government. Indeed, the U.S. mainstream media will go to great lengths to deny that these coups are even coups.

The new coups are cloaked in one of two disguises. In the first, a rightist minority that lost at the polls will allege “fraud” and move its message to the streets as an expression of “democracy”; in the second type, the minority cloaks its power grab behind the legal or constitutional workings of the legislature or the courts, such as was the case in ousting President Zelaya in Honduras in 2009.

Both strategies usually deploy accusations of corruption or dictatorial intent against the sitting government, charges that are trumpeted by rightist-owned news outlets and U.S.-funded NGOs that portray themselves as “promoting democracy,” seeking “good government” or defending “human rights.” Brazil today is showing signs of both strategies.

Brazil’s Boom

First, some background: In 2002, the Workers’ Party’s (PT) Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva came to power with 61.3 percent of the vote. Four years later, he was returned to power with a still overwhelming 60.83 percent. Lula da Silva’s presidency was marked by extraordinary growth in Brazil’s economy and by landmark social reforms and domestic infrastructure investments.

In 2010, at the end of Lula da Silva’s presidency, the BBC provided a typical account of his successes: “Number-crunchers say rising incomes have catapulted more than 29 million Brazilians into the middle class during the eight-year presidency of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former trade unionist elected in 2002. Some of these people are beneficiaries of government handouts and others of a steadily improving education system. Brazilians are staying in school longer, which secures them higher wages, which drives consumption, which in turn fuels a booming domestic economy.”

However, in Brazil, a two-term president must sit out a full term before running again. So, in 2010, Dilma Rousseff ran as Lula da Silva’s chosen successor. She won a majority 56.05 percent of the vote. When, in 2014, Rousseff won re-election with 52 percent of the vote, the right-wing opposition Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) went into a panic.

This panic was not just because democracy was failing as a method for advancing right-wing goals, nor was the panic just over the fourth consecutive victory by the more left-wing PT. The panic became desperation when it became clear that, after the PT had succeeded in holding onto power while Lula da Silva was constitutionally sidelined, he was likely returning as the PT’s presidential candidate in 2018.

After all, Lula da Silva left office with an 80 percent approval rating. Democracy, it seemed, might never work for the PSDB. So, the “silent coup” playbook was opened. As the prescribed first play, the opposition refused to accept the 2014 electoral results despite never proffering a credible complaint. The second move was taking to the streets.

A well-organized and well-funded minority whose numbers were too small to prevail at the polls can still create lots of noise and disruption in the streets, manufacturing the appearance of a powerful democratic movement. Plus, these protests received sympathetic coverage from the corporate media of both Brazil and the United States.

The next step was to cite corruption and begin the process for a constitutional coup in the form of impeachment proceedings against President Rousseff. Corruption, of course, is a reliable weapon in this arsenal because there is always some corruption in government which can be exaggerated or ignored as political interests dictate.

Allegations of corruption also can be useful in dirtying up popular politicians by making them appear to be only interested in lining their pockets, a particularly effective line of attack against leaders who appear to be working to benefit the people. Meanwhile, the corruption of U.S.-favored politicians who are lining their own pockets much more egregiously is often ignored by the same media and NGOs.

Removing Leaders

In recent years, this type of “constitutional” coup was used in Honduras to get rid of democratically elected President Zelaya. He was whisked out of Honduras through a kidnapping at gunpoint that was dressed up as a constitutional obligation mandated by a court after Zelaya announced a plebiscite to determine whether Hondurans wanted to draft a new constitution.

The hostile political establishment in Honduras falsely translated his announcement into an unconstitutional intention to seek reelection, i.e., the abuse-of-power ruse. The ability to stand for a second term would be considered in the constitutional discussions, but was never announced as an intention by Zelaya.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court declared the President’s plebiscite unconstitutional and the military kidnapped Zelaya. The Supreme Court charged Zelaya with treason and declared a new president: a coup in constitutional disguise, one that was condemned by many Latin American nations but was embraced by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

This coup pattern reoccurred in Paraguay when right-wing Frederico Franco took the presidency from democratically elected, left-leaning Fernando Lugo in what has been called a parliamentary coup. As in Honduras, the coup was made to look like a constitutional transition. In the Paraguay case, the right-wing opposition opportunistically capitalized on a skirmish over disputed land that left at least 11 people dead to unfairly blame the deaths on President Lugo. It then impeached him after giving him only 24 hours to prepare his defense and only two hours to deliver it.

Brazil is manifesting what could be the third example of this sort of coup in Latin America during the Obama administration.

Operation Lava Jato began in Brazil in March of 2014 as a judicial and police investigation into government corruption. Lava Jato is usually translated as “Car Wash” but, apparently, is better captured as “speed laundering” with the connotation of corruption and money laundering.

Operation Lava Jato began as the uncovering of political bribery and misuse of money, revolving around Brazil’s massive oil company Petrobras. The dirt – or political influence-buying – that needed washing stuck to all major political parties in a corrupt system, according to Alfredo Saad Filho, Professor of Political Economy at the SAOS University of London.

But Brazil’s political Right hijacked the investigation and turned a legitimate judicial investigation into a political coup attempt.

According to Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Professor of Sociology at the University of Coimbra in Portugal and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, although Operation Lava Jato “involves the leaders of various parties, the fact is that Operation Lava Jato – and its media accomplices – have shown to be majorly inclined towards implicating the leaders of PT (the Workers’ Party), with the by now unmistakable purpose of bringing about the political assassination of President Dilma Rousseff and former President Lula da Silva.”

De Sousa Santos called the political repurposing of the judicial investigation “glaringly” and “crassly selective,” and he indicts the entire operation in its refitted form as “blatantly illegal and unconstitutional.” Alfredo Saad Filho said the goal is to “inflict maximum damage” on the PT “while shielding other parties.”

Neutralizing Lula

The ultimate goal of the coup in democratic disguise is to neutralize Lula da Silva. Criminal charges — which Filho describes as “stretched” — have been brought against Lula da Silva. On March 4, he was detained for questioning. President Rousseff then appointed Lula da Silva as her Chief of Staff, a move which the opposition represented as an attempt to use ministerial status to protect him from prosecution by any body other than the Supreme Court.

But Filho says this representation is based on an illegally recorded and illegally released conversation between Rousseff and Lula da Silva. The conversation, Filho says, was then “misinterpreted” to allow it to be “presented as ‘proof’ of a conspiracy to protect Lula.” De Sousa Santos added that “President Dilma Rousseff’s cabinet has decided to include Lula da Silva among its ministers. It is its right to do so and no institution, least of all the judiciary, has the power to prevent it.”

No “presidential crime warranting an impeachment has emerged,” according to Filho.

As in Honduras and Paraguay, an opposition that despairs of its ability to remove the elected government through democratic instruments has turned to undemocratic means that it hopes to disguise as judicial and constitutional. In the case of Brazil, Professor de Sousa Santos calls this coup in democratic disguise a “political-judicial coup.”

In both Honduras and Paraguay, the U.S. government, though publicly insisting that it wasn’t involved, privately knew the machinations were coups. Less than a month after the Honduran coup, the White House, State Department and many others were in receipt of a frank cable from the U.S. embassy in Honduras calling the coup a coup.

Entitled “Open and Shut: the Case of the Honduran Coup,” the embassy said, “There is no doubt that the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup.” The cable added, “none of the . . . arguments [of the coup defenders] has any substantive validity under the Honduran constitution.”

As for Paraguay, U.S. embassy cables said Lugo’s political opposition had as its goal to “Capitalize on any Lugo missteps” and “impeach Lugo and assure their own political supremacy.” The cable noted that to achieve their goal, they are willing to “legally” impeach Lugo “even if on spurious grounds.”

Professor de Sousa Santos said U.S. imperialism has returned to its Latin American “backyard” in the form of NGO development projects, “organizations whose gestures in defense of democracy are just a front for covert, aggressive attacks and provocations directed at progressive governments.”

He said the U.S. goal is “replacing progressive governments with conservative governments while maintaining the democratic façade.” He claimed that Brazil is awash in financing from American sources, including “CIA-related organizations.” (The National Endowment for Democracy was created in 1983, in part to do somewhat openly what the CIA had previously done covertly, i.e., finance political movements that bent to Washington’s will.)

History will tell whether Brazil’s silent coup will succeed. History may also reveal what the U.S. government’s knowledge and involvement may be.

March 31, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Canadian politicians controlled by the transnational oligarchy?

By Mark Taliano | American Herald Tribune | March 31 ,2016

Canada is being colonized by a Washington-led, transnational oligarchy. As with any colony, we are losing our political and economic self-determination and sovereignty.

We are increasingly a cog in an imperial apparatus of top down control and exploitation, and our economy is being re-structured to serve transnational oligarch interests. Wealth and power is increasingly concentrated upwards into the criminal hands of domestic and foreign oligarch classes.

We are being driven like cattle by a “full spectrum” apparatus of domination and control.

Synthetic terror events are engineering our consent to impoverishment, police state oppression, and criminal, genocidal foreign policy decisions.

We are supporting and inciting terrorism when we sell military armaments to Wahabbi Saudi Arabia. We are committing war crimes when we support and enable the neo-Nazi junta in the Ukraine, and when we support and enable ISIS in Syria. Writer Sharmine Narwani decodes the Syrian crisis here.

 Interview starts at 3:00

All of this passes beneath the radar of public awareness because the oligarch class has,  increasingly, “full spectrum” control: Corporate mainstream messaging is increasingly an engineered façade of lies, distortions, and omissions that furthers a pre-ordained agenda of permanent, globalized war and poverty.

Transnational corporate sovereignty deals are an economic arm of the transnational ruling class. Agreements such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) entrench oligarchic control and supremacy over our political economy through Investor- State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clauses, mechanisms wherein supranational secret tribunals and appointed lawyers are the final adjudicators.

An article by David Korten, in Yes magazine, “A Trade Rule that Makes It Illegal to Favor Local Business? Newest Leak Shows TPP Would Do That And More,” identifies and explains the impacts of the TPP, should it be ratified, using these headings:

  • Favouring local ownership is prohibited
  • Corporations must be paid to stop polluting
  • Three lawyers will decide who is right in secret tribunals
  • Speculative money must remain free
  • Corporate interests come before national ones

This predatory political economy creates poverty and disemployment in a myriad ways – the TPP alone is predicted cost Canada 58,000 jobs — as public dollars are funnelled to the transnational oligarchs through privatization schemes, de-regulated exploitation of national resources, reduced taxes, and military expenditures.

Instead of embracing P3 schemes, Canada should insist on (100%) publicly- funded hospitals and healthcare.  In an article entitled “ ‘Privatization’ Is the Problem, Not the Solution,”  the author demonstrates the wasteful squandering of public resources in the healthcare field alone:

  • Ontario paid 75 per cent more to for-profit labs than it had to non-profit community labs over the previous 30 years, for the same tests.
  • Public-private partnerships are 83 per cent costlier to finance than public projects.
  • Canadians spend roughly half of what the private U.S. system spends per person and we get better coverage and outcomes.
  • Studies comparing U.S. and Canadian outcomes for heart attacks, cancer, surgical procedures and chronic conditions show that Canada does at least as well, often better.
  • A recent Canadian study found that expedited knee surgery in a for-profit clinic costs $3,222 compared to $959 in a public hospital (with worse return-to-work outcomes).

We are also being exploited by the financial sector. Instead of borrowing from private international and domestic institutions, and paying compound interest on government loans, Canada should be borrowing interest-free from its publicly-owned Bank of Canada – as it did until 1974 — when the debt and deficit were miniscule compared to today. Murray Dobbins explains in “Liberate the Bank of Canada, Intrepid Think Tank Urges|Canadians have been fleeced for billions, but no traction in media for complex banking case,” that by 2012, Canadians had paid one trillion (CAN) dollars in interest to private banks.

What additional steps can we take to de-colonize this country from its transnational colonizers?

  • First, we should reject the TPP agreement and any transnational agreement that is bundled with an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clause.
  • Second, we should (continue to) decode and reject the lies and distortions of the criminal warmongers and the military-industrial-media complex.
  • Third, we need to establish an independent foreign policy that complies with the rule of international law.

Each of these steps would help us break free from the toxic shackles of globalized war and poverty that “benefits” only a miniscule oligarch class.  The current neo-con misgovernance is creating and perpetuating catastrophes – such as the 911 wars — instead of productively addressing catastrophes – such as catastrophic global warming. A global shift towards common sense and the common good is long overdue.

March 31, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Philip Hammond has a funny way of showing his commitment to ‘international norms’

By Danielle Ryan | RT | March 31, 2016

Gone are the good ol’ days when Russia was only a ‘threat’ to countries on its periphery. Moscow now represents a threat to “all of us” according to British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.

Speaking to Reuters during a trip to Georgia, Hammond said Russia was a threat to all countries on the basis that it “ignores the norms of international conduct and breaks the rules of the international system” — and this, he said “represents a challenge and a threat to all of us.”

The first, but most minor point to make here is that Russia’s allies would probably beg to differ. Hammond’s comments are a prime example of the flippant way in which leaders and representatives of Western nations make sweeping statements about “us all” or the “international community” when what they actually mean is “us and our friends.”

But, like I said, that is a minor issue in comparison to the outrageously hypocritical reasoning Hammond gave to justify his opinion.

International law, except not for us

In March 2014, Curtis FJ Doebbler, a professor of international law in the Faculty of International Relations at Webster University in Geneva wrote for CounterPunch that “like any source of law, a large part of the legitimacy of international law depends on its equal application to all.” This, demonstrably, has not been the case when it comes to the United States.

American lawyers and diplomats, Doebbler continued, have attempted to twist international law “into an instrument justifying the actions of the United States, while criticizing the actions of other States based on misinterpretations or misapplication” of that law.

There simply can be no question mark here. It is incontrovertibly true. To get through all the examples of Washington’s blatant disregard for international law would take an eternity. But let’s do a quick recap of some of the more egregious examples:

  • US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, illegal under international law: Civilian death toll up for debate, a Guardian report estimated that as many as 20,000 could have been killed in the first year of conflict alone.
  • US invasion of Iraq in 2003, illegal under international law: Left one million dead, according to various reports.
  • NATO intervention in Libya in 2011 violated the parameters of the UN resolution permitting NATO action, hence also illegal. The intervention left scores of civilians dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. Libya, once the richest country in Africa, is now a failed state.
  • US bombing of Syria in 2014, illegal under international law. Washington has been given no authority to carry out airstrikes in Syria. Nor, by the way, has the United Kingdom (maybe someone should tell Hammond?)
  • Ongoing use of drone strikes, killing hundreds of innocents, including children.
  • Continued use of Guantanamo Bay for indefinite detention and torture of people ‘perceived’ as threats. In one of the grossest injustices, Shaker Aamer was held at Guantanamo for 13 years without trial or charge before finally being reunited with his family in the UK.

None of this is up for debate — and yet Hammond has not, to my knowledge, classified the United States as a threat to “all of us”. If breaking international law is the benchmark here, it would follow that he probably should.

What’s an invasion or two among friends?

Unfortunately, as Hammond has just displayed, Western nations often confuse ‘consensus among friends’ to mean ‘legal’. As such, they believe that none of their actions deserve to be scrutinized in the same manner as the actions of their declared enemies. This however, does not stop them from using the subject of international law as an “instrument of political rhetoric” to condemn other countries.

Washington has displayed such flagrant disregard for international “norms” and the “rules of the international system” so consistently and so appalling that the world has become desensitized to it. To acknowledge the sheer scale of the horror that has been unleashed by our collective indifference is too uncomfortable. Our best bet is to distract ourselves with a convenient bogeyman.

Hammond might be happy to bury his head in the sand, but it doesn’t make what he is saying any less ridiculous when all the facts are laid on the table.

What Hammond really means

And it’s not the first time Hammond has hugely exaggerated (or fabricated, if you prefer) the threat Russia poses to the UK. In March of last year, he said Russia could potentially pose the “single greatest threat” to Britain’s security. It’s unclear what kind of alternate universe you need to be living in to believe this, but what is clear is that Hammond has upped sticks and taken residence there.

The truth is, what Hammond and his neighbors in cuckoo-land really mean when they say these things is that Russia is a threat to Western dominance; the dominance that allows their own breaches of international law to go unchecked and unpunished and anyone else’s to be amplified a thousand-fold. Any threat or challenge to that hegemony in international affairs is unacceptable. And that, more than anything, is the threat which Russia represents.

The funny thing is, Hammond probably doesn’t think that’s what he means. He probably genuinely believes that Russia threatens the security of Britain. Whether he thinks this conflict might take the form of an invasion, an unprovoked nuclear attack, information warfare or something else, he has probably convinced himself that there really is cause for huge concern. After all, he has admitted that for “anyone over the age of about 50” fearing Russia is familiar territory. He is not an expert on today’s Russia, its political system or its foreign policy. All he really has to go on are his bad memories of the Cold War and whatever terribly misinformed advice he is being given.

But threat or no threat, if the “rules of the international system” are really that important to Philip Hammond, he’s got a funny way of showing it.

Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance journalist and media analyst. She has lived in the US and Germany and is currently based in Moscow. She previously worked as a digital desk reporter for the Sunday Business Post in Dublin. She studied political reporting at the Washington Center for Politics & Journalism in Washington, DC and also has a degree in business and German. She focuses on US foreign policy, US-Russia relations and media bias.

See also:

Britain’s Secretary of State for Justice Michael Gove: Enemy Russia moving into the dark under Putin

March 31, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Are Saudis buying Israeli drones through South Africa?

RT | March 31, 2016

Saudi Arabia announced that it is building a drone plant in cooperation with South Africa, but a well-known Saudi defense analyst claimed this is a guise to hide the clandestine purchases of aircraft from Israel.

The analyst, who calls himself “Mujtahid” has been leaking exclusive information about the royal family of Saudi Arabia on Twitter since the early 2000s. He challenged the official report released by the Saudi Defense Ministry this week, which stated the kingdom would build a drone factory in collaboration with South Africa.

“The report aims to hide the fact that Saudi Arabia intends to purchase drones from Israel via South Africa,” he said.

“Saudi Arabia buys Israeli drones through South Africa. These drones later arrive from South Africa, dismantled, to Saudi Arabia, where they are assembled,” Mujtahid added, describing the mechanism developed to carry out the Israeli-Saudi deal.

He went on to accuse Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who is Saudi Defense Minister and, according to some experts, the country’s second most powerful person, of serving Israel’s interest by purchasing drones from the Jewish state.

Saudi Arabia has been trying for years to strengthen its armed forces with drone capabilities. In 2010, General Atomics, the US producer of the Predator drone family, announced it had acquired export licenses for a number of Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia. Export to Saudi Arabia has so far failed to materialize, even though a similar deal with the United Arab Emirates was approved by the US Congress in 2015.

As supplies from its primary arms supplier were hanging in limbo, Riyadh was reportedly looking for alternative sellers of the technology. In 2013, reports said Saudi Arabia would be buying reconnaissance drones from the South African arms manufacturer Denel Dynamics. Last year, some reports said both the Saudis and the Emirates had managed to buy ground attack drones from China for their stalling Yemeni campaign.

Israel is one of the world’s leading producers of drones, but selling the technology to Saudi Arabia would be politically disastrous, as public opinion in both Israel and the Arab nation would be strongly against such a deal.

The two countries were said to have some military cooperation in their mutual rivalry with regional competitor Iran. Some reports suggested Israel and Saudi Arabia had discussed the possibility of an Israeli attack through Saudi airspace against Iranian nuclear sites amid the tense negotiation for a nuclear deal between Tehran and six leading world powers.

March 31, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

The Myth of America’s War on Terrorism

By Stephen Lendman | March 31, 2016

It’s a complete hoax – a phony pretext for waging endless imperial wars, wanting whole continents carved up for profit and dominance.

Fictitious enemies are created. Premeditated wars of aggression follow. Rules of engagement are changed from rule of law observance to anything goes.

America declared war on humanity, the greatest threat to life on earth, using terrorist groups to do much of its dirty work.

Their names don’t matter. Earlier US supported anti-Soviet Afghan mujahadeen forces became opposition Taliban fighters.

ISIS, Al Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra and likeminded groups are similar. Names and faces change, not methods of operation other than access to more modern weapons and new funding sources.

Obama’s vow to degrade and destroy ISIS (and by implication likeminded terrorist groups) is a complete fabrication, the public willfully deceived to believe otherwise.

Washington backs the scourge it claims to oppose – along with rogue allies providing ISIS and other terrorist groups with arms, munitions, training, funding, direction and other material support. They couldn’t exist without it.

Media scoundrels front for power and privilege, perpetuating the Big Lie about America combating terrorism instead of explaining what news consumers need to know – The New York Times as willfully deceptive as Fox News.

Its editors say “America needs frank talk on ISIS,” never explaining it created and supports the group.

They lied, claiming “Obama authorized…airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in 2014 to curb the rise of the Islamic State.”

Syrian intervention was and continues to be flagrantly illegal without Security Council or Damascus authorization. Baghdad was pressured to let Washington to maintain the fiction of combatting ISIS.

In both countries, infrastructure and government sites are struck, ISIS and other terrorists aided. Thousands of US combat forces are in Iraq, likely more coming, limited numbers in Syria.

Russia alone along with Syrian ground forces achieved significant victories against ISIS and likeminded groups.

The Obama administration lied, claiming US warplanes cut ISIS revenues by striking its oil trucks and other targets. It says “intensif(ied) airstrikes and raids” are coming.

America’s air campaign in Iraq and Syria have been ongoing for over 18 months. ISIS advanced steadily until Russia intervened in Syria.

Instead of exposing Obama’s phony war on terror, his lawless aggression, using ISIS and other terrorist groups as imperial foot soldiers, The Times perpetuates the myth of combating a scourge America supports.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

March 31, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Austria casts doubt on immediate bans lift from Iran

Press TV – March 30, 2016

Austrian President Heinz Fischer has cast doubt on the US and Western resolve for the immediate removal of all anti-Iran sanctions.

Fischer has told IRIB that it is unclear how long it will take for the West to lift sanctions on Iran.

Iran’s historic agreement last year with permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany (P5+1) went into force on January 16 to end 13-years of Western dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program and pave the way for the lifting of sanctions on the country.

But more than two months later, Iran is still awaiting the full opening of business transactions with some companies in the West as some banks are facing restrictions in the US on handling business with Tehran.

The Austrian leader said it was not up to a single country to lift all the sanctions, but that the United States had a part to play.

“Austria alone cannot lift the sanctions. The EU cannot do it alone too, but it is the international community that should do it,” Fischer said.

“The US also plays a role in this regard,” he added.

“A process for sanctions removal has begun, but I cannot make any predictions on how long this issue will last. I hope all sides fully adhere to the [nuclear] agreement.”

The Austrian president was answering a question on issues facing Iranian banks, some of which still seek to join the international payments system, SWIFT, for the resumption of foreign transfers.

The Austrian leader paid a visit to Tehran in September 2015 at the head of a 240-member delegation with the purpose of discussing ways to improve Tehran-Vienna relations.

Not all the banks in Iran have been able to reconnect to SWIFT since the lifting of sanctions was announced in January.

A senior Iranian official said last month that 26 Iranian banks have so far been reconnected to SWIFT after the removal of the economic sanctions against Iran in mid-January.

SWIFT – the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication – is used by nearly every bank around the world to send payment messages that lead to the transfer of money across international borders. It provides a wide range of service including transmitting letters of credit, payments and securities transactions among 9,700 banks in 209 countries.

However, it became off limits to Iranian banks in 2012 after the implementation of the US-led sanctions against the country. Accordingly, around 30 Iranian banks were blocked from using SWIFT services, literally cutting off Iran from the global banking system.

March 30, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

US, three allies urge UN meeting on Iran missile tests

Press TV – March 30, 2016

The United States and some of its European allies have reportedly called for a meeting at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Iran’s recent missile tests, which they claim were carried out in defiance of a UN resolution.

According to a letter reportedly obtained by Western news outlets on Tuesday, the US, Britain, France, and Germany have asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Spain’s UN Ambassador Roman Oyarzun Marchesi for discussions on an “appropriate response” by the UNSC to Iran’s missile tests.

The four countries claimed that the missiles used in Iran’s recent tests were “inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons” and were “inconsistent with” and “in defiance of” UNSC Resolution 2231 (2015), adopted last July to endorse a nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries.

Spain has been assigned the task of coordinating UNSC discussions on Resolution 2231.

The claim comes even as Resolution 2231 does not prohibit Iran from testing missiles, and only “calls upon” the Islamic Republic to refrain from testing missiles “designed to be capable of” carrying nuclear warheads. Iran has made clear that it does not seek to build nuclear warheads to be carried on missiles and has put its atomic activities under unprecedented, enhanced international supervision under the nuclear deal with the P5+1.

On March 9, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) successfully test-fired two ballistic missiles as part of measures to assess IRGC capabilities. The missiles, dubbed Qadr-H and Qadr-F, were fired during large-scale drills code-named Eqtedar-e-Velayat.

Iran fired another ballistic missile dubbed Qiam from silo-based launchers in different locations across the country on March 8.

A similar US-led bid against the Iranian missile tests failed in March, as other diplomats in a closed-door UNSC meeting on Iran back then made it clear that Resolution 2231 did not prohibit Iranian missile tests and thus a response was not warranted to such tests.

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin reiterated that, in the view of veto-wielding Russia, Iran’s ballistic missile tests did not violate Resolution 2231.

In the new letter, the four countries refrained from using the term “violation,” saying instead that the Iranian missile tests were “in defiance of” the resolution. However carefully-worded, it is not clear what kind of legal action the four countries would want to be taken against Iran, as the Islamic Republic says it has not violated its commitments.

Resolution 2231 (2015), which endorses the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — the Iran-P5+1 agreement — provides for the termination of the provisions of previous Security Council resolutions over the Iranian nuclear program.

Iran argues its missiles are defensive and designed to carry conventional explosives only.

Earlier this month, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the missiles are a means of defense. “We spent a fraction of any other country in the region on defense, and missiles are a means of defense that we require,” he said.

Tehran insists that given the deepening insecurity in the region and the fact that many countries are spending hefty sums on arms purchases, it needs to boost its defensive missile program.

The US, Britain, France, and Germany were, along with China and Russia, members of the P5+1. Iran and the six other countries started implementing the deal on January 16.

March 30, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

When “fundamentally” = “not”

By Black Catte | OffGuardian | March 29, 2016

Jill Abramson, the latest EMT wheeled out to provide life support for Hillary Clinton’s clinically dead reputation, is telling us via the Guardian (where else?) that “this may shock you: Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest”

Well, Jill (I’m assuming first name terms since we’re all girls together here), I have to say it doesn’t shock me at all. If I were shocked every time some erstwhile well respected commenters, such as yourself, elected to spout morally and intellectually specious clickbait I’d never get anything done.

It’s not shocking, Jill. It’s just not true. And since you claim to have spent many years fearlessly tracking Clinton’s seedy and nefarious deeds – Whitewater and all – you must be well aware of this.

Or maybe you just plum forgot? After all it’s been a while, and none of us are getting any younger.

So, here’s a few reminders about why all those silly old “Hillary is a liar” vids are out there on Facebook.

See, Jill, even among her political peers (a group not known for its honesty and integrity), Hillary is noteworthy as an unscrupulous, self-serving, compulsive (and psychopathically incompetent) purveyor of terminological inexactitude. Even in Washington she stands out as a moral blank.

Think about that.

PS – I think Vince Foster might also have a few items to draw to your attention on this matter. Except he can’t, of course. Because he’s dead.

But of course you know all this. You know you have no material to help sell the line you’ve been asked to take, which is why your piece is nothing but a loose crochet of generalities and allusions. Seeking to persuade the gullible that black is actually white.

Are you happy with the way it turned out? Are you happy to have that sad and lukewarm defence of this dangerous lunatic hang on your reputation?

Or are you ashamed in the depths of your soul?

I really hope so. If not now then later.

March 29, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Head in the Sanders, Up Hillary Creek, Without a Trump Card

By Linh Dinh | Postcards from the End of [the] America[n Empire] | March 28, 2016

No presidential candidate should be taken seriously unless he or she addresses these basic concerns:

9/11

Since this is the pretext for our endless War on Terror, it should be examined thoroughly and publicly, with testimonies from pilots, architects, engineers, scientists and eye witnesses, including first responders. Like many Americans, I find the official explanation ludicrous. Why can’t we have a convincing answer to how World Trade Center 7 imploded and collapsed into its own footprint? Or how was it possible for a Boeing 757 to shave the ground and hit the Pentagon from the side, as steered by an amateur pilot? Many other questions have also been brushed aside, with Donald Trump going only as far as implying that Saudi Arabia may be behind this tragedy. Why Saudi Arabia, but not Israel? By suppressing a legitimate investigation, Washington is at least complicit in this unspeakable crime. Both the how and who of that day need to brought to light, though I fear much of America will be smoldering ruins before then. The criminals will have finished the job.

Terrorism

The US and its allies have funded and trained the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS, so how can it claim to be fighting terrorists? Bin Laden, too, was an American asset, and it sure wasn’t him our bumbling Seals killed on May 2nd, 2011. Even as a non-corpse, Osama served Uncle Sam. For five years, Syria has been attacked by American-backed terrorists. Many arrived from Libya, a country we’ve already wrecked, to the glee of Hillary Clinton. The US has a long history of using terrorists and hooligans to destabilize countries, but it poses, preposterously, as the upholder of global stability. Though none of our politicians can possibly be blind to this grotesque contradiction, they play along with the Disney script. In spite of his token or symbolic objection to the Iraq invasion, Sanders supported regime changes in Iraq, Libya, Ukraine and now Syria.

Military Reach

The US isn’t patrolling this entire earth to protect its allies, but to make sure they don’t fall out of its sphere of influence. It’s not occupying Europe to shield it against Russia, for example, but to prevent Europeans from cozying up to Russia and China. Eurasia must not become an integrated block. Fine, this is what an empire is supposed to do, but when it’s hollowed out and falling apart, perhaps it’s time to redefine America? Though brainwashed from cradle to grave that theirs is the indispensible nation, the apex of mankind and climax of history, many Americans have started to doubt their special status as their Access card runs short each month, their muffler scrapes the asphalt and their toothache goes untreated. Though it’s painful to fall from first to middling, one must deal with this new reality. Closing bases, withdrawing troops and gutting the military budget will allow us to focus and spend on domestic exigencies. The alternative is to go berserk with missiles as the curtain falls. Lost in unreality and hubris, Donald Trump wants our allies to pay us to keep them in line. He also thinks Mexico should foot the bill for a border wall to keep themselves out.

Borders

U.S. borders are not porous out of charity or ineptness, but because this benefits American businesses, and it has always been this way. Instead of bringing in slaves, indentured servants and coolies, our rulers welcome illegal immigrants to keep wages down. This also keeps our social fabric in constant turmoil, thus making a unified front against our masters nearly impossible.

Illegal immigration from Mexico was greatly exacerbated by NAFTA, for it allowed us to dump subsidized corn onto the Mexican market, thus bankrupting their farmers and forcing many to sweat inside American-owned maquilladoras. When many of these shut down, a wave of Mexicans crossed over to become the main workforce of our housing bubble.

America’s borders, then, are essentially violated by its own government, but this shouldn’t surprise, since Washington routinely ignores other countries’ borders. There is a huge difference, however. When we barge into another country, it’s never to empty their bedpans or wash their dishes, but usually to kill them. America is the world’s most persistent and violent violator of international borders.

Moving forward, the US should respect all borders, including its own. Without having to relentlessly compete against illegal immigrants, poorer Americans will have a better chance at regaining their economic equilibrium.

Banks

Reviving an initiative started by Ron Paul, Donald Trump wants to audit the Federal Reserve, but as Paul, Ellen Brown and others have pointed out repeatedly over the years, the ultimate solution is to abolish the Fed altogether, for why should this criminal banking cartel have the power to ease money out of its fat ass to lend to the rest of us? We need United States Notes, as authorized by Kennedy before he was shot, not Federal Reserve perpetual debt vehicles. A country that can’t even coin its own currency is one without sovereignty. Since it’s nothing but a loan shark outfit and money counterfeiter, the Federal Reserve must be eliminated.

Israel

Israel is a horrible concept criminally maintained by a deluge of American tax dollars, plus rivers of blood, much of it Muslim but also American. Defending this most hated state, the U.S. has also become a pariah. Under Israel’s manipulation, the United States hasn’t just systematically destroyed one Muslim country after another, it has wrecked its own honor, reputation, present and future. In spite of all this, no American presidential candidate can question the U.S.’ eternal role in propping up this criminal country.

Chained to endless war on a false premise, enslaved by banksters and led by the nose by a tiny, besieged nation that must spill blood endlessly just to exist, it’s no wonder the United States is going down.

March 29, 2016 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

NSA Director Meets Secretly in Israel to Plan Stuxnet-Like Operations

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© Flickr/ EFF Photos
Sputnik – 29.03.2016

Last week, NSA chief, Admiral Michael Rogers met with Israeli security officials in secret to explore forging closer ties between US and Israeli cyber intelligence gathering.

The NSA, America’s signals intelligence (SIGINT) agency, is responsible for electronic collection abroad in addition to protecting US government information and communication systems from foreign penetration and sabotage.

Admiral Rogers was hosted by the leadership of the Israeli Defense Forces’ SIGINT unit, or Corps Unit 8200. The secretive Corps Unit 8200 is tasked with collecting SIGINT from the Middle East. The meeting was focused on cooperation of the two entities to tackle regional powers with an emphasis on Iran and Hezbollah.

Security analysts have largely credited IDF’s Unit 8200 with creating the Stuxnet virus which toppled Iran’s main nuclear reactor in 2010. That effort, codenamed OLYMPIC GAMES, similarly involved a collaboration between Unit 8200 and NSA between 2008 and 2011.

Reports are that Rogers’ visited with a view towards not just defensive and intelligence gathering collaboration, but offensive cyber operations like the Stuxnet operation.

This stride towards offensive cyber collaboration with Israel comes less than one week after the US government advanced criminal charges against Iranian military officials for engaging in cyber warfare.

March 29, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Brussels Attack: Another Chapter in NATO’s Gladio Strategy?

By Wayne MADSEN – Strategic Culture Foundation – 27.03.2016

Europe has experienced another Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist attack. This time terrorists set off bombs at Brussels International Airport in Zaventem, a stone’s throw away from NATO headquarters, and the Maelbeek Metro station, in the heart of the European Union’s Brussels office building complex.

The Brussels attack was linked to the November 13, 2015 attacks in Paris, which targeted the Bataclan concert hall and restaurants and cafés in the heart of the city, as well as the Stade de France football stadium.

In almost a replay of the Paris attacks, the news media began reporting that the Brussels attack was carried out by two brothers – Ibrahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui – who were linked to the November 13 attacks in Paris. The November 13 attacks were, in turn, linked to the January 7, 2015 ISIL attacks on the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in the Paris suburbs. The January 7 attacks also involved two brothers – Cherif and Said Kouachi. Since all the sibling attackers died in suicide attacks, the media is bound to believe what law enforcement reports to them about the Paris I, Paris II, and Brussels attacks. One of the suicide bombers at Brussels airport was reportedly ISIL’s chief bomb maker in Western Europe, Najim Laachraoui, who is said to have made the suicide bomb-laden vests used in the Paris II attacks.

Just prior to the Brussels bombings, Belgian police swooped in on the person they said was the mastermind of the Paris II attacks, Salah Abdeslam. Abdeslam was captured in the largely Muslim-populated neighborhood of Molenbeek in Brussels, an area believed to have spawned a number of ISIL terrorists and guerrillas who have fought in Syria and Iraq.

There was some media speculation that Abdeslam began passing to the police details of ISIL’s plans for future terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who, himself has suspicious connections to ISIL fighters in Syria, claimed that one of the Brussels terrorist brothers, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, had been deported by Turkey to the Netherlands in July 2015, some four months before Abdeslam’s cell carried out the Paris attacks. Erdogan said that Turkey deported Ibrahim el-Bakraoui because he was a militant foreign fighter in Syria. Turkey has aided and abetted other militant foreign fighters, including terrorists, traveling to and from Syria, so why Erdogan singled out el-Bakraoui is a mystery. It also stands to reason that if Turkey was such a valued member of NATO, why did it deport a security threat to the Netherlands, also a NATO member?

And just as with previous terrorist attacks, the media reported that the Brussels attackers were previously known to European law enforcement and intelligence services. So, why were they able to carry out three successful major terrorist attacks in a year-and-a-half time period?

Pre-attack knowledge by the authorities of an alleged terrorist perpetrator was certainly the case in the Merah affair in March 2012. Mohammed Merah, a French national, was killed by French police after he was accused of killing three French paratroopers in Montauban and three students and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse. It was later discovered that not only did the French Central Directorate of Internal Intelligence (DCRI) have a dossier on Merah but that it tried to recruit him as an agent. Merah traveled with ease to Afghanistan and Pakistan with the foreknowledge of French intelligence. The then-governing conservatives of President Nicolas Sarkozy and the opposition, now ruling, Socialist Party, conspired to cover up Merah’s links to French intelligence.

The deadly 1980 attack on the Bologna train station in Italy began, in earnest, the modern era of using false flag attacks in waging asymmetric warfare. Although the Italian government and media originally blamed the bombing on leftist radical Italian guerrillas, it was, in fact, carried out by an underground fascist cell that obtained the bomb materials from hidden caches belonging to the secret NATO “stay behind” paramilitary network known generically as “Gladio”.

By blaming leftist guerillas for various terrorist attacks in Europe, NATO was able to convince its members to host US offensive cruise missile systems and keep NATO tightly-bound as an agent for US foreign policy goals, including facing down the Soviet Union. Today, with Islamist terrorists replacing leftist guerrillas as NATO’s chief raison d’être, policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic have used the terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris to call for an end to Belgium’s unruly federal system of two states – Flanders and Wallonia – within one. Belgium, the neoconservative-slanted policy wonks believe, would be better off with a strong central government and strong centralized intelligence and security forces. That NATO message is not merely for the attention of Flanders and Wallonia but also for separatists in Catalonia, Scotland, Corsica, Wales, Veneto, and other independence-minded regions within NATO borders.

NATO, on behalf of a personal data-hungry United States, also wants to see unfettered access by European and American intelligence and security services to databases on air travelers in Europe. European data protection officials have been reticent about sharing such personal data with the United States, particularly after the Edward Snowden revelations about how the US National Security Agency abuses such data.

The question must be asked: If Western European intelligence had advance knowledge of Paris I, Paris II, and Brussels, why was preventive action not taken? If governments ‘let it happen on purpose’ (LIHOP)  meaning, allow planned terrorist events to occur without disruption, those governments can rush their counter-terrorism ‘wish list’ of massive surveillance and larger security and defense budgets into quickly-passed legislation amid the resulting climate of fear. No politician wants to be seen as weak on security, particularly after major terrorist attacks.

One such tell-tale sign of a false flag operation is the convenient discovery by police of evidence linking attacks to the perpetrators, be they unknowing double agents or patsies who believe in whatever cause has been dangled before them.

One sign of a false flag operation is that ‘evidence’ linking the intended perpetrators to the crime scene is always conveniently discovered after the event. French police claim they were able to pin the Paris I attack on two Franco-Algerian brothers, Cherif and Said Kouachi, because Said, the eldest brother, left his French identification card in a black Citroen used as a getaway car. Police would not say whose identification card they found. Some French security experts warned that the ID card may have been purposely planted in the car to confuse the police. Police also conveniently found Molotov cocktails and Islamist jihadist flags inside the getaway car.

In the case of Brussels, a taxi driver who said he believed he picked up the Bakraoui brothers and Laachraoui in the Schaerbeek neighborhood of Brussels and drove them to Zaventem, contacted the police after the explosions. The cab driver recalled that it was suspicious that the three passengers did not want him to help them with their extremely heavy luggage. When the police raided the pick-up address, they found bomb-making chemicals, detonators, and a suitcase packed with nails and screws. Also discovered was the signature black and white ISIL flag. But there was another convenient clue found in a trash dumpster near the terrorist apartment: a computer with the last testament of Ibrahim el Bakraoui. The terrorist, who Erdogan insists was expelled from Turkey for his radical views, wrote that he “is in a rush, not knowing what to do, being looked for everywhere, not feeling safe and if this goes on, he risks ending up in a cell”.

If Brussels goes according to script, the European Union will soon implement a draconian surveillance regime throughout Europe. Europeans will find their freedom of movement throughout the European space to be restricted while Europe continues to take in more migrants from the Middle East and North Africa. And among these migrants will be jihadists looking at carrying out more Paris- and Brussels-like attacks. And the European population will find themselves powerless in the face of such a vicious cycle of terrorist events and more migrants.

March 27, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Kerry Balks at Supplying MH-17 Data

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | March 25, 2016

Secretary of State John Kerry has rebuffed a request from the father of the only American citizen killed aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 for Kerry to disclose the radar and other data that he cited in 2014 in claiming to know the precise location of the missile launch that allegedly downed the airliner over eastern Ukraine killing 298 people.

In a letter to Kerry dated Jan. 5, 2016, Thomas Schansman, the father of American-Dutch citizen Quinn Schansman, asked Kerry to turn over that data to aid the investigation seeking to identify who was responsible for shooting down the plane on July 17, 2014. In a letter dated March 7, 2016, but just delivered to Thomas Schansman on Thursday, Kerry expressed his condolences and repeated his claim to know where the missile launch originated, but did not provide new details.

Quinn Schansman, a dual U.S.-Dutch citizen killed aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, 2014. (Photo from Facebook)

Quinn Schansman – (Photo from Facebook)

Kerry wrote, “The assessment I provided to the media three days following the shoot down remains unchanged, and is corroborated by the findings of the Dutch Safety Board [DSB]. Flight 17 was shot down by a BUK surface-to-air missile fired from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine.”

But Kerry’s assertion is not entirely correct. Despite Kerry’s claim on July 20, 2014 – three days after the shoot-down – to know the location of the missile launch, the Dutch Safety Board reported last October that it could only place the likely launch site within a 320-square-kilometer area that included territory under both government and rebel control. (The safety board did not seek to identify which side fired the fateful missile).

Why the U.S. government has dragged its heels about supplying the evidence that Kerry claimed to possess just days after the tragedy has become a secondary mystery to the allegations and counter-allegations about whodunit. That Kerry would not even elaborate on that information in response to the father of the lone American victim is even more striking.

In an email to me with Kerry’s letter attached, Thomas Schansman wrote, “the message is clear: no answer on my request to hand over satellite and/or radar data to DSB or public.”

Plus, Kerry’s credibility has come under a darkening cloud because of recent disclosures undermining his repeated claims on Aug. 30, 2013, that “we know” that Syrian government forces were responsible for the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin gas attack outside Damascus. Despite Kerry’s assertions of certainty in that case, he presented no verifiable evidence and it has since been confirmed that the U.S. intelligence community lacked “slam dunk” proof.

Nearly a year after his “we know” performance regarding the Syria-sarin case, Kerry staged a reprise expressing similar certainty about the MH-17 case – again dumping the blame on the target of an intensive U.S. propaganda campaign, this time Russia, which was backing the rebels in eastern Ukraine. Kerry again failed to supply supporting evidence.

Cracks in the Story

Also, some of Kerry’s MH-17 assertions have shown cracks as more information has become available. For instance, despite Kerry’s putting the blame on the ethnic Russian rebels and their supporters in Moscow, Western intelligence now says the only functioning Buk anti-aircraft missiles in the area were under the control of the Ukrainian military.

According to Dutch intelligence – and implicitly corroborated by U.S. intelligence – Ukraine’s Buk batteries were the only anti-aircraft missiles in the area capable of hitting a commercial airliner flying at 33,000 feet. That information was contained in a little-noticed Dutch intelligence report last October citing information from the Netherlands’ Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD).

MIVD made its assessment in the context of explaining why commercial aircraft continued to fly over the eastern Ukrainian battle zone in summer 2014. MIVD said that based on “state secret” information, it was known that Ukraine possessed some older but “powerful anti-aircraft systems” and “a number of these systems were located in the eastern part of the country.”

MIVD added that the rebels lacked that capacity, having only short-range anti-aircraft missiles and a few inoperable Buk missiles that had been captured from a Ukrainian military base. “During the course of July, several reliable sources indicated that the systems that were at the military base were not operational,” MIVD said. “Therefore, they could not be used by the Separatists.”

U.S. intelligence, which had eastern Ukraine under intensive overhead surveillance in summer 2014, implicitly corroborated MIVD’s conclusion in a U.S. “Government Assessment” released by the Director of National Intelligence on July 22, 2014. It listed weapons systems that Russia had provided the rebels but made no mention of a Buk missile battery.

In other words, based on satellite imagery and other intelligence reviewed both before and after the shoot-down, U.S. and other Western intelligence services could find no proof that Russia had ever given a Buk system to the rebels or introduced one into the area. If Russia had provided a Buk battery – four 16-foot-long missiles hauled around by trucks – it would have been hard to miss.

There was also logic to support the notion that a Ukrainian team may have been responsible for the MH-17 shoot-down. At the time, the Ukrainian military was mounting an offensive against the rebels, who had resisted a U.S.-backed coup on Feb. 22, 2014, which ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych, who had strong support among Ukraine’s ethnic Russian minority in the east.

As the Ukrainian offensive claimed territory that the rebels had held, the Ukrainian military moved several Buk anti-aircraft missile batteries toward the front, presumably out of concern that Russia might directly intervene to save the rebels from annihilation. Plus, on July 16, 2014, a Ukrainian warplane was shot down apparently by an air-to-air missile believed fired by a Russian jet, giving reason for the Ukrainian anti-aircraft batteries to be on edge the next day, looking for Russian aircraft possibly intruding into Ukraine’s airspace.

But this evidence – that the only operational Buk batteries were under control of the Ukrainian military – did not fit the U.S. propaganda needs of blaming Russia and the rebels. Any indication that the post-coup Ukrainian government was responsible would instead put the U.S.-backed Kiev regime in a negative light.

So, it makes sense in a “strategic communications” kind of way for Kerry and other U.S. officials to leave the conventional wisdom – blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for the 298 deaths – in place for as long as possible. Kerry told Thomas Schansman that he and the other families of victims should expect a long wait before the perpetrators are brought to justice.

Expressing Condolences

In the letter to Thomas Schansman, Secretary Kerry wrote, “As a father myself, I can only begin to imagine the pain and loss you have endured with your son’s tragic passing. My heart goes out to you and your family.”

Secretary of State John Kerry denounces Russia's RT network as a "propaganda bullhorn" during remarks on April 24, 2014.

Kerry denounces RT as “propaganda bullhorn”

Kerry then added, “This investigative work is not easy, and bringing those responsible to justice will not be a quick process. However, Quinn, your family, and the families of all the others who died that day deserve such justice, and we will continue to do everything possible to achieve it.”

But the “everything” doesn’t apparently include releasing the data that Kerry claimed to have just days after the crash.

On July 20, 2014, Kerry appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and declared, “we picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar.”

In the letter asking Kerry to release that data, Thomas Schansman noted Kerry’s similar comments to a news conference on Aug. 12, 2014, when the Secretary of State said about the Buk anti-aircraft missile suspected of downing the plane: “We saw the take-off. We saw the trajectory. We saw the hit. We saw this aeroplane disappear from the radar screens. So there is really no mystery about where it came from and where these weapons have come from.”

Yet where the missile launch occurred has remained a point of mystery to the Dutch-led investigation. Last October, the Dutch Safety Board put the missile launch in a 320-square-kilometer area. Almaz-Antey, the Russian arms manufacturer of the Buk systems, conducted its own experiments to determine the likely firing location and placed it in a much smaller area near the village of Zaroshchenskoye, about 20 kilometers west of the DSB’s zone and in an area under Ukrainian government control.

Earlier this month, Fred Westerbeke, the head of the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team, told the families of the victims that the inquiry had yet to pin down the missile launch site, saying “In the second half of the year we expect exact results.” In other words, on the second anniversary of the shoot-down, the investigators looking into the MH-17 shoot-down still might not know what Kerry claimed to know three days afterwards.

[For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Flight 17 Shoot-Down Scenario Shifts”; “The Danger of an MH-17 Cold Case”; and “The Ever-Curiouser MH-17 Case.”]

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com.

March 26, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

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