By Sherwood Ross | Aletho News | April 5, 2015
The estimable McClatchy News Service says President Obama “scored a decisive win” by negotiating an agreement that “will prevent Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon” and termed it “a personal triumph for the President.”
Not surprisingly, the painfully negotiated pact was denounced by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has repeatedly, and illegally, threatened Iran over its alleged desire to build an atomic bomb. But Obama’s rebuff of Netanyahu’s position was well deserved, given Israel’s record of stealing American military secrets and spying on private American talks with its allies.
If Iran had been guilty of such crimes, the American public would now be deaf from the outcry of the Republicans in Congress. Americans need to remember that Jonathan Jay Pollard, an American civilian naval intelligence analyst, pleaded guilty in 1987 to selling classified information to Israel. At least 800 documents were snitched. Pollard, who became an Israeli citizen, sits in a U.S. prison today in Butner, N.C., serving a life sentence. Former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger said his espionage “would cause the greatest harm to our national security.”
Israel admitted its role in Pollard’s theft. Israel had him on a monthly payroll, the better to enable him to do his dirty work. When the spying was disclosed, Israel apologized for its role. So sorry, right? Maybe so, but just two weeks ago Adam Entous of The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel spied on the recent closed-door talks between the U.S. and its European allies concerning the Iranian negotiations. Do these repeated episodes of spying suggest that Israel is not exactly a trustworthy ally?
Not to our Congress, which keeps voting Israel $3-billion a year in military aid! According to the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, between 1949 and 2008 alone, Israel hauled in $56 billion in American military handouts. One could make a case that it was the American public that paid Mr. Pollard’s salary to steal American military secrets.
Now Mr. Netanyahu trumpets that no matter what agreement is reached, Israel will take action against Iran as it chooses. Of course, it’s illegal for one UN member to threaten another, much less attack it, but no matter.
Republicans in Congress might keep in mind that when Mr. Netanyahu addressed Congress last month he accused the Iranians of playing “a pretty good game of hide and cheat” but presented zero evidence of any sort to prove it. Here was a golden opportunity for him to show what his brilliant spy service had come up with. Yet all he produced were accusations.
If anyone is playing a game of “hide and cheat” with the UN inspectors it is Mr. Netanyahu, who does not allow them to enter Israel to inspect his nuclear facilities—reported to conceal between 80 or more (200?) atomic bombs. Iran lets the UN inspectors in, of course, but UN inspectors cannot get in to Israel.
What’s more, “Israelis who reveal details about the weapons program can face prosecution and lengthy prison terms,” wrote John Cassidy in The New Yorker on March 5, 2012:
“In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technician, gave photographs he had taken of the Negev Nuclear Research Center, near the city of Dimona, in the Negev desert, to the Sunday Times of London. After the publication of Vanunu’s story, Mossad agents snatched him from Rome, where he had been lured on vacation, and returned him to Israel. There he served eighteen years in jail, eleven of them in solitary confinement.”
If Netanyahu belittles the work of UN investigators by charging the Iranians are deceiving them, maybe that’s because they tell the truth—Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon and is not making one. In fact, the former Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, told investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that he had not seen “a shred of evidence” that Iran was “building nuclear-weapons facilities and using enriched materials.”
ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient who spent 12 years at the IAEA, told Hersh, “I don’t believe Iran is a clear and present danger. All I see is the hype about the threat posed by Iran.” Hersh pointed out that the last two U.S. National Intelligence Estimates on Iranian nuclear progress “have stated that there is no conclusive evidence that Iran has made any effort to build the bomb since 2003.”
Meanwhile, American spies in Iran are doing their very best to find any traces of military nuclear development. If they had found anything, most likely it would be on front pages globally by now. Hersh says some of the tactics our spies resorted to included:
# Surreptitiously removing street signs and replacing them with signs containing radiation sensors.
# Removing bricks from buildings suspected of containing nuclear enrichment activities and replacing them “with bricks embedded with radiation-monitoring devices.”
# Spreading high-powered sensors disguised as stones randomly along roadways where a suspected underground weapon site was under construction.
As for the Congressional critics of the new deal, McClatchy News quotes President Obama as saying, “Do you (critics of the deal) really think that this verifiable deal, if fully implemented, backed by the world’s major powers, is a worse option than the risk of another war in the Middle East?”
Summing up: President Obama has not only made the right decision in negotiating an agreement with Iran but could strike another blow for peace by terminating U.S. military aid to Israel (and every other nation as well.) Dare we say it? America first! #
Sherwood Ross can be reached at sherwoodross10@gmail.com
April 5, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Wars for Israel | Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran, Israel, United States |
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Western governments, their Middle Eastern allies, and many major media outlets have much in common with Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
Similarly, in the lexicon of western powers and their regional partners, the meaning of words such as moderation, legitimacy, human rights, democracy, extremism, terrorism, and fundamentalism are about as consistent as a chameleon’s color.
In Ukraine, the United States and its allies supported and facilitated the overthrow of a democratically elected president, immediately recognizing the successor regime as “legitimate.”
Many dead in ‘air strike on north Yemen refugee camp’
But, in Yemen – despite Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi having been the sole candidate in the February 2012 presidential election, despite his term as transitional president having expired after two years, despite his lack of popular support, despite his having resigned in January, despite his having fled his capital and later his country – the US and its allies consider Hadi the “legitimate” president.
Question of legitimacy
When Hadi invited foreign powers to bomb his country’s flimsy infrastructure and military, they rushed to do so.
US logistical and intelligence support may help explain why the Saudi Kingdom chose America’s favorite “shock and awe” tactics for its war against Yemen. Netanyahu also supports air strikes against Yemen’s armed forces and fragile infrastructure; perhaps Saudi leaders should have asked him why the Israeli regime’s multiple barbaric onslaughts against much smaller areas like Gaza and South Lebanon all ended in failure and humiliation.
Sadly, history is repeating itself like a rogue merry-go-round. The same countries that, as US Vice President Joe Biden admits, helped destroy much of Libya, Syria, and Iraq are now fighting on the same side as al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Is it really a good idea to strengthen al-Qaeda’s most dangerous branch alongside Bab El Mandab, the narrow waterway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden – especially as Somalia has no effective central government and al-Qaeda affiliates like al-Shabab are on the other side of the strait?
Cronyism, poverty, injustice, corruption, and decades of foreign domination drove Hadi’s overthrow. Ceaseless attempts to deny this and depict the Yemeni situation as a sectarian conflict reflect a worn-out strategy. This strategy has shaped the creation of the Taliban, ISIL, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, al-Qaeda, Ansar al-Sharia, and Jundullah, among others.
It has caused pain and devastation across North Africa, where there are no Shia Muslims – or “majus” and “Safavids,” to use the derogatory terminology of the tens of well-funded sectarian and ethnocentric extremist television channels.
Iranian proxies?
Describing the Houthis or Ansarullah as Iranian proxies insults their millions of followers and allies across Yemen, including southerners who well remember past devastation inflicted upon them by the same forces. It is an obvious attempt to push a non-sectarian country towards sectarianism, even though this policy has already failed in Syria.
It is difficult to imagine how these air strikes across Yemen – killing significant numbers of innocent civilians, including women and children huddled in refugee camps – will make the “coalition” look like liberators.
That none of these pilots flew anywhere near Palestine during the Israeli regime’s 2014 onslaught against Gaza has not escaped notice, either.
Iranians have also noticed that the Saudi-led Operation Decisive Storm coincides with the most sensitive phase of negotiations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the P5+1 in Lausanne, Switzerland. It has been clear for some time that the Israeli and Saudi regimes want to prevent a successful outcome in these talks.
Regardless of the ultimate outcome, Yemen’s tormentors should remember what happened along the Saudi-Yemeni border in 2009 when Ansarullah was a much smaller, more isolated, and less experienced military force. Purchasing Pakistani or Egyptian troops will not solve the problem; both of those regimes are floundering, barely able to contain their own extremists.
Appreciation for Iran among Iraqis, Syrians, Bahrainis, Omanis, and Yemenis is rooted in Iran’s independence, participatory Islamist governance (Western claims to the contrary notwithstanding), civilization, tolerance, and rejection of sectarian ideology.
While stale accusations will undoubtedly continue to be leveled at Iran, this aggression is not about the Islamic Republic’s alleged regional domination, it is about silencing the aspirations of the Yemeni people.
Those who spread civil war, extremism, and war should ponder the final words of Lady Macbeth: “Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”
April 5, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Militarism, War Crimes | Iran, Saudi Arabia, United States, Yemen |
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The
Wall Street Journal has published Judith Miller’s
defense of her Iraq War writings, in which she specifically denies responsibility for helping lead America into that war. There are others far more qualified than I am to pick apart what she’s written in the
Journal (and what will appear in Miller’s book
The Story, from which the
Journal piece is excerpted). I’ll limit myself to this:
Another widespread fallacy is that such neoconservatives as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz strong-armed an inexperienced president into taking the country to war. President Bush, as he himself famously asserted, was the “decider.” One could argue, however, that Hans Blix, the former chief of the international weapons inspectors, bears some responsibility. Though he personally opposed an invasion, Mr. Blix told the U.N. in January 2003 that despite America’s ultimatum, Saddam was still not complying fully with his U.N. pledges. In February, he said “many proscribed weapons and items,” including 1,000 tons of chemical agent, were still “not accounted for.”
Did Blix say in January 2003 that Iraq wasn’t fully compliant? Yes, he did. You can read the January 27, 2003, report here. Though please note that Blix says that Iraq was largely cooperative with regard to process:
Iraq has on the whole cooperated rather well so far with UNMOVIC in this field. The most important point to make is that access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect and with one exception it has been prompt. We have further had great help in building up the infrastructure of our office in Baghdad and the field office in Mosul. Arrangements and services for our plane and our helicopters have been good. The environment has been workable.
Our inspections have included universities, military bases, presidential sites and private residences. Inspections have also taken place on Fridays, the Muslim day of rest, on Christmas day and New Years day. These inspections have been conducted in the same manner as all other inspections.
But yes, there was some resistance by Iraq up to that point. Blix said so. However, a few days later, he made it abundantly clear, in an interview published in The New York Times, that nothing he’d seen at the time justified war:
Mr. Blix said he continued to endorse disarmament through peaceful means. “I think it would be terrible if this comes to an end by armed force, and I wish for this process of disarmament through the peaceful avenue of inspections,” he said.
And he specifically rebutted a large number of allegations advanced by the Bush administration:
Mr. Blix took issue with what he said were Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s claims that the inspectors had found that Iraqi officials were hiding and moving illicit materials within and outside of Iraq to prevent their discovery. He said that the inspectors had reported no such incidents.
Similarly, he said, he had not seen convincing evidence that Iraq was sending weapons scientists to Syria, Jordan or any other country to prevent them from being interviewed. Nor had he any reason to believe, as President Bush charged in his State of the Union speech, that Iraqi agents were posing as scientists.
He further disputed the Bush administration’s allegations that his inspection agency might have been penetrated by Iraqi agents, and that sensitive information might have been leaked to Baghdad, compromising the inspections.
Finally, he said, he had seen no persuasive indications of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, which Mr. Bush also mentioned in his speech. “There are other states where there appear to be stronger links,” such as Afghanistan, Mr. Blix said, noting that he had no intelligence reports on this issue.
It’s good that Miller is at least honest enough to acknowledge Blix’s opposition to war, given his debunking of administration claims and his belief that persistence in pursuing inspections was a better path to disarmament.
(Did I mention that Miller was the lead author of the Times interview story?)
In his February report, Blix did say that “many proscribed weapons and items are not accounted for.” But let’s put that quote in context (emphasis added):
How much, if any, is left of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and related proscribed items and programmes? So far, UNMOVIC has not found any such weapons, only a small number of empty chemical munitions, which should have been declared and destroyed. Another matter — and one of great significance — is that many proscribed weapons and items are not accounted for. To take an example, a document, which Iraq provided, suggested to us that some 1,000 tonnes of chemical agent were “unaccounted for”. One must not jump to the conclusion that they exist. However, that possibility is also not excluded.
Blix’s February report suggested that Iraq was cooperative and the process as working well:
Since we arrived in Iraq, we have conducted more than 400 inspections covering more than 300 sites. All inspections were performed without notice, and access was almost always provided promptly. In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming.
The inspections have taken place throughout Iraq at industrial sites, ammunition depots, research centres, universities, presidential sites, mobile laboratories, private houses, missile production facilities, military camps and agricultural sites…..
Through the inspections conducted so far, we have obtained a good knowledge of the industrial and scientific landscape of Iraq, as well as of its missile capability….
More than 200 chemical and more than 100 biological samples have been collected at different sites. Three-quarters of these have been screened using our own analytical laboratory capabilities at the Baghdad Centre (BOMVIC). The results to date have been consistent with Iraq’s declarations.
We have now commenced the process of destroying approximately 50 litres of mustard gas declared by Iraq that was being kept under UNMOVIC seal at the Muthanna site. One-third of the quantity has already been destroyed. The laboratory quantity of thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor, which we found at another site, has also been destroyed.
Blix made clear that the process required more time. He wasn’t going to get more time, however. The bombing started less than a week later. It wasn’t his idea. It wasn’t his fault.
April 5, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Hans Blix, Iraq, Judy Miller, New York Times |
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The National Security Agency (NSA) has refused to release four seconds of a recording made in the Richard Nixon White House more than 40 years ago, claiming the disclosure would expose a reference to Vietnam War peace talks and American government spying capabilities of the time.
The four-second segment, recorded on January 12, 1973 by Nixon chief of staff H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, has been sought by researcher Ken Hughes of the University of Virginia, who has studied the Nixon-era tapes. It contains information related to negotiations between the U.S. government and the government of South Vietnam connected to the war.
But the NSA rejected Hughes’ request, claiming the brief recording “would reveal information that would impair U.S. cryptologic systems or activities,” NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines told Bloomberg in an email.
Bloomberg was also told by the National Archives that the segment must be kept a secret because it could reveal “the identity of a confidential human source, a human intelligence source” or a “relationship with an intelligence or security agency of a foreign government or international organization.”
Bloomberg’s Anthony Capaccio reported: “Historians say the redacted segment probably refers to a threat by former President Lyndon Johnson to expose an illegal attempt by Nixon’s presidential campaign to derail the 1968 Paris peace talks on ending the Vietnam War.”
To Learn More:
Classified: Why Is Obama Keeping Secret Four Seconds of a Nixon-Era Tape? (by Anthony Capaccio, Bloomberg )
Nixon White House Tapes (Wikipedia)
New Technology Takes Aim at Notorious Watergate Tape Gap (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov )
April 4, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | National Security Agency, Obama, United States |
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Floyd Dent, the 57-year old black man savagely beaten by Michigan Police Officers from Inkster PD, recently took and passed a lie detector test to clear his name.
Dent, a Ford Motor Company employee for the past 37 years, was charged with assault and battery, resisting arrest, fleeing or eluding police and possession of cocaine, which he claims was planted by police officers.
A judge dismissed all charges stemming from the physical altercation after a dashboard camera video directly refuted statements made by the arresting officers.
Dent, who passed a blood test for narcotics after the arrest, was avid about his about taking a polygraph.
“I want to take one just to let everybody know, the public and everything, that I’m honest and telling the truth,” Dent, said.
During the lie detector test, Dent was asked whether he verbally threatened the officers; whether the officers are correct that he threatened to kill them; if the police are correct that he had crack cocaine in his vehicle; and if Dent was lying about the drugs.
He answered “No,” to each question, and passed the test, NBC affiliate WDIV reported.
The video from the Jan. 28 arrest shows officers dragging Dent from his car and placing him in a chokehold. He was then kicked, shocked with a Taser and punched in the head 16 times by police officers.
Arresting officer William Melendez claimed Dent threatened to kill him and bit him repeatedly after wrestling him to the ground.
It should be noted he made no effort to file an official report about any sustained injuries.
The official report is required protocol for even the most minor scratches. This should come as no surprise, as Melendez has a long rap sheet of police abuse offenses.
The Inkster officer was indicted on charges of planting drugs and falsifying reports while working as a Detroit police officer, earning him the nickname “Robocop.”
Conveniently enough, audio from the dash cam was turned off during the initial interaction with Dent that led to his bloody fate. However, evidence and Melendez’s shady past may play out in Dent’s favor.
The Wayne County prosecutor has asked for two weeks to reevaluate a drug possession charge, to which Dent plead not guilty.
This has become a classic case of he-said he-said, but only one of these men has a criminal past.
Dent’s next court appearance is scheduled for April 15.
April 4, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, United States |
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David Cameron’s attempts to style himself as the latest incarnation of a long tradition of ‘British values’ of tolerance, democracy and the rule of law is belied by both British history and his own policies. It also plays right into the hands of ISIS.
David Cameron has been at it again. Following the brutal attacks on visitors to the Bardo museum in Tunisia last month, Cameron took the opportunity to repeat one of the most common and pernicious falsehoods of his premiership – that he is a staunch defender of a set of moral absolutes he calls ‘British values’. “In the end” he said, “our values – freedom of speech, democracy, the rule of law – … will win through”. That the Tunis attacks were a direct result of his own fateful decision in 2011 to turn Libya over to a hotchpotch of ultra-sectarian and racist death squads, who then trained the Bardo attackers, was of course conveniently glossed over. But this theme – of Cameron’s dogged pursuance of his British values in the face of an Islamist onslaught – has been trotted out every time any European joins the tens of thousands of Libyan, Nigerian, Malian, Syrian, Algerian, and Iraqi victims of his policy of recruiting sectarian militants as tools of regime change. Thus when Lee Rigby was killed in London by a man (Michael Adebolajo) who had been offered a job by MI5 just weeks earlier, Cameron opined that “the terrorists will never win because they can never beat the values we hold dear, the belief in freedom, in democracy, in free speech, in our British values, Western values”. And when Mohammed Emwazi was granted instant celebrity status by the British media following his youtube beheadings of journalists and aid workers, Cameron said that Emwazi’s actions were “the very opposite of everything this country stands for”, despite the fact that his own intelligence services headhunted Emwazi to work for them, just as they had facilitated the passage to Syria of the man who most probably trained him.
Cameron’s crucial role in creating and sustaining the death squads he claims to oppose, however, is well known to anyone paying attention to events in the Middle East, and has been written about extensively elsewhere by myself and others. What I want to critique here is Cameron’s claim that democracy, the rule of law and free speech and tolerance are indeed ‘British values’ in any meaningful sense. In fact, these values neither originated in Britain nor have ever been sincerely practiced by British governments.
Take democracy, for example. Even the mainstream textbooks don’t claim that it originated in Britain; Athens is generally supposed to be its birthplace (although there is increasing evidence that the Athenians based it on systems already in place in Africa). Cameron does have an answer for this, of course. In his article for the Daily Mail following the uproar over the mythical ‘Trojan Horse plot’, he writes that “People will say that these values are vital to other people in other countries… But what sets Britain apart are the traditions and history that anchors them and allows them to continue to flourish and develop. Our freedom doesn’t come from thin air. It is rooted in our parliamentary democracy”. What he doesn’t mention is that this particular version of democracy is based on a profound distrust of the people, and was consciously and openly designed to keep them out of decision making as far as possible. Also noteworthy is that the British government has only ever allowed a tiny privileged section of those subject to its power to vote for it – and still does. Only when non-aristocratic owners of business had become fabulously wealthy were they given the vote (in 1832), and when the franchise was extended to workers 35 years later, it was limited to those with the highest wages and living standards. When the universal male franchise was achieved in Britain in 1918, it was of course denied to the tens of millions of colonial subjects (including many Northern Irish Catholics) whose labour and resources were by then creating relatively privileged conditions for those in the ‘motherland’. Even today, British power extends far beyond Britain’s territorial borders, and yet the Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans, Somalis and others who are subject to its greatest abuses have no say in who forms the government. If democracy means that those who are the subjects of power have some influence over who wields it, Britain is still sorely lacking in this regard.
And what of the rule of law? Once again, despite the 800 year existence of the Magna Carta constantly trumpeted by Cameron, when it comes to international affairs, he has treated this apparently sacrosanct British principle with absolute contempt. From his support for Blair’s destruction of Iraq in 2003, to his own blitzkrieg against Libya in 2011, he has been a proud defender of the unprovoked war of aggression – defined by the Nuremberg tribunal, lest we forget, as “not only an international crime; [but] the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”. Even on the domestic front, he has been more than happy to violate the rule of law when it suits him. Thus at the slightest hint of civil unrest in 2011, Cameron’s government instructed magistrates to ignore their own sentencing guidelines and imprison everyone ‘involved’ in the youth insurrection, no matter how slight their offence, throwing judicial independence to the wind in the process. Worse still, every passing week produces more evidence of the apparent collusion between the intelligence services, police, and government ministers in facilitating and covering-up institutional child sex abuse on a horrific scale – and yet Cameron’s government appears to have done everything possible to delay an inquiry into the issue and limit its powers. The rule of law may well be valued in Britain – but it certainly isn’t applied to the higher echelons Cameron represents.
On tolerance and freedom of speech, Britain may seem to fare a little better. But this is only true if we ignore history, foreign policy and Cameron’s own ‘anti-terror’ legislation. Historically, Britain has hardly been a model of toleration. We needn’t go back to King Edward I’s expulsion of the Jews (many of whom sought refuge in the historically much more tolerant Islamic empires) or the anti-Catholic laws (in place until 1829 and only repealed in response to the threat of civil war in Ireland) to find institutionalised discrimination: racialised stop-and-searches have actually increased since the 1999 MacPherson Inquiry’s conclusion that the British police were “institutionally racist”. This is perhaps not surprising, however, given that the British Empire itself was built on intolerance and discrimination, stripping native peoples of political rights and often reducing them to a legal status little different from animals or property. In this regard, the 2012 laws passed by the NATO-installed Libyan government – laws which threaten life imprisonment for supporters of the previous government, and impunity for anyone who kills them – is fully in line with actual historical British practice abroad – but not with some mythical commitment to ‘tolerance’ and free speech. Back at home, Cameron’s redefinition of extremism to include ‘non-violent’ varieties, combined with draconian new proposals to ensure that all educational institutions rid themselves of all hints of such extremism, are the very antithesis of ‘freedom of speech’, as commentators of all political stripes have noted.
Perhaps most insidious of all, however, is Cameron’s claim that “The Western model of combining vibrant democracy with free enterprise has delivered great progress and prosperity”. In reality, the ‘Western model’ has not been based on ‘vibrant democracy’, but precisely on its opposite – on the dispossession of the vast majority of those subject to its power, from the native Americans and African slaves of yesteryear, to the countless millions subject to IMF structural adjustment or NATO bombardment today. But neither has it been based on ‘free enterprise’. As scholars such as Ha-Joon Chang have shown in detail, the truth is that every Western nation used massive protectionism during their rise to prosperity. Even today, the strongest industries in the West – from US agribusiness and pharmaceuticals to British finance – are completely dependent on massive government subsidies, demonstrated most clearly in the $15 trillion global bankers bailout following the financial crash of 2007-8. Protectionism and colonialism/ neo-colonialism, then, are the real foundation, and continuing basis, of Western prosperity. To ascribe this prosperity to a set of ‘values’ which have never been taken seriously by Britain’s governing elites is not only a falsification of history, but a slander on those whose own dispossession and impoverishment was the flipside of this prosperity. Only by being honest about the role of Britain’s African, Asian and American colonies in creating Britain’s prosperity – and Britain’s role in creating and perpetuating their poverty – can we hope to genuinely build an inclusive society based on mutual respect and understanding for all those who find themselves here ‘because we were there’.
Britain’s governing elites, then, have consistently undermined the values they claim to espouse – and none more than their greatest advocate, Mr Cameron himself. But this does not make his narrative meaningless. In a sense, this article, by taking his sacred principles at face value and questioning whether the British government lives up to them, is completely missing the point. For the real purpose of the narrative is not, and has never been, to establish a standard which we should aspire to reach. Far from it. The purpose is solely to provide a stick with which to beat Islam. It is not that ‘we’, as Brits, are actually supposed to practice these ‘British values’ ourselves – the point is rather to provide solid grounds for hating the Islamic societies that are always presented as the greatest transgressors of these values. Don’t get me wrong – Cameron is constantly at pains to point out that ‘the vast majority of law abiding British Muslims’ share these values. But his very language leads us to believe that those Muslims who do share such values do so because of their Britishness, and despite their Islam. The danger of this narrative is multiple. Not only does it reinforce ignorant prejudices about Islam’s ‘aversion’ to democracy, the rule of law and tolerance – but it also justifies the rejection of such values by groups such as ISIS. For ISIS are the prime believers in Cameron’s message that such values are ‘British’ and ‘western’. And as people who hate Britain and the west and all it has done to the world, they feel duty bound to reject the values it espouses. Yet they forget that Islamic culture has a proud – and much longer – history of practicing them than does the ‘west’ itself. And why do they forget this? Because they believe the distortions of their own history perpetrated by Cameron and his ilk. The more, therefore, that Cameron claims democracy, tolerance and the rule of law to be distinctly British phenomenon – insinuating all the while that they are not indigenous to Islam – the more that angry young Muslims, who have seen their homelands torn apart by Britain, are drawn into the orbit of those militant groups who reject these values. But then, for Cameron, this is all fine. More Muslims joining ISIS means more fighters in his proxy war against Assad – and all without a single soldier returning home in a body bag. This, at least, gets us a little closer to understanding what Cameron really values.
April 4, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Islamophobia, Timeless or most popular | David Cameron, Human rights, UK |
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About Those Chlorine Gas Attacks in Syria
With allegations of chlorine gas attacks in Syria on March 16, some humanitarian groups have called for a “No Fly Zone” over part of Syria. I believe this is reckless and dangerous and will explain why.
Part 1 of this article was published on March 31. It documented the campaign by Avaaz and others for a “No Fly Zone” in Syria and contrasted the promises with the consequences in Libya.
Part 2 examines the allegations of chlorine gas attacks in Syria, what various organizations are doing and saying and where major violations of international law are occurring.
Humanitarians Pushing for Intervention
We have a strange situation where “human rights” groups are demanding foreign intervention in Syria via a “No Fly Zone” while military leaders are expressing caution saying “hold on…do you realize that’s an act of war?” The humanitarian interventionists may feel righteous in their cause, but they should be held accountable when it leads to disaster and tragedy as we saw in Libya.
After decades of wars and occupation based on deception, exaggeration and outright lies, it’s past time to demand proof of accusations and to be skeptical regarding any call for military action.
What is the Evidence from Syria?
Syrian rebels and supporters have repeatedly accused the Syrian military of using chemical weapons, often with the accompanying demand for foreign intervention. The Syrian government has consistently denied the accusations.
A major push for a foreign attack on Syria followed the highly publicized incidents in Ghouta in outer Damascus on August 21, 2013. Many humanitarian groups such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) joined or led in accusing the Syrian government of being responsible and calling for “action.” A military attack was averted by the Syrian government agreeing to remove its existing chemical weapons and manufacturing facilities.
Opposition supporters like Kenan Rahmani predicted that the Syrian government would not comply with the agreement. But it did. On October 1, 2014, the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced that the elimination of prohibited chemical weapons and facilities in Syria had been successfully completed. It was a remarkable achievement and the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Syria received little credit.
During 2014, as the Syrian government was working to successfully implement the agreement to dispose of banned chemical weapons, new unverified accusations emerged that the Syrian military was using barrel bombs containing poisonous chlorine gas. The accusations prompted renewed demands from governments actively supporting the armed opposition. The Syrian government removed all prohibited chemicals and facilities but now is accused of using a chemical which is not on the prohibited list.
According to its report, in May 2014, an OPCW team tried to investigate at the site of alleged chlorine gas attacks. The Syrian government gave the OPCW team passage to the rebel controlled area but the convoy was attacked by a rebel faction. None of the team members was injured but that stopped their on-site investigation. Instead, the OPCW worked with the well-funded opposition-supporting Violations Documentation Center to arrange interviews with numerous people from three villages. The interviews were conducted outside Syria, probably in Turkey. They gathered photographs, videos and other evidence and expressed “high confidence that chlorine had been used as a weapon in Syria” in three villages. They did not ascribe responsibility.
More recently there was an alleged chlorine gas attack on March 16, 2015 with six deaths including three children. The Avaaz petition and campaign sprung from this alleged incident.
Along with these accusations, there has been a steady drumbeat from various organizations that the Syrian government is committing war crimes. For example, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) issued a press release on May 14 with the title “New Map Shows Government Forces Deliberately Attacking Syria’s Medical System.”
Are the Accusations Objective or Biased?
Following are some of the major organizations reporting or making accusations regarding the conflict in Syria:
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) – This is the official intergovernmental organization tasked with promoting adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention. It has been responsible for removal of chemical weapons from Syria. It was then tasked with investigating allegations about use of chlorine gas as a weapon. While OPCW seeks to be highly professional and nonpartisan, there are questions of potential conflict of interest and bias as follows:
* The director general of OPCW, Ahmet Uzumcu, is the appointee of Turkey, a country which actively supports the Syrian opposition and has pushed for a No Fly Zone. Given that Uzumcu is a political appointee of a state directly involved in the conflict, he has a potential conflict of interest: he might advance his own career and please the Turkish government by making the Syrian government look bad.
* The interviews with villagers were done with OPCW “working closely” with the partisan “Violations Documentation Center.” How did OPCW verify the integrity of the witnesses?
* According to OPCW report, NATO’s CBRN Task Force (Chemical-Biological-Radioactive-Nuclear) collected data “in the field following reported attacks” and supplied this to OPCW. What exactly was the NATO task force doing in the rebel controlled territory?
* The official report of the OPCW notes that in the UN Security Council “Some doubts and questions were also raised in regard to the procedures and methods (of the Fact Finding Mission).”
AVAAZ – Avaaz is clearly biased and was involved in the Syria conflict from early on. They were supplying satellite phones and otherwise aiding and promoting local activists from early on. Is that a good thing? Not necessarily; their claims and actions in Syria have been controversial and criticized.
WHITE HELMETS / SYRIAN CIVIL DEFENCE – This is a new organization, highly publicized as civilian rescue workers in Syria. Their video and reports have influenced Avaaz and other humanitarian groups. Avaaz refers to the White Helmets as “Syria’s respected and non-partisan civil protection force.”
In reality the White Helmets is a project created by the UK and USA. Training of civilians in Turkey has been overseen by former British military officer and current contractor, James Le Mesurier. Promotion of the program is done by “The Syria Campaign” supported by the foundation of billionaire Ayman Asfari. The White Helmets is clearly a public relations project which has received glowing publicity from HuffPo to Nicholas Kristof at the NYT. White Helmets have been heavily promoted by the U.S. Institute of Peace (U.S.IP) whose leader began the press conference by declaring “U.S.IP has been working for the Syrian Revolution from the beginning”.
Apart from the PR work, White Helmets work in areas of Aleppo and Idlib controlled by Nusra (Al Queda). The video from a medical clinic on March 16 starts with a White Helmets logo. The next video of same date and place continues with the Nusra logo.
US and UK tax dollars pay for a program which has an appealing rescue component and is then used to market and promote the USA and UK policy of regime change in Syria in de facto alliance with Nusra.
The fake “independence and neutrality” of White Helmets is shown by their active promotion of a No Fly Zone.
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERS (MSF) and other humanitarian groups no longer have staff in Syria. They rely on witnesses and videos provided by rebels. In a war zone it is difficult to ascertain when someone is speaking out of fear or intimidation or for payment. Witnesses in rebel-controlled territory may claim that helicopters dropped bombs with chlorine. But what if the witnesses are lying? The possibility for manipulation and deceit is huge.
PHYSICIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (PHR) is also active reporting on the Syria conflict. They make bold but sometimes inaccurate assertions. They recently claimed that “people in Homs are facing serious health consequences as the medical system collapses, with only three doctors available.” This is inaccurate. I personally visited Homs one year ago and drove around the city for hours. Since the rebels departed the Old City last May it is being rebuilt and nearly all the city continues normally except for periodic terrorist car bombs.
A recent PHR press release is headlined “New Map shows Government Forces Deliberately Attacking Syria’s Medical System.” It looks slick and impressive but is inaccurate. For example, one of the most dramatic attacks on a Syrian hospital was the suicide bombing of Al Kindi Hospital in Aleppo. Yet the PHR map shows the attack having been carried out by “government forces.” Readers are encouraged to look at the 3 minute rebel video of the suicide attack which leaves no doubt who was responsible.
SUMMARY. Statements/documentation from the Syrian government and supporters tend to be dismissed or ignored; statements/video from opposition witnesses and activists tend to be accepted uncritically. That is bias.
WHO BENEFITS?
The starting point for many criminal investigations is who has a motive? Who benefits from an action or event?
In order to prevail, the Syrian opposition needs foreign intervention. In order to prevail, the Syrian government needs to prevent foreign intervention.
Who benefited from from use of sarin gas that would cross Obama’s ‘red line’? The answer was always obvious. This received surprisingly little consideration as the US Government and humanitarian groups like Human Rights Watch argued that the Syrian Government was culpable without even considering who had motive.
Since that time, in-depth analysis of the August 2013 chemical attack in Ghouta increasingly points to the use of sarin gas by the rebels not the Syrian government. The “vector analysis” advanced by HRW has been discounted. The US and other countries almost began an international attack on the basis of false claims and analysis.
Similarly, who benefits from the use of chlorine gas that would violate the new UN Security Resolution? To ask the question is to answer it. Clearly it is the opposition rebels who benefit when the Syrian government is charged with using chlorine gas bombs. Clearly they are the ones who seek foreign intervention or imposition of a No Fly Zone.
A War of Aggression Against Syria
Supporters of intervention sometimes claim Syria has been “abandoned” by the international community. On the contrary, the Syrian conflict has continued primarily BECAUSE of foreign involvement.
The unholy alliance of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, USA, France and Britain (with silent partner Israel) have supplied, trained, provided weapons and salaries for Syrian and international fighters seeking to topple the government. They openly called themselves, with Orwellian chutzpah, the “Friends of Syria” as they divide the tasks of supplying the rebels and consider who should be the “legitimate political representatives”.
The crime has not been the absence of international effort; it has been the absence of enforcement of international law. The US and allies are doing to Syria what the US did to Nicaragua in the 1980’s. As the International Court at the Hague said in its decision on June 27, 1986:
… the United States of America, by training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying the “contra” forces or otherwise encouraging, supporting and aiding military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua, has acted, against the Republic of Nicaragua, in breach of its obligation under customary international law not to intervene in the affairs of another State.
The Nicaraguan Foreign Minister at that time was Father Miguel D’Escoto. He served as president of the United Nations General Assembly in the year 2008-2009. When recently asked his opinion on what is happening in Syria he responded:
“What the U.S. government is doing in Syria is tantamount to a war of aggression, which, according to the Nuremberg Tribunal, is the worst possible crime a State can commit against another State.”
The conflict in Syria continues primarily because foreign powers continue to “arm, equip, finance and supply” the equivalent of the Contras. Imposing a No Fly Zone in Syria would not make anyone safer; it would dramatically expand the war and lead to vastly more, not fewer deaths.
Those who genuinely want peace in Syria need to press for ENDING foreign intervention in Syria via proxy armies and ENCOURAGING reconciliation and negotiations without preconditions.
The humanitarians pushing for intervention in Syria are not R2P (responsible to protect). They are R4W (responsible for war).
Rick Sterling is a founding member of Syria Solidarity Movement. He can be reached at rsterling1@gmail.com
April 3, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | Avaaz, France, HRW, Human Rights Watch, Israel, MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERS, Physicians for Human Rights, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkiye, United States |
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The French foreign minister says no special timetable has been agreed with Iran on lifting the sanctions imposed on the country as part of an understanding reached between Tehran and world powers on Iran’s nuclear program.
Laurent Fabius said Friday that the mutual understanding reached in the Swiss city of Lausanne a day earlier contained no agreement on the precise schedule for lifting the sanctions on Iran.
Iran and P5+1 group of countries – Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany – along with officials from the European Union reached a mutual understanding on Tehran’s nuclear program after eight days of marathon talks in Lausanne.
“The Iranians want sanctions to be lifted immediately…We say to them: we will ease the sanctions as you respect what you have agreed to,” Fabius told Europe 1 radio station, emphasizing, however, “On this point, there is not yet a deal.”
According to the joint statement, which is the basis for a final deal, the two sides have envisaged a mechanism for lifting sanctions after the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is reached by the end of June.
The joint statement read by Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Persian late Thursday stipulated that the parties to the JCPOA will, after the adoption of the Security Council resolution, need a period of preparation time to implement the JCPOA. Once the preparation period is over, and simultaneous with the start of the implementation of nuclear measures by Iran on a designated date, the lifting of “all sanctions” will automatically go into action.
Fabius, whose government has adopted a harsh stance toward Iran’s nuclear program, also cautioned Tehran that sanctions could be re-imposed if Iran violates its obligations.
“…If you don’t live up to your commitments, of course we can return to the situation we had before,” he said.
The joint statement also reiterated that within the framework of the solutions reached, the necessary mechanism has been envisaged for the mutual reversibility of the commitments included in the JCPOA in case of a failure to meet obligations by each party.
Fabius, however, branded the framework agreement reached between Iran and P5+1 as “historic.”
April 3, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception | France, Sanctions against Iran |
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US Senator Robert Menendez has pleaded not guilty to 14 federal charges of corruption.
The New Jersey Democrat was indicted on Wednesday on bribery and conspiracy offenses in connection with an ongoing investigation into his unlawful dealings with Salomon Melgen, a Florida doctor and longtime political donor.
A bribery charge is among the most serious accusations of corruption the federal government can make.
Menendez pleaded not guilty in Newark court on Thursday.
The senator, who has held his seat since 2006, was charged with accepting nearly $1 million in gifts and campaign contributions from Melgen in exchange for political favors.
He will have to turn over his passport, according to multiple reports.
“Prosecutors at the Justice Department don’t know the difference between friendship and corruption and have chosen to twist my duties as a senator and my friendship into something that is improper,” Menendez said during a brief press conference on Wednesday.
Menendez is the first US senator to face federal bribery charges since 1980 when Harrison A. Williams Jr., another New Jersey Democrat, was indicted as part of the federal corruption investigation known as Abscam.
Menendez is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a key voice on Capitol Hill to call for increased sanctions against Iran.
Melgen, who was also named in the incitement, pleaded not guilty Thursday.
April 3, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception | Robert Menendez, United States |
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Despite attempts to portray the work of the “big three” as globally oriented, the rating agencies maintain a close link to the US financial institutions. The 2008 economic crisis sent their reputations reeling. Now the global market for making ratings needs to be de-monopolized and equipped with new, transparent tools for working with risk.
Currently, Fitch, Standard & Poor’s, and Moody’s enjoy almost complete legal immunity for their evaluations and are guaranteed high profits, regardless of the consequences. According to the French edition of Le Monde, between 2000 and 2007, Moody’s earnings quadrupled, thanks to CMBS, ABS, CDO, and other securities that had become the main source of the company’s financial gains, with a profitability margin of 52%. Unfortunately, accurate data on S&P and Fitch are not published, although it would be interesting to look at the accounting records of these organizations that insist on full transparency for everyone but themselves.
In any event, the US taxpayer makes up for any discrepancy between the rating and the reality – suffice it to recall the 2008 scandal over the ratings of “toxic” assets within the US banking system just before the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
The way it works
Rating agencies act as a “filter” regulating the movement of investment capital from developed markets into developing ones. The mechanism is simple – any rating assigned by the “Big Three” that is used by the head of a major investment fund affects the default risk. Actual business practice is often ignored. For example, the retirement accounts of America’s senior citizens can be invested into crazy foreign financial schemes, as long as their ratings are properly pitched. The rating system is designed so that cash from banks and investment funds passes only into the “right” hands under favorable terms. This creates a type of political road map for investors, which has little to do with the real macroeconomic indicators.
But this does not stop the experts from the “Big Three.” “Imagine a large group of people arguing strenuously with each other,” David Levey, a former managing director of Moody’s, told Foreign Affairs. “It could sometimes get to that. These were very exciting meetings and often there were substantial disagreements. In every case, the ultimate decision was made by majority vote.” But were any of the people involved in these debates elected? And on what basis did they wield such influence?
In 2011, this question was answered by William Harrington, a former senior president at Moody’s (a voice in the wilderness, indeed). “This salient conflict of interest permeates all levels of employment, from entry-level analyst to the chairman and chief executive officer of Moody’s corporation,” Harrington said in a filing to the US financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The myth that the rating agencies are a “global” business.
With a single stroke of a pen, highly rated players are given a significant competitive advantage based on their proximity to the source of investment. To ensure political control over developing markets, the analyses of all three ratings agencies always include assessment criteria that affect the overall result. At Moody’s, for example, those criteria are called “institutional strength” or “susceptibility to event risk.”
At their own risk and peril, agency analysts evaluate the stability of the institutions of a sovereign player, on the basis of some kind of “global” paradigm of historical development. Not one of the agencies is entirely forthcoming about its methodology for assigning ratings. And this is hardly surprising – how else to explain high ratings to the press, given sovereign bankruptcies, in, for example, Iceland?
The idea of global development, as part of a neoliberal world order, arose only recently (in the late 1980s) and is, like many ideological concepts, a political tool. The agencies, however, use this idea in all their documents, all the while professing objectivity. To evaluate developing markets, regardless of the local conditions, the “universal” IMF criteria are used, such as the degree of privatization and liberalization of the national economy. The crises in Latin America offer clear evidence of what happens when a government is prompted by the “ratings racket” to sell off its liquid assets during a period of financial instability.
For example, in February 2015, the rating agency Moody’s downgraded the credit rating of the Brazilian oil and gas company Petrobras from Baa2 to Ba2, and as a result the company plunged from “investment grade” to “speculative.” The influential Brazilian edition of Jornal do Brasil calls that decision “absurd and premeditated robbery” and asks – what is more significant, the three million barrels per day produced by Petrobras or the opinion of a group of anonymous Moody’s analysts who upheld Greece’s high rating until the bitter end.
The “good” and “bad” guys
It has long been noted that if a more or less sovereign government comes to power in a country that has been exhausted by the neoliberal economic programmes, the “Big Three’s” ratings begin to drop as if by magic. The most remarkable story in recent times has been seen in France. In 2012 the French market, one of the most highly developed in the EU, found itself on the rating agencies’ “bad guys” list, due to its “incorrect” tax policy and the government’s refusal to relegate its local culture to the mercies of the anonymous forces of the financial market.
According to the journalist Édouard Tétreau, (Le Monde) in his article “The United States of Europe vs. the dream of Standard & Poor’s,” ratings are manipulated in order to “Balkanize” Europe. To counter this, he prescribes the creation of real banks in Europe that can “send the brokers on Wall Street and the City of London packing.” During the assaults on the EU’s credit, Antonio Tajani, a former vice president of the European Commission, told El País that the rating agencies “work for the dollar.” In short, when it comes to evaluating the real economic indicators, old Europe is doing its best to distance itself from the ratings.
Among Europe’s “good guys,” the rating agencies list only the minuscule economies of the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, which in 2014 received upgraded investment ratings from S&P for their progress in tax reform.
In the US, the “Big Three” are evidence of the miracles of lobbying. On January 12, 2003, the state of Georgia passed strong anti-fraud laws drafted by consumer advocates. Four days later, Standard & Poor’s announced that if Georgia passed anti-fraud penalties for corrupt mortgage brokers and lenders, packaging including such debts could not be given AAA ratings. S&P’s move meant Georgia lenders would have no access to the securitization money machine. It is interesting that this situation arose five years before the time bomb known as the subprime crisis went off.
Is there an alternative?
The rating market is in dire need of de-monopolization. “We can’t have private companies, whose primary goal is maximizing profit, behaving like sovereign judges passing down opinions that are binding for disinterested third parties,” believes Thomas Straubhaar, the director of the Hamburg Institute of International Economics. The BRICS countries are solidly united with Europe in the search for alternatives to the “Big Three.”
New, transnational rating agencies, such as the Universal Credit Rating Group (UCRG), will be an important milestone in the rating market. UCRG was created in 2012 as a partnership between the Chinese rating agency Dagong, Russia’s RusRating, and United States’ Egan-Jones. The fundamental principle behind the formation of new transnational actors must be the requirement that they are unbiased and unaffiliated with any state or corporate entity.
Ian Blohm is the economist and international financial adviser of the Polish origin. He is currently based in Moscow and can be reached at ian_blohm@myway.com
April 3, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Economics | China, Fitch, Moody’s, Russia, Standard & Poor’s, United States |
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Yemen’s Houthi movement has rejected earlier media reports that dozens of foreign troops have disembarked in the country’s southeastern port city of Aden, Press TV reports.
Sources with the Ansarullah fighters in Yemen confirmed to Press TV on Thursday that the media reports circulating about the deployment of foreign troops of unknown nationality to Aden were baseless.
According to the sources, the Yemeni army has managed to take control of the strategic city despite some intermittent clashes there.
The report comes as Ansarullah revolutionaries and their allies managed to capture the presidential palace in Aden.
The palace was the last bastion of power for the country’s fugitive president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, before he fled to neighboring Saudi Arabia.
The advance by revolutionaries comes against the backdrop of an ongoing military aggression by Saudi Arabia against Yemen, which has claimed about 200 lives so far.
Houthi fighters, who took control of the capital Sana’a last September, continue making gains southward. The capture of Hadi’s palace in Aden comes after a week of clashes on the outskirts of the city.
Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
However, the Ansarullah movement later said Hadi had lost his legitimacy as president of Yemen after he escaped Sana’a to Aden in February.
The revolutionaries said after taking control of Sana’a that the Hadi government was incapable of properly running the affairs of the country and containing the growing wave of corruption and terror.
April 2, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception | Press TV, Saudi Arabia, Yemen |
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Reprieve | April 2, 2015
Reuters has today reported that Lithuanian prosecutors have reopened an investigation into secret CIA prisons – or ‘black sites’ – which the country hosted as part of the US Agency’s rendition and torture programme. Lithuania had closed a previous probe into the matter in 2011. The re-opening of the investigation follows the submission by international legal charity Reprieve of a dossier to Lithuanian prosecutors in January this year, which detailed evidence of CIA black sites hosted by the country.
Commenting, Reprieve legal director, Kat Craig said: “While this is a small step in the right direction, it remains the case that Lithuania has for years dragged its feet when it comes to investigating CIA torture sites on its soil.
“Now that the US Senate has clearly established that the CIA did indeed hold prisoners in the country, the Lithuanian Government’s 2011 conclusion that there was ‘nothing to see here’ is even more difficult to understand. Lithuania must publish the findings and conclusions of its previous investigation in full, in order to explain how it managed to get things so wrong in the past.”
April 2, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Lithuania, United States |
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