U.S. Government ‘Saddled’ With COVID Vaccine Injury ‘Mess’ — While Vaccine Makers Avoid Liability
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 18, 2024
As early as January 2022, National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers were aware of at least 850 peer-reviewed case reports and/or research articles about COVID-19 vaccine reactions, according to emails obtained by Children’s Health Defense (CHD).
In one email (name and agency redacted), NIH researchers were told the federal government was “saddled” with the “mess” of dealing with those injured by the COVID-19 vaccines, due to the liability shield enjoyed by vaccine manufacturers.
The emails, part of a 309-page batch of documents released to CHD on June 21, originated from a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) request to NIH researchers for input on a report highlighting several injuries common among people who received the vaccines.
CHD requested the documents via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the NIH in November 2022. When the NIH hadn’t responded by April 2023, CHD sued the agency.
In an October 2023 settlement, the NIH agreed to produce up to 7,500 pages of documents at a rate of 300 pages per month.
The batch of documents released in June — which include emails to Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research — revealed that by fall 2021, key NIH researchers were aware of scientific studies on serious adverse events, including persistent neurological symptoms, following COVID-19 vaccines.
As with prior releases of the NIH documents, June’s tranche also included several emails from vaccine-injured individuals to NIH researchers, seeking help for their symptoms — with one person asking, “Why aren’t you studying vaccine injuries?”
‘Tinnitus … was a freight train in my head for the first four months’
On Jan. 10, 2022, NIH researcher Dr. Avindra Nath was forwarded an email from someone whose name is redacted, with the subject line: “Followup [sic] Jan 4th Meeting” (pages 281-289).
The original email, dated Jan. 9, 2022, was sent to FDA officials including Marks and Dr. Janet Woodcock, principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs, who apparently participated in a meeting on this topic on Jan. 4, 2022.
The Jan. 9, 2022 email included a list of “persistent symptoms following the Covid vaccines” and the names of researchers who were studying these conditions, which included dysautonomia, neuropathy, tinnitus, multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS), myocarditis, blood clots and parasthesias.
The email was accompanied by a spreadsheet listing approximately 850 “peer-reviewed case reports/research articles about Covid vaccine reactions.”
Regarding dysautonomia — a nervous system disorder that disrupts automatic bodily functions — the email stated that the condition is “grossly under diagnosed” and “is not diagnosed in ERs or ICUs” but in “autonomic specialty labs.”
The email noted that such labs are less likely than hospitals to file reports with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and added that there “likely are issues with identifying this syndrome if only looking through VAERS or similarly reported databases.”
As a result, the email suggested “it would be reasonable to approach autonomic specialists / long covid specialists about their observations.”
A 2011 Harvard study found that less than 1% of all adverse events are reported to VAERS.
The Jan. 9, 2022, email also noted unusual trends regarding diagnoses of neuropathy — a set of neurological symptoms that includes numbness and tingling in the hands or feet, and a burning, stabbing or shooting pain in affected areas.
According to the email, “Historically, neuropathy presents in the predominantly male population aged 59+. However as discussed previous [sic], neuropathy in our case is predominantly female, aged 29-40.”
As with dysautonomia, the email noted that neuropathy is “likely to be inadequately reported through the VAERS and BEST [Biologics Effectiveness and Safety] systems because of the circumstances previously mentioned for dysautonomia.”
The Jan. 9, 2022 email also acknowledged that tinnitus was a common post-vaccination injury, noting, “Our findings are that this is not just J&J [the Johnson & Johnson, or Janssen, COVID-19 vaccine] … not by a long shot.”
According to the email, “This symptom is more proportionate to the general neuro symptoms by brand as previously reported in our patient led survey of 500 participants.”
The email’s author also noted that, “in my case yes, I have tinnitus now and it was a freight train in my head for the first four months.”
‘Is it reasonable to dismiss … 20 new symptoms … in a single person post vaccine?’
According to the email, myocarditis and blood clots were already “acknowledged by the FDA and CDC” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
“Every person in our groups that have one of these two conditions, also have accompanying neuro issues like those of us who are not currently acknowledged by the FDA and CDC,” the email said.
The conditions included postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), “brain fog/memory loss, and inflammation (MCAS)” — mast cell activation syndrome.
“Even the perfectly healthy very fit young males with the lasting myocarditis are struggling with the POTS and inflammation/brain fog/memory loss. Makes me suspect that somehow these all are a result of the same mechanism of action,” the email stated.
The Jan. 9, 2022, email also acknowledged parasthesia — a condition that causes a burning, prickling sensation — and MIS, a condition in which numerous organs become inflamed, as concerns.
The email openly questioned why more wasn’t being done to connect these conditions in the vaccinated, to the COVID-19 vaccines themselves, noting that vaccinated people were frequently demonstrating multiple rare symptoms:
“While we understand that correlation does not equal causation, we also find a strong correlation with the change in our blood that mirrors long-haul, and symptomology that mirrors long-haul.
“Because of this, I have to ask what is the process by which Covid PASC [post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, or long COVID] symptoms have been so readily tied back to Covid, whereas the same symptoms due to the Covid vaccines have not?
“Also, while it may be coincidental to have one or maybe two strange symptoms pop up, is it reasonable to dismiss 10, 15, 20 new symptoms that occur in a single person post vaccine.”
‘Insanely challenging for these people suffering … to walk this path alone’
In the Jan. 10, 2022, email to Nath an NIH researcher wrote, “The FDA has asked once again for us to provide any input from those who have experience with this disease. Very prompt responses and more active engagement on their part lead me to believe they will now examine these problems with some effort.”
The author also asked Nath if he knew researchers “who could fill in the gaps” and asked him if he would “kindly be willing to discuss with Peter Marks?”
“The gov has conveniently absolved the drug companies of any liability, and the federal government is now saddled with the responsibility of figuring out this mess,” the email continued. “I am happy to orchestrate a meeting of the minds with NDR [non-disclosure] agreements if that would get the discussion started in a way that is similar to how previous new diseases have been investigated.”
The email also noted talks with public health officials in Germany and France.
“It has been insanely challenging for these people suffering to have to walk this path alone. They grow more and more desperate by the day. Knowing there is someone, somewhere looking into this makes a big difference for these people to just hang on.”
Even though public health agencies were aware of this information and were discussing vaccine injuries in early 2022, official government advice to the public continued to claim the COVID-19 vaccines were “safe and effective,” including statements by Dr. Anthony Fauci in November 2022.
And in testimony before Congress in February, Marks dismissed the COVID-19 vaccine injury reports filed with VAERS, stating that numerous false reports are submitted to the database — a claim some experts have disputed.
As of today, the CDC continues to recommend the COVID-19 vaccines “for everyone ages 6 months and older, including people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or might become pregnant in the future.”
NIH researchers aware of vaccine injury studies in fall of 2021
The June 2024 tranche of NIH documents also revealed that, at least as early as fall 2021, researchers with the agency were aware of scientific studies and surveys highlighting serious adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination.
In a Sept. 2, 2021, email (pages 109-121), Farinaz Safavi, M.D., Ph.D., of the NIH Division of Neuroimmunology and Neurovirology was sent the results of the “Covid Vaccine Persistent Symptoms Survey” conducted by React19, a group advocating on behalf of COVID-19 vaccine injury victims.
The version of the survey included in the email was accurate as of Aug. 31, 2021, and contained the results of 382 questionnaires submitted by people “suffering persistent neurological symptoms after receiving the Sars-CoV2 Vaccine in the United States.”
According to those results, 71% of respondents said they had no preexisting health conditions prior to the symptoms they developed following their COVID-19 vaccination, and 94% said they had never previously experienced a reaction to other vaccines.
The most commonly reported symptoms included paresthesia, tinnitus, heart palpitations, tachycardia, chest pain, visual disturbance or loss, muscle twitching, joint pain, muscle aches, brain fog, fatigue and anxiety attacks.
Almost all respondents said these symptoms began less than two weeks following vaccination.
In a Nov. 15, 2021, email (pages 300-305), Nath was sent a scientific paper, “Neurological side effects of SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations,” authored by Austrian researcher Josef Finsterer, M.D., Ph.D.
According to this paper, “The most frequent neurological side effects of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are headache,” Guillain-Barré syndrome, venous sinus thrombosis and transverse myelitis.
“Safety concerns against SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are backed by an increasing number of studies reporting neurological side effects. … Healthcare professionals, particularly neurologists involved in the management of patients having undergone SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations, should be aware of these side effects and should stay vigilant to recognize them early and treat them adequately,” the paper concluded.
Nath received a review copy of this paper, which has since been published in Acta Neurologica Scandinavica.
And in a May 17, 2021, email (pages 292-299), Nath was sent a preprint of “Sudden Onset of Myelitis after COVID-19 Vaccination: An Under-Recognized Severe Rare Adverse Event,” co-authored by William E. Fitzsimmons, doctor of pharmacy, and Dr. Christopher S. Nance.
According to the preprint, “Myelitis has been reported as a complication of COVID-19 infection. However, it has rarely been reported as a complication of COVID-19 vaccination.”
The paper focused on the example of one of Fitzsimmons’ patients, a 63-year-old previously healthy male who developed myelitis after his second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine — and treatment that was effective in his case.
Other emails apparently sent by Fitzsimmons highlighted the injuries and the progression of treatment of this 63-year-old man (pages 145-150).
‘A blood clot as a cause of your paralysis would make the most sense’
In an email chain to Nath beginning Sept. 20, 2021, (pages 228-233) with the subject “Paralyzed after J&J Covid Vaccine,” the author (whose name is redacted) said that less than 24 hours following vaccination, the patient “lost bladder control.” He later developed a blood clot and erectile dysfunction, before becoming paralyzed.
In a response that day, Nath told the patient, “The temporal association of the symptoms with the vaccine does make is [sic] suspect, but I do not know of any way how to sort it out.”
In a follow-up email that day, Nath said, “A blood clot as a cause of your paralysis would make the most sense, however, proving cause and effect related to the vaccine in a single patient is virtually impossible.”
In a Dec. 13, 2021, email to Nath (pages 234-236), another vaccine injury victim, who “was healthy prior to vaccination,” described injuries following both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, including paresthesia, tachycardia, severe tinnitus, intractable insomnia and “POTs-like symptoms.”
“I have been diligent and determined in seeking care near and far, but have continued to face skepticism, half-interest, and an inability to know how best to treat,” this person wrote.
And in a series of emails beginning Jan. 24, 2022, (pages 246-247), a “woman who was completely healthy before taking the Pfizer vaccines” told Nath about a series of neurological symptoms and inflammation she experienced following her second dose, in addition to symptoms like tinnitus, insomnia and brain fog.
“Why isn’t the NIH doing research on this?” she asked in a follow-up email on Jan. 25, 2022.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Ministers Were Informed Of mRNA Lies During Mandates, Cardiologist Reveals
Dr Aseem Malhotra had a direct line of communication to the Health Secretary
By JJ Starky | The Stark Naked Brief | July 19, 2024
We’ve had another mainstream breakthrough.
Yesterday, Dr. Aseem Malhotra appeared on TalkTV to discuss the UK government’s Covid response in light of Baroness Hallett’s report on the first module of the Covid Inquiry.
Commentators were surprised. Most predicted that the Covid Inquiry chair’s report would echo sentiments seen during proceedings, suggesting that lockdowns, despite all credible evidence, were the only viable solutions for dealing with Covid.
So when Hallett’s team concluded that “the imposition of a lockdown should be a measure of last resort… indeed, there are those who would argue that a lockdown should never be imposed,” it almost seemed strange.
During the interview, much like his January 2023 appearance on the BBC where he pivoted from discussing statins to linking Covid vaccines to cardiovascular issues, Malhotra shifted the focus to vaccines.
He covered a lot of detail in quick succession. He argued that the term “vaccine” used for mRNA products is misleading, as they are better described as gene technologies. He cited peer-reviewed reanalysis of Moderna and Pfizer’s clinical trials, which showed an adverse event rate closer to 1-in-800, a figure that outweighed Covid hospitalisation risk. He also mentioned that Israel saw a 25% increase in cardiac events among people aged 16-39 during the vaccine rollout.
But the standout moment came when Malhotra discussed his involvement in a court case in Finland concerning an entrepreneur who was denied entry to a café because he was unvaccinated.
Malhotra revealed that he witnessed a World Health Organisation (WHO) chief scientist testify under oath that by December 2021, the mRNA vaccine offered zero protection against Covid. He then disclosed that he had texted Sajid Javid, the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, informing him of this testimony, but Javid effectively ignored it.
Former UK Secretary State for Health and Social Care Sajid Javid
It has been difficult to gauge what certain officials knew at what time. However, now we have an indication that some were categorically made aware that their policies were illogical and at direct odds with the evidence-base.
Press releases show that Javid’s department finally revoked the Covid vaccine mandate for health and social care staff on March 15, 2022, months after Malhotra made contact.
In November 2021, a survey of industry leaders estimated that up to 20,000 carers had already quit or been sacked over mandatory jabs. Given the mandate carried on to March the following year, that could be a vast underestimate.
Malhotra, who once advocated for everyone to receive the vaccines before his father reportedly passed away from them, notably said, “This is the biggest corporate crime committed by the drug the industry.”
TalkTV did not post the interview on YouTube as the platform continues to issue strikes to channels discussing the topic. So here it is in full.
Summary of Hallett’s Report on the Covid Inquiry:
- Ad Hoc Intervention: Epidemiologist Professor Mark Woolhouse described lockdown as an ad hoc intervention with no prior planning, guidelines, or clear expectations.
- Lack of Scrutiny on Consequences: The novelty of the lockdown approach meant there was no time to scrutinise its potential side effects, leading to ill-prepared policies with unknown consequences.
- Significant Economic Impact: The report highlights the 25% drop in GDP between February and April 2020 due to lockdowns, representing a major gap in the UK’s assessment of pandemic risk.
- Missing Topics: The report does not discuss the UK government’s evidence that the Test and Trace system had minimal impact on reducing Covid infections despite its high cost.
- Balancing Factors in Health Emergencies: The report emphasises the need for a balanced approach in health emergencies, considering economic impact, social wellbeing, and effects on education, as advocated by former chief medical officer Sally Davies.
- Exclusion of Certain Testimonies: Testimonies from Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty are notably absent, indicating a potential shift from previously dominant perspectives during the pandemic.
- Real Story of the Report: The report suggests that the UK was not prepared for the “wrong pandemic”, but rather that it resorted to an unprecedented policy without a proper evidence base or risk assessment. It advocates that lockdowns should be a measure of last resort, and perhaps never used at all.
Reviewing the Extraordinary Unsolved Murder of Seth Rich
DNC Staffer Seth Rich, murdered on July 10, 2016
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse™ | July 20, 2024
The murder of Seth Rich—in the middle of one of the most brutal presidential election years in history—has always struck me as an example of the authorities NOT investigating a matter of public interest. The mainstream media and half the country were so blinded by partisan passions that they couldn’t see the grounds for suspecting that the young man’s murder was politically motivated. Just a few hours after the incident occurred—before there was any time to perform an investigation—the Metropolitan Police Department announced that the murder appeared to be a “botched robbery.”
Since Seth Rich was murdered on July 10, 2016—12 days before Wikileaks published embarrassing DNC e-mails—there has been much speculation that he could have been the source because he was upset about how the DNC had treated Bernie Sanders. A good investigator wouldn’t speculate about the crime, but he would certainly notice that, statistically speaking, the murder is extraordinary.
Seth Rich was shot in the back near his apartment building, and though he was carrying a valuable watch, wallet, and cell phone, these were not taken by the assailant. Perhaps it was a botched robbery, as the Metropolitan Police Department quickly announced, but shooting a guy in the back without taking his valuables is not typical of armed robbery. Other robberies in the same neighborhood around the same time followed the conventional pattern of the assailant threatening the victim and demanding his or her valuables instead of opening fire on the victim.
In the year 2016, there were 135 homicides in Washington D.C., which has a resident population of 672,000, which comes to approximately one murder per 5000 residents— a dramatic decline from the city’s murder rate in the early nineties. Incidentally, the Metropolitan Police conducted an analysis of homicide for the years 1998-2000—after homicide rates had dropped significantly—and concluded that the primary motives were
1) Argument/conflict
2). Drug related
3). Revenge/retaliation
4). Robbery
5). Gang related.
During this period, homicides were not equally distributed throughout the city, but were concentrated in particular neighborhoods. 92% of the victims were African Americans 3.2% were Hispanic and 3.2% were white. Though one must consider the possibility that homicide trends in DC have changed since 2000 (apart from merely decreasing in numbers) it’s notable that, of the currently unsolved homicides in Washington DC in the year 2016, Seth Rich is the only white victim in a city that is now 44% white.
Julian Assange has always insisted the DNC e-mails were leaked and not hacked. Former NSA technical director William Binney has also insisted that if the DNC e-mails were hacked, it would be child’s play for the NSA to establish the precise routing of the hack, which indicates that the e-mails were more likely leaked by an insider.
Regarding motive, a good investigator would consider the hypothesis that Seth Rich was murdered NOT in retaliation, but to eliminate him as a witness that the DNC e-mails were leaked by an insider and not hacked by Russians. Almost immediately after the embarrassing e-mails were published, Hillary Clinton’s campaign hired CrowdStrike to perform a forensic cyber analysis of the server. CrowdStrike falsely proclaimed it was Russian hackers who were responsible, and never presented evidence to support this assertion.
Regarding the assailant: A good investigator would consider the hypothesis that he was contracted to murder Rich but knew nothing about his target or the motive for killing him. This hypothesis is consistent with Rich being murdered as he approached the entrance to his home—that is, the contract killer was provided only with the address and a photograph of his target.
Another notable aspect of this crime was the extremely emotional tone of press reporting from the same reporters who so passionately embraced the Russian meddling story. The mere suggestion that Seth Rich’s murder was politically motivated prompted these same people to angrily denounce this (perfectly reasonable hypothesis) as “wild, right wing conspiracy theory” and to demand that reporters cease and desist from exploring this hypothesis.
While the murder of Seth Rich was done at night and many of the details were concealed, the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump was performed in broad daylight with millions watching. The fact that proper security was withheld from the event is so obvious that people have a hard time believing it was an intentional act.
Surely, naive people think, those currently in power wouldn’t perform such deeds so out in the open. And yet, there it is, plain to see, right under everyone’s nose.
Recall that CrowdStrike Lied About DNC Server “Hack” in 2016
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse™ | July 20, 2024
second I saw the news yesterday that computers all over the world had been taken down—causing widespread disruptions to travel, medical care and an array of businesses—I couldn’t help wondering if it was an implicit reminder of how dependent we are on global computer systems, and therefore how vulnerable we are.
Then I saw the outage was purportedly traced to CrowdStrike—the same Austin-based cybersecurity hired by the DNC in 2016 to investigate the alleged “hack” of its server. The security breach resulted in the leak of incredibly embarrassing e-mails revealing John Podesta, Hillary Clinton, and DNC leadership performing all manner of Machiavellian machinations.
Back then, when I read the Wikileaks e-mails, I immediately wondered, “How are these villains going to change the subject from the content of their e-mails to something else? What misdirection trick are they going to pull?”
Enter CrowdStrike, which the DNC hired to do a forensic cybersecurity analysis of the DNC server. Shortly thereafter, CrowdStrike claimed that Russian agents had hacked it.
It didn’t matter that there was no evidence of this, as CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry admitted under oath in a declassified December 2017 interview before the House Intelligence Committee. The lying mainstream media still ran with the story that became Russian Collusion HOAX—the biggest fraud of the decade.
Even though former NSA Technical Director, William Binney, tried to tell anyone who would listen that the leak must have resulted from a DNC insider who downloaded the e-mails onto a storage device, no major mainstream media outlet would listen to him.
I wondered about Binney’s concept on a DNC insider when I researched the mysterious death of DNC insider Seth Rich (An Extraordinary Unsolved Murder in Washington D.C.) shortly before the accusation of Russian hacking was made.
Did Rich—who was apparently disaffected with the DNC because of its shabby treatment of Bernie Sanders—reveal to someone that he knew that the leak was not the result of an external hack, thereby prompting the perception that he could easily debunk the Russian-Collusion Hoax if he weren’t silenced forever?
Now, less than one week after whoever is running this country allowed a would-be assassin to climb onto a roof and take a shot at Donald Trump on a stage 400 feet away, we are told that CrowdStrike’s defective update to its security software knocked out global IT systems.
It seems to me that CrowdStrike should be viewed with grave suspicion and that businesses should be asking if it is prudent to have CrowdStrike software running on their computer systems.
DONALD TRUMP AND THE TOLL OF VITRIOL
The HighWire | July 18, 2024
Nearly a decade of increasingly dangerous rhetoric and bias from corporate ‘journalists’ and those in power have prepared the grounds for violence. Who is to blame??
Secret Service under suspicion amid contradictions in Trump’s attempted assassination
By Uriel Araujo | July 19, 2024
Contradictions on Trump’s attempted assassination pile up, with serious security breaches and officials claiming an investigation is needed to determine whether it was a matter of incompetence or malice.
To begin with, according to the ABC News, “law enforcement officials investigating the assassination attempt on Donald Trump told lawmakers Wednesday that 20 minutes passed between the time U.S. Secret Service snipers first spotted the gunman on a rooftop and the time shots were fired at the former president.” How can one explain that?
Moreover, it is a well-established fact now that onlookers alerted the authorities about the presence of an armed man on a nearby roof. One witness reported that to the BBC shortly after the incident.
In addition, local officials in Pennsylvania are complaining that the Secret Service, in an attempt to deflect blame, is throwing them “under the bus”. According to one local police officer: “The Secret Service came out here more than a month ahead of time and met with all the local agencies. They tell us exactly what to do, exactly what they want and exactly how they want it. It’s all on them.”
More intriguingly, several witnesses describe a second shooter, and there seems to be plenty of cell phone footage indicating that – while the Secret Service insist there was only one. According to a Times of India story, “an audio forensic analysis conducted by experts from the National Center for Media Forensics at the University of Colorado in Denver suggests the possibility of a second shooter in the incident”. A CNN story in turn reports that “forensic analysis suggests that as many as three weapons were fired at the Trump rally.”
Stephen Bryen, security expert, takes the second shooter allegation seriously, and, in his Substack newsletter, he is calling for a “solid FBI investigation with Congressional oversight” on the matter. He adds that “there is a general consensus that security at the Trump Rally was poor”, and adds: “if the Secret Service actually approved all the security measures … we wonder, like millions of others no doubt, how could they overlook the rooftops.” Bryen is no fringe figure – he is a former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, who writes for Newsweek, the Jewish Policy Center, and others.
Cory Mills, a member of the United States House of Representatives, takes the matter a bit further, saying an investigation on the Secret Service is needed to determine whether this was merely incompetence or rather malice, with an intent to neutralize Trump.
Cory Mills is a former military, and was a member of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) 20 in Iraq. He is also a defense contractor, who has earned a Master of Arts in international relations and conflict resolution from American Military University. Again, this is also no fringe figure, and his allegations raise eyebrows.
Given all the above, it is no wonder suspicions abound – the fact that Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is very close to the Biden couple certainly doesn’t help. According to the New York Post, she “landed her role thanks largely to a close relationship with first lady Jill Biden.” In any other country, by the way, after such a scandal, the Secret Service director would have been fired already or would have resigned. One thing that hampers further scrutiny, however, is an American cultural trait, namely the distaste for “conspiracy theories” (which is rather ironic in a country where conspiracies abound). Here, some context is needed.
Most scholars concede that sometimes conspiracy theories (CT) are proven to be at least partly correct. A “true” or ideal CT is supposed to always be false – meaning that its narrative does not describe reality. However, what happens when new data changes the “official” story? For instance, nowadays it is known that in 1962 the US Department of Defense proposed a false flag operation (the Operation Northwoods), calling for CIA operatives to actually commit terrorist attacks against American civilians and military targets in American cities (with bombings and hijackings) and then using those to justify a Cuban invasion. Then President John F. Kennedy rejected the plan, but the proposal existed, and no one denies it.
It is thus not clear at all how a “correct” conspiracy theory (one which later happens to be proven true) differs from a false one. Was it a CT when critics argued that the US government had lied about the real motivations which led it to invade Iraq? Other authors define “conspiracy theories” in a more neutral manner as any hypotheses that try to explain an event by invoking a “conspiracy” – namely, a secret plan carried out by a group of people.
One should also be cautious as to avoid equating a mere CT (about anything) and a conspiratorial way of understanding society and history in general. The latter (conspiracism), implicitly holds that nothing ever happens by chance but rather everything (especially tragedies) happens by design. Conspiracies do exist but not everything is a conspiracy. On the other hand, in the face of a major politically charged event, when various contradictions pile up, it would be naïve to readily dismiss everything as a “coincidence” (I would describe it as a “coincidence theory”).
With Biden’s undeniable senility getting worse, it is becoming increasingly clear he is not fit to run for the presidency again – he can barely participate in a debate or give interviews. Given this, the question then, as I wrote, is how can he govern, or rather how come has he been governing thus? In other words, who has been doing all the governing? Some talk about a “ triumvirate”, referring to Biden’s close advisers Bruce Reed, Mike Donilon, and Steve Ricchetti – the matter is far from being clear, though. One can only imagine the amount of palace intrigue going on amid this “emperor clothes” scenario.
With the ongoing political crisis, any investigation on the Secret Service will be either weaponized by Republicans against Democrats or covered up by the latter, amid a major narrative war and claims about “conspiracy theories”. The crisis is thus also an epistemic one, so to speak.
This state of affairs can only further undermine the legitimacy of American institutions, with serious consequences for the country’s stability. With a suspicious murder attempt on a presidential candidate and an embarrassingly senile incumbent president, the rest of the world holds their breath while the politics within the Atlantic superpower has just gone mad.
US Missiles in Germany Again: Why Is Berlin Betraying Its National Interests?
By Dmitry Babich – Sputnik – 19.07.2024
The decision of Washington to start in 2026 the deployment in Germany of US missiles aimed at Russia was not even discussed in Berlin. The public was forced to face a fait accompli. This is a clear degradation of Germany’s standing vis-a-vis the US, compared to the ’80s. Then, a similar deployment was met with protests of West Germany’s citizens.
The governments of both the US and Germany confirmed that in 2026, the American side will begin deploying long-range missiles in Germany. This dangerous move, reminiscent of the worst years of the Cold War, is officially explained by the need to contain “resurgent Russia.”
Gunnar Beck, an expert on European law and former vice president of Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament, notes that there was no public discussion of this dangerous development in Germany, specifically no discussion in the Bundestag. No details of the deal have been revealed.
“It’s a fait accompli,” Beck told Sputnik. “The German and the US governments have announced they were considering this… But all of the talk of an imminent Russian threat to Europe, in my view, is just a pretext for justifying further military and financial assistance to Ukraine. And, of course, it is a pretext for intimidating the European population and forcing them to accept even larger amounts of military spending.”
Beck notes the few dissenting voices still audible in Germany belong to the parties, which the European Union and especially the European Commission’s chairwoman Ursula von der Leyen try to marginalize:
“There are people on the right and on the far-left which have been criticizing [the deployment]. The German public, by and large, is not war loving. But, of course, there is a lot of propaganda emphasizing that any attack against Ukraine is an attack against Europe as a whole – it is the position of the EU and German government,” Beck told Sputnik.
The situation is reminiscent of the early 1980s, when the US deployed Pershing missiles in West Germany – presumably countering a possible aggression by the Soviet Union. The only difference is that this time Americans promise not to put nuclear warheads on SM-6 missiles, Tomahawks and even some “hypersonic weapons.” These missiles will be carrying conventional warheads that will still make Germany a target for a Russian retaliation starting from 2026.
Beck indicated that American and West German propaganda of that epoch used the same arguments as now. It was said the ability of NATO allies to protect themselves was the best guarantee for peace, etc., but in both cases it was misleading propaganda based on fears and not facts:
“Up to 1987 the propaganda in West Germany evoked the specter of millions of Soviet soldiers stationed in East Germany … that they would all flood into West Germany and occupy the country within three days,” Beck told Sputnik. “The kind of propaganda we are exposed to now is very reminiscent of this. We know today, and we have known for some time already that everything we were told in the 1980s was a great deal of nonsense. There was no evidence whatsoever of a consistently aggressive strategy by the Soviet Union.”
Indeed, Moscow acquiesced to the reunification of Germany in 1990 and withdrew its troops from East Germany in 1994 without a single shot fired. Unfortunately, it is often forgotten now that these concessions were part of the “Two plus four” agreement, whose terms Germany and three other signatories are breaching now.
It was signed on September 12, 1990, by the two (East Germany and West Germany) plus four (the Soviet Union, USA, the UK and France, former members of the anti-Hitler coalition).
Moscow then obliged itself not to prevent the reunification of Germany and to withdraw its troops by 1994 from the territory of the late German Democratic Republic. Both obligations were fulfilled. Now, here is how the obligations of Western powers were breached, in the words of Beck:
“No foreign weapons could be deployed in East Germany… And both German states then agreed that the united Germany would only deploy weapons on its territory if it is done in accordance with Germany’s constitution and the Charter of the United Nations. So, unless there is a UN Security Council resolution, it is a very debatable issue whether Germany can allow the deployment of new weapons that increase the risk of war.”
It should be noted that the German constitution prohibits the supplies of German weapons to the zones of armed conflict. However, Berlin is officially “pumping up” Volodymyr Zelensky’s regime with weapons worth tens of billions of euros.
Beck states the subsequent events showed the deceitful nature of the Western propaganda of the 1980s: Moscow indeed had no intention of invading Europe and withdrew from Germany at the first opportunity. Unfortunately, its goodwill was abused by Western allies.
Now, many Germans suspect a “remake” of the that deceitful intimidation: a poll conducted by Forsa Institute revealed 47% of Germans think the planned deployment of US weapons will only increase the possibility of a Russia-NATO conflict.
However, Beck notes this substantial part of German public opinion is not organized and its will has no chance of influencing the European Commission – or even the government of Germany.
Should RFK, Jr., Have Accepted Secret Service Protection?
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | July 19, 2024
In the aftermath of the near-assassination of President Trump, President Biden finally granted independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s longtime request to be granted Secret Service protection. However, I can’t help but wonder whether Kennedy is now having second thoughts, not only given the Secret Service’s massive incompetence, at best, that led to the Trump shooting but also given the possibility, at worst, that there was criminal culpability on the part of the Secret Service, including by simply knowingly letting the shooting happen.
While the event will inevitably be blamed on incompetence by U.S. officials and the mainstream press, one thing is certain: While there is now no doubt that the John F. Kennedy assassination was orchestrated and covered up by the military and the CIA, given the military’s fraudulent autopsy on JFK’s body and the CIA’s production of a fraudulent copy of the Zapruder film on the weekend of the assassination, there is also no doubt that there were elements of the Secret Service involved in the assassination and cover-up. (For a detailed account of the autopsy fraud and the film fraud, see my books The Kennedy Autopsy and An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story.)
Consider Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman. He was riding in the passenger seat of the presidential limousine when the first shot was fired at Kennedy. Kellerman’s duty as a Secret Service agent was to jump over the seat and cover Kennedy with his body. Instead, he sat there like a bump on a log, waiting for the fatal shot that hit Kennedy in the head.
Fifty-nine witnesses stated that the driver of the limousine, William Greer, made a complete stop or a near-stop after the first shot rang out, which obviously made it easier for the shooter to hit Kennedy in the head with the fatal shot. Yet, that stop or near-stop is not seen in the extant Zapruder film of the assassination.
As I detail in An Encounter with Evil, the official story has always been that the Zapruder film was shipped to Chicago on the Saturday after the Friday assassination, where LIFE magazine’s printing plant was located. This was after Dallas businessman Abraham Zapruder had sold the print rights to his film of the assassination to LIFE magazine.
In the late 2000s, that official narrative was burst asunder when one of the CIA’s most renowned photo intelligence analysts, Dino Brugioni, disclosed that two men who identified themselves as Secret Service agents secretly delivered the Zapruder film to him and his team at the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) in Washington, D.C., on the Saturday night after the assassination on Friday. That meant that the film had secretly been diverted from Chicago to Washington. That would not have been difficult to do given that LIFE’s publisher, C.D. Jackson, was a CIA asset under the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird program.
Brugioni’s job was to make blow-ups of frames from the film that the two Secret Service agents selected and post them on “briefing boards.” As I detail in my book, when Brugioni was shown the extant Zapruder film in the late 2000s, he stated unequivocally that it was not the same film he had seen on that Saturday night.
On the following evening, a man who identified himself as a Secret Service agent delivered a 16mm copy of the Zapruder film to another NPIC team, stating that this copy was actually the original film that he had just brought from Hawkeyeworks, a top-secret CIA film facility located in the middle of Kodak’s research and development facility at its national headquarters in Rochester, New York.
How do we know that that that 16mm film was a copy and not the original? Because Zapruder’s film was an 8mm-wide film. There is no way to convert an 8mm film into a 16mm film except by making a copy of it.
Could they have produced a 16mm top-quality copy of an 8mm film at Hawkeyeworks? Brugiioni had visited Hawkeyeworks and had been told that they were capable of “doing anything” at that facility.
How would they have done that? As I detail in An Encounter with Evil, they would have done it with what was called an “aerial optical printer,” which could produce an altered copy that would come out looking like an original. Using that piece of equipment, they could produce an altered copy of the film that deleted all the frames that showed Secret Service agent Greer’s stop or near-stop of the limousine, which, again, had been seen by 59 eyewitnesses.
Since the CIA could view Zapruder’s 8mm film at NPIC, there was no reason whatsoever to secretly take the film to Hawkeyeworks except to produce an altered, fraudulent copy of the film. (While the CIA worked closely with Kodak film experts at Hawkeyeworks, no evidence has ever surfaced that Kodak had any role in helping to produce the altered copy of the Zapruder film.)
Returning to Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman, it’s worth mentioning that he was the agent in charge of the Secret Service team at Parkland Hospital that forcibly prevented the Dallas County Medical Examiner, Dr. Earl Rose, from conducting an autopsy on Kennedy’s body, as Texas law required. Brandishing guns and screaming, yelling, and issuing a stream of profanities, Kellerman and his team forced their way out of Parkland with JFK’s body and delivered it to new President Lyndon Johnson, who was patiently waiting for it in Air Force One at Dallas’s Love Field and who would later deliver JFK’s body into the hands of the military.
As I detail in The Kennedy Autopsy, the president’s body was secretly delivered to the Bethesda National Medical Center morgue at 6:35 p.m. in a cheap shipping casket, which was almost 1 and 1/2 hours before the official entry time of the body into the morgue in the heavy, ornate casket into which it had been placed in Dallas.
You’ll never guess who was in charge of the secret operation to get JFK’s body back into the Dallas casket after it had been secretly delivered to the Bethesda morgue at 6:35 pm in the cheap shipping casket. Yes, Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman, who obviously was a very busy man on November 22, 1963.
After the Assassination Records Review Board was brought into existence in 1992, the ARRB sent a notice to all federal agencies, including the Secret Service, specifically advising them that they were not to destroy any assassination-related records. With full knowledge of that directive, the Secret Service knowingly, intentionally, and deliberately destroyed its records of Kennedy’s trips in the month preceding the assassination. Those records were important in part because of an assassination plot in Chicago that was foiled, one that involved a “patsy” who was similar to Lee Harvey Oswald, a man named Thomas Vallee.
Given the manifest incompetence of the Secret Service with respect to the Trump shooting, at best, and given that elements of the Secret Service were criminally culpable in the Kennedy assassination, and given the Secret Service’s contemptible conduct with the ARRB, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., might today be wishing he had stuck with a private-sector security firm.
EU Commission Hid Vaccine Contract Details From Public, Court Rules
By John-Michael Dumais | The Defender | July 17, 2024
The European Union‘s (EU) top court today ruled that the European Commission’s decision to heavily redact key portions of COVID-19 vaccine contracts with pharmaceutical companies during the pandemic violated the commission’s transparency obligations.
The European Court of Justice found that the commission failed to provide sufficient public access to COVID-19 vaccine purchase agreements, in a ruling that could deal a blow to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on the eve of her re-election bid, according to The Associated Press (AP).
The ruling came in response to legal challenges brought by EU lawmakers and private citizens seeking fuller disclosure of the multibillion-euro vaccine deals.
It highlights ongoing concerns about the secrecy surrounding the EU’s vaccine procurement process, a contentious issue since the early days of the pandemic.
“The Commission did not give the public wide enough access to the contracts for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines,” the court said in its judgment, pointing to several areas where the executive body fell short in being sufficiently transparent.
In response to the ruling, the commission wrote, “The Commission needed to strike a difficult balance between the right of the public, including MEPs [Members of the European Parliament], to information, and the legal requirements emanating from the COVID-19 contracts themselves, which could result in claims for damages at the cost of taxpayers’ money.”
Green MEP Tilly Metz, one of the deputies who submitted the original request, said, “This ruling is significant for the future, as the EU Commission is expected to undertake more joint procurements in areas like health and potentially defence,” Euractiv reported.
“The new European Commission will have to adapt their handling of access to documents requests to be in line with today’s ruling,” Metz said.
However, Dutch attorney Meike Terhorst told The Defender that the court ruling is not the victory it seems. She argued that the EU court has given the commission a “giant loophole” to keep parts of the contracts secret “to protect ‘business interests.’”
“It is not possible to both protect public health and full transparency and at the same time protect the business interests of the supplier,” Terhorst said. “We, the public, will not get the access to the information we need. The cat and mouse play continues.”
The commission, which has two months to appeal the decision, said it would “carefully study the Court’s judgments and their implications” and that it “reserves its legal options.”
Scale and speed of purchases unprecedented
In 2020 and 2021, von der Leyen negotiated purchase agreements for COVID-19 vaccines with several pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, according to the AP.
EU member states mandated the European Commission organize the joint procurement of vaccines and lead negotiations with manufacturers.
The scale and speed of these purchases were unprecedented. According to the court, approximately 2.7 billion euros ($2.95 billion) was quickly mobilized to place firm orders for more than 1 billion doses of vaccines. This joint procurement approach allowed for the rapid acquisition of vaccines for all 27 EU member states.
Initially, von der Leyen received praise for her leadership during the COVID-19 crisis, particularly for her role in securing collective vaccine access for EU citizens. However, the spotlight quickly shifted to concerns about the negotiations’ lack of transparency.
In 2021, several members of the European Parliament requested full details of the agreements. The commission, citing confidentiality reasons, agreed to provide only partial access to certain contracts and documents, which were placed online in redacted versions.
The commission also refused to disclose how much it paid for the billions of doses it secured.
Concerns over secret deals with Pfizer
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla twice in 2022 refused to testify before the European Parliament’s special committee on COVID-19. Bourla was expected to face tough questions about secretive vaccine deals and negotiations between Pfizer and the European Commission.
Of particular interest were text messages between Bourla and von der Leyen that preceded a multibillion-euro vaccine contract. In January 2023, The New York Times sued the European Commission over its failure to release the messages.
That suit followed a January 2022 inquiry by the EU ombudsman charging the commission with maladministration over its handling of a previous request for the messages.
In June, a Belgian court took up the issue of the secret negotiations between Bourla and von der Leyen, with a former lobbyist for the EU Parliament claiming “destruction of public documents” and alleging von der Leyen violated the commission’s code of conduct.
Commission officials argued the messages didn’t contain any important information and have thus far refused to provide them, according to the AP.
European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in 2022 opened an investigation into the acquisition of COVID-19 vaccines in the EU during the pandemic. This investigation stems from a criminal complaint filed by an individual, with the governments of Hungary and Poland later joining the lawsuit, euronews reported. EPPO adjourned the case until December.
Implications for the European Commission and von der Leyen
The court’s ruling comes at a critical time for von der Leyen, just one day before the European Parliament is set to vote on her reappointment as commission president.
Von der Leyen had previously won backing from a majority of EU leaders in June. To secure her position, she now needs to garner support from at least 361 MEPs in the 720-seat European Parliament, WIONews reported.
This ruling presents a dilemma for the Greens, who initiated the legal challenge against the commission’s redactions. In recent days, von der Leyen has been courting the Greens to shore up support for her nomination ahead of the vote.
During a press conference in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Manon Aubry, a French MEP from the Left group, expressed strong concerns about the European Commission’s “lack of transparency.”
On the heels of the EU court ruling, German MEP Christine Anderson today said she would call for the removal of von der Leyen and the continuation of the criminal investigation of her actions.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
US claims Russia threatened by ‘democracy’
RT | July 16, 2024
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller has rejected Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s call for resolving the “root causes” of the Ukraine conflict, arguing that Moscow illegitimately fears a “functioning democracy” in Kiev.
Lavrov spoke at the UN Security Council in New York on Tuesday, describing Russia’s military action in Ukraine as the consequence of a security threat by the US and its allies.
“The problem with the formulation from the foreign minister is that there’s no one in Europe that is threatening Russia,” Miller said at a State Department press briefing. He insisted that there is no military threat to Russia by NATO and that no one has threatened to take Russian territory.
“What Russia seems to see as a threat is a democracy functioning on its borders. And that’s just not a legitimate view,” Miller added. “We reject that view.”
Miller did not specify which country he considered a functioning democracy. Multiple US officials and foreign policy pundits have described Ukraine that way in the past, especially following the 2014 US-backed coup in Kiev.
The new Ukrainian authorities, “midwifed” into place by US envoy Victoria Nuland, sicced nationalist militias to kill and intimidate dissidents in Odessa and Kharkov, while triggering a civil war by sending tanks to pacify Donetsk and Lugansk.
Since Russia intervened in February 2022, Vladimir Zelensky’s government has suspended all elections and banned most opposition parties, while taking control of all TV stations. Zelensky’s own term expired in May.
Last month, at the so-called “Peace for Ukraine” conference in Switzerland convened by Zelensky, Polish President Andrzej Duda called for dismembering Russia, describing the federation as a “prison of nations.”
“Russia remains the largest colonial empire in the world,” Duda argued, advocating for his neighbor to be “decolonized” among some 200 ethnic groups living there.
In late 2021, Moscow sent the US and NATO a comprehensive security proposal in line with existing international treaties. In February 2022, Washington and Brussels rejected it, ignoring what Russia described as its “red lines,” at which point Moscow said it would have no choice but to resort to “military and technical measures.”
Russia also considers Ukraine to be unlawfully occupying parts of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, all of which voted last September to join Russia. President Vladimir Putin has conditioned any ceasefire talks on Kiev’s withdrawal from the administrative borders of these regions and a legal commitment to never join NATO.
What? 3 police snipers were staged inside the building from which Crook took his shots.
By Meryl Nass | July 16, 2024
Consider JFK, RFK assassinations: there was a patsy and there were the real shooters. The Deep State does not rely on its patsy to do the job. It relies on at least 2 distance shooters or a point blank hit. Because it cannot afford to fail.
And yet it just did. Thanks to Providence. Look at the freefall the Democrats are now experiencing. Because the whole world knows who did this. After all the attacks during Trump’s earlier Presidency, the extraordinary lawfare attacks during his campaign, and now this attempted assassination, it does not take a rocket scientist to say Qui Bono (who benefits?).
And Biden, cool as another cuke, gives himself a pass over his inflammatory language 5 days before the hit: “I didn’t say crosshairs, I said bullseye!” in interview with Lester Holt.
I dredged up this interesting quote from February 2020:
Now for the claims about another shooter, etc.
The FBI may say the investigation is over and Matthew Crooks acted utterly alone, just another lone gunman, but everybody else seems to be ignoring the ailing law enforcement agency. CBS ran a live update yesterday headlined, “Three snipers were stationed inside building used in Trump assassination attempt.” In a story broken by the local Beaver County paper, we learned yesterday that three local Beaver County sharpshooters who should have been stationed on the building, were instead inside the building, and it gets worse.
Snipering usually works much better from an elevated position, and isn’t super effective from the ground. I’m not an expert, but it seems obvious.
Anyway, the cops spotted assassin Crooks, several times. Each time Crooks was acting incredibly sketchy and even once used a rangefinder. The Beaver County police stayed put, but called it in to the command post — all while Crooks continued prowling around on the ground. They knew exactly where he was —well before he took the shot— called it in more than once, and even took pictures of him, but still didn’t stop the shooting. CBS:
Whatever reason. Another unconfirmed wrinkle developed yesterday on social media, with no mention in any of the confirmed reporting. They could just be confused by the fog of war, but at least two witnesses interviewed by local reporters claimed there was a second shooter on the water tower.
Here is witness clip one. And here is witness clip two.
Here is a top-down map showing the potential shooting angles.
Who knows? It’s much too early to rule anything in or out. But even though the FBI is wrapping up its “thorough” research, multiple other investigations are already underway. You can expect this thing will get a lot of attention. For instance, in its article, the BBC reported that the House Oversight Committee has already confirmed Secret Service Directory Kimberly Cheatle to testify and requested all the rally records:
Finally, the New York Post interviewed a trained Canadian sniper who holds the current record for the longest kill. I was especially gratified that a professional, military-trained sniper agreed with C&C’s assessment: it seems unlikely unemployed drifter Crooks could possibly have planned and executed the sophisticated operation without some help, regardless of what the FBI says:
Cyberattacks: A New False Flag Frontier
BY KIT KLARENBERG | JULY 15, 2024
At the start of June, Admiral Robert Bauer, head of NATO’s military committee, announced that the military alliance had finalised plans to recognise state-backed cyberattacks on its members as a dedicated pretext for activating Article 5. Reportedly “a joint decision of all allies,” from now on, foreign hacking blitzes can be countered with a collective NATO response, up to and including military measures. Bauer’s disclosure passed the media by entirely – but this is a seismic development, heralding a modern, digital form of ‘false flag’.
Article 5, which provides for collective defence in the event a NATO member is attacked, was a core component of the military alliance’s founding treaty. While it has been invoked just once – by the US, in the wake of 9/11, to invade Afghanistan – there have been efforts to spark it before and since. Most recently, in November 2022, the government of Ukraine falsely declared a missile fired by Kiev that struck Poland, killing two people, was Russian in origin.
The purpose of this deceit was undoubtedly to embroil NATO formally and directly in the proxy war. Wise to the ruse, US officials harshly rebuked President Volodmoyr Zelensky publicly for the World War-threatening fraud. Such incidents amply underline Article 5’s susceptibility to abuse. Yet apparently, military alliance chiefs – and the bloc’s members – are keen to ever-expand its terms, well-beyond its initial remit. Adding cyberattacks to the roster of grounds for collective response is a long-standing objective.
In August 2019, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg authored a bombastic op-ed declaring the military alliance would “guard its cyber domain and invoke collective defence if required.” A “serious cyberattack” on one member state could be “treated as an attack against us all,” he wrote, triggering Article 5 in the process. Fast forward two years, and Keith Alexander, US National Security Agency director 2005 – 2014, called on the ‘Five Eyes’ global spying network to construct a global unified cyberattack “radar”:
“Imagine if we built a radar picture for cyber that covered not only what impacts Australia, but what impacts other countries, and we could share, in real time, threats that are hitting our countries… What we can do is share information and work together… Cyber is going to be hugely important for our future. It’s the one area where adversaries can attack Australia and the US without trying to cross the oceans… We have this anomaly: how are you gonna defend that which you can’t see?”
Alexander, who lied brazenly to the public about his agency’s spying capabilities – including while while testifying under oath to Congress – during his time as NSA chief, suggested this worldwide dragnet would contribute significantly to collective defence, in the obvious spirit of NATO’s Article 5. Given “proposals” for Orwellian, futuristic resources from Western politicians and military and intelligence officials almost invariably presage their real-world rollout, we can only assume in light of Bauer’s announcement such a “radar” is incoming.
‘Security Failures’
This interpretation is reinforced by Bauer observing how invoking Article 5 could only happen once it was confirmed a cyberattack was carried out by a state actor, not a private person or structure. “In that case, it would not be clear who to go to war with,” he added. It’s certainly a source of some relief that NATO is committed to securing clarity on “who to go to war with”, before launching a military “response” to a cyberattack.
However, these comments illuminate a very obvious, grave problem with adding cyberattacks to Article 5’s ambit. Identifying who or what is responsible for them to an absolute certainty is extremely difficult. This task is further complicated by a frequent lack of certainty over whether hackers operating from a particular state are doing so at the behest of authorities. For example, much has been made in Britain recently of Russian hacking group Qilin, which supposedly infiltrated NHS servers.
Mainstream media reports have universally framed Qilin as a malign instrument of the Kremlin, although whether Russian officials command the group, let alone even know of its existence, is far from clear. A representative iNews article refers to Qilin as “a syndicate made up of more than 100 groups…not believed to be under the direct control [emphasis added] of the Russian government.” Instead, Qilin is claimed to be “a useful tool of global disruption the Kremlin is happy to turn a blind eye to.”
Further muddying the picture, it has been confirmed that Western intelligence services can falsely attribute cyberattacks, with devastating effect. In 2017, CIA files published by WikiLeaks revealed how the Agency masks its hacking exploits, to make it appear another state actor was responsible. Dubbed ‘Marble Framework’, among other things the resource inserts foreign-language text into malware source codes to misdirect security analysts. The Framework can obfuscate in this manner via Arabic, Chinese, English, Farsi, Korean, and Russian.
Excerpt from leaked Marble Framework files
Moreover, CIA hackers employ crafty tricks and double bluffs to reinforce these bogus attributions, such as creating the appearance of attempts to conceal foreign-language text. Thus, forensic investigators are successfully conned into concluding even more strongly that the country framed by Langley is responsible. Unbelievably, this seismic disclosure prompted no Western journalist to reappraise the widely received narrative that Moscow’s GRU was responsible for the hack and leak of damaging Democratic National Committee emails in 2016.
That conclusion, universally reinforced by the Western media, was initially peddled by Matt Tait, a former GCHQ spy. He didn’t base his conclusions on anything technical, but “basic operational security failures” he detected on the part of the individual(s) who released the communications, including their computer username referencing the founder of the Soviet Union’s secret police, and “ham-fisted” attempts to pose as Romanian. Which is, of course, precisely how the CIA would cover its own tracks via Marble Framework.
‘Irrevocable Proof’
There has similarly been no mainstream discussion of why the Agency would seek to acquire and maintain this capability in the first place. Now that NATO considers cyberattacks an Article 5 matter, this question has never been a more urgent question, given the CIA’s extensive and deplorable history of false-flag operations to overthrow governments, and kickstart conflicts.
For example, in April 1953, the CIA and MI6 launched a welter of covert actions to undermine Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, in order to lay the foundations of his ouster. One key tactic in which the pair engaged was bombing mosques, and homes of prominent Muslim figures by operatives posing as members of Tehran’s Communist Party. A subsequent internal review of the coup noted that this incendiary activity mobilised Mullahs to take action against Mosaddegh.
These efforts were judged to have contributed to the “positive outcome” of the wider coup effort. Such a glowing appraisal of these false flag manoeuvres may have informed the dimensions of Operation Northwoods, a daring set of proposals under which the CIA would stage and commit acts of terrorism against US military and civilian targets. These could then be blamed on the government of Fidel Castro, precipitating all-out war with Cuba.
Potential false-flag actions outlined in extraordinary declassified documents include assassinating of Cuban immigrants on US soil, sinking boats ferrying Cuban refugees to Florida, shooting down US civilian airlines, blowing up US ships, and more. One specific element of Operation Northwoods is particularly relevant to consider in light of alleged state cyberattacks becoming Article 5 worthy. If the 1962 Mercury launch – the first US orbital spaceflight – went awry, Castro would be blamed by concocting:
“Irrevocable proof… the fault lies with the Communists… this to be accomplished by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference on the part of the Cubans.”
While Northwoods was ultimately rejected by President John F. Kennedy, the US military and intelligence community continued constructing false-flag blueprints thereafter. In 1963, a Pentagon policy paper advocated making it appear that Cuba had attacked a member of the Organization of American States (OAS), justifying US retaliation:
“A contrived ‘Cuban’ attack on an OAS member could be set up, and the attacked state could be urged to take measures of self-defense and request assistance from the US and OAS.”
Langley’s cyberattack connivances have surely only grown more sophisticated, and more complex to unravel, in the years since Marble Framework was publicly exposed. Pinning blame on a foreign country for a cyberattack it didn’t actually commit is no doubt even easier and more effective today. Resultantly, a false flag tripwire for Beijing, Moscow, or any other Washington-mandated ‘enemy’ state to unwittingly and unwillingly stumble over, triggering the outbreak of global war, has now been forged by NATO.
Featured Video
US IRAN TALKS: Who Are the Crazy Ones Here? /Lt Col Daniel Davis
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Wartime internment camps in Australia
National Archives of Australia
World War I
During World War I, for security reasons the Australian Government pursued a comprehensive internment policy against enemy aliens living in Australia.
Initially only those born in countries at war with Australia were classed as enemy aliens, but later this was expanded to include people of enemy nations who were naturalised British subjects, Australian-born descendants of migrants born in enemy nations and others who were thought to pose a threat to Australia’s security.
Australia interned almost 7,000 people during World War I, of whom about 4,500 were enemy aliens and British nationals of German ancestry already resident in Australia.
Records of World War I internment camps
World War II
During World War II, Australian authorities established internment camps for three reasons – to prevent residents from assisting Australia’s enemies, to appease public opinion and to house overseas internees sent to Australia for the duration of the war.
Unlike World War I, the initial aim of internment during the later conflict was to identify and intern those who posed a particular threat to the safety or defence of the country. As the war progressed, however, this policy changed and Japanese residents were interned en masse. In the later years of the war, Germans and Italians were also interned on the basis of nationality, particularly those living in the north of Australia. In all, just over 20 per cent of all Italians resident in Australia were interned. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Diplomats slam US negotiators’ performance in Iran talks
- Trump Refuses Exit Ramp, War with Iran will Continue
- Trump Says US Naval Blockade in Strait of Hormuz Will Begin Shortly
- US, Iran end 21-hour talks without agreement
- US IRAN TALKS: Who Are the Crazy Ones Here? /Lt Col Daniel Davis
- Talks with the US end without a deal over excessive US demands: Iran
- Feeling Better, Getting Worse: How Psychiatric Drugs Create the Illusion They Cure
- ‘Nobody Told Me’: Former Mental Health Patient Calls Out Dangerous Side Effects of Psychiatric Drugs
- Dr. Abu-Sitta: Beirut ‘felt like a day in Shifa Hospital’
- Iran Has Won the War, It Will Be Up to the US to Secure the Peace: Mohammad Marandi
- If Americans Knew
- US-Iran ceasefire negotiations make zero progress – Daily Update
- Pro-Israel ‘Thinktanks’ and Individuals who Influence U.S. Foreign Policy
- Mearsheimer reveals how Israel dictates US policies on Iran, Gaza – video
- After killing 350+, Israel still has a “score to settle” with Lebanon before ceasefire – Daily Update
- Military aid to Israel emerges as the latest political litmus test for Democrats
- The only Palestinian children’s rights organization closes following years-long Israeli campaign against it
- ‘I Can’t Forget the Smell’: Lebanese Reel After Israel Kills Over 300 in Single Day
- DNC Shoots Down Resolutions Calling Out AIPAC and Limiting Arms to Israel
- TCN: Is Israel Blackmailing President Trump?
- Israel killed at least 303 Lebanese yesterday – who were they? Daily Update
- No Tricks Zone
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
- New Study: No Linear Warming Or Glacier Retreat Along Northern Antarctic Peninsula Since 1980s
- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
- New Study Finds Warming Saves Lives…Cold Temperatures 12 Times More Deadly Than Excess Heat
- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
Aletho News 