Theresa May ‘sitting’ on UK terrorism funding report to protect Saudi allies
RT | July 4, 2017
Prime Minister Theresa May is withholding a Home Office report on foreign funding of British terrorist organizations because exposing the truth could sour relations with the UK’s major trading and security partner, Saudi Arabia.
The report, commissioned to investigate foreign states funding extremist groups in the UK, has yet to be made public despite being completed six months ago. The government’s reluctance to share it has left many concerned about how ethical Britain’s ongoing diplomatic relationship with the Gulf kingdom is.
Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas branded the delay “astonishing.”
“The government is sitting on this report but refusing to publish it or give any reason for their continued secrecy,” the Brighton Pavilion MP said in a statement.
“To defeat terror it’s vital that politicians have full view of the facts, even if they are inconvenient for the government.”
She added that the secrecy surrounding the report “leaves question marks over whether their decision is influenced by our diplomatic ties.”
Home Office sources insist that, although the report does mention Saudi Arabia, the Gulf theocracy is not its main subject.
Prime Minister May has always made clear that Britain’s relationship with the Saudis lies at the core of her diplomatic agenda. She visited Riyadh to discuss strengthening trade ties mere days after triggering the Brexit process.
The report, which was commissioned by May’s predecessor, David Cameron, was due to be submitted by Easter last year. It was originally meant to study the origins and extent of funding received by British extremist groups that involve international forces.
Responding to parliamentary questions on the document and its delays, May argued that “ministers are considering advice on what is able to be published and will report to parliament with an update in due course.”
It is believed some government insiders think the material is too sensitive to be made public.
On Monday evening, outgoing Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: “The government are covering up this report. It’s a scandal that this is sitting in Downing Street gathering dust. What has the prime minister got to hide?
“I believe this report will be deeply critical of Saudi and that is why it is being hidden from the public. The government seems too desperate to keep Saudi Arabia happy rather than stand up to them.”
Other party leaders, Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party and Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish National Party (SNP), have also urged Downing Street to make the findings public.
Green Party leader Lucas said, in the light of the London Bridge and Manchester Arena attacks, the public was “quite rightly asking questions about routes to radicalization, and the funding of terror is central to this.
“I urge Theresa May to reveal immediately whose advice they are following as to whether or not to publish this report, and to do all they can to put the facts into the public domain if it is safe to do so,” she said.”
In response, Home Office minister Sarah Newton said: “The review has improved the government’s understanding of the nature, scale and sources of funding for Islamist extremism in the UK. Publication of the review is a decision for the prime minister.”
US court verdict allows seizure of tower owned by Alavi Foundation
Press TV – June 29, 2017
A US court verdict has allowed the American government to seize an office tower in New York City owned largely by an Iranian charity organization, the Alavi Foundation.
A jury on Wednesday claimed that the charity was controlled by the Iranian government and the rent generated from the tower constituted a violation of US sanctions against Iran.
The verdict means that federal prosecutors can move ahead with their attempt to seize the building at 650 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The Alavi Foundation is likely to appeal the verdict.
The government plans to sell the property, which is valued at more than $500 million, and distribute much of the proceeds to victims of terrorist attacks.
The finding “represents the largest civil forfeiture jury verdict and the largest terrorism-related civil forfeiture in US history,” Joon H. Kim, the acting US Attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement.
The Iranian government has said it has no links with the Alavi Foundation.
Prosecutors first sought to seize the tower in 2008.
In 2014, US District Judge Katherine Forrest granted authority to federal prosecutors to confiscate the building. However, an appeals court reversed that ruling last year.
The assets of the Alavi Foundation included the building in Manhattan, as well as Islamic centers consisting of schools and mosques in New York City, Maryland, California, Texas and Virginia.
American Legal scholars said they know of only a few cases in US history in which law enforcement authorities have seized a house of worship. Without rent from the office building, the Alavi Foundation would have almost no way to continue supporting the Islamic centers.
The Alavi Foundation, a non-profit organization established in 1978, works to advance the Islamic and Persian culture in the US.
In the last four decades, the organization has also given millions of dollars to American schools, universities and charitable organizations; among them Harvard, Columbia and Rutgers university.
Time for Another False Flag Chemical Weapons Attack in Syria
By Paul Larudee | Dissident Voice | June 27, 2017
The United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime.
— Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary, June 26, 2017
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me, you can’t get fooled again.
— George Bush, September 17, 2002
The White House statement raises a number of questions. Who has identified the “potential preparations”? No reference is given, not even a source agency. Does the information come from intelligence sources? Apparently the Pentagon had not even been informed. What is “potential information” and how does it compare with real information?
Of course, the White House has its own direct sources. The Syrian opposition groups who met with John Kerry, Michael Ratney and Jon Finer at the UN in September, 2016 are tight with al-Nusra and other terrorist groups, and would be happy to provide a pretext for another US strike on Syria. No real evidence is required, but they would be happy to fabricate it nonetheless.
Can anyone cite a case of the use, or even the alleged use, of chemical weapons in Syria that has been to the strategic advantage of the Syrian government or its forces? The fact is that every incident has been to their disadvantage, and invariably a pretext for US intervention. Why then, would they use it, especially when they hadn’t done so before Obama drew his famous “red line”?
To the contrary, when British intelligence analyzed traces of the gas, they found it to be inconsistent with samples of Syrian government stocks. Furthermore, Turkish sources have reported the delivery of chemical weapons to opposition fighters. Distinguished MIT researchers Lloyd and Postol demonstrated definitively that the 2013 CW attack in Ghouta could not have come from Syrian government forces.
Similarly, Postol demonstrated multiple inconsistencies in the reports of the April 4, 2017 Khan Sheikhoun attack. More recently, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh uncovered the inside story on that attack, to the effect that US Defense Department sources knew that there were no chemical weapons used in the Syrian Air Force bombing attack on Khan Sheikhoun, and that to the extent that toxic gases caused casualties in that attack, it was the result of what the al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham fighters had stored at the site or had deployed as a false flag event, for the purpose of precipitating US intervention.
Postol warned at the time that without proper corroboration of Syrian government culpability, a US attack would motivate the terrorist constructors of the false flag to replicate more such incidents. In this context, the White House statement, based solely on vague allegations, can be interpreted as the start to a manipulation of public perception, so that an upcoming false flag event can appear to be a corroboration of the initial suspicions.
Such are the workings of what military and security forces call “securocratic wars” and specifically “security-based framing”. This is jargon for what used to be called propaganda, but which is now an integrated part of military and security planning for the control of public perception.1
There is plenty of reason for the White House to welcome such a pretext to attack Syria again. The approval ratings for the Trump Administration have never been higher, nor the press more approving, than when US warships fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at Syria’s Shu’ayrat Air Field two days after the Khan Sheikhoun attack. Given the unpopularity and failure of Trump’s domestic initiatives, it is easy to see how he might be tempted to employ similar death and destruction to boost his image again.
Of course, such actions risk a dangerous confrontation with Russia on the Syrian battlefield. Russia has already threatened to target US aircraft and has suspended coordination of flights over the shooting down of a Syrian jet fighter. But Trump is not averse to risk. We should therefore not be surprised to see another false flag killing of innocents blamed on the Syrian military in order to embroil the US further in an illegal war where we don’t belong.
- Halper, War Against the People, chapter 3.
Paul Larudee is one of the founders of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine Movements and an organizer in the International Solidarity Movement.
Hamas accuses Israel of fabricating rocket claim to justify airstrikes in Gaza
Ma’an – June 27, 2017
BETHLEHEM – The Israeli air force launched at least two airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip early Tuesday, with the Israeli army saying the attacks targeted two Hamas military infrastructures and were in response to a rocket fired from Gaza late Monday, which allegedly landed in an open area in Israel’s Shaar Hanegev Regional Council that borders northeastern Gaza, causing no injuries or damages.
No injuries were reported as a result of the airstrikes.
Palestinian news agency Wafa cited local sources in Gaza, saying that strikes hit multiple locations across the small Palestinian territory, including northwest of Gaza City, east of the Gaza Valley area, and Nasr neighborhood in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.
The strikes left material damages to a number of homes, the report said.
Separately, Wafa reported that the Israeli army attacked agricultural land east of the Gaza Valley with artillery missiles and another agricultural area east of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, reporting no injuries.
“Since the terror organization Hamas is the ruler of the Gaza Strip, it is responsible for any attempt to harm the State of Israel,” the Israeli army said in a statement following the early morning aerial attack.
However, in a statement, the Hamas movement accused Israel of fabricating claims of rocket fire to justify the attack. “The Israeli claim of a rocket being fired from Gaza and issuing a statement on behalf of ISIS to justify the escalation and an attack of resistance positions are part of a dangerous and transparent Israeli game.”
The statement referred to reports in Israeli media that claimed a Salafist group in Gaza affiliated to the so-called Islamic State claimed responsibility for the alleged rocket fire.
Hamas has not claimed responsibility for any rocket attacks since a ceasefire was declared after the 2014 war, and the movement has attempted to clamp down on armed activity by smaller political groups that do launch rockets from the territory.
Israeli officials have nonetheless accused Hamas of “preparing” for another war with Israel and have threatened retaliatory measures against the Gaza Strip as a whole.
The attacks came as Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave are being forced to cope with just a few hours of electricity a day since Israel agreed to a Palestinian Authority request to dramatically cut electricity supplies to territory.
The Gaza Strip marked the ten-year anniversary of Israel’s siege of the small Palestinian enclave this month, with the humanitarian situation there continuing to alarm rights groups that have denounced the Gaza’s inhuman conditions as “unparalleled in the modern world.”
Colombia: Bogota Mall Explosion Leaves 3 Dead, 11 Injured
ELN: “There are those who try to tear apart the peace process”
teleSUR | June 18, 2017
Colombian authorities searched Sunday for the perpetrators of a bombing at a major upscale shopping center in Bogota that killed three and left nine others injured in an attack Saturday some have suggested could be an attempt to benefit from fear in the country [which is] implementing peace after more than half a century of civil war.
Authorities reported that an explosion hit a second-floor women’s bathroom at the Andino Commercial Center in Bogota on Saturday night. The shopping center, one of the busiest in the country, was evacuated, while President Juan Manuel Santos returned to the capital from the northern coastal city of Barranquilla to respond to the blast.
“This is a vile, cruel, cowardly act and we are not going to rest until those responsible are captured,” Santos said, adding that there were no indications that another attack was planned in Bogota. The president also expressed solidarity with the victims, while Bogota Mayor Enrique Peñalosa described the incident as a “cowardly terrorist attack.”
Both the FARC and the ELN, the country’s two largest guerrilla groups, condemned the attack and voiced support for the victims.
“Solidarity with the victims in Bogota today,” FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño, also known as Timoleon Jimenez or Timochenko, wrote on his Twitter account Saturday to 95,400 followers. “This act can only come from those who want to close the paths to peace and reconciliation.”
The bombing comes just days before the FARC is set to hand over the last of its weapons to a U.N. monitoring mission as part of a historic peace agreement reached with the government last year paving the way for the guerrilla’s disarmament and transition into a legal political party.
The ELN, currently in peace talks with the government, also responded to the attack.
“ELN Peace repudiates the attack against civilians in the Andino Commercial Center. We share the pain and express solidarity with the victims,” the group’s peace delegation wrote on its Twitter account Saturday to 27,600 followers.
The active rebel army — which has yet to reach a bilateral ceasefire agreement with the government and who claimed responsibility for a bombing outside a bull ring in Bogota in February — was quick to be signaled as a possible suspect in the attack, an assumption the group rejected in its response to the bombing.
“ELN Peace calls for seriousness from those who make unfounded and reckless accusations; there are those who try to tear apart the peace process,” the ELN peace delegation continued, calling for a thorough investigation.
“The ELN will never again carry actions whose objective is to affect the civilian population,” the statement concluded.
The three victims of the attack included a 23-year-old French national, identified as Julie Hunh, who had reportedly been in Colombia for the past six months doing volunteer work.
The U.S. Embassy in Bogota offered condolences in a series of tweets, saying that it is standing by to “provide any support requested by the Colombian authorities.”
Tehran Was Always America’s and Thus the Islamic State’s Final Destination
By Tony Cartalucci – New Eastern Outlook – 10.06.2017
Several were left dead and many more injured after coordinated terror attacks on Iran’s capital of Tehran. Shootings and bombings targeted Iran’s parliament and the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini.
According to Reuters, the so-called “Islamic State” claimed responsibility for the attack, which unfolded just days after another terror attack unfolded in London. The Islamic State also reportedly took responsibility for the violence in London, despite evidence emerging that the three suspects involved were long-known to British security and intelligence agencies and were simply allowed to plot and carry out their attacks.
It is much less likely that Tehran’s government coddled terrorists -as it has been engaged for years in fighting terrorism both on its borders and in Syria amid a vicious six-year war fueled by US, European, and Persian Gulf weapons, cash, and fighters.
Armed Violence Targeting Tehran Was the Stated Goal of US Policymakers
The recent terrorist attacks in Tehran are the literal manifestation of US foreign policy. The creation of a proxy force with which to fight Iran and establishing a safe haven for it beyond Iran’s borders have been long-stated US policy. The current chaos consuming Syria and Iraq – and to a lesser extent in southeast Turkey – is a direct result of the US attempting to secure a base of operations to launch a proxy war directly against Iran.
In the 2009 Brookings Institution document titled, “Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran,” the use of then US State Department-listed foreign terrorist organization Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) as a proxy for instigating a full-fledged armed insurgency not unlike that which is currently unfolding in Syria was discussed in detail.
The report explicitly stated:
The United states could also attempt to promote external Iranian opposition groups, providing them with the support to turn themselves into full-fledged insurgencies and even helping them militarily defeat the forces of the clerical regime. The United states could work with groups like the Iraq-based National council of resistance of Iran (NCRI) and its military wing, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK), helping the thousands of its members who, under Saddam Husayn’s regime, were armed and had conducted guerrilla and terrorist operations against the clerical regime. although the NCRI is supposedly disarmed today, that could quickly be changed.
Brookings policymakers admitted throughout the report that MEK was responsible for killing both American and Iranian military personnel, politicians, and civilians in what was clear-cut terrorism. Despite this, and admissions that MEK remained indisputably a terrorist organization, recommendations were made to de-list it from the US State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization registry so that more overt support could be provided to the group for armed regime change.
Based on such recommendations and intensive lobbying, the US State Department would eventually de-list MEK in 2012 and the group would receive significant backing from the US openly. This included support from many members of current US President Donald Trump’s campaign team – including Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, and John Bolton.
However, despite these efforts, MEK was not capable then or now of accomplishing the lofty goal of instigating full-fledged insurrection against Tehran, necessitating the use of other armed groups. The 2009 Brookings paper made mention of other candidates under a section titled, “Potential Ethnic Proxies,” identifying Arab and Kurdish groups as well as possible candidates for a US proxy war against Tehran.
Under a section titled, “Finding a Conduit and Safe Haven,” Brookings notes:
Of equal importance (and potential difficulty) will be finding a neighboring country willing to serve as the conduit for U.S. aid to the insurgent group, as well as to provide a safe haven where the group can train, plan, organize, heal, and resupply.
For the US proxy war on Syria, Turkey and Jordan fulfill this role. For Iran, it is clear that US efforts would have to focus on establishing conduits and safe havens from Pakistan’s southwest Balochistan province and from Kurdish-dominated regions in northern Iraq, eastern Syria, and southeastern Turkey – precisely where current upheaval is being fueled by US intervention both overtly and covertly.
Brookings noted in 2009 that:
It would be difficult to find or build an insurgency with a high likelihood of success. The existing candidates are weak and divided, and the Iranian regime is very strong relative to the potential internal and external challengers.
A group not mentioned by Brookings in 2009, but that exists in the very region the US seeks to create a conduit and safe haven for a proxy war with Iran, is the Islamic State. Despite claims that it is an independent terrorist organization propelled by black market oil sales, ransoms, and local taxes, its fighting capacity, logistical networks, and operational reach demonstrates vast state sponsorship.
The Ultimate Proxy, the Perfect Conduit and Safe Haven
The Islamic State reaching into Iran, southern Russia, and even as far as western China was not only possible, it was inevitable and the logical progression of US policy as stated by Brookings in 2009 and verifiably executed since then.
The Islamic State represents the perfect “proxy,” occupying the ideal conduit and safe haven for executing America’s proxy war against Iran and beyond. Surrounding the Islamic State’s holdings are US military bases, including those illegally constructed in eastern Syria. Were the US to wage war against Iran in the near future, it is likely these assets would all “coincidentally” coordinate against Tehran just as they are now being “coincidentally” coordinated against Damascus.
The use of terrorism, extremists, and proxies in executing US foreign policy, and the use of extremists observing the Islamic State and Al Qaeda’s brand of indoctrination was demonstrated definitively during the 1980’s when the US with the assistance of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan – used Al Qaeda to expel Soviet forces from Afghanistan. This example is in fact mentioned explicitly by Brookings policymakers as a template for creating a new proxy war – this time against Iran.
For the US, there is no better stand-in for Al Qaeda than its successor the Islamic State. US policymakers have demonstrated a desire to use known terrorist organizations to wage proxy war against targeted nation-states, has previously done so in Afghanistan, and has clearly organized the geopolitical game board on all sides of Iran to facilitate its agenda laid out in 2009. With terrorists now killing people in Tehran, it is simply verification that this agenda is advancing onward.
Iran’s involvement in the Syrian conflict illustrates that Tehran is well aware of this conspiracy and is actively defending against it both within and beyond its borders. Russia is likewise an ultimate target of the proxy war in Syria and is likewise involved in resolving it in favor of stopping it there before it goes further.
China’s small but expanding role in the conflict is linked directly to the inevitability of this instability spreading to its western Xianjiang province.
While terrorism in Europe, including the recent London attack, is held up as proof that the West is “also” being targeted by the Islamic State, evidence suggests otherwise. The attacks are more likely an exercise in producing plausible deniability.
In reality, the Islamic State – like Al Qaeda before it – depends on vast, multinational state sponsorship – state sponsorship the US, Europe, and its regional allies in the Persian Gulf are providing. It is also sponsorship they can – at anytime of their choosing – expose and end. They simply choose not to in pursuit of regional and global hegemony.
The 2009 Brookings paper is a signed and dated confession of the West’s proclivity toward using terrorism as a geopolitical tool. While Western headlines insist that nations like Iran, Russia, and China jeopardize global stability, it is clear that they themselves do so in pursuit of global hegemony.
ISIS Was “Allegedly” Behind the London Bridge Attacks, Who Is Behind ISIS?
By Michel Chossudovsky | Global Research | June 6, 2017
London’s tabloids have gone into high gear with vivid descriptions of the attacks and the tragic loss of life. Seven killed and 48 wounded.
“ISIS has claimed responsibility for the depraved attack in London Bridge as chilling video shows three jihadis calmly strolling past a pub while in the midst of the van and knife rampage that killed seven and critically injured 21.” ( The Sun, June 5, 2017)
ISIS has claimed responsibility, Is there a pattern?
Without exception, Al Qaeda or ISIS were allegedly behind the Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Manchester and London Bridge terror attacks, which served to spearhead a wave of Islamophobia across Western Europe, while also providing a pretext for the introduction of drastic police state measures:
“The twisted killers are seen calmly walking through Borough Market moments before they launched a stabbing attack on pubgoers while shouting “this is for Allah”, having already driven a van into crowds.” The Sun, June 5, 2017)
The statement of Prime Minister May (three days before the UK elections) points in the direction of an organized hate campaign against Muslims:
[The Manchester and London attacks] …are bound together by the single, evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division, and promotes sectarianism. It is an ideology that claims our Western values of freedom, democracy and human rights are incompatible with the religion of Islam. It is an ideology that is a perversion of Islam and a perversion of the truth.
… It will only be defeated when we turn people’s minds away from this violence – and make them understand that our values – pluralistic, British values – are superior to anything offered by the preachers and supporters of hate. (emphasis added),
“Perversion of the Truth”? Lies, fabrications, omissions. What the British media in chorus fails to mention is that both ISIS and Al Qaeda are creations of US intelligence, recruited, trained and financed by the US and its allies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Israel and Jordan.
The Islamic State (ISIS) was originally an Al Qaeda affiliated entity created by US intelligence with the support of Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-’Āmah ( رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة).
The origins of Al Qaeda date back to the Soviet-Afghan war. The Koranic schools in Afghanistan used to train Al Qaeda recruits were financed by the CIA, using textbooks published by the University of Nebraska. That’s where the “evil ideology of Islamist extremism” referred to by PM May originated: The “Global War on Terrorism” is a lie, “Islamic terrorism” is a product of US foreign policy which claims to be spreading “Western civilization”:
… the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.
The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books,..
Picture above is translated as follows: “Jihad – Often many different wars and conflicts arise among people, which cause material damages and loss of human life. If these wars and disputes occur among people for the sake of community, nation, territory, or even because of verbal differences, and for the sake of progress…”
This page is from a third-grade language arts textbook dating from the mujahidin period. A copy of the book was purchased new in Kabul in May 2000.
… Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtun, the textbooks were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska -Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies. The agency spent $ 51 million on the university’s education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994.” (Washington Post, 23 March 2002)
The ISIS is a terrorist paramilitary entity created by US intelligence. It has nothing to do with the tenets of Islam. The ISIS and Al Qaeda terrorists are the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance in Syria who are fighting a secular government. While America claims to be targeting the ISIS, in reality it is protecting the ISIS.
Britain’s Role in the “War on Terrorism”
There is evidence that British SAS Special Forces were dispatched to Syria in 2011 to integrate the ranks of the so-called moderate Al Qaeda rebels. Special Forces often hired through a private mercenary company on contract to NATO or the Pentagon were embedded within most paramilitary rebel formations, According to Elite UK Forces (the website of the SAS)
Reports from late November last year [2011] state that British Special forces have met up with members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the armed wing of the Syrian National Council. The apparent goal of this initial contact was to establish the rebel forces’ strength and to pave the way for any future training operations.
More recent reports have stated that British and French Special Forces have been actively training members of the FSA, from a base in Turkey. Some reports indicate that training is also taking place in locations in Libya and Northern Lebanon. British MI6 operatives and UKSF (SAS/SBS) personnel have reportedly been training the rebels in urban warfare as well as supplying them with arms and equipment. US CIA operatives and special forces are believed to be providing communications assistance to the rebels.
British MI6 were actively involved, collaborating with the CIA:
As the unrest and killings escalate in the troubled Arab state, agents from MI6 and the CIA are already in Syria assessing the situation, a security official has revealed.
Special forces are also talking to Syrian dissident soldiers [Al Qaeda].
They want to know about weapons and communications kit rebel forces will need if the Government decides to help.
“MI6 and the CIA are in Syria to infiltrate[rebel ranks] and get at the truth,” said the well-placed source.
“We have SAS and SBS not far away who want to know what is happening and are finding out what kit dissident soldiers [Al Qaeda] need.” Syria will be bloodiest yet, Daily Star, January 1, 2012 (emphasis added)
The air campaign launched by Obama in 2014, which had the full support of the United Kingdom, was intent upon destroying Syria and Iraq rather than “going after the terrorists”. There is ample evidence that the Islamic State is protected by the US-led coalition.
The inflow and delivery of weapons and supplies are coordinated by the Pentagon in liaison with America’s allies.
US military aid is channelled to Al Qaeda as well as to ISIS-Daesh.
The US has also used the illegal weapons market to channel vast amounts of weapons and military hardware to the Syrian “rebels”.
The State sponsors of ISIS-Al Qaeda are now heralded as the victims of ISIS-Al Qaeda, an absurd proposition. Those who are funded and supported by Western intelligence services are now said to be fighting back.
The ISIS nonetheless has a certain degree of independence in relation to its State sponsors. That is the nature of what is called an “intelligence asset”. But an “intelligence asset” is always on the radar of the intelligence services.
The British government through its intelligence services is known to have covertly supported several Al Qaeda affiliated entities including the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which was linked to the Manchester bombings.
The “Liberation” of Tripoli was carried out by “former” members of the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which is affiliated to Al Qaeda. These “former” Al Qaeda affiliated brigades constituted the backbone of the “pro-democracy” rebellion, which was supported by NATO.
Within the ranks of the LIFG rebels, US Navy SEALS, British SAS and French legionnaires disguised in civilian rebel garb, were reported to be behind major operations directed against key government buildings including Gadhafi’s Bab al-Aziziya compound in central Tripoli.
“Highly-trained [British Special Forces] units, known as ‘Smash’ teams for their prowess and destructive ability, have carried out secret reconnaissance missions to provide up-to-date information on the Libyan armed forces.” (SAS ‘Smash’ squads on the ground in Libya to mark targets for coalition jets, Daily Mirror, March 21, 2011)
And in the wake of NATO’s war Libya, these pro-democracy LIFG Al Qaeda affiliates have joined the ranks of the ISIS.
Washington’s Regime Change for Syria: Install the Islamic State
It is worth noting that the release of the Hillary Clinton email archive as well as leaked Pentagon documents confirm that the US and its allies are supportive of ISIS.
Moreover, a 7-page Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document dated August of 2012, points to US complicity in supporting the creation of an Islamic State.(Excerpt below)
Concluding Remarks
Despite the evidence, it is very difficult for people to accept the fact that their own government is supporting terrorism.
Most people will dispel this as an impossibility. But it is the forbidden truth.
The established consensus is that the role of a government is to protect its people. That myth has to be sustained.
The media’s role is to ensure that the truth does not trickle down to the broader public.
If that were to occur, the legitimacy of Western heads of State and heads of government would collapse like a house of cards.
The governments of the countries whose citizens are the victims of terror attacks are supporting ISIS-Daesh through their intelligence services.
Copyright © Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 2017
Russia-gate’s Mythical ‘Heroes’
By Coleen Rowley | Consortium News | June 6, 2017
Mainstream commentators display amnesia when they describe former FBI Directors Robert Mueller and James Comey as stellar and credible law enforcement figures. Perhaps if they included J. Edgar Hoover, such fulsome praise could be put into proper perspective.
Robert Mueller with President George W. Bush
July 5, 2001 – (White House photo)
Although these Hoover successors, now occupying center stage in the investigation of President Trump, have been hailed for their impeccable character by much of Official Washington, the truth is, as top law enforcement officials of the George W. Bush Administration (Mueller as FBI Director and James Comey as Deputy Attorney General), both presided over post-9/11 cover-ups and secret abuses of the Constitution, enabled Bush-Cheney fabrications used to launch wrongful wars, and exhibited plain vanilla incompetence.
TIME Magazine would probably have not called my own disclosures a “bombshell memo” to the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry in May 2002 if it had not been for Mueller’s having so misled everyone after 9/11. Although he bore no personal responsibility for intelligence failures before the attack, since he only became FBI Director a week before, Mueller denied or downplayed the significance of warnings that had poured in yet were all ignored or mishandled during the Spring and Summer of 2001.
Bush Administration officials had circled the wagons and refused to publicly own up to what the 9/11 Commission eventually concluded, “that the system had been blinking red.” Failures to read, share or act upon important intelligence, which a FBI agent witness termed “criminal negligence” in later trial testimony, were therefore not fixed in a timely manner. (Some failures were never fixed at all.)
Worse, Bush and Cheney used that post 9/11 period of obfuscation to “roll out” their misbegotten “war on terror,” which only served to exponentially increase worldwide terrorism.
Unfulfilled Promise
I wanted to believe Director Mueller when he expressed some regret in our personal meeting the night before we both testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee. He told me he was seeking improvements and that I should not hesitate to contact him if I ever witnessed a similar situation to what was behind the FBI’s pre 9/11 failures.
A few months later, when it appeared he was acceding to Bush-Cheney’s ginning up intelligence to launch the unjustified, counterproductive and illegal war on Iraq, I took Mueller up on his offer, emailing him my concerns in late February 2003. Mueller knew, for instance, that Vice President Dick Cheney’s claims connecting 9/11 to Iraq were bogus yet he remained quiet. He also never responded to my email.
Beyond ignoring politicized intelligence, Mueller bent to other political pressures. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Mueller directed the “post 9/11 round-up” of about 1,000 immigrants who mostly happened to be in the wrong place (the New York City area) at the wrong time. FBI Headquarters encouraged more and more detentions for what seemed to be essentially P.R. purposes. Field offices were required to report daily the number of detentions in order to supply grist for FBI press releases about FBI “progress” in fighting terrorism. Consequently, some of the detainees were brutalized and jailed for up to a year despite the fact that none turned out to be terrorists.
A History of Failure
Long before he became FBI Director, serious questions existed about Mueller’s role as Acting U.S. Attorney in Boston in effectively enabling decades of corruption and covering up of the FBI’s illicit deals with mobster Whitey Bulger and other “top echelon” informants who committed numerous murders and crimes. When the truth was finally uncovered through intrepid investigative reporting and persistent, honest judges, U.S. taxpayers footed a $100 million court award to the four men framed for murders committed by (the FBI-operated) Bulger gang.
Current media applause omits the fact that former FBI Director Mueller was the top official in charge of the Anthrax terror fiasco investigation into those 2001 murders, which targeted an innocent man (Steven Hatfill) whose lawsuit eventually forced the FBI to pay $5 million in compensation. Mueller’s FBI was also severely criticized by Department of Justice Inspector Generals finding the FBI overstepped the law improperly serving hundreds of thousands of “national security letters” to obtain private (and irrelevant) metadata on citizens, and for infiltrating nonviolent anti-war groups under the guise of investigating “terrorism.”
For his part, Deputy Attorney General James Comey, too, went along with the abuses of Bush and Cheney after 9/11 and signed off on a number of highly illegal programs including warrantless surveillance of Americans and torture of captives. Comey also defended the Bush Administration’s three-year-long detention of an American citizen without charges or right to counsel.
Up to the March 2004 night in Attorney General John Ashcroft’s hospital room, both Comey and Mueller were complicit with implementing a form of martial law, perpetrated via secret Office of Legal Counsel memos mainly written by John Yoo and predicated upon Yoo’s singular theories of absolute “imperial” or “war presidency” powers, and requiring Ashcroft every 90 days to renew certification of a “state of emergency.”
The Comey/Mueller Myth
What’s not well understood is that Comey’s and Mueller’s joint intervention to stop Bush’s men from forcing the sick Attorney General to sign the certification that night was a short-lived moment. A few days later, they all simply went back to the drawing board to draft new legal loopholes to continue the same (unconstitutional) surveillance of Americans.
The mythology of this episode, repeated endlessly throughout the press, is that Comey and Mueller did something significant and lasting in that hospital room. They didn’t. Only the legal rationale for their unconstitutional actions was tweaked.
Mueller was even okay with the CIA conducting torture programs after his own agents warned against participation. Agents were simply instructed not to document such torture, and any “war crimes files” were made to disappear. Not only did “collect it all” surveillance and torture programs continue, but Mueller’s (and then Comey’s) FBI later worked to prosecute NSA and CIA whistleblowers who revealed these illegalities.
Neither Comey nor Mueller — who are reported to be “joined at the hip” — deserve their current lionization among politicians and mainstream media. Instead of Jimmy Stewart-like “G-men” with reputations for principled integrity, the two close confidants and collaborators merely proved themselves, along with former CIA Director George “Slam Dunk” Tenet, reliably politicized sycophants, enmeshing themselves in a series of wrongful abuses of power along with official incompetence.
It seems clear that based on his history and close “partnership” with Comey, called “one of the closest working relationships the top ranks of the Justice Department have ever seen,” Mueller was chosen as Special Counsel not because he has integrity but because he will do what the powerful want him to do.
Mueller didn’t speak the truth about a war he knew to be unjustified. He didn’t speak out against torture. He didn’t speak out against unconstitutional surveillance. And he didn’t tell the truth about 9/11. He is just “their man.”
Coleen Rowley, a retired FBI special agent and division legal counsel whose May 2002 memo to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller exposed some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures, was named one of TIME magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002. Her 2003 letter to Robert Mueller in opposition to launching the Iraq War is archived in full text on the NYT and her 2013 op-ed entitled “Questions for the FBI Nominee” was published on the day of James Comey’s confirmation hearing. This piece will also be cross-posted on Rowley’s Huffington Post page.)
Relevant links:
http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20020603,00.html
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch8.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/05/politics/full-text-of-fbi-agents-letter-to-director-mueller.html
https://oig.justice.gov/special/0306/full.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/us/immigrants-suit-over-detention-after-9-11-is-revived.html
http://www.ocregister.com/2017/05/21/comey-mueller-bungled-big-anthrax-case-together/
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/government_programs-jan-june07-patriotact_03-09/
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/DOJ/story?id=4444329
https://www.aclu.org/news/fbi-counterterrorism-unit-spies-peaceful-faith-based-protest-group
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/opinion/questions-for-the-fbi-nominee.html
http://www.newsweek.com/ali-soufan-breaks-his-silence-77243
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From the Archives
How Bill Gates Premeditated COVID Vaccine Injury Censorship
By Dr. Joseph Mercola | March 30, 2021
In 2000, everything about Bill Gates’ public persona changed. He morphed from a hardnosed and ruthless technology monopolizer into a soft, fuzzy and incredibly generous philanthropist when he and his wife launched the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.1
It was a public relations coup. May 18, 1998, the U.S. Justice Department, in collaboration with 20 state attorneys, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft.2 At that time, the company was 23 years old and was ruling the personal computer market. The Seattle Times described the fallout from the antitrust lawsuit:3
“The company barely escaped being split up after it was ruled an unlawful monopolist in 2000 for using its stranglehold on the PC market with its Windows operating system to cripple competitors, such as Netscape’s Navigator Web browser.”
How would the world be different today if the company had been split? Yale law professor George Priest described the antitrust lawsuit as “one of the most important antitrust cases of its generation.”4 In 2002, a court settlement placed restrictions on Microsoft to curb some of its practices for five years.
It was later extended twice and then expired May 12, 2011. The lawsuit had a dramatic effect on “the emergence of an entirely new field called IP (intellectual property) antitrust,” Iowa law professor Herbert Hovenkamp told the Seattle Times.5
Later, large sums donated from the foundation made the news multiple times, including $9.5 million to GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines), a second $7.5 million to GAVI and $6.8 million to the World Health Organization in 2017.6
By June 2020, in the middle of a global pandemic, the Gates Foundation’s donations totaled 45% of WHO’s funding from nongovernmental sources.7 Once mainstream media’s attention was no longer on Gates’ antitrust activities and focused on the philanthropist actions of the foundation, Gates publicly turned his attention to vaccinating the world, long before COVID-19.8
Event 201: A Preplanned Pandemic
In a deep dive into the Gates Foundation’s charitable donations, The Nation found there were $250 million in grants to companies where the foundation held corporate stocks, including Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Sanofi and Medtronic. The money was directed at supporting projects “like developing new drugs and health monitoring systems and creating mobile banking services.”9 … continue
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