Turkey’s Erdogan Mentions Possible Brussels Bombing Just Days Before Attack
Sputnik -22.03.2016
Less than a week before the terrorist attacks in Brussels, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned of possible bombings in European cities, including Brussels.
“There is no reason why the bomb that exploded in Ankara could not explode in Brussels, or in any other European city,” Erdogan declared during a ceremony commemorating the 101st anniversary of the Battle of Gallipoli in the coastal town of Canakkale on March 18.
It should be noted that Erdogan’s statement followed the deadly terrorist act of March 13, when a car bomb exploded at a bus stop near Ankara’s central Kizilay Square, leaving 37 dead and over 120 injured. The Turkish head of state blamed Kurdish radicals for the attack and berated European leaders for their refusal to recognize certain Kurdish organizations as terrorist groups.
“The snakes you are sleeping with can bite you at any time,” Erdogan added.
On Tuesday, March 22, the city of Brussels – capital of Belgium and administrative center for both NATO and the EU – was hit by a series of explosions, including two blasts in Brussels Airport in Zaventem, Belgium that left 13 people dead and over 35 injured. An additional 15 people were killed in Tuesday’s explosion at the Maalbeek metro station in central Brussels, local media reported.
Australia Still Reluctant to Disclose MH17 Information
By James ONeill – New Eastern Outlook – 19.03.2016
When Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over Eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014, Australian politicians and the mainstream media, especially the Murdoch newspapers, were quick to apportion blame. Responsibility for the disaster was immediately attributed to Russia, either directly or thorough Russian support for the so-called “separatists” in the Donbass region.
For the Australian politicians and media it was a case of “guilty as alleged” although at that time in the immediate aftermath of the disaster there was no evidence upon which to form any conclusions.
Three days after the crash the United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press TV program said that the US had
“picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar.”
Mr Kerry did not specify how the US had this information, but it was a reasonable inference at that time that the data had come from US satellites.
Since Mr Kerry’s remarks it has been established by independent investigators that the US had at least three satellites in geo-stationary orbit over Eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014 Two of these satellites are of the SBIRS type (GEO-1 and GEO-2), and a Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) satellite. Between them they are able to perform continuous surveillance of the area of interest.
Some commentators have endeavoured to downplay the significance of this by suggesting that factors such as cloud cover impeded surveillance capability. This is self-evidently nonsense. As one of their prime functions is to detect missile launches, their defensive capability would be hopelessly compromised if something as simple as cloud cover impeded their capacity to provide a timely warning of missile launches.
The capability of these satellites certainly includes the ability to detect and track the launch of a BUK missile, the weapon most commonly described as the cause of the disintegration of MH17. They can similarly track an air-to-air missile, which is the alternative hypothesis that has been advanced.
There has been a great deal of contradictory information from official sources about this satellite data, which is itself suspicious. For example, on 19 December 2015 the Dutch chief prosecutor and coordinator of the criminal investigation into the disaster, Mr Fred Westerbeke, told the Dutch daily newspaper NRC :
“Satellite images showing how on July 17 Flight MH17 was shot out of the sky by a rocket do not exist. There has been a misunderstanding about this… There is no conclusive evidence from intelligence services with the answers to all the questions.”
If Mr Westerbeke was correct, then it clearly contradicts the claims made by Mr Kerry 17 months earlier. But Mr Westerbeke then contradicted his own earlier statements in a letter to the families of the Dutch victims in February 2016. In that letter Mr Westerbeke stated:
“The US authorities have data generated by their own security forces, which could potentially provide information on a rocket trajectory. These data have been confidentially shared with the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (DISS). The DISS and the Public Prosecutor are now investigating in what form the US state secret information can be used in the criminal investigation and what will be provided in a so-called official report to the Public Prosecution. That special report can be used as evidence by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT).”
It seems a reasonable inference on the basis of that statement that the secret US satellite data does disclose the required information. Specifically, it answers the major question: who fired the missile and from where?
The issue that is publically troubling the JIT is how to use sensitive intelligence data in a public forum such as a trial of accused persons. The undisclosed problem for the JIT is twofold. If, as is widely suspected, the satellite data show that the BUK missile was fired by Ukrainian forces, then that will contradict 20 months of relentless anti-Russian propaganda. The western media are not good at admitting the error of their ways.
The second problem is the agreement of 8 August 2014 whereby the members of the JIT agreed not to disclose any information unless all the parties agreed. As one of those parties, Ukraine, is a prime suspect, it is unlikely that the evidence will ever be revealed if it in fact implicates Ukraine.
It is still the case that the Australian government has never acknowledged the existence of the 8 August 2014 agreement. It has not bothered to tell the Australian public why it entered into such an agreement when the public interest would demand a transparent and full investigation of the worst disaster to be inflicted on Australians since the Bali bombings of 2002.
Given the existence of Mr Westerbeke’s letter to the families of Dutch victims it is difficult to understand why the Australian media are persisting with the claim that the Americans have refused to release the data. Paul Malone’s claim to that effect in the Canberra Times of 12 March 2016 is plainly wrong. It is possible of course that Mr Malone is aware of the facts, but the two problems identified above prevent him disclosing those facts.
Apart from detecting the launch of a missile, the satellite data can pinpoint the precise point from which the missile was fired. In the present case that is supremely important.
The Report of the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) into the MH17 disaster, published in October 2015 only went as far as to narrow the location of the launch site to an area of 320 square kilometers. This was territory contested by both Ukrainian and separatists forces. Despite the uncertainty and non-attribution of culpability in the DSB Report, Australian politicians falsely claimed that the report “proved” that Russian backed separatists were responsible.
Apart from a complete failure by the Australian media to correct this false information, they have also failed to address two further pieces of relevant evidence found in the DSB Report.
The first piece of evidence is found in the technical appendices of the DSB Report. Appendix T (from the Dutch Intelligence Services) has clearly not been read by any member of the Australian mainstream media. This appendix stated, inter alia:
- Although the separatists had captured a Ukrainian military base at Donetsk, the BUK systems located there were “not operational” and therefore “could not be used by the separatists.”
- Although there was information pointing to the fact that the separatists had been supplied with heavy weapons by the Russian Federation, there were no indications that these were powerful anti-aircraft systems.
- Although the separatists were trained to use weapons systems, there are no indications that they were being trained to use powerful anti-aircraft systems.
- There was no evidence of any intention by the separatists to shoot down a civil aircraft.
Reports in the mainstream media imply that the firing of a BUK missile is a matter of pointing it at the sky and pushing the proverbial button. As Appendix T makes clear however, extensive training in their use is required.
Not only must the crews be trained to a high level of proficiency, for which Appendix T notes there is no evidence in respect of the separatists, the firing of a BUK missile also requires the ancillary use of radar systems. Again, there is no evidence that the separatists had such radar equipment.
There was evidence however, that radar equipment of the Ukrainian armed forces was operational at the relevant time and in the relevant location. The Russian authorities at a press briefing given on 21 July 2014 disclosed this. Again, the Australian media ignored this evidence.
Contrary to the vague generality of the DSB Report as to the launch location, we have a report by the Russian manufacturer of the BUK missile, Almaz-Antey, released at the same time as the DSB Report.
Almaz-Antey produced a detailed analysis of the data. Their conclusion was that the BUK missile was launched from the Zaroschenskoe area, which was under the control of the Ukrainian armed forces at the time. This report has never been mentioned in the Australian mainstream media, probably because its conclusions do not fit the official narrative.
Thus, Mr Malone in the Canberra Times states that the JIT investigation is “widely expected” to “confirm that the missile was launched from separatist held territory.” It would only be “widely expected” by those reliant upon the constant stream of disinformation and concealment of evidence common to the mainstream media’s coverage of the MH17 disaster.
It was noted above that there was an alternative hypothesis about the cause of MH17’s crash, namely an air-to-air missile, presumably fired by one of the Ukrainian fighter aircraft identified in the area in the Russian briefing of 21 July 2014.
The Russian forensic expert Albert Naryshkin comprehensively advanced the air-to-air missile theory in July 2015. His report (available only in Russian) concluded that although the specific weapon could not be unequivocally identified, the specific nature of the missile damage to the aircraft meant that the most likely weapon was a Python air-to-air missile.
This particular weapon was adapted for use by the SU-25 Scorpion fighter that was the type of fighter observed by Russian radar data on 17 July 2014 and reported on at the 21 July 2014 briefing.
The merits or otherwise of this hypothesis are beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say that it was not considered by the DSB and any mention of it is conspicuously absent from the Australian media.
Three further recent developments are worth noting. The first of these was the Coronial Inquest held in Melbourne in November 2015 in respect of the Australian victims. The inquest has been reported by John Helmer on his website. Suffice to note here that the coronial inquiry was deeply flawed. It was marked by secrecy, the suppression of evidence, conflicts of interest, and a manifest desire to simply parrot the official line regardless of other evidence that is progressively emerging.
It accepted without question the conclusions of the DSB Report, even though that Report is incomplete, does not ascribe culpability as it awaits the JIT investigation, and for the reasons mentioned below, is far from flawless.
The second development worth noting is that both the Dutch and the Russians have released letters addressed to the families of the victims.
The Russian statement is by the Deputy Head of the Federal Air Transport Agency of the Russian Federation, Oleg Storchevoy. Mr Storchevoy takes the opportunity to address some of the misinformation about what Russia has and has not done to assist the official inquiry.
He notes, for example, that Russian primary radar data was provided to the DSB, together with telephone conversations and other data, in August 2014. Russian primary radar data was in fact the only such data available, as the Ukrainians had for some reason switched off their radar at the critical time.
The Russian data supplied to the DSB confirmed increased activity by Ukrainian BUK missile systems within the conflict zone ahead of the tragedy. That evidence was ignored by the DSB.
It might be interpolated here that the separatists have no air force, so the need for anti-aircraft systems to be active remains obscure. No explanation has been forthcoming from the Ukrainians.
Mr Storchevoy also drew attention to the unprecedented cooperation offered by Almaz-Antey, the BUK manufacturer which again was ignored by the DSB.
Mr Storchevoy noted that Russia has repeatedly pointed out that the Dutch technical investigation was performed in an extremely non-transparent and biased manner. He said that the Dutch authorities should also explain how they distorted facts and concealed data, and ignored important data supplied by the Russians.
These and other questions posed by Mr Storchevoy are legitimate and deserve careful consideration and response. Perhaps needless to add, no report of Mr Storchevoy’s statement has appeared in the Australian mainstream media.
The second letter was written to the families of the Dutch victims by the head of the JIT inquiry, Mr Fred Westerbeke.
Mr Westerbeke’s letter discussed, inter alia, that conclusions about the technical analysis of the aircraft debris should be available in the latter half of 2016. Importantly, as noted above, he confirmed that the Americans had provided data about the missile trajectory although the form in which that data can be used is unsettled.
Mr Westerbeke also said that the analysis of other data, including intercepted telephone calls, location data from telephones, images (unspecified), witness statements and technical calculations would enable “certain inferences” to be drawn about the rocket’s track.
Reference was also made to the English blogger Eliot Higgins who operates under the name of “Bellingcat.” Despite repeated critical analysis of Higgins’ falsification of data and manifest other errors, he continues to be reported in the western mainstream media as a reliable source.
Why western intelligence agencies, with their vast resources, would defer to one man operating out of his house in Leicester is explicable only if Higgins is seen as a useful conduit for what is invariably anti-Russian propaganda.
Westerbeke obliquely dismisses Bellingcat as a resource, as “providing no evidence of direct involvement of members of a Russian unit” in the shoot down on MH17. The claim of Russian direct involvement is one of the more sensational of Bellingcat’s claims faithfully and uncritically reported in the western media.
In the light of the Westerbeke letter, the Australian Federal Police were asked whether they agreed with the contents of the Westerbeke letter. Westerbeke had signed the letter on behalf of the members of the JIT (which includes Australia).
They were also asked whether a similar letter would be sent to the Australian families. The AFP’s response was a non-answer, saying only that the queries had been forwarded to the JIT!
Information has also been sought from the Prime Minister’s on what compensation the Australian victim families might expect. Under the relevant Australian legislation victims of terrorism are eligible for compensation up to $75,000. That possibility was raised by a number of mainstream media outlets in Australia in July 2014. In order to be eligible the Prime Minister must declare that the deaths of the Australian citizens were as a result of a terrorist attack.
The government had announced on 9 October 2013 that payments would be made to the victim’s families of other terrorist attacks pursuant to the prime ministerial declaration. The payments have been applied retrospectively, starting with the events of 11 September 2001. To date there have been 10 such declarations, the latest being the Paris attacks of 13 November 2015.
The Australian government has not declared the shooting down of MH17 to be a terrorist act for the purposes of the legislation. The reasons for this are unknown, although comment has been sought from the Prime Minister’s office.
Australian victim families still have other remedies available under the provisions of the Montreal Convention of 1999. Under Article 21 of that Convention damages of (approximately) $215,000 are set.
Potential liability of the carrier, in this case Malaysian Airlines, is however unlimited unless it can prove that the death “was not due to the negligence or other wrongful act or omission of the carrier or its servants or agents.”
Given that the evidence appears to suggest that MH17 either flew over a war zone of its own volition or was directed to do so by Ukrainian air traffic control, discharging that onus may prove difficult.
Proceedings seeking various declarations have been launched in the New South Wales Supreme Court by Tim Lauschet (2015/210056) against Malaysian Airlines, but that case is still at a preliminary stage.
The only clear point to emerge in Australia in the 21 months since the disaster is that the government and the mainstream media are determined to, on the one hand deny the public vital information about the disaster, and on the other hand maintain the fiction that the disaster was the fault of Russian backed separatists.
That line serves to justify the sanctions imposed on Russia and the continuing demonization of President Putin. If only Prime Minister Turnbull’s plea for an intelligent and adult dialogue was sincere. If that were the case the Australian public would be better informed than they are. It seems a very vain hope.
James O’Neill is an Australian-based Barrister at Law.
NATO’s Most Censored Story
By Ronald Thomas West | March 16, 2016
This information has been forwarded on (via email) to the leadership of the German parliament, as well the German federal prosecutor’s office, the German constitutional court, and the International Criminal Court. One can only wonder how long the criminally complicit politicians will sit on their hands and do nothing. German politicians have known for quite sometime that BND (German CIA) head Gerhard Schindler lied to them when he stated Assad ordered the sarin gas attack at Ghouta, Syria in August 2013. As well, Germany has a provision of law under the principle of universal jurisdiction which could be used to prosecute these crimes and a constitutional loophole bigger than the Brandenberg Gate that allows passing on prosecutions in ‘the best interest of the state.’
When the Turkish government seized Today’s Zaman newspaper on 5 March 2016, it was only a matter of time before the Zaman English website was taken down. Today I checked and discovered the site has indeed been taken offline (and has been replaced with a Turkish language site featuring Erdogan’s government line.) Anticipating something like this, I’d saved a few stories together with screenshots; here is the most damning story and a prime motivation behind the criminal Erdogan administration’s act of taking over the most popular news outlet in Turkey. As the several NATO states shed what are clearly crocodile tears over Turkey’s suppression of a free press, none will point to stories such as this following; in fact there will be only relief that evidence NATO is doing business with & propping up war criminals will have been swept under the rug. Verbatim text of the screen shots (full story) pasted in, below:
21 October 2015
Two deputies from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) have claimed that the government is against investigating Turkey’s role in sending toxic sarin gas which was used in an attack on civilians in Syria in 2013 and in which over 1,300 Syrians were killed.
CHP deputies Eren Erdem and Ali Şeker held a press conference in İstanbul on Wednesday in which they claimed the investigation into allegations regarding Turkey’s involvement in the procurement of sarin gas which was used in the chemical attack on a civil population and delivered to the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to enable the attack was derailed.
Taking the floor first, Erdem stated that the Adana Chief Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into allegations that sarin was sent to Syria from Turkey via several businessmen. An indictment followed regarding the accusations targeting the government.
“The MKE [Turkish Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation] is also an actor that is mentioned in the investigation file. Here is the indictment. All the details about how sarin was procured in Turkey and delivered to the terrorists, along with audio recordings, are inside the file,” Erdem said while waving the file.
Erdem also noted that the prosecutor’s office conducted detailed technical surveillance and found that an al-Qaeda militant, Hayyam Kasap, acquired sarin, adding: “Wiretapped phone conversations reveal the process of procuring the gas at specific addresses as well as the process of procuring the rockets that would fire the capsules containing the toxic gas. However, despite such solid evidence there has been no arrest in the case. Thirteen individuals were arrested during the first stage of the investigation but were later released, refuting government claims that it is fighting terrorism,” Erdem noted.
Over 1,300 people were killed in the sarin gas attack in Ghouta and several other neighborhoods near the Syrian capital of Damascus, with the West quickly blaming the regime of Bashar al-Assad and Russia claiming it was a “false flag” operation aimed at making US military intervention in Syria possible.
Suburbs near Damascus were struck by rockets containing the toxic sarin gas in August 2013.
The purpose of the attack was allegedly to provoke a US military operation in Syria which would topple the Assad regime in line with the political agenda of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government.
CHP deputy Şeker spoke after Erdem, pointing out that the government misled the public on the issue by asserting that sarin was provided by Russia. The purpose was to create the perception that, according to Şeker, “Assad killed his people with sarin and that requires a US military intervention in Syria.”
He also underlined that all of the files and evidence from the investigation show a war crime was committed within the borders of the Turkish Republic.
“The investigation clearly indicates that those people who smuggled the chemicals required to procure sarin faced no difficulties, proving that Turkish intelligence was aware of their activities. While these people had to be in prison for their illegal acts, not a single person is in jail. Former prime ministers and the interior minister should be held accountable for their negligence in the incident,” Şeker further commented.
Erdem also added that he will launch a criminal complaint against those responsible, including those who issued a verdict of non-prosecution in the case, those who did not prevent the transfer of chemicals and those who first ordered the arrest of the suspects who were later released.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced in late August that an inquiry had been launched into the gas attacks allegedly perpetuated by both Assad’s Syrian regime and rebel groups fighting in Syria since the civil war erupted in 2011.
However, Erdem is not the only figure who has accused Turkey of possible involvement in the gas attack. Pulitzer Prize winner and journalist, Seymour M. Hersh, argued in an article published in 2014 that MİT was involved with extremist Syrian groups fighting against the Assad regime.
In his article, Hersh said Assad was not behind the attack, as claimed by the US and Europe, but that Turkish-Syrian opposition collaboration was trying to provoke a US intervention in Syria in order to bring down the Assad regime.
Larry Silverstein designed NEW WTC-7 in April of 2000
“Lucky Larry” STILL bragging about his crimes of 9/11/2001
By Kevin Barrett | Veterans Today | March 15, 2016
Larry had the new WTC-7 designed and ready-to-go 17 months before he “pulled” the old one
He may just be a Silver-stein. But “Lucky Larry” sets the gold standard for chutzpah.
Latest example: In the above video, Silverstein says of the new WTC-7, which replaced the one he famously confessed to demolishing on 9/11/01:
We got the designs. And the first design meeting was in April of 2000. And construction began shortly thereafter, in 2002.
One slight problem: If he hadn’t been planning the illegal, un-permitted, homicidal demolitions of WTC-7 and the entire World Trade Center complex that took place on September 11th, 2001, there would have been no point to any such design meeting back in April, 2000 … and no opportunity for beginning construction of a new WTC-7 in 2002.
With the supreme chutzpah that has become his trademark, Silverstein breezes over the demolitions of 9/11/2001 as if they were not even worth remarking on, instead going straight from his new-WTC-7 design meeting in April 2000 to the beginning of construction in 2002.
Memo to Donald Trump: If you’re looking for people who were wildly celebrating the murder of 3,000 people on September 11th, 2001, that would include not only the famous dancing Israelis, but also Larry “Pull It” Silverstein.
In 2001, “Lucky Larry,” who had previously owned only WTC-7, orchestrated a deal with his fellow-ultra-Zionist Lewis Eisenberg, Chairman of the mobbed-up NY Port Authority, and another Zionist extremist billionaire, Frank Lowy, to sell the entire WTC complex to Silverstein and backers on a 100-year lease. The deal was finalized in July, 2001, and Larry took possession of the buildings … and security arrangements. But first, he hard-balled his insurers into doubling the terror insurance coverage and changing the terms to “instant cash payout.”
On September 11th, Larry hit the jackpot. The condemned-for-asbestos and largely vacant Twin Towers, with their obsolete communications infrastructure and money-hemorrhaging balance sheet, were both demolished for free – with 3,000 people inside.
Larry should have been at the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of the North Tower, just like every other day. Fortunately, he tells us, his wife reminded him of a dermatologist appointment. His daughter, who always took breakfast with him, made a similarly lame excuse. Both survived … and prospered … while everyone above the 91st floor, including everyone who showed up to have breakfast at Windows on the World, died miserable deaths.
Lucky Larry indeed.
Larry’s luck held out when he demanded double indemnity – on the basis that he had been “victimized” by two completely separate and unrelated terrorist attacks, namely the two planes – and got it, to the tune of 4. 5 billion dollars. That’s a hefty cash-payout return on a relatively minor investment. (Silverstein put up less than 15 million of his own money to buy the WTC, and his backers had added a little over 100 million.)
Even after video proof emerged that he had confessed to “pulling” (i.e. demolishing) WTC-7, he still somehow evaded the hangman’s noose.
Then he went back to court to ask for more than $10 billion more – this time not from his own insurers, but from those of the airlines he falsely blamed for the demolitions that he himself had conducted.
But even the mobbed-up 9/11-complicit Zionist judge, Alvin Hellerstein, had had enough. For the full (satirical) story, check out my article:
But that didn’t stop not-quite-so-Lucky Larry from trying to steal another 500 million from the federal government through an EB-5 visa scam.
Then last month, Larry’s inimitable chutzpah resurfaced when he said that his first thought on looking at the plans for the new South Tower was “it looks like it’s going to topple, it’s going to fall over.” At least if you “pull” on it hard enough, it might. Right, Larry?
Larry’s chutzpah is so monumental that it became the basis of an annual award. See:
Whatever will this unbelievable character do next?
Will someone finally arrest him?
Will we ever see him swing from the gallows?
Or will Lucky Larry’s luck hold out until he finally dies of natural causes, leaving his heirs billions of blood-stained dollars with which to conduct more outrageous Zionist mischief?
Release of Tsarnaev’s Interrogation Notes Leads to More Questions
Photo credit: FBI
By James Henry – WhoWhatWhy – March 15, 2016
Heavily redacted notes from the hospital bed interrogation of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were released at the end of February. Most media reports about the documents focus on portions that portray Dzhokhar as having played an active role in building and detonating the bombs that exploded on Boylston St.
But a closer read of the FBI’s summary of Tsarnaev’s statements to his interrogators raises questions about key details of the bombing and its execution.
First off, it is important to note that the interview notes are heavily redacted and therefore incomplete. But some of the things the FBI says Dzhokhar told his interrogators indicate a level of confusion or ignorance, or both, about important facts. They also raise questions about why the FBI has been selectively vague about key details of the case.
Black/Brown/White Backpack?
According to the interrogation notes, “Jahar carried a brown backpack [emphasis added] while his brother’s backpack was black. After parking, they walked…”
Now the backpack is brown?
The indictment, which was written a month and a half after the bombing, states that both bombs were concealed in black backpacks.
In a photograph of the shredded backpack lying in Boylston Street released by the FBI, it does indeed look black.
Boston Bombing black shredded backpack – Photo credit: FBI
However, many observers have pointed out that, in surveillance photos, the backpack Dzhokhar can be seen carrying does not look black — or brown for that matter — but mostly white or light gray.
Photo credit: FBI
Why the discrepancy? Did the interviewing agent challenge him on this detail? Why is there so much ambiguity around such an important detail?
And there’s another problem: The “smoking gun” video that supposedly proves Tsarnaev placed an explosive laden backpack on Boylston Street. It actually shows very little. His actions are obscured by the crowd of people.
Shouldn’t the government be obliged to prove unequivocally that the exploded backpack found at the scene was at least the same color as the one Dzhokhar was carrying that day?
Strange Redaction Regarding Explosive Powder
Also according to the FBI agent’s notes, Tsarnaev ”stated that he and his brother Tamerlan built two explosive devices in his brother’s home at 410 Norfolk…”
This implies that Dzhokhar took a more active role in constructing the bombs than has been previously described.
But, Dzhokhar’s lawyers showed at trial that none of his fingerprints were found on any of the bomb or bomb-making materials. Tamerlan’s fingerprints were, however.
Dzhokhar also told agents, apparently, that the powder came from $200 worth of fireworks that he and Tamerlan had purchased in New Hampshire about a year prior. But that’s when Tamerlan was in Russia — January to July 2012. Considering Tsarnaev was being interrogated April 21 and 22 , 2013, the time-line can’t be accurate.
Fireworks found in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s dormitory room – Photo credit: FBI
At which store, or exactly when these particular fireworks were purchased, is not clear. But since the bombing, law-enforcement and media reports have consistently referenced a $200 purchase made by Tamerlan at Phantom Fireworks in Seabrook, New Hampshire two months before the bombing. Nothing about Dzhokhar buying fireworks was ever made public.
Most notably, that particular purchase would only constitute a small fraction of the amount of explosive powder needed to produce all the bombs the Tsarnaevs are accused of making and detonating.
According to the owner of Phantom Fireworks, the brothers would have been able to harvest, at most, 1.5 pounds of explosive powder from the $200 purchase.
On the other hand, each pressure cooker bomb that exploded on Boylston Street probably contained anywhere from 8 to 16 pounds of explosive powder, according to testimony from Special Agent Edward Knapp.
The pressure cooker that exploded in Watertown probably contained another 4 to 8 pounds. And in Watertown, three more pounds of powder were found in a Tupperware container, along with a number of pipe bombs each containing yet more powder. That means the Tsarnaevs would have had to collect between 23 and 43 pounds of explosive powder — or more.
Either they made numerous purchases of fireworks or they got explosive powder from another source.
At the very least, Tsarnaev’s statement that they got the explosive powder from $200 worth of fireworks shows his ignorance regarding what it actually took to make them. Either that or he did discuss the provenance of the rest of the explosive powder with his interrogators — was that information in a redacted part?
Why does the FBI continue to withhold information on where the explosives came from?
All of this reveals either a marked level of ignorance or confusion by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev about details of the bombs’ construction — even the color of the backpack. Or, it reveals that the government is still withholding key details about how the bombs came to be. Why is anyone’s guess.
But why do any of these small details matter? Because, as we all know, the devil can be found in the details. And the outcome of a life-and-death prosecution can sometimes hinge almost entirely on such seemingly small details.
Painting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as an equal partner in the planning, preparation and execution of the violence that erupted in Boston was critical to the government’s goal of winning the death penalty against the sole surviving brother.
But when close scrutiny has been applied to the government’s case, we continually find troubling inconsistencies that hint at a prosecution hell-bent on winning the case — damn the specifics of who did exactly what and when.
Why Details Matter: See for Yourself with One Click
For instance: in our past reporting we showed how the government claimed Tamerlan drove as Dzhokhar was sitting menacingly behind Dun Meng, the carjacking victim, as they circled around greater Boston in Meng’s stolen Mercedes SUV. But when we see the Mercedes pull up to the gas pump where Meng ultimately gets away, Dzhokhar appears to get out of the front seat — not the back.
As we reported previously:
Officially, by the time the Mercedes SUV can be seen pulling into the Shell station on the video in question, Tamerlan was driving, Danny was in the passenger seat, and Dzhokhar was sitting in the backseat.
In the video, we see the SUV pull up to one of the gas pumps and stop. Strangely, we see Dzhokhar emerge from behind the gas pump, obscuring the front passenger door before he makes his way into the store.
Strange because we were told he was sitting in the backseat. Yet we don’t see Dzhokhar get out of the rear door. Neither do we see him walk from the other side of the SUV.
Did they edit that out? Why?
Was the “escape” story embellished? After all, what cold-blooded criminals would allow a carjacking victim to sit in the back seat to make an easy escape? Or did they let him go? In fact, the carjacking victim’s account changed significantly early on until it finally solidified into what sounded most damning.
Other Little “Details”
And the government’s glossing over of its pre-bombing relationship with the Tsarnaevs, who hail from a geopolitical hotspot on Russia’s southern flank, strongly hints that Tamerlan in particular may have been a pawn in some tangled international intrigue with Russia.
We still don’t know why the family was granted asylum and yet freely returned to the Caucasus region — a reality that has experts scratching their heads.
Instead, what we witnessed was a theatrical effort on the part of the government to portray Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a cartoonish fanatical monster — the enemy of you and me and our way of life. Whipped up into a vengeful frenzy, the public is far less likely to ask questions.
Notably, the caricature of Dzhokhar as a crazed Jihadi fell apart under a mild cross-examination of his twitter feed. The government’s examples of Islamic religious fanaticism turned out to be run-of-the-mill song lyrics that any 19-year-old would be familiar with.
The no-holds-barred prosecution of Tsarnaev looked more like an effort to disguise the backstory of how and why this happened, than an effort to find the truth.
For an intriguing, sinister, and even likely explanation for what that backstory was really about — please go here.
Inside the twisted, racist, anti-Semitic mind of the Jewish Daily Forward
Another classic example of the perp posing as victim
By Kevin Barrett | Veterans Today | March 10, 2016
The Forward tries to silence critics of Jewish-Zionist power by name-calling and denigration. Don’t expect them to debate the facts.
The Jewish Daily Forward is sometimes called America’s leading Jewish newspaper. But that is not, strictly speaking, true.
America’s leading Jewish newspaper is the New York Times. Runners-up include most of the other big newspapers, including the former WASP bastions the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.
They’re all “Jewish newspapers” in the sense that that a disproportionate number of their key positions are filled by Jews, many if not most of whom consciously or unconsciously support Jewish tribal interests.
It is just a simple fact, not an “anti-Semitic conspiracy theory,” that Jews “Dominate in American Media – and So What if We Do?” It is a simple fact that Jews totally control Hollywood. It is a simple fact that Jews, who make up less than 2% of the population, are wildly over-represented in big finance in general, and the bribery-based system of political finance in particular.
And it is a simple fact that virtually all wealthy, powerful Jews are pro-Zionist…and that many are fanatically dedicated to using their wealth and power to support the Zionist entity occupying and genociding Palestine. (Yes, there are many Jews who are not Zionist, but few of them are wealthy or powerful.)
If you don’t believe me, please consult sociologist James Petras’s The Power of Israel in the United States. Additional required reading includes Petras’s essay in Another French False Flag, which explains how “the Zionist faction” of the US militarist elite has been responsible for America’s catastrophic wars in the Middle East.
But anyone who notices any of this, and recognizes that Jewish-Zionist power is what dragged the US into the quagmire in the Middle East — notably by way of the 9/11 inside/outside job — is setting themselves up for a witch-hunt.
The latest victim is professor Joy Karega of Oberlin College, who is being inundated with insults because she has dared to breathe a word or two of truth via social media. In a classic case of Zionist blame-the-victim-for-precisely-what-we-perpetrators-are-doing tactics, the racists at the Forward are accusing their victim, Karega, of racism.
The Jewish Daily Forward’s article “Inside the Twisted Anti-Semitic Mind of Professor Joy Karega” inadvertently exposes the twisted, racist, anti-Semitic minds of its author and publishers. These people simply take it for granted that the truth is an “anti-Semitic conspiracy theory” and that anyone who defends it is a lesser being who deserves to be insulted, but needs not be rationally or empirically refuted.
The anti-Karega lynch mob, led by Jewish Zionists, is trying to assassinate her professionally. Yet they deny that they are trying to silence her! From The Forward : “… of course the question here is not whether Karega should be ‘silenced,’ but rather whether she should be funded as a professor at one of the leading liberal arts colleges in the U.S.”
So The Forward insists that working to get Karega fired and destroy her ability to make a living is not an attempt to silence her! Such arrogance is well-nigh unbelievable.
The Forward’s anti-conspiracy-theory tropes are drenched in racism. As a white guy who has brought up conspiracy issues with fellow white folks, I have heard more times than I can count some variation on “So what if 80% of Muslims are 9/11 conspiracy theorists? Who cares what those paranoid wogs think?” Or: “So what if black people believe these conspiracy theories, they’re just not as smart and educated as us white people.”
Pakistanis know “al-Qaeda” better than anyone, and only 3% of them believe the official story of 9/11. But whenever I bring that up with white Americans, their superiority complex kicks in and they dismiss the far-more-informed perspective from Pakistan… for no particular reason, except maybe that the people over there have a bit too much skin pigmentation.
The Forward article fairly drips with that kind of implicitly racist condescension toward proud African-American intellectual Joy Karega. It begins by describing Jewish anti-conspiracist Isabel Sherrel contacting Karega in an arrogant attempt to bully her back into line – not by citing any evidence against Karega’s position, but by calling Karega “not educated” and saying Karega’s views stem from “ignorance.”
To an unconscious exponent of Jewish superiority like Sherrel, her own 100%-evidence-free name-calling is “honest, respectful, and open-hearted.” She is so permeated by her own sense of tribal and/or racial superiority that she cannot even entertain the idea that she ought to be arguing with Karega as an equal, using logic and evidence, rather than bullying her and calling her names.
The Jewish Daily Forward article, citing Karl Popper, suggests that we “demand evidence for the conspiracy theory.” Yet it buries Popper’s legitimate call for a debate based on logic and evidence beneath an avalanche of implicit and explicit ad hominems.
The Jewish Daily Forward’s article attacking Karega is not just arrogantly, condescendingly racist, but anti-Semitic as well. Its rhetorical purpose is to cover up the truth about the so-called “war on terror” and thereby perpetuate that war, which has mainly targeted Arabs, the only major group of Semites on earth.
As I wrote to Oberlin College President Marvin Krislov:
You write that you are similarly nonplussed by “anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.” Are you referring to the theory that 19 young Semites, led by an older Semite on dialysis in a cave in Afghanistan, blew up the World Trade Center by using box-cutters to kindle minor office fires?
I, too, am outraged by anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Today virtually all of the world’s Semites are the speakers of Arabic. (“Semite” is a linguistic category, not a racial one.) And I am outraged by the way Arabic Semites have been falsely blamed for the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center, the murders of innocents by large white paramilitary professionals in Paris and San Bernadino, and many similar false flag incidents. These false flag public relations stunts have triggered the murder of more than 1.5 million people and the destruction of the homes and lives of tens of millions more. THIS is the real, indisputable and ongoing Holocaust; you and your colleagues are perpetrating it right now with your tax money, your silences and your lies. The blood of more than a million innocents is on your hands.
So while I appreciate your support for academic freedom, I respectfully request that you take the next step and sponsor a debate or symposium on false flags in general and 9/11 and the 2015 Paris attacks in particular. If you or anyone else believes they can defend the 9/11 Commission Report, or the official versions of the Paris attacks, in a debate, they should be not just willing but actually eager to put the “conspiracy theories” to rest.
I will be happy to travel to Oberlin at my own expense to participate in any such debate. Meanwhile, I am sending my three books Questioning the War on Terror, We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo, and ANOTHER French False Flag as a gift to the Oberlin College Library, where faculty and students can refer to them to understand the positions of Professor Karega and the hundreds of millions of people around the world who share her interpretations of current events.
Sincerely,
Dr. Kevin Barrett
Anti-truther witch hunt fizzles at Oberlin College
By Kevin Barrett | Veterans Today | March 3, 2016
A rabid little Fox is drooling and gnashing its teeth.
But that hasn’t stopped Oberlin College from respecting the academic freedom of Professor Joy Karega, who is being witch-hunted by the neocon-Zionist network for speaking honestly about 9/11 and the two 2015 Paris false flags.
According to the outraged Likudnik tabloid the New York Post:
Karega … wrote on numerous Facebook posts that she believes Israel was the mastermind behind numerous terrorist attacks around the world including 9/11 and the Charlie Hebdo slaughter in Paris.”
In a written statement, Oberlin President Marvin Krislov offered an obligatory denunciation of “anti-Semitic conspiracy theories,” while at the same time defending academic freedom:
“I am a practicing Jew, grandson of an Orthodox rabbi. Members of our family were murdered in the Holocaust. As someone who has studied history, I cannot comprehend how any person could or would question its existence, its horrors and the evil which caused it. I feel the same way about anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Regardless of the reason for spreading these materials, they cause pain for many people — members of our community and beyond … I am also the son of a tenured faculty member at a large research university. My father instilled in me a strong belief in academic freedom. I believe, as the American Association of University Professors says, that academic freedom is ‘the indispensable quality of institutions of higher education’ because it encourages free inquiry, promotes the expansion of knowledge, and creates an environment in which learning and research can flourish.”
On Monday, I had emailed a debate challenge to the Oberlin student newspaper, Krislov and 17 other key Oberlin professors and administrators. Perhaps it had helped sway Krislov. Here it is:
To the administrators, faculty, staff and students of Oberlin College (emailed 2/29/2016)
It has come to my attention that a member of the Oberlin faculty, Professor Joy Karega, is being witch-hunted by the same forces that drove me out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2006. Specifically, Professor Karega is being hounded for suggesting that the Charlie Hebdo attacks may have been a false flag event, and that Israel and its extremist Prime Minister may have helped orchestrate the crime.
Such views may sound odd or unusual to uncritical consumers of Western mainstream media. But in fact they are both widespread and well-supported by considerable evidence.
Globally, a substantial majority of Muslim intellectuals, as well as those non-Muslim intellectuals who follow alternative media, would tend to agree with Professor Karega. Their interpretation is supported by evidence presented in a book I edited, We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo: Free Thinkers Question the French 9/11.
In that book, which features 22 leading public intellectuals representing a wide variety of backgrounds and viewpoints, bestselling Israeli author and investigative journalist Barry Chamish – a right-wing Zionist himself – suggests that Netanyahu should be considered a key suspect in the apparent false flag attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices. Evidence for that interpretation is presented in several of the essays.
As the editor of We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo and its follow-up volume ANOTHER French False Flag? I would be happy to visit Oberlin to participate in a debate or symposium about these critically-important issues. Those who disagree with me (and with 40 leading public intellectuals represented in the two books) should be eager to defend their views using logic and evidence rather than ad hominems.
If Professor Karega’s critics are not willing to participate in a free and fair debate, their hysteria and name-calling ought to be of no concern to educated people, including the Oberlin College community.
Student groups interested in sponsoring such a debate or symposium may contact me by email at kbarrett(at)merr[dot]com.
Also, I would like to offer copies of We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo and ANOTHER French False Flag at half price to members of the Oberlin community. If you’d like a copy, simply email me at kbarrett(at)merr[dot]com from an Oberlin.edu address.
Sincerely
Dr. Kevin Barrett
As of Thursday, I had not heard back from any of the 19 Oberlin recipients. So I decided to compose another missive, this one directed to Marvin Krislov:
To Oberlin University President Marvin Krislov,
Thank you for standing up for academic freedom in your recent statement implicitly referring to the witch-hunt of Professor Joy Karega.
As a human being, and the son and grandson of human beings, who has studied history, I cannot comprehend how anyone could question the existence of that Holocaust known as World War II, in which more than sixty million of our fellow humans were murdered. Nor can I understand how anyone can question the evil which caused that war, namely British imperialism, with lesser contributions from other imperialisms. (All realist historians acknowledge that the two World Wars were essentially the same war, launched by the British to pre-emptively destroy a rising German empire.)
Nor can I understand why anyone would single out some World War II victims as more worthy of remembrance than others due to their ethnicity. And I certainly cannot understand why the debate over various details about World War II outlined in Thomas Dalton’s Debating the Holocaust has been criminalized in many European countries and rendered taboo in the American academy.
You write that you are similarly nonplussed by “anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.” Are you referring to the theory that 19 young Semites, led by an older Semite on dialysis in a cave in Afghanistan, blew up the World Trade Center by using box-cutters to kindle minor office fires?
I, too, am outraged by anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Today virtually all of the world’s Semites are the speakers of Arabic. (“Semite” is a linguistic category, not a racial one.) And I am outraged by the way Arabic Semites have been falsely blamed for the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center, the murders of innocents by large white paramilitary professionals in Paris and San Bernadino, and many similar false flag incidents. These false flag public relations stunts have triggered the murder of more than 1.5 million people and the destruction of the homes and lives of tens of millions more. THIS is the real, indisputable and ongoing Holocaust; you and your colleagues are perpetrating it right now with your tax money, your silences and your lies. The blood of more than a million innocents is on your hands.
So while I appreciate your support for academic freedom, I respectfully request that you take the next step and sponsor a debate or symposium on false flags in general and 9/11 and the 2015 Paris attacks in particular. If you or anyone else believes they can defend the 9/11 Commission Report, or the official versions of the Paris attacks, in a debate, they should be not just willing but actually eager to put the “conspiracy theories” to rest.
I will be happy to travel to Oberlin at my own expense to participate in any such debate. Meanwhile, I am sending my three books Questioning the War on Terror, We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo, and ANOTHER French False Flag as a gift to the Oberlin College Library, where faculty and students can refer to them to understand the positions of Professor Karega and the hundreds of millions of people around the world who share her interpretations of current events.
Sincerely,
Kevin Barrett
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From the Archives
The Geopolitics behind the War in Yemen (I)
By Mahdi Darius NAZEMROAYA | Strategic Culture Foundation | 30.03.2015
The United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became very uneasy when the Yemenese or Yemenite movement of the Houthi or Ansarallah (meaning the supporters of God in Arabic) gained control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa/Sana, in September 2014. The US-supported Yemenite President Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi was humiliatingly forced to share power with the Houthis and the coalition of northern Yemenese tribes that had helped them enter Sana. Al-Hadi declared that negotiations for a Yemeni national unity government would take place and his allies the US and Saudi Arabia tried to use a new national dialogue and mediated talks to co-opt and pacify the Houthis.
The truth has been turned on its head about the war in Yemen. The war and ousting of President Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi in Yemen are not the results of «Houthi coup» in Yemen. It is the opposite. Al-Hadi was ousted, because with Saudi and US support he tried to backtrack on the power sharing agreements he had made and return Yemen to authoritarian rule. The ousting of President Al-Hadi by the Houthis and their political allies was an unexpected reaction to the takeover Al-Hadi was planning with Washington and the House of Saudi. … continue
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