West Uses Skripal Row to Boot Russia From Syrian Chemical Weapons Issue – Moscow
Sputnik – 04.04.2018
Blaming Skripal’s poisoning on Moscow, Western states are trying to push Russia aside from discussion of cases of chemical weapons usage in Syria, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman.
On Issue of Chemical Weapons
Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that chemical weapons remain a key issue in the decision-making process for all countries, as the legitimacy of Bashar Assad’s power in Syria is always being linked to it by Western countries and the US-led coalition.
“Before, we were told that Assad just had to leave, because he was bad but then this concept was abandoned. Now they say that he is bad and must leave because he violates international law using chemical weapons in Syria,” she said.
The representative went on saying that the West is trying to play the same card in the current row over Skripal’s poisoning.
“Thus, inventing the story about the alleged use of chemical weapons by Russia on British soil, Western countries are trying to push Russia aside from the legal field of discussion of issues pertaining to the chemical weapons in Syria. Under the pretext that there is nothing to talk about with Russia, as they claim Russia has used chemical weapons in Europe,” Zakharova added.
Earlier in the day, the British side presented its own version of why Russia proposed to convene an extraordinary session of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Council. According to the UK permament representative to the OPCW John Foggo, Russia wants to use the organization’s meeting scheduled for April 4, the date on which a year ago a chemical attack in Syria’s Khan Sheikhoun took place, in order to make a political statement.
“For all of us gathered here, it is very sad to admit that chemical weapons attacks continue not only in Syria. Today marks exactly one month since the usage of the nerve agent here in Europe,” he said.
After the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta in January, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused Damascus of using chemical weapons and also claimed that Russia was responsible for the victims because of its engagement in Syria.
The Russian Foreign Ministry back then said that Washington was spreading propaganda against Moscow in an attempt to demonize the Syrian government and subsequently topple it, underscoring that the information on the chemical attacks used by the United States was uncorroborated.
In October 2017, the OPCW report alleged that the Syrian government was responsible for the April 4 sarin attack on the Syrian city of Khan Sheikhoun, claiming that the nerve gas used during the attack had been taken from stockpiles belonging to the Syrian government. However, the latter was destroyed as part of a 2013 deal with the US and Russia — a process the OPCW itself signed off on as having been completed that November.
Damascus has constantly denied being in possession of chemical weapons, the destruction of which had been confirmed by the OPCW.
On Russian Media
Russia would like to receive clarifications from the US State Department after accounts of Russian media outlets were blocked on Facebook, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said.
“We expect an official reaction to this situation from US authorities … we would very much like to hear official comments from the US State Department,” she told a briefing.
She called on Facebook to specify its issues with Russian media accounts and explain reasons behind its decision to block them.
On Tuesday, Russia’s Federal News Agency (FAN) said that Facebook had blocked its official page without any warning. Also on Tuesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the company blocked more than 270 accounts and pages run by Russia’s Internet Research Agency.
On Russian Vessel Detained in Ukraine
Moscow summoned the Ukrainian temporary charge d’affaires in Russia on Wednesday to protest the detention of a Russian ship and to demand the release of its crew as well as the return of the vessel, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
“On April 3, the charge d’affaires ad interim of Ukraine in the Russian Federation was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry where he was handed a protest note in connection with the illegal detention of Russian fishing vessel Nord by the Ukrainian Border Guard Service on March 25 in the Sea of Azov, the transfer of the vessel to the port of Berdyansk and illegal custody of its 10 Russian crew members,” spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted.
According to Zakharova, Moscow demanded the immediate release of the illegally detained crew and the return of the vessel to its legitimate owner.
On March 26, Ukrainian border guards detained the Russian ship Nord, claiming that its crew had violated the sea border. The Russian Foreign Ministry demands the Ukrainian side to return the captured ship, which is in the Ukrainian port of Berdyansk, and to release the crew.
READ MORE:
Russia’s Offer for Joint Probe Into Skripal Case ‘Perverse’ – UK OPCW Delegation
Russia Concerned, Outraged Over US Claims on Attacking Syria — Moscow
Facebook, Instagram Delete Dozens of Russia-Linked Accounts
Russian Navy Disproves Dangerous Manoeuveres between Russian and UK Vessels
Never mind Facebook, Google is the all-seeing ‘big brother’ you should know about
RT | March 30, 2018
The Cambridge Analytica scandal put Facebook through the wringer in recent weeks, losing the company $100 billion in stock value and prompting a global debate on internet privacy.
The social media giant was forced to apologize and overhaul its privacy and data sharing practices, but it still remains in the media spotlight and in the crosshairs of the Federal Trade Commission, which says it may be liable for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fines.
But amid all the furor, one monolithic entity has continued to harvest data from billions of people worldwide. The data gathered includes a precise log of your every move and every internet search you’ve ever made, every email you’ve ever sent, your workout routine, your favourite food, and every photo you’ve ever taken. And you have allowed it to happen to yourself, for the sake of better service and more relevant advertising.
Google is a ‘Big Brother’ with capabilities beyond George Orwell’s wildest nightmares. These capabilities are all the more chilling after Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., cut its famous “don’t be evil” line from its code of conduct in 2015.
Everything you’ve ever searched for on any of your devices is recorded and stored by Google. It’s done to better predict your future searches and speed up and streamline your browsing. You can clear your search history, but it only works for that particular device. Google still keeps a record of everything. Click here to see everything you’ve ever searched on a Google device.
The same goes for every app and extension you use. If it’s connected to Google, your data is stored. That means that your Facebook messages are not only farmed out to companies like Cambridge Analytica, Google also has them from the Facebook app you use.
YouTube, which is a Google subsidiary, also stores a history of every video you watch. It will know if you’ve listened to Linkin Park’s ‘In the End’ 3,569 times, or watched hours of flat-earth conspiracy theory videos.
Likewise, any file you’ve ever stored on Google Drive, any Google Calendar event you’ve attended, any photo you’ve stored on Google Photos, and every email you’ve ever sent are all stored. You can access a copy of all of this data by requesting a link from Google here.
Perhaps what hits home the hardest, though, is that Google keeps track of where you are and how you got there, at all times. If you have a smartphone, there’s a good chance it runs the Android operating system, considering Android phones account for 82 percent of the global market share. That’s over 2 billion monthly active users.
And, unless you’ve disabled this feature, clicking here will show you a list of every journey you’ve ever made with your phone, including an estimate of how you traveled there. If you’re back and forth between work and home at the same time every day, Google knows this is your commute. That heavy traffic warning Google maps gives you on your drive home; Google knows there’s a traffic jam because it knows that every Android phone in every car is moving slower than they usually do at that time of day.
Google doesn’t do this behind your back. On a desktop, Google Chrome allows sites to access your computer’s camera and microphone by default. On a smartphone, agreeing to an app’s terms of service allows the app to do nearly anything, from accessing your phone’s camera and location, to recording your calls and log your messages. The Facebook app, for example, requires 44 such permissions.
It is possible to opt out of most of Google’s tracking – including search history, location timeline and targeted advertising – but it takes a bit of rooting around in settings menus, and you have to know about the option first. And of course, Google says it’s not associating the data with you, as a person – instead, it’s linked to your “advertising ID,” and never shared unless you want it to be. Or unless a government requests that Google hands it over – which US government agencies alone have done almost 17,000 times in just the first half of 2017, with over 80 percent of requests fulfilled, at least to some extent.
Dutch vote to reject ‘Big Brother’ legislation expanding surveillance powers of security agencies
RT | March 29, 2018
The Dutch population does not want security agencies to receive more surveillance powers, official results of the referendum showed. Although only advisory, the vote sends a strong signal to the government pushing for the law.
The Electoral Council said 49.4 percent of the voters spoke out against the Intelligence and Security Law during the March 21 referendum. The legislation was supported by 46.5 percent, with four percent of those participating casting blank ballots, it added.
The addition of the law on the ballot boosted voter turnout to almost 52 percent, far exceeding the minimum turnout of 30 percent required for a plebiscite to be declared valid.
The new legislation, which the opponents dubbed the ‘Big Data Law,’ or data mining law, provides additional powers to the General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) and the Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD).
Among other things, it would allow the country’s two security agencies to tap telephone and internet traffic on a large scale, which would include reaching an alleged perpetrator by hacking devices of those not under suspicion.
The data obtained through such surveillance would be stored for up to three years, and the AIVD and the MIVD would be granted the right to share this information with foreign colleagues, even without performing any preliminary analysis themselves. The law would also enable the Dutch security agencies to store DNA material for people.
The legislation has already been approved by the government and was set to go into effect on May 1. The referendum was non-binding and the Dutch ministers have the right to ignore the public concerns, leaving the legislation unchanged. However, they would still have to revisit the legislation and debate it once again next month.
Dutch Interior minister Kajsa Ollongren said on Thursday that the cabinet wanted “to do justice” by the referendum and that the Intelligence and Security Law will be re-evaluated carefully and in the shortest time possible, NOS reported.
Last week, Prime Minister Mark Rutte also promised that the legislation will be revised, but refrained from providing any specifics.
Back in 2014, when the Dutch voted against approving the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine, authorities in the Netherlands opted to secure an additional agreement between the 28 EU member-states, which it said addressed the concerns of the no-voters. However, it did not change the wording of the EU-Ukraine association agreement in any way as it was passed by the Dutch authorities.
Jeremy, Get on your Knees!
By Gilad Atzmon | March 29, 2018
In their response to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) and the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BOD) claim to ‘propose an agenda of actions for discussion’ between the Labour party and those who claim to ‘represent’ British Jews.
In practice the two Zionist institutions have managed to produce one of the most disgusting documents in modern Jewish history. A text that is little more than an ode to the self-defamation of its own authors and to the community they claim to ‘represent’: it is rude, authoritarian, and disrespectful to a democratically elected leader of Europe’s biggest party.
Read the BOD/JLC’s public address to Corbyn here
When you read some of the extracts below, remember that despite BOD and the JLC claims to ‘represent’ British Jewry, these two organisations managed to pull just 1500 members of their community into their ‘Enough is Enough’ anti-Corbyn demonstration earlier this week. We are talking about 0.5% of British Jewry. The BOD/JLC’s authoritarian document outlines a set of humiliating conditions for Corbyn to meet. The text proves how detached these Jewish institutions are from British values, specifically, and the Western ethos, in general. In fact their vision of the political arena is Orwellian in nature and tyrannical in practice.
Apparently, if Corbyn expects to meet with the demands of these self-appointed ‘Jewish leaders’ he must appoint a watchdog who will take care of the so called ‘antisemites’ in his party and, of course, under the supervision of these two ardent Zionist bodies. He must also meet a strict time-frame defined by Judea.
“Outstanding and future cases (of alleged antisemitism) are to be brought to a swift conclusion under a fixed timescale. An independent, mutually agreed upon ombudsman should be appointed to oversee performance, reporting to the Party, as well as to the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council.”
Consistent with the spirit of Talmudic herem (excommunication) and totally in contradiction to notions of British openness and Western tolerance, these Jewish institutions insist that “MPs, councillors, and other party members should not share platforms with people who have been suspended or expelled for antisemitism and CLPs should not provide them with a platform.” The Jewish institutions also suggest how to penalise the sinners. “Anybody doing so should, themselves, be suspended from membership; in the case of MPs, they should lose the party whip.” Maybe someone should make the effort to explain to the Jewish leaders that the labour party is an established political institution. It is not a ghetto, I mean, not as yet.
The Jewish bodies insist on dominating the language as well as boundaries of political discussion. Criticism of Israel should be completely restricted. The words ‘Zio’ and ‘Zionist’ as terms of abuse should be eradicated. I actually believe that if the BOD/JLC truly wanted ‘Zionist’ to not be used as a ‘term of abuse,’ they should simply stop abusing Corbyn in the name of Zion as their first step forward.
The British Jewish ‘leaders’ clearly know how to distinguish between the ‘good Jews’ and the bad ones. Corbyn is told to “engage with the Jewish community via its main representative groups, and not through fringe organisations who wish to obstruct the Party’s efforts to tackle antisemitism.” And I wonder, how exactly the BOD or the JLC are ‘representatives’ of British Jews. When were they elected and by whom? And if these two organisations are ‘representative of British Jews,’ how is it that they so selectively call upon Labour to ignore the voice of Jewish collectives they don’t agree with?
The Jewish institutions talk at Corbyn as if he is a schoolboy. “These changes must be sustained and enduring.” Corbyn better quickly meet the Zionist demands before a meeting with The Lobby can materialise. “We firmly believe that this must happen urgently, and certainly before we meet.”
The BOD and the JLC express hope in starting a process of “constructive anti-racist” work within the Labour Party. Talking about racism, we better hear from both the BOD and the JLC how many Muslims and Blacks are members of their executive boards. I ask because, unlike those ‘Jews only’ institutions, the Labour party is, actually, a multi-ethnic and multi-racial political body. If Jewish institutions want to counter racism, they are more than welcome to do so. The racist ‘Jewish State’ is where they should start.
How Israel and its partisans work to censor the Internet
By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | March 25, 2018
Students at the Israeli military’s Computing and Cyber Defense Academy. Israel is also “scouring Jewish communities abroad for young computer prodigies willing to join its ranks.”
Numerous well funded, organized projects by and for Israel work to flood social media with pro-Israel propaganda, while blocking facts Israel dislikes. The projects utilize Israeli soldiers, students, American teens and others, and range from infiltrating Wikipedia to influencing YouTube. Some operate out of Jewish Community Centers in the U.S.
[…]
Israeli soldiers paid to “Tweet, Share, Like and more”
Israel and partisans of Israel have long had a significant presence on the Internet, working to promote the Israel narrative and block facts about Palestine, the Israel lobby, and other subject matter they wish covered up.
Opinionated proponents of Israel post comments, flag content, accuse critics of “antisemitism,” and disseminate misinformation about Palestine and Palestine solidarity activists. Many of these actions are by individuals acting alone who work independently, voluntarily, and relentlessly.
In addition to these, however, a number of orchestrated, often well-funded projects sponsored by the Israeli government and others have come to light. These projects work to place pro-Israel content throughout the Internet, and to remove information Israel doesn’t wish people to know.
One such Israeli project targeting the Internet came to light when it was lauded in an article by Arutz Sheva, an Israeli news organization headquartered in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
The report described a new project by Israel’s “New Media desk” that focused on YouTube and other social media sites. The article reported that Israeli soldiers were being employed to “Tweet, Share, Like and more.”
The article noted, “It is well known nowadays that what happens on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has great influence on events as they occur on the ground. The Internet, too, is a battleground.” It was “comforting,” the article stated, to learn that the IDF was employing soldiers whose job was specifically to do battle on it. […]
Israeli media report that the Israeli military “has begun scouring Jewish communities abroad for young computer prodigies” to recruit for its ranks.
An Israeli official described the process: “Our first order of business is to search Jewish communities abroad for teens who could qualify, Our representatives will then travel to the communities and begin the screening process there.”
Israeli Government Ministry backs secret online campaigns
General Sima Vaknin-Gil told Israeli tech developers to “flood the Internet” with pro-Israel propaganda. As Israel’s Chief Censor, she said: ” “We censor information that is critical to our enemies, who have no capabilities like us, do not have a Jewish brain, and therefore our enemy relies to a large extent on open information…”
Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry, which is behind this and similar projects, has mobilized substantial resources for online activities.
Israel’s Ynet news reports that the Ministry’s director “sees it as a war for all intents and purposes. ‘The delegitimization against the State of Israel can be curbed and contained through public diplomacy and soft tools,’ she says. ‘In order to win, however, we must use tricks and craftiness.’”
The director, General Sima Vaknin-Gil, told a forum of Israeli tech developers at a forum: “I want to create a community of fighters.” The objective is to “curb the activities of anti-Israel activists,” and “flood the Internet” with pro-Israel content.
An Israeli report in December stated that the ministry has acquired a budget of roughly $70 million to “stand at the forefront of the battle against delegitimization, adopting methods from the fields of intelligence and technology. There is a reason why ministry officials define it as ‘a war on consciousness terrorism.’” [‘Delegitimization’ is a common Israeli term for criticism of Israel. See here for a discussion of the term.]
A Ha’aretz article reports: “The Strategic Affairs Ministry’s leaders see themselves as the heads of a commando unit, gathering and disseminating information about ‘supporters of the delegitimization of Israel’—and they prefer their actions be kept secret.”
The article reports that the Ministry includes a job role entitled “Senior official—new-media realm,” responsible for surveillance and activities “in the digital realm.”
This individual head is responsible for analyzing social media and formulating a social media campaign against sites and activists who are deemed a threat to Israel.
Among the job’s responsibilities are:
“Analysis of the world of social media, in terms of content, technology and network structure, emphasizing centers of gravity and focuses of influence, methods, messages, organizations, sites and key activists, studying their characteristics, areas, realms and key patterns of activities of the rival campaign and formulating a strategy for an awareness campaign against them in this realm and managing crises on social media. That is, surveilling of activities mainly in the digital arena.”
Officials at the ministry are charged with “construction and promotion of creative and suitable programs for new media.”
The unit works to keep its activities secret from the public. For example, a program to train young Israelis for activities on social media was exempted from publishing a public bid for funding. Similarly, the ministry’s special unit against delegitimization, “Hama’aracha” (The Battle), is excluded from Israel’s Freedom of Information Law.
Its activities reportedly include a “24/7 operations room monitoring all the delegitimization activities against Israel: Protests, conferences, publications calling for an anti-Israel boycott and international bodies’ boycott initiatives. The operations room will transfer the information to the relevant people to provide a proper response to these activities, whether through a counter-protest or through moves to thwart the initiative behind the scenes.”
Other programs include a 22-million-shekel project to work among labor unions and professional associations abroad “to root out the ability of BDS entities to influence the unions,” and a 16-million-shekel program focused on student activities throughout the world.
Israel’s UNIT 8200
Another Israeli entity that plays a role in covert Internet activity is the Israeli military’s legendary high-tech spy branch, Unit 8200. This unit is composed of thousands of “cyber warriors” primarily 18 to 21 years of age; some even younger. A number of its graduates have gone on to top positions at tech companies operating in the U.S., such as Check Point Software (where the spouse of the Jewish Voice for Peace head is employed as a solutions architect).
In 2015 Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced plans “to establish a special command to combat anti-Israel incitement on social media.” The command would operate under the foreign ministry’s hasbara [propaganda] department and would especially recruit from graduates of Unit 8200.
An article in the Jewish Press about the new command reports that Unit 8200 “has developed a great reputation for effectiveness in intelligence gathering, including operating a massive global spy network. Several alumni of 8200 have gone on to establish leading Israeli IT companies, including Check Point, ICQ, Palo Alto Networks, NICE, AudioCodes, Gilat, Leadspace, EZchip, Onavo, Singular and CyberArk.”
Check Point Software headquarters in Tel Aviv. Founded by a former Unit 8200 member, it also has offices throughout the U.S. Israeli tech companies sometimes assist in online spying efforts.
Numerous Israeli tech companies, many of them headed by former military intelligence officers, assist in these online spying efforts, sometimes receiving Israeli government funding “for digital initiatives aimed at gathering intelligence on activist groups and countering their efforts.”
According to the ministry’s statement, among the Command’s activities is “finding videos with inflammatory content and issuing complaints to the relevant websites.”
To be clear, this is an occupying military working covertly to achieve censorship of reporting on its atrocities. … Read full article at If Americans Knew
NEO has Come Under Attack
New Eastern Outlook | 25.03.2018
Dear readers,
We deeply regret the fact that readers have been unable to access NEO articles since March 19. This unpleasant fact was a direct result of a massive DDoS attack on our site, likely launched by Washington and its political allies in the West.
On one hand, it’s a truly regretful incident that demonstrates the true face of “American-style democracy” when thinking individuals are prevented access to alternative media through criminal means, illustrating the true state of affairs in the West and around the world as well.
On the other hand, this recent DDoS attack is a testament to the fact that the articles we present to readers leaves certain Western special interests sleepless. Such articles have helped expose their violations of international law in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and other countries where their agenda is being pushed forward by so-called soft power and armed aggression, while bringing bitter misery and death to hundreds of thousands of people.
We express our sincere gratitude to our authors who have been subjected to all sorts of discrimination over the years in various regions of the world for their efforts and contributions to NEO, exposing the troubled times of various nations, but nevertheless continue their humanitarian and educational activities.
However, it’s likely to get worse, as the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Heather Nauert has stated that the State Department believes that fighting Russia, Iran and China-based media sources to be its top priority. To bring down Russia-based media sources alone, US Congress is going to allocate 250 million dollars this year.
But it is highly unlikely that such measures will silence the alternative media, the family of which New Eastern Outlook has been a proud member. We are confident in your support and assistance in exposing the word of truth to more readers.
We would be grateful if those of you who also recently encountered similar oppressive measures of Western intelligence and government agencies, whether it was blocking of social media accounts or blogs for publishing truthful reports to share this information with us via our email – info@journal-neo.org. We are confident that by joining our efforts we can overcome the onslaught of the Western propaganda as the alternative media is prepared to overcame any obstacle to provide people of all countries with truthful and insightful reports.
We are also welcoming you to our social media pages, if you are willing to engage in discussions of our publications.
The New Eastern Outlook editorial board.
Gilad Atzmon Needs Your Immediate Support!
By Gilad Atzmon | March 16, 2018
I am being sued for libel in the High Court in England by Campaign Against Antisemitsm’s chairman Gideon Falter. I have made the decision to fight this crucial battle for freedom of expression even though this fight poses a real risk of bankrupting me and my family.
I choose to fight their suit because I believe that the CAA and its chairman and its use of libel laws pose a danger to freedom of speech and the future of this country as an open society. Enough is enough!
Mr. Falter has sued me for comments I made on my own website.
My comments were made in the context of expressing my opinion about the situation where, last July, The British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) attested that there had been no increase in anti-Semitism in Britain, and Gideon Falter and the CAA refused to accept the CPS’s verdict. Falter and the CAA insisted that anti Semitism was on the rise. Sky news reported on the discrepancies between the findings of CPS and the CAA.
My article focused on the choice examined by Sky News between two accounts, one maintained by Falter and the CAA, an NGO that is dedicated to prosecuting antisemitism with “zero tolerance”, and the judicial approach of the CPS: a public body, subject to scrutiny and committed to impartiality.
My comments about the CAA are the basis of their lawsuit. I believe that I have the right to express my opinions on my own website: freedom of political expression is at the heart of freedom of speech. Mr. Falter claims that my criticisms of him do not amount to an opinion at all, and is seeking an order that would stop me from saying anything similar about him again, as well as paying him huge sums in libel damages and legal costs.
The CAA has contacted Jazz venues, community centres, concert halls and even overseas companies demanding that my events be cancelled. They have now escalated this battle and if they win this will ruin me financially. … continue
Art and history paid for to shape opinions about military
By Yves Engler · March 15, 2018
Would it surprise you to learn the Canadian military spends millions on art and history?
Until April the Canadian War Museum is hosting an exhibition of war art from the Ukraine created through the Canadian Forces Artists Program (CFAP). In 2014–15 eight artists were sent to observe Operation UNIFIER, Canada’s “training” mission to support Ukraine’s armed forces.
Until April the Canadian Forces Artists Program (CFAP) is hosting an exhibition of war art from the Ukraine created through the Canadian Forces Artists Program (CFAP). In 2014–15 eight artists were sent to observe Operation UNIFIER, Canada’s “training” mission to support Ukraine’s armed forces.
The purpose of CFAP is to “encourage artists to learn more about our men and women in uniform and to create works of art that document and explore Canada’s military history and experience.” The program pays for artists to spend 7-10 days in the field with troops to document their activities.
While CFAP began in 2001, there have been various iterations of the program over the past century. During World War I, for instance, Canada’s official war art program created almost 1,000 works of art. During WWII the head of the Army’s historical section, Colonel A. F. Duguid, initiated a war art program and over the years the Canadian forces have commissioned sketches of the Korean War, NATO missions, UN operations and the first Gulf War.
Today CFAP is run by the Department of National Defence’s Directorate of History and Heritage. With a 50-person staff, the Directorate also supports the Organization of Military Museums of Canada. The half-century old organization seeks “to preserve the military heritage of Canada by encouraging the establishment and operation of military museums.” Along with more than 60 Canadian Forces’ museums, the Directorate supports the Canadian War Museum.
DND’s Directorate of History and Heritage is “mandated to preserve and communicate Canada’s military history and foster pride in a Canadian military heritage.” They answer “1,000 questions of an historical nature” annually, helping high school students with assignments and academics navigate archival inquiries. The Directorate also works with the media. In the early 1990s, for instance, senior military historian Brereton Greenhous was a special advisor during production of the CBC film Dieppe 1942. Similarly, director of the historical section Charles Stacey vetted Canada At War, the first television miniseries to document Canada’s part in the Second World War, before the National Film Board produced program played on CBC.
The Directorate’s historians also help veterans exert political pressure. After a backlash to a Canadian War Museum exhibit that mentioned the WWII Allied Bomber Command targeting civilians, senior DND historian Serge Bernier was asked to write a report. Bernier concluded the exhibit was hurtful to the veterans.
The Directorate’s roots date back to the end of World War I when the Department of Militia and Defence established a historical section. In Clio’s Warriors: Canadian Historians and the Writing of the World Wars Tim Cook writes, “it has been the official historians of the Department of National Defence who, for much of the 20th century, have controlled the academic writing on the two world wars.” But, official historians’ influence has extended far beyond the “Great Wars”. In 1919 the historical section published the first in a three-volume series titled “A history of the organization, development and services of the military and naval forces of Canada from the peace of Paris in 1763, to the present time.” Immediately after the Korean War official historians wrote two books on the subject and published another in 1966. (Academics all but failed to revisit Canada’s role in Korea until the late 1990s.)
The minister approves publication of Directorate books. On several occasions cabinet has discussed and recommended changes to their histories.
Official historians published a large share of the early books on Canadian militarism and greatly influenced academia. The Directorate was the “graduate school in military history”, notes DND historian William A. Douglas, until “university departments started producing postgraduates.” In the two decades after World War II individuals who worked in the military’s historical sections filled many academic posts in military history and associated fields. And they were often influential in their field. Head of the War Artist Program and deputy-director of the Historical Section at Canadian Army Headquarters in London, George Stanley led the history department at the Royal Military College after World War II. During his career Stanley was president of the Canadian Historical Association, a member of the Massey Commission Committee on Historic Sites and Monuments and chairman of the federal government’s Centennial Publications Committee.
At the military-run Royal Military College Stanley taught Jack Granatstein and Desmond Morton. These two individuals, who both worked in DND’s historical section, have published hundreds of books and articles on Canadian military history and foreign policy.
A military historian for two decades, Colonel Charles Stacey has had “more influence on how Canadians view their nation’s military history” than any other individual. Director of the army’s historical section for 14 years after WWII, he published a dozen books and in 2000 Granatstein wrote that Stacey’s “books continue to be read and to have great influence on military and foreign policy historians.”
Turns out the military wants to control what you think about them and are willing to spend your tax dollars to do it.
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Book Review
Alarmist climate science as a textbook example of groupthink
By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012
… Groupthink was extensively studied by Yale psychologist Irving L. Janis and described in his 1982 book Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.
Janis was curious about how teams of highly intelligent and motivated people—the “best and the brightest” as David Halberstam called them in his 1972 book of the same name—could have come up with political policy disasters like the Vietnam War, Watergate, Pearl Harbor and the Bay of Pigs. Similarly, in 2008 and 2009, we saw the best and brightest in the world’s financial sphere crash thanks to some incredibly stupid decisions, such as allowing sub-prime mortgages to people on the verge of bankruptcy.
In other words, Janis studied why and how groups of highly intelligent professional bureaucrats and, yes, even scientists, screw up, sometimes disastrously and almost always unnecessarily. The reason, Janis believed, was “groupthink.” He quotes Nietzsche’s observation that “madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups,” and notes that groupthink occurs when “subtle constraints … prevent a [group] member from fully exercising his critical powers and from openly expressing doubts when most others in the group appear to have reached a consensus.”[2]
Janis found that even if the group leader expresses an openness to new ideas, group members value consensus more than critical thinking; groups are thus led astray by excessive “concurrence-seeking behavior.”[3] Therefore, Janis wrote, groupthink is “a model of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”[4]
The groupthink syndrome
The result is what Janis calls “the groupthink syndrome.” This consists of three main categories of symptoms:
1. Overestimate of the group’s power and morality, including “an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their actions.” [emphasis added]
2. Closed-mindedness, including a refusal to consider alternative explanations and stereotyped negative views of those who aren’t part of the group’s consensus. The group takes on a “win-lose fighting stance” toward alternative views.[5]
3. Pressure toward uniformity, including “a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view”; “direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes”; and “the emergence of self-appointed mind-guards … who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.”[6]
It’s obvious that alarmist climate science—as explicitly and extensively revealed in the Climatic Research Unit’s “Climategate” emails—shares all of these defects of groupthink, including a huge emphasis on maintaining consensus, a sense that because they are saving the world, alarmist climate scientists are beyond the normal moral constraints of scientific honesty (“overestimation of the group’s power and morality”), and vilification of those (“deniers”) who don’t share the consensus. … Read full article
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Trump Taps Israel Lobbyist From Mossad Cutout FDD To Join Iran Negotiations
- Trump’s Blockade Snatches Defeat from the Jaws of Victory
- Geopolitics and Geoeconomics of the Strait of Hormuz
- Mali: a new front in the Western war on multipolarism
- CHD Scientist: CDC, FDA COVID Vaccine Safety Monitoring ‘Insulting, and Many People Are Injured’
- COVID Conniving Receives First Federal Indictment
- Iran Blockade Complications /Lt Col Daniel Davis & Nima Alkhorshid
- Pirates of Mediterranean: Israel does as it pleases in the Sea of Three Continents
- Minab children massacre not ‘unfortunate situation’ but ‘heinous war crime’: Tehran
- OPCW Forced To Pay Damages To Whistleblower Who Found Evidence Of False Flag In Syria
- If Americans Knew
- US set to sell $1B “Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System” to Israel – Daily Update
- Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 32 Across S Lebanon, Including Children – Amid “Ceasefire”
- Israel to pour $730m into propaganda arm amid reputational crisis
- Real Cost of Iran War Likely Double the $25 Billion Figure the Pentagon Gave to Congress
- Israel conducts farthest-ever strike in long history of attacks on Gaza humanitarian aid flotillas
- In Gaza, Israel commits 10+ ceasefire violations a day – Daily Update
- US ships 6,500 tons of munitions, equipment to Israel in 24 hours
- A New Library in Gaza Rises From the Ashes of Destruction
- Israel’s top Jewish religious body ‘refuses to condemn’ smashing of Jesus statue
- Nun assaulted in Jerusalem amid ‘pattern’ of anti-Christian attacks by Israelis
- No Tricks Zone
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
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