Wired’s Fake-News Suggests Russia Plotting to Cut Trans-Atlantic Internet Cables
By Robert BRIDGE | Strategic Culture Foundation | 10.01.2018
Well, that didn’t take long. Just five days into 2018, and the American fake news industry is already up and running, churning out tasteless whoppers faster than Burger King.
Wired magazine has joined the greasy ranks of other Western mythmakers now fueling a black wave of anti-Russia hysteria by mass-producing never-ending unsubstantiated claims and outright lies against the Kremlin.
The article begins with a doomsday scenario involving some “terrorist organization or nefarious nation” making the reckless decision to cut the undersea fiber optic cables that connect people across the world. So out of all the numerous diabolical groups that now populate the planet, who did Wired nominate as the most likely to pull off such a wanton act of sabotage? Yes, you got it. Putin’s Russia.
The obvious question for any rational thinking person is: Why would Russia do such a thing? Because, according to Wired, the Russian Navy has been “repeatedly caught snooping near the cables” that run along the entire expanse of the North Atlantic Ocean. Wired conveniently fails to remind its readers, however, that any country with a naval force would be forced to pass these lines on numerous occasions in the course of its travels. But acknowledging as much would be putting facts before fiction, and of course we can’t have that.
So where does Wired get its information regarding these latest nefarious plans on the part of Russia? From yet another purveyor of Russian fake news – arguably second only to the Washington Post – the New York Times.
“Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of tension or conflict,” the Times breathlessly reported back in 2015.
However, just like the fake news of ‘Russia hacking the 2016 US presidential elections,’ don’t expect any evidence to support the claims. In fact, the Times admits as much in the third paragraph.
“While there is no evidence yet of any cable cutting, the concern is part of a growing wariness among senior American and allied military and intelligence officials over the accelerated activity by Russian armed forces around the globe.”
Well, now we’re getting somewhere. What really seems to be annoying the Americans is not some sort of outlandish attack on the Internet by Russia, but the fact that the Russian military is now a force to reckon with.
It is also worth noting that the Times article appeared just one month after Vladimir Putin committed the Russian military in September 2015 to fighting against Islamic State forces in Syria – following a formal request by Syrian President Bashar Assad. Some might call that curious timing.
So what exactly would Russia stand to gain from cutting these undersea cables? Absolutely nothing. In fact, as even Wired was gracious enough to admit – albeit buried far at sea in its hit piece – is that any cutting of the cables would be more injurious to Russia than most other countries.
“… Russia’s epic hypothetical cable attack would primarily harm its own people,” according to a Telegeography senior analyst Jonathan Hjembo, as quoted by the magazine. “It would hurt the Russians perhaps even more than it would hurt [Americans]. They’re far more dependent on international networks than we are, because so much of our content is stored locally.”
In fact, Wired was forced to admit that the greatest threat to the undersea cables is not Russia, the bogeyman of nearly every Western publication in circulation, but fishermen and scavengers.
Wired retold the story of one elderly woman who accidentally cut through an underground cable “while scavenging for copper,” cutting off Armenia’s entire internet access, leaving the country offline for five hours.
Yet despite those admissions, and the absolute lack of any incentive on the part of Russia to commit such an act of folly, Wired bowed out of its story with a parting shot at “Putin’s Russia” anyways.
“There have also been no ruptures attributed to Russian aggression. It appears that Putin has largely left the undersea cables alone, at least for now.”
Clearly, as this ridiculously flimsy article illustrates, without any shame, there will be no pause in the anti-Russia propaganda mudslinging in the New Year.
Surrounded by Neocons
They are all the news that fits
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • January 9, 2018
Award winning journalist James Risen has recently described in some detail his sometimes painful relationship with The New York Times. His lengthy account is well worth reading as it demonstrates how successive editors of the paper frequently cooperated with the government to suppress stories on torture and illegal activity while also self-censoring to make sure that nothing outside the framework provided by the “war on terror” should be seriously discussed. It became a faithful lap dog for an American role as global hegemon, promoting government half-truths and suppressing information that it knew to be true but which would embarrass the administration in power, be they Democrats or Republicans.
If one were to obtain a similar insider account of goings-on at the other national “newspaper of record”, The Washington Post, it is quite likely that comparable trimming of the narrative also took place. To be sure, the Post is worse than the Times, characterized by heavily editorializing in its news coverage without necessarily tipping off the reader when “facts” end and speculation begins. In both publications, stories about Iran or Russia routinely begin with an assertion that Moscow interfered in the 2016 U.S. election and that Iran is the aggressor in the Middle East, contentions that have not been demonstrated and can easily be challenged. Both publications also have endorsed every American war since 2001, including Iraq, Libya and the current mess in Syria, one indication of the quality of their reporting and analysis.
A recent op-ed in the Times by Bret Stephens is a perfect example of warmongering mischief wrapped in faux expert testimony to make it palatable. Stephens is the resident neocon at the Times. He was brought over from the Wall Street Journal when it was determined that his neocon colleague David Brooks had become overly squishy, while the resident “conservative” Russ Douthat had proven to be a bit too cautious and even rational to please the increasingly hawkish senior editors.
Stephens’ article, entitled Finding the Way Forward on Iran sparkles with throwaway gems like “Tehran’s hyperaggressive foreign policy in the wake of the 2015 nuclear deal” and “Real democracies don’t live in fear of their own people” and even “it’s not too soon to start rethinking the way we think about Iran.” Or try “A better way of describing Iran’s dictatorship is as a kleptotheocracy, driven by impulses that are by turns doctrinal and venal.”
Bret has been a hardliner on Iran for years. Early on in this op-ed he makes very clear that he wants it to be dealt with forcibly because it has “centrifuges, ballistic missiles, enriched uranium [and] fund[s] Hezbollah, assist Bashar al-Assad, arm[s] the Houthis, [and] imprison[s] the occasional British or American citizen.” He describes how Iran is a very corrupt place run by religious leaders and Revolutionary Guards and proposes that their corruption be exposed so that the Iranian people can take note and rise up in anger. And if exposure doesn’t work, they should be hammered with sanctions. He does not explain why sanctions, which disproportionately hurt the people he expects to rise up, will bring about any real change.
Stephens cites two of his buddies Ken Weinstein of the Hudson Institute and Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), who are apparently experts on how to squeeze Iran. Weinstein prefers exposing the misdeeds of the Mullahs to anger the Iranian people while Dubowitz prefers punitive sanctions “for corruption.”
The article does not reveal that Weinstein and Dubowitz are long time critics of Iran, are part of the Israel Lobby and just happen to be Jewish, as is Stephens. The Hudson Institute and the FDD are leading neocon and pro-Israel fronts. So my question becomes, “Why Iran?” The often-heard Israeli complaint about its being unfairly picked on could reasonably be turned on its head in asking the same about Iran. In fact, Iran compares favorably with Israel. It has no nuclear weapons, it does not support any of the Sunni terrorist groups that are chopping heads, and it has not disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of people that it rules over. The fact is that Iran is being targeted because Israel sees it as its prime enemy in the region and has corrupted many “opinion makers” in the U.S., to include Stephens, to hammer home that point. To be sure, Iran is a very corrupt place run by people who should not be running a hot dog stand, but the same applies to the United States and Israel. And there are lots of places that are not being targeted like Iran that are far worse, including good friend and ally of both Jerusalem and Washington, Saudi Arabia.
Oddly enough Stephens, Weinstein and Dubowitz do not get into any of that back story, presumably because it would be unseemly. And, of course and unfortunately, the New York Times opinion page is not unique. An interesting recent podcast interview by Politico‘s Chief International Affairs correspondent Susan Glasser with leading neoconservatives Eliot Cohen and Max Boot, is typical of how the media selectively shapes a narrative to suit its own biases. Glasser, Cohen and Boot are all part of the establishment foreign policy consensus in the U.S. and therefore both hate and fail to understand the Trump phenomenon. Both Cohen and Booth were vociferous founding members of the #NeverTrump foreign policy resistance movement.
Boot describes the new regime’s foreign policy as “kowtow[ing] to dictators and undermin[ing] American support for freedom and democracy around the world,” typical neocon leitmotifs. Glasser appears to be in love with her interviewees and hurls softball after softball. She describes Boot as “fantastic” and Cohen receives the epithet “The Great.” The interview itself is remarkably devoid of any serious discussion of foreign policy and is essentially a sustained assault on Trump while also implicitly supporting hardline national security positions. Cohen fulminates about “a very serious Russian attack on the core of our political system. I mean, I don’t know how you get more reckless and dangerous than that,” while Boot asks what “has to be done” about Iran.
Pompous ass Cohen, who interjected in the interview that “and you know, Max and I are both intellectuals,” notably very publicly refused to have any part in a Trump foreign policy team during the campaign but later when The Donald was actually elected suggested that the new regime might approach him with humility to offer a senior position and he just might condescend to join them. They did not do so, and he wrote an angry commentary on their refusal.
Hating Trump is one thing, but I would bet that if the question of a hardline policy vis-à-vis Russia or the Jerusalem Embassy move had come up Cohen and Boot would have expressed delight. The irony is that Trump is in fact pursuing a basically neocon foreign policy which the two men would normally support, but they appear to be making room for Trump haters in the policy formulation process to push the national security consensus even farther to the right. Indeed, in another article by Boot at Foreign Policy he writes “I applaud Trump’s decisions to provide Ukraine with arms to defend itself from Russian aggression, to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, to send additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and to accelerate former President Barack Obama’s strategy for fighting the Islamic State.” Cohen meanwhile applauds the embassy move, though he warns that Trump’s success in so doing might embolden him to do something reckless over North Korea.
Perhaps one should not be astonished that leading neocons appearing in the mainstream media will continue to have their eyes on the ball and seek for more aggressive engagement in places like Iran and Russia. The media should be faulted because it rarely publishes any contrary viewpoint and it also consistently fails to give any space to the considerable downside to the agitprop. It must be reassuring for many Americans to know that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is preparing itself to deal with the aftermath of a nuclear attack on the United States and it will be sharing information on the appropriate preparations with the American people. There will be a public session on how to prepare for a nuclear explosion on January 16th.
CDC experts will consider “planning and preparation efforts” for such a strike. “While a nuclear detonation is unlikely, it would have devastating results and there would be limited time to take critical protection steps,” the Center elaborated in its press release on the event.
That the United States should be preparing for a possible nuclear future can in part be attributed to recent commentary by the “like, really smart” and “very stable genius” who is the nation’s chief executive, but the fuel being poured on the fire for war is from the very same neocons who are featured in the mainstream media as all-purpose experts and have succeeded in selling the snake oil about America’s proper role as aggressor-in-chief for the entire world. It would be an unparalleled delight to be able to open a newspaper and not see Bret Stephens, Eliot Cohen, Max Boot or even the redoubtable Bill Kristol grinning back from the editorial page, but I suppose I am only dreaming.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Scientific American, Global Warming & Iran
Penny For Your Thoughts | January 8, 2018
Today there are claims being made that the Iran Protests are Due to “Global Warming”- Seriously, this is the absolute baloney, garbage, nonsense that is being put forth as the reason for these protests.
Scientific American no less. Wild speculation at it’s most crazeeeee….
“Barbara Slavin, director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council.
She said the role of climate change on the protests is “massive” and under-reported by the media.
This exact same claim was made regarding Syria, by self proclaimed authority figures and regurgitated by agenda pushing 5 eyes msm and alt media. Though it was later clarified that the scientific evidence for the Syrian claim was so thin as to be considered tenuous. Tenous: lacking a sound basis, as reasoning; unsubstantiated; weak: Yah, tenuous sounds exactly right!
Another AGW Lie Bites the Dust:“Climate Change Fuelled Syrian War”
“There is no sound evidence that global climate change was a factor in sparking the Syrian civil war,” said University of Sussex Professor Jan Selby, one of the study’s co-authors, in a statement.
“It is extraordinary that this claim has been so widely accepted when the scientific evidence is so thin.”
A lack of evidence never stops liars from lying. Same spin, different destabilization campaign.
English Translation of Udo Ulfkotte’s “Bought Journalists” Suppressed?
Cover of the English language edition of Udo Ulfkotte’s book
By James Tracy | OffGuardian | January 8, 2108
The English translation of German journalist Udo Ulfkotte’s best-selling book, Gekaufte Journalisten (Bought Journalists) appears to have been suppressed throughout North America and Europe.
On May 15, 2017 Next Revelation Press, an imprint of US-Canadian-based publisher Tayen Lane, released the English version of Bought Journalists, under the title, Journalists for Hire: How the CIA Buys the News.
Tayen Lane has since removed any reference to the title from its website. Correspondingly Amazon.com indicates the title is “currently unavailable,” with opportunities to purchase from independent sellers offering used copies for no less than $1309.09.[note from OffG- we also checked on Amazon UK, as of January 7 2018 the book is unavailable there too]
The book’s subject matter and unexplained disappearance from the marketplace suggest how powerful forces are seeking to prevent its circulation.
Gekaufte Journalisten was almost completely ignored by mainstream German news media following its release in 2014. “No German mainstream journalist is allowed to report about [my] book,” Ulfkotte observed:
Otherwise he or she will be sacked. So we have a bestseller now that no German journalist is allowed to write or talk about.{1]
Along these lines, publication of the English translation was repeatedly delayed. When this author contacted Ulfkotte in early December 2015 to inquire on the book’s pending translation, he responded,
Please find the link to the English edition here http://www.tayenlane.com/bought-journalists
The above address, once providing the book’s description and anticipated publication date, now leads to an empty page.[2] Tayen Lane has not responded to emails or telephone calls requesting an explanation for the title’s disappearance.
When a book publisher determines that it has acquired a politically volatile or otherwise “troublesome” title it may embark on a process recognized in the industry as “privishing.” “Privishing is a portmanteau meaning to privately publish, as opposed to true publishing that is open to the public,” writes investigative journalist Gerald Colby.
It is usually employed in the following context: “We privished the book so that it sank without a trace.” The mechanism used is simple: cut off the book’s life-support system by reducing the initial print run so that the book “cannot price profitably according to any conceivable formula,” refuse to do reprints, drastically slash the book’s advertising budget, and all but cancel the promotional tour.”[3]
Privishing often takes place without the author knowing, simply because it involves breach of contract and potential liability.
Tayen Lane will likely not face any legal challenge in this instance, however. Ulfkotte died of a heart attack on January 13, 2017, at age 56.[4]
Udo Ulfkotte was a prominent European journalist, social scientist, and immigration reform activist. Upon writing Gekaufte Journalisten and becoming one of the most significant media industry and deep state whistleblowers in recent history, Ulfkotte complained of repeated home searches by German state police and expressed fear for his own life. He also admitted previous health complications stemming from witnessing a 1988 poisoned gas attack in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Ulfkotte’s testimony of how intelligence agencies figure centrally in Western journalism is especially compelling because he for many years functioned in the higher echelons of mainstream newsworkers.
The German journalist explains how he was recruited during the 1980s to work in espionage. This began through an invitation proffered by his graduate school advisor for an all-expense-paid trip to attend a two-week seminar on the Cold War conflict in Bonn.
After Ulfkotte obtained his doctorate he was given a job as a reporter at “the leading conservative German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, oddly appointed despite no journalistic training and hundreds of other applicants.
Serving as a correspondent throughout the Middle East, Ulfkotte eventually became acquainted with agents from the CIA, German intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Britain’s MI6, and Israel’s Mossad, all of whom valued his ability to travel freely in countries largely closed to the West.
His editors readily collaborated in such intelligence gathering operations,”[5] for which journalist possess “non-official cover” by virtue of their profession.
“Non-official cover” occurs when a journalist is essentially working for the CIA, but it’s not in an official capacity,” Ulfkotte explains.
This allows both parties to reap the rewards of the partnership, while at the same time giving both sides plausible deniability. The CIA will find young journalists and mentor them. Suddenly doors will open up, rewards will be given, and before you know it, you owe your entire career to them. That’s essentially how it works.[6]
He likewise ruefully admits to
publishing articles under my own name written by agents of the CIA and other intelligence services, especially the German secret service.[7]
Ulfkotte’s insider knowledge of the relationship between mainstream media and the intelligence community has special relevance in terms of informing the CIA’s antipathy toward Wikileaks, as well as the media campaign centering on the Trump administration’s alleged “ties to Russia,” while also lending credence to Trump’s frequent claims of the US media’s political biases and deep state ties. Indeed, Ulfkotte “Tweeted” about these very subjects just two days before he passed.
Ulfkotte’s explosive revelations still have the potential to further intensify the much-deserved scrutiny corporate news media presently face. In a society that pays more than lip service to freedom of thought and expression Journalists for Hire would be required reading for college students—and particularly those studying in journalism programs intending to seek employment in the media industries.
In fact, journalism professors, some of whom have migrated to the academy following long careers at renowned news outlets, possess similar insider knowledge of the relationships Ulfkotte readily explains. As both journalists and educators they have a twofold burden of responsibility. This is the case more so than ever because the entire professional and intellectual enterprise they are engaged in (and one directly linked to the nation’s accelerating civic deterioration) has been made a farce.
Journalists for Hire’s suppression suggests how Ulfkotte’s posthumous censors refuse for this important examination and cleansing to proceed.
Notes
[1] Ralph Lopez, “Editor of Major German Newspaper Says He Planted Stories for CIA,” Reader Supported News, February 1, 2015.
[2] Udo Ulfkotte to James Tracy, email correspondence, December 6, 2015. In author’s possession.
[3] Gerard Colby, “The Price of Liberty,” in Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press, Kristina Borjesson, ed., Amherst NY: Prometheus Books, 2002, 15-16.
[4] Former US military intelligence officer L. Fletcher Prouty relates a similar experience of how publication of his book, The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World, was greeted in 1972. “Then one day a business associate in Seattle called to tell me that the bookstore next to his office building had had a window full of books the day before, and none the day of his call. They claimed they had never had the book. I called other associates around the country. I got the same story from all over the country. The paperback had vanished. At the same time I learned that Mr. Ballantine had sold his company. I traveled to New York to visit the new ‘Ballantine Books’ president. He professed to know nothing about me, and my book … The campaign to to kill the book was nationwide and worldwide. It was removed from the Library of Congress and from College libraries as letters I received attested all too frequently.” Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World, New York: SkyHorse Publishing, 2008, xii.
[5] Ronald L. Ray, “Reporter Admits Most Media Work for CIA, MI6, Mossad,” American Free Press, October 26, 2014. See also Tyler Durden, “German Journalist Blows Whistle on How CIA Controls the Media,” Zerohedge, October 9, 2014; Udo Ulfkotte, “German Politicians Are US Puppets,” Center for Research on Globalization, November 9., 2014.
[6] Durden, op. cit.
[7] Lopez, op. cit.
Did BBC team responsible for faked footage of Syrian chemical attack travel under terrorist protection?
By Catte | OffGuardian | January 6, 2018
Most of our readers are now more than familiar with the bizarre events surrounding the BBC Panorama program Saving Syria’s Children. We’ve already returned to this story several times. The possibility that this program presented faked footage of a non-existent chemical attack by government troops on a school in Syria has been meticulously documented by independent researcher Robert Stuart over several years.
But a further twist to the story seems to show that the crew who filmed this questionable footage were being escorted and protected during their sojourn in Syria, by members of a jihadist terrorist group affiliated to Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda and ISIS.
The evidence, on the face of it, seems damning.
Ten minutes, 18 seconds into the program (which can be seen here) the film crew record a car journey, with the two British doctors featured in the program, to “see what medical care is available for children closer to where the fighting is”. At one point the journalist Ian Pannell can be heard in voice over saying:
Western journalists have been targeted in Syria, so I have to travel with my own security. The doctors are able to be more low key and take their own vehicles.
As he speaks we see Pannell himself, presumably filmed by his cameraman Darren Conway, in a car, part of a convoy, accompanied by armed men. We also see the hood of one of the cars in the convoy several times and pretty clearly. It has a logo on it. This is it:
The inset on the right is the logo of Ahrar-al-Sham.
In case you’re wondering, this is the same Ahrar-al-Sham identified by a Human Rights Watch report in October 2013 as participants in the killing of women and children (see “You Can Still See Their Blood” – Executions, Indiscriminate Shootings, and Hostage Taking by Opposition Forces in Latakia Countryside.). The report details the slaughter of nearly 200 civilians “including 57 women and at least 18 children and 14 elderly men” by opposition forces including Ahrar al-Sham on August 4 2013.
It was just 19 days after this massacre – on August 23 – that Ian Pannell and cameraman Darren Conway (now an OBE) apparently decided Ahrar-al-Sham were the go-to ’security’ guys for them. The documentary further shows Pannell, Conway and their chums being waved through ISIS road blocks without a hitch. This is the same ISIS who – allegedly – had declared war on all westerners and were prone to cutting off their heads (though in 2013 this hadn’t become the media meme it later became). Our boys are apparently welcome deep in ISIS territory, with no worries about repercussions.
This is probably explained by the fact Ahrar-al-Sham, according to Stanford University’s Mapping Militant Program, “worked with the Islamic State (IS) until January 2014″.
But maybe the contact with terrorists was fleeting and almost accidental? Well, below are two images that tell a story. The top one is a screencap from Saving Syria’s Children. The man outlined in red is the “Fixer/Translator” for the program, Mughira Al-Sharif, and he is shown driving Pannell’s convoy car (Pannell himself can be seen second from right next to the window in the back). Mughira is seen again in the bottom image in a photograph taken the same day and shared on Instagram. Also with him in this pic, and looking remarkably chummy, are two members of the Ahrar-al-Sham security detail who can be seen in Pannell’s car. Mughira described these men in his Instagram post as ‘friends’. That post was subsequently deleted.
(Above) Fixer/Translator Mughira Al-Sharif driving Ian Pannell’s convoy saloon car in Saving Syria’s Children. Pannell is second from right. (Below) Al Sharif poses with two of the Ahrar al-Sham men in an Instagram post of the same day, describing them as “friends”. The post was subsequently deleted.
Let’s be clear – these “friends’ of Mughira’s could well have taken part in the recent slaughter discussed above, and must, at very least, be assumed to support the mass murder of innocent people. And this man Mughira is employed by Pannell as his guide and helper in making their documentary.
Why are a supposedly distinguished and professional BBC journalist and his crew working with allies of ISIS? Why are they using them as their ‘security’? Why are they comfortable tooling round Syria in a car festooned with jihadist logos? Why did they end up producing a documentary using highly questionable footage to promote UK intervention against the elected government of Syria?
Did neither they nor their employers at the BBC realise what they were doing?
Or did they know and think it was just dandy?
When is the BBC – and Ian Pannell and Darren Conway(OBE) – going to answer these and the many other questions hanging over this program and their credibility?
Beijing responds to report of secret aid to North Korea with two words
‘Fake news’
Asia Times | January 3, 2018
An unverified report that Beijing was negotiating a secret deal with Pyongyang, published on Tuesday by the Washington Free Beacon, and syndicated by the Washington Times newspaper, has not gained much traction beyond that spattering of conservative American news outlets, garnering only a healthy dose of skepticism.
Not surprisingly, China was also not interested.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang responded Wednesday to a Chinese-language question on the report with two words – in English.
“Fake news,” Geng was quoted as saying in the official transcript of Wednesday’s regular press breifing. Next question, please.
The “top secret” document published in the report was purported to be from “a person who once had ties to the Chinese intelligence and security communities,” whatever that means, but the author also said he could not independently verify the document.
The question we posed yesterday is whether conservative media’s reporting of the document as newsworthy will pique Trump’s interest, regardless of its veracity. If the report was true, it makes Trump look like he was played like a fiddle, so he might be careful not to draw attention.
We might also see if the US president buys the “fake news” line — which he uses exclusively to lambast hostile liberal media — when it is used against conservative media supportive of his administration.
Storm Eleanor’s “100 MPH Winds” – Fake News From The Telegraph
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | January 3, 2018
Storm Eleanor has lashed the UK with violent storm-force winds of up to 100mph, leaving thousands of homes without power and hitting transport links.
Gusts of 100mph were recorded at Great Dun Fell in Cumbria at 1am.
Wow! Hurricane force winds, as has been reported elsewhere.
Only one slight problem though. Great Dun Fell is the second highest mountain in England’s Pennines , and the weather station is sat at the very top, at an altitude of 847m.
Even then, mean wind speeds only reached 75 mph.
At nearby Warcop, just seven miles away and at an altitude of 224m, wind speed never got above 29 mph, a “strong breeze” on the Beaufort Scale.
This all comes from a Press Association report, which in turn appears to have been fed by the Met Office.
Why the Met Office should decide to deliberately mislead the public is anybody’s guess.
The Telegraph goes on to mention that 77mph gusts were recorded in High Bradfield, South Yorkshire.
I live 5 miles away from High Bradfield, and it was no more than a bit windy. So it won’t come as any surprise that High Bradfield is also a high altitude site, high up in the Peak District at 395m.
The nearest site with up to date data, according to the Met Office, is Watnall, 32 miles away in Nottinghamshire.
There wind speeds only reached 24 mph, a “Fresh Breeze” on the Beaufort Scale.
Even in Southern Scotland, the area worst affected in Britain, where the Met Office reported gusts of 72 mph high up on exposed cliffs above the Solway near Dundrennan, the mean wind speed peaked at 54 mph, still only a “Strong Gale”.
The headline claim that Storm Eleanor has lashed the UK with violent storm-force winds of up to 100mph is quite fraudulent.
Word of the Day…
By Mark Doran | January 3, 2018
If there’s one thing that the West’s state-corporate media loves to report, it’s public protest within a non-compliant country — people demonstrating against a government that has refused to roll over in the face of US aggression and greed.
If you’re in the habit of examining these media reports, you’ll often find that there’s a particular word which gets used a lot.
Here are a few highly topical examples; see if you can work out which word it is…
Iranians protesting the country’s strained economy gathered in Tehran and another major city on Friday, for the second day of spontaneous, unsanctioned demonstrations […] (US, Associated Press, via Washington Post, 29 Dec 2017)
A wave of spontaneous protests over Iran’s weak economy swept into Tehran on Saturday, with college students and others chanting against the government… (UK, Associated Press, via Mail Online, 30 Dec 2017)
Unauthorized, spontaneous protests engulfed Iran’s major cities for a third straight day on Saturday as what started out as demonstrations over rising prices seem to have taken a decidedly anti-government tone. (Slate.com, 30 Dec 2017)
Pro-government Iranians rallied in Tehran Saturday following spontaneous angry protests in the capital and other major cities. (US, Fox News with Associated Press, 30 Dec 2017)
A relatively small protest on Thursday in Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city . . . unexpectedly gave impetus to a wave of spontaneous protests spreading across provinces. (UK, Guardian, 31 Dec 2017)
Protests seem to be spontaneous and lack a clear leader. (Australia, ABC Radio Australia, 1 Jan 2018)
Yes: the Word of the Day is spontaneous.
As far as our state-corporate media and its ubiquitous anti-journalism are concerned, this is one of the most fascinating adjectives we ever see. Let’s take a moment to examine its use…
For a start, how would anyone really know — and so quickly, too! — that these foreign protests, these far-away demonstrations were all ‘spontaneous’? Are thousands of protestors across Iran currently in touch with hundreds of Western journalists — and constantly insisting on the utter spontaneity of everything they do?
No, they aren’t. And even if they were, why would anyone with any sense believe they were telling the truth?
The reality is, of course, that ‘spontaneous’ is a propaganda word, purely manipulative. It’s there to achieve three different but related aims — every one of which serves the imperialist agendas of the Western elites.
First, it helps to create the encouraging impression of an Official Enemy in Deep Trouble. If the media unites in painting a given set of protests as ‘spontaneous‘, then the illusion can be manufactured that ‘the population as a whole‘ is ‘angrily turning against‘ the obstructive government that the West is so selfishly anxious to see removed. ‘Clearly, this vile regime is tottering! Stay focused, everyone! Our corporations will be gang-raping the place in no time!‘
Secondly, ‘spontaneous’ protests are by far the best kind when it comes to ‘justifying’ illegal and destructive ‘intervention’ in a non-compliant country. How ‘desperate‘ an oppressed population must be if it ‘takes to the streets’ in ‘spontaneous protests’! How ‘close to the edge‘ those people must feel to be ‘finally overcoming their fear‘ and ‘actually calling for change‘! ‘Those people can’t take much more of this! For God’s sake, we have to do something! How about we try more economic warfare — plus humanitarian bombing? Agreed…?‘
Thirdly, it’s a word that’s designed to take the most important thought of all … and drive it far away from everyone’s mind. For what, ultimately, the word ‘spontaneous‘ says is: ‘Do not for a moment consider the probability that this is happening as part of a carefully co-ordinated and externally funded regime-change operation. Don’t even think about it! It’s all just SPONTANEOUS, d’you hear!‘
And if you won’t listen to me, pay attention to Nikki Haley, the Novelty Talking Insect currently doubling as the Trump Administration’s ‘Ambassador to the United Nations’…
See…?
For the rest — and just in case anyone still refuses to believe how indispensable a weapon is the word ‘spontaneous’ in the armoury of the modern journalist-impersonator — note how and when the imprimatur is withheld.
On the one hand, when a Western media trusty encounters what might be a public demonstration of support for an Official Enemy, ‘spontaneity’ will be specifically denied — sometimes even before you can say Nick Jack Robinson…
Then, on the other hand, there’s what happens when people in the Proudly Democratic West decide to protest about the actions or policies of their own governing elites. For, if a protest or demonstration is happening whose scale and importance cannot altogether be denied by our state-corporate media, the word ‘spontaneous’ simply won’t be in evidence: it would be too legitimating…
How the West is misusing an image to represent the Iranian protests
By Paul Antonopoulos – Fort Russ News – January 2, 2018
TEHRAN – The above image has become synonymous with the Iranian protests that have engulfed most regions of Iran for the past week. However, there remains one problem…. The original image has nothing to do with the current protests at all.
The original photo shows a woman with a hijab on a stick in a defiant moment as she challenges the law that makes it compulsory for women to wear a hijab in Iran.
However this was taken before the current protests even began. Although the Islamic Republic forces women to wear the hijab, its slow liberalization is seen, especially with Tehran announcing just days before protests began that they will no longer enforce the law in this regard.
However, despite the current protests being about economic reform and a clampdown on corruption, Western war enablers, particularly so-called activists and Western media, have widely been spreading this image as a symbol for a struggle against the regime that only exists in their own mind and not in the general consensus of Iranians, nor the majority of those protesting.
As Israeli geopolitical expert Michael A. Horowitz acknowledges, “The only thing this new “symbol,” [the image] largely imposed from the outside [the West], does represent is some form of “wishful thinking” from outside observers on what they’d want the current protest movement to be.
Western war hawks, activists and media alike are all trying to portray the Iranian protests as one for regime-change, but this remains only a small segment of the current protesters. However, no amount of Western “wishful thinking” as Horowitz correctly asserts, will change the fact that the majority of women currently protesting come from conservative segments of Iran.
It has been found that Saudi Arabia has tweeted more about the Iranian protests then people within Iran has themselves, with around three-quarters of all tweets about the protests coming from outside of the Islamic Republic.
Therefore, it can be seen that the great pushers for the protests are mostly coming from outside of the country. Another attempted colored revolution that will fail just as imperialists had in Venezuela last year.
The Times Rides to Mueller’s Rescue
By Pat Buchanan • Unz Review • January 2, 2018
What caused the FBI to open a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign in July 2016, which evolved into the criminal investigation that is said today to imperil the Trump presidency?
As James Comey’s FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller have, for 18 months, failed to prove Donald Trump’s “collusion” with the Kremlin, what was it, in mid-2016, that justified starting this investigation?
What was the basis for the belief Trump was colluding, that he was the Manchurian candidate of Vladimir Putin? What evidence did the FBI cite to get FISA court warrants to surveil and wiretap Trump’s team?
Republican congressmen have for months been demanding answers to these questions. And, as Mueller’s men have stonewalled, suspicions have arisen that this investigation was, from the outset, a politicized operation to take down Trump.
Feeding those suspicions has been the proven anti-Trump bias of investigators. Also, wiretap warrants of Trump’s team are said to have been issued on the basis of a “dirty dossier” that was floating around town in 2016 — but which mainstream media refused to publish as they could not validate its lurid allegations.
Who produced the dossier?
Ex-British spy Christopher Steele, whose dirt was delivered by ex-Kremlin agents. And Steele was himself a hireling of Fusion GPS, the oppo research outfit enlisted and paid by the Clinton campaign and DNC.
Writes the Washington Times, Steele “paid Kremlin sources with Democratic cash.”
Yet, if Steele’s dossier is a farrago of falsehoods and fake news, and the dossier’s contents were used to justify warrants for wiretaps on Trump associates, Mueller has a problem.
Prosecutions his team brings could be contaminated by what the FBI did, leaving his investigation discredited.
Fortunately, all this was cleared up for us New Year’s Eve by a major revelation in The New York Times. Top headline on page one:
“Unlikely Source Propelled Russia Meddling Inquiry”
The story that followed correctly framed the crucial question:
“What so alarmed American officials to provoke the FBI to open a counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign months before the presidential election?”
The Times then gave us the answer we have been looking for:
“It was not, as Trump and other politicians have alleged, a dossier compiled by a former British spy hired by a rival campaign. Instead it was firsthand information from one of America’s closest intelligence allies.”
The ally: Australia, whose ambassador to Britain was in an “upscale London Bar” in the West End in May 2016, drinking with a sloshed George Papadopoulos, who had ties to the Trump campaign and who informed the diplomat that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Papadopoulos had reportedly been told in April that Russia had access to Clinton’s emails.
Thus, when the DNC and John Podesta emails were splashed all over the U.S. press in June, Amb. Alexander Downer, recalling his conversation with Papadopoulos, informed his government, which has excellent ties to U.S. intelligence, and the FBI took it from there.
The Times’ story pounds home this version of events:
“The hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russian attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of Trump’s associates conspired.”
This, the Times assures us, “answers one of the lingering mysteries of the past year.”
Well, perhaps.
But if Papadopoulos’s drunken babbling to the Aussie ambassador triggered the investigation in July 2016, why was George not interviewed by the FBI until January 2017?
According to the Times, an FBI agent in Rome had been told by Steele in June 2016 what he had learned from the Russians.
And Steele was interviewed by the FBI in October 2016.
If Papadopoulos triggered the investigation, why the seeming FBI disinterest in him — as compared to Steele?
Yet another major question remains unanswered.
If, as the Times writes, the FBI was looking “into Russian attempts to disrupt the elections,” why did the FBI not open an investigation into the KGB roots of the Steele dossier that was written to destroy the Republican candidate, Donald Trump?
If Trump’s alleged “collusion” with Putin to damage Clinton was worthy of an all-out FBI investigation, why did the Clinton-DNC scheme to tie Trump to Russian prostitutes, using British spies and former KGB agents, not merit an FBI investigation?
Why was there less concern about the Clinton campaign’s ties to Russian agents, than to Trumpian “collusion” that is yet unproven?
Consider what the British spy Steele and his former KGB/FSB comrades accomplished:
They have kept alive a special counsel’s investigation that has divided our country, imperiled the FBI’s reputation, preoccupied and damaged a president, and partially paralyzed the U.S. government.
Putin must be marveling at the astonishing success of his old comrades from KGB days, who could pull off an intelligence coup like this and so cripple the superpower that won the Cold War.
Copyright 2018 Creators.com.
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From the Archives
Is Israel to blame for the Iraq War?
American Goy | March 10, 2008
I am so tired of this old canard that “Israel had nothing to do with USA’s war with Iraq – in fact, it officially advised America against it”.
Bullshit. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Laith Marouf: Hezbollah’s position on US-Iran ceasefire: What you’re not being told
- Israel’s priority lies in destroying chances of peace between Iran, US: Ex-UN nuclear chief
- Ceasefire for all or for none: Iran shuts Hormuz over Lebanon attacks
- Strait of Hormuz is Iran’s ‘nuclear weapon’ that forced US retreat: Medvedev
- Energy crisis will last for months – Kremlin envoy
- Europe’s quiet role in the war on Iran
- Forty days that shook the Empire: How Iran turned the tables on US and prevailed
- Netanyahu unilaterally declares Lebanon outside of ceasefire deal
- Israeli leaders: ‘Not a single goal’ achieved in war with Iran
- What on earth just happened? Trump, Iran, and the unlikely ceasefire
- If Americans Knew
- Gazans face a triple crisis: severe shortages of water and bread, healthcare in tatters
- NY Times reports how Netanyahu took the US into Iran War
- A sigh of relief over Iran, but Gaza and Lebanon in dire straits – Daily Update
- Thousands dead and neighborhoods razed to the ground: Aid agencies fear southern Lebanon is becoming the new Gaza
- The war the US is fighting for Israel could cost trillions
- ‘Cigarette Burns, Nail Wounds’: Toddler Tortured in Gaza to Coerce Father
- Trump Says US Sent ‘a Lot of Guns’ to Protesters in Iran
- Israeli forces destroy 17 UN peacekeeper cameras in south Lebanon
- US-Israeli strikes ‘completely destroy’ synagogue in Tehran
- Archbishop for US Military Says Iran War Is Unjust Under Catholic Teaching
- No Tricks Zone
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- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
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- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
- Energy Expert: Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Was A “500 Billion Euro Mistake”
- New Research: South Australia’s Mid-Holocene Sea Surface Temperatures Were 4°C Warmer Than Today
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