“Woke” America is More Asleep to Injustice Than Ever
By Tony Cartalucci – New Eastern Outlook – 06.07.2020
To drive home just how superficial and empty recent protests in America are and how little besides further division and destruction will become of them – take the fate of two fictional characters recently put in the spotlight by baying activists – PepsiCo’s “Aunt Jemima” breakfast food brand and Mars Incorporated’s “Uncle Ben’s” rice products.
Both came into the crosshairs of “woke” America. Both fictional characters will now no longer be used.
It might appear like a huge victory for “woke” America.
CNN in their article, “The Aunt Jemima brand, acknowledging its racist past, will be retired,” would claim:
Quaker Oats is retiring the more than 130-year-old Aunt Jemima brand and logo, acknowledging its origins are based on a racial stereotype.
“As we work to make progress toward racial equality through several initiatives, we also must take a hard look at our portfolio of brands and ensure they reflect our values and meet our consumers’ expectations,” the Pepsi-owned company said in a statement provided to CNN Business.
And the London Guardian in their article, “Uncle Ben’s rice firm to scrap brand image of black farmer,” would claim:
The rice company Uncle Ben’s is to scrap the image of a black farmer the brand has used since the 1940s and could change its name, as companies react to growing concerns over racial bias and injustice.
The parent company, Mars, said Uncle Ben was a fictional character whose name was first used in 1946 as a reference to an African American Texan rice farmer.
While there is no doubt that both fictional characters represented stereotypes and are rooted in America’s racist past – “woke” America’s belief that somehow this was a priority or some form of victory begs belief. So does the fact that those opposed to expanding mobs and their “cancel culture” have crafted the most anemic counterpoints.
Some claim that the fictional characters were either inspired or portrayed by real African Americans who profited from the branding.
What neither side mentioned was the very real abuses both companies are guilty of – abuses that are both inhumane and rooted in extraordinary, inexcusable, and thus far utterly unaddressed racism.
PepsiCo and Mars Sponsor/Profit From Slavery and Mass Murder
Both “woke” America as well as those trying to form opposition to it have entirely missed the fact that PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – two multi-billion dollar businesses – are literally engaged in modern day slavery to create their products while sponsoring policy think-tanks that have engineered wars targeting African nations, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands and open-air slave markets where black people – today – are sold into bondage.
This would seem to be a much greater transgression against black people than their crude depictions in company branding and demands much more serious action than merely adjusting marketing strategies – such as demanding boards of directors to resign or full-spectrum, permanent boycotts for these businesses and their many subsidiaries and brands.
Unfortunately for “woke” America, fictional characters are a priority taken head-on all while activists blissfully munch on chocolate bars made by cocoa harvested by African slave labor and sip on drinks made by a corporation which sponsors US wars abroad in which blacks are mass murdered and enslaved.
Your Mars Inc. Chocolate Comes from Slave Labor
If you enjoy chocolate snacks like 3 Musketeers, Snickers, Mars, and Milky Way bars, the chocolate you ate most likely came from a developing nation with dismal working conditions and in many cases, child and slave labor.
Mars Inc. along with Nestle, Hersey, and many other chocolate companies, source cocoa from Africa and especially the nations of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana.
A Washington Post article published just last year titled, “Cocoa’s child laborers,” would note:
Mars, Nestlé and Hershey pledged nearly two decades ago to stop using cocoa harvested by children. Yet much of the chocolate you buy still starts with child labor.
The article elaborated, noting:
About two-thirds of the world’s cocoa supply comes from West Africa where, according to a 2015 U.S. Labor Department report, more than 2 million children were engaged in dangerous labor in cocoa-growing regions.
When asked this spring, representatives of some of the biggest and best-known brands — Hershey, Mars and Nestlé — could not guarantee that any of their chocolates were produced without child labor.
Black children used as labor and under conditions and for wages bordering slavery to produce cocoa Mars Inc. knowingly uses in its products – and makes billions of dollars off of – seems like a much bigger issue than what is undoubtedly offensive labelling practiced by Mars Inc. through its “Uncle Ben’s” brand.
Indicative of the carefully controlled nature of ongoing protests is how the Washington Post has reported on Mars Inc.’s genuinely offensive, even criminal predation on black labor in Africa in the past as well as Mars Inc.’s offensive branding more recently, but failed to link the two in its most recent reporting – thus artfully avoiding a genuinely “woke” readership and any genuine damage real protests and boycotts would have on Mars Inc. and other corporations whose interests Washington Post regularly serves as a voice for.
Big-Biz like PepsiCo and Mars Inc. are an Affront to All
Mars Inc. – alongside PepsiCo, Nestle, and Hersey – was also involved in funding anti-labelling campaigns to prevent legislation from passing that would force food manufacturers to inform consumers their products contained genetically modified organisms (GMO).
Corporations spending money to hide dangerous ingredients from consumers endangers everyone’s health – black and white, left and right.
Mars Inc., PepsiCo, and others defend such campaigning, claiming that such legislation would be “costly” – as would ensuring all of their ingredients are ethically procured and free of child and/or slave labor.
Yet Mars Inc., PepsiCo, and others are multi-billion dollar businesses. The Mars family which owns Mars Inc. consists mostly of family members who are billionaires – not mere millionaires – but billionaires.
Their daily “concerns” include ensuring their sprawling 82,000 acre ranches have enough water and that they receive the most lenient penalties when crashing their Porsche SUV’s into vans carrying families.
Mars Inc. and other multi-billion dollar businesses can afford to do better, simply at the cost of being slightly less well-off billionaires or perhaps even being demoted to millionaires – yet they simply and deliberately choose to profit off the backs of poorly informed consumers at home and exploited/enslaved labor abroad.
If what Mars Inc. and PepsiCo contributed to was only limited to cultivating ignorant consumers at home and using slave labor abroad it would be bad enough. And if America’s “woke revolution” was serious about justice, Mars Inc. and PepsiCo would be on the chopping block for much more than their crude, racist marketing, and would have more demanded of them.
But that is not all Mars Inc. and PepsiCo are contributing to.
Sponsoring Warmongering and Mass Murder in Africa (and everywhere else)
Both PepsiCo and Mars Inc. are sponsors of policy think tanks like the Brookings Institution whose “scholars” and “fellows” churn out the blueprints for US wars which are then rubber stamped by the US Congress and sold to the public by the corporate media.
Brooking Institution’s 2019 annual report (PDF) lists both companies – PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – as sponsors as were both companies in 2011 (PDF).
Brookings and its corporate-sponsored staff worked diligently in 2011 to help sell the US military intervention in the North African nation of Libya. It was a key institution involved in creating and spreading the notion of “R2P” or the “responsibility to protect” used as flimsy cover for a long-planned US desire to effect regime change in Libya.
As early as February 2011, the Brookings Institution published articles and papers like, “United States Must Take Lead on Libya,” in which Brookings “Senior Fellows” – funded by the likes of PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – made the nascent calls for US military intervention that would eventually lead to the US arming militants openly and carrying out air strikes across the nation.
Indeed, the US armed militants in eastern Libya – a hotbed for racism and extremism and the epicenters of Al Qaeda in the country – as well as provided roving bands of armed gangs air support as they swept the nation.
When Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was violently swept from power later that year, the estimated 2.5 million Africans from across the continent he took in, providing housing and living wages to, found themselves being hunted by US-backed militants.
To explain the blatant and explosive racism that predictably swept Libya in the wake of the US-backed war, articles like the CS Monitor’s “How Qaddafi helped fuel fury toward Africans in Libya,” would claim:
Many experts – and African migrant workers themselves – say the animosity stems from anti-African racism found throughout the Arab world. But some say the anger has been made much worse by Mr. Qaddafi’s moves to buy the loyalty of black Libyans from the south of the country as well as his decades-long efforts to build Africa-wide patronage networks at great cost to the country’s Arab majority.
In other words – the CS Monitor and the Western “experts” it cited claim Qaddafi “fueled fury toward Africans” by merely spending resources to help them. It is an oblique attempt to justify the racism-driven genocide US-backed militants carried out during their “victory lap” in Libya.
Black Africans living in Libya were either driven out of the country, across the Mediterranean and into Europe to face hardship and racism there or either mass murdered in Libya or rounded up and enslaved.
The Western media – partners with institutions like Brookings – denied this at first – or attempted to excuse it like the CS Monitor – but eventually covered the fallout US military intervention in Libya and its long-planned regime change agenda triggered.
Reuters in their article, “African workers live in fear after Gaddafi overthrow,” would admit:
Tens of thousands of foreign workers have fled Libya since the armed revolt against Gaddafi’s 42-year-rule began in February, with Africans afraid they have become targets for fighters who accuse them of being mercenaries for Gaddafi.
This antipathy appears to have spread to all Africans, leaving them vulnerable to attacks, robbery and other abuse by the gun-toting, mostly young, fighters who ousted Gaddafi.
Identity cards of nationals from Chad, Niger, Mali, Sudan and other African states have been found on the bodies of gunmen who anti-Gaddafi fighters say were paid to confront them.
The BBC in its article, “Libya migrant ‘slave market’ footage sparks outrage,” would admit:
Migrants trying to reach Europe have spoken of being held by smugglers and forced to work for little or no money.
The footage released by CNN appears to show youths from Niger and other sub-Saharan countries being sold to buyers for about $400 (£300) at undisclosed locations in Libya.
While these media sources covered the fallout of the 2011 US military intervention, they were careful not to link the fallout directly to the intervention.
The US war against Libya was a humanitarian catastrophe deliberately engineered by Western think tanks funded by big-business like PepsiCo, Mars Inc., and many others, rubber stamped by politicians in Washington – both Democrat and Republican – and eagerly sold to the public by the corporate media.
And even as recently as 2016, Brookings “Senior Fellow” Shadi Hamid in a piece published on Brookings’ site titled, “Everyone says the Libya intervention was a failure. They’re wrong,” would remain insistent in defending the US-led war and the decimated, racist, and dysfunctional Libya left in its wake.
He argues that if the US didn’t intervene, Qaddafi would have successfully eliminated the racist extremists in eastern Libya and particularly in Benghazi who would eventually carry out genocide against Libya’s black population. Hamid simply omits any mention of this or who actually was based in Benghazi and instead refers to them merely as “protesters.”
Thus, PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – alongside oil corporations and weapons manufacturers – are funding an institution that not only engineers and eagerly promotes wars, they fund an institution that is utterly unapologetic about the calamity these wars cause – including wars like in Libya ending tragically for 2.5 million black Africans.
“Woke” America needs to be conscious enough to recognize the true injustice underpinning American society. It is very likely that as protesters in America and online around the globe rail against “Aunt Jemima” and “Uncle Ben’s” many activists are eagerly enjoying many of the other products produced by and profiting PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – oblivious to the fact that the ingredients are procured through child and slave labor in Africa and the profits are directed into promoting wars that leave blacks abroad dead, displaced, or enslaved. And as long as this is the case, nothing of any genuine substance will ever change in America or across the wider Western World.
If real justice is what Americans – all Americans – want, they need to truly wake up to this fact first.
CIA Information Warfare Succeeds: Occupation of Afghanistan forced to continue, Trump’s real crimes in Afghanistan ignored
By Ben Barbour | Global Research | July 5, 2020
On July 1st the House Armed Services Committee voted to hinder Donald Trump’s ability to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. House Democrats on the committee teamed up with Republicans, including Liz Cheney (daughter of war-architect Dick Cheney), to pass an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act “that prohibits Congress from spending money to pull US troops out of Afghanistan without first meeting a series of vague conditions that critics said appeared to prevent withdrawal.” Without any public debate the US will now continue its occupation after the CIA claimed that Russia paid Taliban-linked groups to kill American soldiers.
What’s the evidence? General John Nicholson speculated that Russia was arming the Taliban in 2017. In April 2019, three marines were killed in an attack that the Taliban claimed responsibility for. Unnamed intelligence officials believed that the Russians may have payed militants to attack US troops. In March 2020, The CIA concluded that the Russians were paying the bounties. They cited testimony from captured militants and pointed to a Seal Team Six raid of a Taliban outpost that resulted in the recovery of a half a million in cash.
That’s it. That’s all the information that the American public is allowed to know. It’s hardly even mentioned that the NSA disagreed with the CIA’s assessment, stating “the information wasn’t verified and that intelligence officials didn’t agree on it.” Furthermore, the Department of Defense (DOD) claimed that “to date, DOD has no corroborating evidence to validate the recent allegations found in open-source reports.” Americans are taking the CIA’s word as gospel.
How exactly did the CIA conclude that the half a million in cash came from Russia and not from Taliban opium trafficking operations? The US military claimed that 60% of the Taliban’s funding comes from the opium trade. Is $500,000 in cash unheard of in opium sales? Who are these captured militants that claimed that Russia payed bounties for dead American soldiers? Were these militants tortured by the CIA? The CIA has the largest torture program in the world. Is the information reliable or was the information obtained under dubious circumstances? How do we even know these militants actually made these claims?
The foundation of the assertions is also questionable. Americans are supposed to believe that the Taliban had to be prompted to attack American soldiers. The US has been occupying Afghanistan for nearly 20 years. The war in Afghanistan has resulted in over 2,400 dead American soldiers and over 38,500 dead civilians. US soldiers have been targeted by the Taliban and an assortment of other militant groups over the past 19 years. That’s the cost of occupation. If over 38,500 civilians have been killed, then there are a lot of angry Afghans that lost family members. Russia does not need to pay the Taliban or any militant group to attack US soldiers. This should not need explanation. The rush to accuse Trump of treason has made Americans lose their critical thinking skills.
More partisan liberals are upset about Trump’s inaction over unproven allegations of Russian bounties than they are by Trump’s record setting bombing campaign in Afghanistan:
“in 2019, according to figures released by Air Force Central Command, the United States ‘dropped more munitions on Afghanistan than in any other year over the past decade.’ More bombs were dropped in most months of 2019 than in any previous months since records were first made publicly available in 2009.”
These bombings led to a massive surge in civilian casualties. In one case, at least 30 pine nut farmers were killed in a drone strike that resulted in zero militants being killed. Where is the outrage over this? How many more Afghans are going to die if Trump is pressed to be even more unhinged to prove he is not a traitor? The end game is more death and more occupation.
This new scandal being pushed by the CIA also conveniently deflects from Trump’s real scandals in Afghanistan. In June, Trump signed an executive order “imposing sanctions on several individuals associated with the International Criminal Court (ICC).”
The ICC is investigating war crimes in Afghanistan. Their investigations include potential American war crimes. They may even involve Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: “Pompeo may be personally at risk for wrongdoing that the Court could uncover of CIA activities when he was the director of the agency.” The Trump administration is claiming that because the US has not ratified the Rome Statute, that the ICC has no legal basis to prosecute American war crimes. This is incorrect. The Rome Statute allows the ICC to prosecute non-party countries if war crimes are committed by that party in a country that has ratified the Rome Statute. Afghanistan has ratified the Rome Statue. That puts the US on the hook for potential war crimes committed in that region.
Needless to say, never-Trump neocons have been silent about Trump’s targeting of the ICC. Likewise, partisan liberals have not gone after Trump on this front either. The reasons are obvious. The Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations are culpable in war crimes in Afghanistan as well. The nearly two-decades long war is a bipartisan project. Furthermore, self-professed left-wingers and liberals are taking their cues from Bush-era neocons like David Frum, Bill Kristol, and an assortment of pro-war goons from the Lincoln Project Political Action Committee.
Russiagate broke partisan liberals’ brains. They are now calling for Trump to ramp up escalation in Afghanistan. They actually believe the absurd over-the-top ads put out by the Lincoln Project. Donald Trump ramped up the war in Afghanistan in 2017 when he did a 3,500-troop surge from 10,500 to 14,000 troops. Trump then increased bombing campaigns throughout his term and set records for bombings in 2019. Civilians casualties spiked. In June 2020, he targeted the ICC for having the audacity to look into US war crimes.
None of this barbarism earned Trump the ire of prominent neoconservatives and liberals. Trump is being vilified for having talks with the Taliban and taking steps towards scaling-down US troop presence. After four years of Russiagate hysteria the only explanation for Trump’s actions is capitulation to Russia. Afghan civilians be damned, Trump needs to ramp up again in Afghanistan to stop Putin or he’s a traitor! The neocon dogma pushed onto liberals by never-Trump Republicans did its job. Partisan liberals are parroting the line of the CIA. The attempt to sabotage talks with the Taliban and prevent troop withdrawals from Afghanistan worked.
“The Resistance” just helped push the continued occupation of Afghanistan to score cheap political points. The CIA thanks them for their “patriotism.”
Ben Barbour is an American geopolitical analyst.
Are the Democrats a Political Party or a CIA-Backed Fifth Column?
By Mike Whitney • Unz Review • July 5, 2020
How do the Democrats benefit from the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests?
While the protests are being used to paint Trump as a race-bating white supremacist, that is not their primary objective. The main goal is to suppress and demonize Trump’s political base which is comprised of mainly white working class people who have been adversely impacted by the Democrats disastrous free trade and immigration policies. These are the people– liberal and conservative– who voted for Trump in 2016 after abandoning all hope that the Democrats would amend their platform and throw a lifeline to workers who are now struggling to make ends meet in America’s de-industrialized heartland.
The protests are largely a diversion aimed at shifting the public’s attention to a racialized narrative that obfuscates the widening inequality chasm (created by the Democrats biggest donors, the Giant Corporations and Wall Street) to historic antagonisms that have clearly diminished over time. (Racism ain’t what it used to be.) The Democrats are resolved to set the agenda by deciding what issues “will and will not” be covered over the course of the campaign. And– since race is an issue on which they feel they can energize their base by propping-up outdated stereotypes of conservatives as ignorant bigots incapable of rational thought– the Dems are using their media clout to make race the main topic of debate. In short, the Democrats have settled on a strategy for quashing the emerging populist revolt that swept Trump into the White House in 2016 and derailed Hillary’s ambitious grab for presidential power.
The plan, however, does have its shortcomings, for example, Democrats have offered nearly blanket support for protests that have inflicted massive damage on cities and towns across the country. In the eyes of many Americans, the Dems support looks like a tacit endorsement of the arson, looting and violence that has taken place under the banner of “racial justice”. The Dems have not seriously addressed this matter, choosing instead to let the media minimize the issue by simply scrubbing the destruction from their coverage. This “sweep it under the rug” strategy appears to be working as the majority of people surveyed believe that the protests were “mostly peaceful”, which is a term that’s designed to downplay the effects of the most ferocious rioting since the 1970s.
Let’s be clear, the Democrats do not support Black Lives Matter nor have they made any attempt to insert their demands into their list of police reforms. BLM merely fits into the Dems overall campaign strategy which is to use race to deflect attention from the gross imbalance of wealth that is the unavoidable consequence of the Dems neoliberal policies including outsourcing, off-shoring, de-industrialization, free trade and trickle down economics. These policies were aggressively promoted by both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as they will be by Joe Biden if he is elected. They are the policies that have gutted the country, shrunk the middle class, and transformed the American dream into a dystopian nightmare.
They are also the policies that have given rise to, what the pundits call, “right wing populism” which refers to the growing number of marginalized working people who despise Washington and career politicians, feel anxious about falling wages and dramatic demographic changes, and resent the prevailing liberal culture that scorns their religion and patriotism. This is Trump’s mainly-white base, the working people the Democrats threw under the bus 30 years ago and now want to annihilate completely by deepening political polarization, fueling social unrest, pitting one group against another, and viciously vilifying them in the media as ignorant racists whose traditions, culture, customs and even history must be obliterated to make room for the new diversity world order. Trump touched on this theme in a speech he delivered in Tulsa. He said:
“Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities.”
Author Charles Burris expanded on this topic in an article at Lew Rockwell titled America’s Monumental Existential Problem:
“The wave of statue-toppling spreading across the Western world from the United States is not an aesthetic act, but a political one, the disfigured monuments in bronze and stone standing for the repudiation of an entire civilization. No longer limiting their rage to slave-owners, American mobs are pulling down and disfiguring statues of abolitionists, writers and saints in an act of revolt against the country’s European founding, now re-imagined as the nation’s original sin, a moral and symbolic shift with which we Europeans will soon be forced to reckon.”
The statue-toppling epidemic is vastly more disturbing than the the looting or arson, mainly because it reveals an ideological intensity aimed at symbols of state power. By tearing down the images of the men who created or contributed to our collective history, the vandals are challenging the legitimacy of the nation itself as well as its founding “enlightenment” principles. This is the nihilism of extremists whose only objective is destruction. It suggests that the Democrats might have aspirations that far exceed a mere presidential victory. Perhaps the protests and riots will be used to justify more sweeping changes, a major reset during which traditional laws and rules are indefinitely suspended until the crisis passes and order can be restored. Is that at all conceivable or should we dismiss these extraordinary events as merely young people “letting off a little steam”?
Here’s how General Michael Flynn summed up what’s going on on in a recent article:
“There is now a small group of passionate people working hard to destroy our American way of life. Treason and treachery are rampant and our rule of law and those law enforcement professionals are under the gun more than at any time in our nation’s history… I believe the attacks being presented to us today are part of a well-orchestrated and well-funded effort that uses racism as its sword to aggravate our battlefield dispositions. This weapon is used to leverage and legitimize violence and crime, not to seek or serve the truth…. The dark forces’ weapons formed against us serve one purpose: to promote radical social change through power and control.”
I agree. The toppling of statues, the rioting, the looting, the arson and, yes, the relentless attacks on Trump from the day he took office, to Russiagate, to the impeachment, to the insane claims about Russian “bounties”, to the manipulation of science and data to trigger a planned demolition of the US economy hastening a vast restructuring to the labor force and the imposition of authoritarian rule; all of these are cut from the same fabric, a tapestry of lies and deception concocted by the DNC, the Intel agencies, the elite media, and their behind-the-scenes paymasters. Now they have released their corporate-funded militia on the country to wreak havoc and spread terror among the population. Meanwhile, the New York Times and others continue to generate claims they know to be false in order to confuse the public even while the people are still shaking off months of disorienting quarantine and feelings of trepidation brought on by 3 weeks of nonstop social unrest and fractious racial conflict. Bottom line: Neither the Democrats nor their allies at the Intel agencies and media have ever accepted the “peaceful transition of power”. They reject the 2016 election results, they reject Donald Trump as the duly elected president of the United States, and they reject the representative American system of government “by the people.”
So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty: Which political party is pursuing a radical-activist strategy that has set our cities ablaze and reduced Capitol Hill to a sprawling war zone? Which party pursued a 3 year-long investigation that was aimed at removing the president using a dossier that they knew was false (Opposition research), claiming emails were hacked from DNC computers when the cyber-security company that did the investigation said there was no proof of “exfiltration”? (In other words, there was no hack and the Dems knew it since 2017) Which party allied itself with senior-level officials at the FBI, CIA, NSA and elite media and worked together collaboratively to discredit, surveil, infiltrate, entrap and demonize the administration in order to torpedo Trumps “America First” political agenda, and remove him from office?
Which party?
No one disputes the Democrats right to challenge, criticize or vigorously oppose a bill or policy promoted by the president. What we take issue with is the devious and (possibly) illegal way the Democrats have joined powerful elements in the Intelligence Community and the major media to conduct a ruthless “dirty tricks” campaign that involved spying on members of the administration in order to establish the basis for impeachment proceedings. This is not the behavior of a respected political organization but the illicit conduct of a fifth column acting on behalf of a foreign (or corporate?) enemy. It’s worth noting that an insurrection against the nation’s lawful authority is sedition, a felony that is punishable by imprisonment or death. Perhaps, the junta leaders should consider the possible consequences of their actions before they make their next move.
What we need to know is whether the Democrat party operates independent of the Intel agencies with which it cooperated during its campaign against Trump? We’re hopeful that the Durham investigation will shed more light on this matter. Our fear is that what we’re seeing is an emerging Axis–the CIA, the DNC, and the elite media– all using their respective powers to terminate the Constitutional Republic and establish permanent, authoritarian one-party rule. As far-fetched as it might sound, the country appears to be slipping inexorably towards tyranny.
Bounty-Hunter Hoax to Kill U.S.-Russia Relations
Strategic Culture Foundation | July 3, 2020
Relations between the United States and Russia have already been badly wounded during recent years, largely as a result of baseless allegations such as Moscow interfering in American elections, colluding with President Donald Trump, or regarding other international developments, from the downing of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine, to purported war crimes in Syria, to the alleged poisoning of British double-agent Sergei Skripal in England.
But the latest U.S. media effort claiming Russian military intelligence involvement in sponsoring Taliban assassins or “bounty hunters” to target American troops in Afghanistan appears to be aimed at killing off any remaining possibility for restoring relations between Washington and Moscow.
Even the concept of “bounty hunters” sounds like an outlandish reliance on Wild West folklore which in itself betrays the origins of the story as a figment of imagination rooted in the authors’ American parochialism.
Quite appropriately, however, we can extend the analogy further by referring to the U.S. media reporting on the Russian “bounty hunter” claims as “cowboy journalism”.
America’s supposed finest media outlets jumped on this yarn like a posse in bandwagon fashion. The New York Times “broke” the story on June 26 and was followed by others of presumed journalistic stature: The Washington Post, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, and others.
No evidence has been presented to back up the explosive claims made against Russia and against President Trump that he was briefed about the intelligence allegedly implicating Russia in Afghanistan but did nothing about it.
The whole media frenzy has relied on unnamed sources and vague claims about money being found or transferred from bank accounts.
In less than a week since the story “broke” there is a palpable sense that the initial media frenzy has fizzled out, leaving a bitter aftertaste of nothingness and embarrassment for the journalists who pushed the fable with gung-ho grit.
The story has been roundly dismissed as a hoax by the Trump White House, the Kremlin and the Taliban. More politely, the heads of U.S. intelligence and the Pentagon stated there was “no corroborating evidence” for the media claims.
So, what was it all about?
Evidently, it was another shot in the Last Chance Saloon by the anti-Russia Washington political establishment, or deep state, to further undermine bilateral relations. The obsequious way in which supposed bastions of U.S. journalism parroted the disinformation is illustrative of the low standard of American media. As several critical commentators have noted, what we saw from the New York Times et al was not journalism, but rather stenographic dissemination of deep state disinformation.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has remarked that the timing of the “provocative hoax” comes at a critical juncture in efforts to bring a peace settlement in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of U.S.-led war in that country. Trump is committed to withdrawing U.S. troops and, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Kremlin has been quietly cooperating with the American State Department to mediate a peace deal. The implication is that there are elements within the U.S. intelligence-military apparatus which have a vested interest in continuing the quagmire war in Afghanistan. The “bombshell” claims of a Russian clandestine assassination program against U.S. troops would thus jeopardize a political settlement in Afghanistan.
Secondly, while the U.S. reporting on the bounty-hunter scheme has been a self-inflicted disgrace to journalism, it has nevertheless succeeded, to a degree, in riling up anti-Russia sentiment in Washington. Lawmakers from Trump’s own Republican party have joined with the usual Democrat chorus to call for increased sanctions against Moscow.
Trump has been accused (again) of “treachery” and “treason” by being “infatuated” with Russian President Vladimir Putin. One Republican political action committee released a spoof advert this week in which Moscow thanks “Comrade Trump” for his “loyalty”.
This pathetic poisoning of relations is ludicrous and dangerous.
Another glaring factor is the forthcoming U.S. presidential elections which are only four months away. The media ruse, we can hardly say “reporting”, is evidently designed to aid Joe Biden, the Democrat rival to Trump. Biden reacted to the media claims against Russia with “shock, horror” and he denounced Trump for (allegedly) not being concerned about security of U.S. troops. Biden said if he is elected to the White House he will “stand up to Putin”.
The transparent manipulation attempt of public emotions and votes is almost laughable. It is gas-lighting as in the Cold War days of McCarthyism.
Like him or loath him, Donald Trump has been a thorn in the side of powerful domestic enemies since he won the 2016 election. We can describe those enemies as the deep state and their apparatus in the Democrat party working in conjunction with servile media surrogates. (No doubt the Republican party would be just as obliging if the shoe was on other other foot.) Trump has certainly been no friend to Russia. Bilateral relations remain as blighted as they were under the previous Obama Democrat administrations.
For various reasons, Trump’s domestic enemies are mobilizing in a desperate effort to block his re-election. That is what the whole Russia “bounty-hunter blockbuster” is all about. But in doing so, the relations between the U.S. and Russia are being kicked to the ground and lynched. That is an appallingly reckless consequence.
The grotesque irony is that Russia is accused of “interference”. American deep political forces are interfering in the nation’s democracy to control the elections, as they have previously done. A price will be paid in worse U.S.-Russia relations and greater international tensions.
Afghan Bounty Scandal Comes at Suspiciously Important Time for US Military Industrial Complex
By Alan MacLeod | MintPress News | July 1, 2020
Based on anonymous intelligence sources, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal released bombshell reports alleging that Russia is paying the Taliban bounties for every U.S. soldier they can kill. The story caused an uproar in the United States, dominating the news cycle and leading presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to accuse Trump of “dereliction of duty” and “continuing his embarrassing campaign of deference and debasing himself before Vladimir Putin.” “This is beyond the pale,” the former vice-president concluded.
However, there are a number of reasons to be suspicious of the new reports. Firstly, they appear all to be based entirely on the same intelligence officials who insisted on anonymity. The official could not provide any concrete evidence, nor establish that any Americans had actually died as a result, offering only vague assertions and admitting that the information came from “interrogated” (i.e. tortured) Afghan militants. All three reports stressed the uncertainty of the claims, with the only sources who went on record — the White House, the Kremlin, and the Taliban — all vociferously denying it all.
The national security state also has a history of using anonymous officials to plant stories that lead to war. In 2003, the country was awash with stories that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, in 2011 anonymous officials warned of an impending genocide in Libya, while in 2018 officials accused Bashar al-Assad of attacking Douma with chemical weapons, setting the stage for a bombing campaign. All turned out to be untrue.
“After all we’ve been through, we’re supposed to give anonymous ‘intelligence officials’ in The New York Times the benefit of the doubt on something like this? I don’t think so,” Scott Horton, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com and author of “Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan,” told MintPress News. “All three stories were written in language conceding they did not know if the story was true,” he said, “They are reporting the ‘fact’ that there was a rumor.”
Horton continued: “There were claims in 2017 that Russia was arming and paying the Taliban, but then the generals admitted to Congress they had no evidence of either. In a humiliating debacle, also in 2017, CNN claimed a big scoop about Putin’s support for the Taliban when furnished with some photos of Taliban fighters with old Russian weapons. The military veteran journalists at Task and Purpose quickly debunked every claim in their piece.”
Others were equally skeptical of the new scandal. “The bottom line for me is that after countless (Russiagate related) anonymous intelligence leaks, many of which were later proven false or never substantiated with real evidence, I can’t take this story seriously. The intelligence ‘community’ itself can’t agree on the credibility of this information, which is similar to the situation with a foundational Russiagate document, the January, 2017 intelligence ‘assessment,’” said Joanne Leon, host of the Around the Empire Podcast, a show which covers U.S. military actions abroad.
Suspicious timing
The timing of the leak also raised eyebrows. Peace negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban are ongoing, with President Trump committing to pulling all American troops out of the country. A number of key anti-weapons of mass destruction treaties between the U.S. and Russia are currently expiring, and a scandal such as this one would scupper any chance at peace, escalating a potential arms race that would endanger the world but enrich weapons manufacturers. Special Presidential Envoy in the Department of the Treasury, Marshall Billingslea, recently announced that the United States is willing to spend Russia and China “into oblivion” in a new arms race, mimicking the strategy it used in the 1980s against the Soviet Union. As a result, even during the pandemic, business is booming for American weapons contractors.
“The national security state has done everything they can to keep the U.S. involved in that war,” remarked Horton, “If Trump had listened to his former Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, we’d be on year three of an escalation with plans to begin talks with the Taliban next year. Instead Trump talked to them for the last year-and-a-half and has already signed a deal to have us out by the end of next May.”
“The same factions and profiteers who always oppose withdrawal of troops are enthusiastic about the ‘Bountygate’ story at a time when President Trump is trying to advance negotiations with the Taliban and when he desperately needs to deliver on 2016 campaign promises and improve his sinking electoral prospects,” said Leon.
If Russia is paying the Taliban to kill Americans they are not doing a very good job of it. From a high of 496 in 2010, U.S. losses in Afghanistan have slowed to a trickle, with only 22 total fatalities in 2019, casting further doubt on the scale of their supposed plan.
Ironically, the United States is accusing the Kremlin of precisely its own policy towards Russia in Syria. In 2016, former Acting Director of the C.I.A. Michael Morell appeared on the Charlie Rose show and said his job was to “make the Russians pay a price” for its involvement in the Middle East. When asked if he meant killing Russians by that, he replied, “Yes. Covertly. You don’t tell the world about it. You don’t stand up at the Pentagon and say, ‘We did this.’ But you make sure they know it in Moscow.”
Like RussiaGate, the new scandal has had the effect of pushing liberal opinion on foreign policy to become far more hawkish, with Biden now campaigning on being “tougher” on China and Russia than Trump would be. Considering that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists recently set their famous Doomsday Clock — an estimation of how close they believe the world is to nuclear armageddon — to just 100 seconds to midnight, the latest it has ever been, the Democrats could be playing with fire. The organization specifically singled out U.S.-Russia conflict as threatening the continued existence of the planet. While time will tell if Russia did indeed offer bounties to kill American troops, the efficacy of the media leak is not in question.
Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent.
Russia Bounty-Hunter Story Another Pulp Fiction Release
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 1, 2020
The main peddlers of the alleged Russian-sponsored bounty-hunter scheme in Afghanistan against US troops are the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN. All three have excelled in publishing a series of pulp fiction-style stories over the past four years to discredit President Trump and demonize Russia.
From allegations of Russian meddling in elections to Putin having blackmail on “agent Trump” thanks to hookers in a Moscow hotel. And much more besides.
That dubious record of propaganda-as-journalism serves as a foghorn alert about the latest yarn without even delving into the supposed details.
The story “broke” last Friday with the Times claiming that anonymous “US officials” informed the outlet that Russian military intelligence were paying militants in Afghanistan to assassinate American troops, and that President Trump had been briefed on the matter as far back as February or even last year but didn’t do anything about it.
In “follow-up” reports, the Washington Post and CNN, among others, are reporting that the alleged Russian bounty-hunter scheme did result in American casualties. Trump is being accused of treachery for allegedly ignoring warnings on security, and that – conveniently – piles the pressure on the White House and the Congress to get tough on Moscow.
Democrat presidential rival Joe Biden has fulminated that it is a “truly shocking” dereliction of duty by Trump whose presidency, says Biden, is “a gift” to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The Democrat vows to confront Moscow if he is elected to the White House in November.
Some Republican lawmakers have also jumped on the bandwagon assailing Trump for treacherous neglect over allegedly not acting on the alleged intelligence. (Apologies to readers for the repetition of “alleged”, but it is necessary for clarity and factualness.)
As the story gathers some legs, it soon runs at breakneck speed. British media reports are quoting anonymous British security officials who “confirm” that the US intelligence claims about Russia bounty-hunting in Afghanistan. What’s more, the British “sources” are saying that the alleged Russian operation is being run by the same military intelligence team that allegedly organized the alleged poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in March 2018.
Pulp fiction stories are thus being referenced supposedly as confirming precedents for the latest episode in Afghanistan. That’s like building an edifice from straws.
Denials and declined comments can be revealing. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has called the bounty-hunter reports “lies”. The Russia foreign ministry said it was an “unsophisticated fabrication”.
A spokesman for the Taliban militants in Afghanistan derided the US claims, saying the militants did not need any foreign help to defeat the Americans.
President Trump in his usual fashion slammed the media reports as another “Russia hoax”. He says he was never briefed on the alleged intelligence and neither was Vice President Mike Pence of White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
John Ratcliffe, the US Director of National Intelligence, has poured cold water on the reports, saying that Trump was not briefed. So too has Trump’s National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien.
The CIA has declined to comment, while the Pentagon has stated it has seen no evidence to substantiate the reported claims.
It seems significant that the New York Times described its sources as “US officials who were briefed on the matter” and not as “US intelligence” sources. That way, the newspaper avoids any potentially embarrassing rebuttal from intelligence agencies. The choice of words “US officials” is suitably vague and uncompromising.
A second dodgy detail is the claim that the alleged “recovery of large amounts of American cash” in a raid by US special forces on some Taliban base provided the basis for the concept that Russian military intelligence was organizing the scheme for paying militants to assassinate American troops. It is also claimed that US intelligence gained information on the pay-for-kill plot from “interrogation of captured militants”.
That’s an incredible admission of how weak is the basis for the reporting and its “bombshell” claims.
Seriously, finding a suitcase of US dollars in a Taliban hideout is cited as implicating the involvement of Russian hit squads.
It is speculated that the Kremlin is waging a “shadow war” against the US in Afghanistan as “revenge” for Washington’s sponsoring of the mujahideen forerunners of the Taliban who dealt defeat to Soviet troops during the 1980s.
A propaganda wheeze always has tell-tale gas-lighting effects whereby thoughts and speculation appear to easily (too easily) flow from one to the other as desired by the orchestrator.
What Joe Biden and others should find “truly shocking” is the flimsy detail that supposedly holds up a “blockbuster” story.
It all has the hallmark of an electioneering ploy to undermine Trump’s support among rank-and-file members of the US armed forces. They are seen as a bedrock for Trump votes in the November elections. What better way to alienate the military ranks than accuse Trump of turning a blind eye to intelligence reports of Russian-assisted murder of troops in Afghanistan?
On top of that, to boot, there is also the desired bipartisan outrage among Democrats and Republican lawmakers demanding more sanctions to “punish” Russia and “hold Putin to account”. More irrelevant melodrama on the Hill of Beans.
It’s another pulp fiction release, but the signs are the sick and tired American public are not buying it. Which means even more dwindling credibility for US mainstream media propaganda outlets, and diminishing power of the Deep State to orchestrate election outcome. Neither Democrats nor Republicans can galvanize voters, which means US politics is increasingly seen to be in a profoundly futile mess.
US Media Date ‘Russian Bounties’ 5 Years Back, Name ‘Key Middleman’ in ‘Money Transfers’
Sputnik – 02.07.2020
The explosive reports on “Russian bounties” offered to Taliban-linked militants to kill US soldiers are slowly turning into some kind of a saga, as now US media has offered new “details” on the claims.
As reported by NYT claims described as “intelligence” on Russia offering money to the Taliban for killing US soldiers circulate through the media headlines, the story continues to develop particulars – nevermind that the very beginning of it has not been confirmed by a single official entity.
Ignoring the avalanche of scepticism and denial of the initial allegations from all sides, the US media sticks to the storytelling, moving on to reveal that the “Russian-Taliban bounties” appear to date back several years.
The Daily Beast, citing alleged ex-spokesman for Taliban leader Mullah Omar, Manan Niazi, who spoke via encrypted phone call, claimed that the Taliban “have been paid by Russian intelligence for attacks on US forces in Afghanistan from 2014 up to the present”.
“The Taliban have been paid by Russian intelligence for attacks on US forces—and on ISIS forces—in Afghanistan from 2014 up to the present”, said Niazi, described as a person who used to be a “very senior figure in the Taliban”, but now a dissident, claimed to The Beast.
The story could as well be turned into an exciting movie, as it offers a wide range of dramatic parts from Russia “paying US dollars to Taliban” for several years to spy-like intrigues of undercover Taliban people who pretended to be businessmen in order to “convert Russian funds to cash” in Afghanistan.
Sometimes, however, it also has narrative flaws, for example, the two people that Niazi claimed to be “undercover businessmen who went to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan”, denied their involvement when asked by the DB.
“I don’t want to comment—I don’t even want to talk about Niazi,” said one, contacted by The Beast. “Niazi is our enemy and playing into the hands of the NDS.”
The report refers to the so-called Hawala system – an “informal way to transfer money” – based on “family relationships or regional affiliations”.
This system is brought up in another thrilling story, this time again from The New York Times, which names another Russian bounty-related “businessman” – Rahmatullah Azizi – to be a middleman “between the GRU and militants linked to the Taliban who carried out the attacks”.
Apparently striving for another Pulitzer for the story based on unconfirmed information, just like in the case of this prize-winning series of anti-Russia articles that were later debunked, the outlet conducted research impossible even for the National Intelligence and Defence Department of the US.
In a fresh “ground-breaking” article, Azizi is described as a “central piece of a puzzle rocking Washington”, who “was among those who collected the cash in Russia”. According to “Afghan officials” – who are, as usual, unnamed – “$100,000 per killed soldier were offered for American and coalition targets”. The controversial enterprise apparently made Azizi extremely wealthy, as the report describes his luxurious possessions, from cars to four-story houses.
Every story has a villain, and the Nytimes.com piece connects the dots in a way that leads, once again, to the devious Unit 29155 – a mysterious GRU intelligence branch that is traditionally held responsible by the US for “assassinations and other operations overseas” – including the famous Sergei Skripal poisoning that was “highly likely” carried out by the ominous Russian assets.
Official Positions on the Matter
The stories suggested by The Daily Beast and The New York Times ignore a recent Pentagon report which followed the initial NYT Friday report on Russian “bounties” to the Taliban for killing US troops, and found no evidence. The document only pointed at Russian “efforts in the hope that reconciliation will prevent a long-term US military presence”.
US President Donald Trump, echoed by his Director of National Intelligence and his National Security Adviser, denied that he knew anything about the matter, repeating that the unverified “intelligence” did not rise to the level where it would be reasonable to brief the president.
The Kremlin refuted the allegations as “nonsense” while not understanding why unconfirmed media reports would raise the possibility of sanctions, a move voiced by Democrats.
The Taliban itself has denied the claims, insisting that its activities are not connected with foreign countries or intelligence agencies.
New York Times Deploys Heavy Gun to Back ‘Intel’ on Russian Bounties
By Ray McGovern | Consortium News | July 1, 2020
The New York Times is pulling out all the stops in promoting its dubious story on Russia offering bounty for dead U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
Wednesday’s installment, a “news analysis” by Times veteran writers David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, treats the allegations that Russia paid Taliban or Taliban-related terrorists to kill U.S. troops as flat fact:
“Russia’s complicity in the bounty plot came into sharper focus on Tuesday as the The New York Times reported that American officials intercepted electronic data showing large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency to a Taliban-linked account.”
This is presented as “bolstering other evidence of the plot, including detainee interrogations.” The take from the Afghan-run interrogations is, ipso facto, highly dubious; and we need to know a lot more about the alleged new “electronic data.”
Sanger. (Wikimedia Commons)
Sanger and Schmitt put the “bounty” story atop a “list of Russian aggressions in recent weeks rival[ing] some of the worst days of the Cold War.” They hold up to ridicule White House statements that the president wants to have only “verified” intelligence, claiming that this prompts “derision from officials who have spent years working on the daily brief and say it is most valuable when filled with dissenting interpretations and alternative explanations.”
Oh, yeah?
The President’s Daily Brief (PDB)
Granted, such dissent might have been helpful to President George W. Bush, rather than having PDB briefers like Michael Morell (later to become deputy CIA director) parroting the line of then-Director George Tenet and Vice President Dick Cheney that there were tons of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But what is wrong with preferring “verified” intelligence rather than a menu of options attempting to explain unverified reporting reeking of political agendas? (Morell later went on TV to call for the covert murder of Russians and Iranians in Syria.)
I helped prepare The President’s Daily Brief for Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, and personally conducted the one-on-one morning briefings in the Oval Office from 1981 to 1985. In those days we did our best to corroborate reporting — especially on highly sensitive issues — and did not try to cover our derrieres by alerting the president and his top aides to highly dubious reporting, however sexy.
Later, Cheney’s fascination/fixation with the yarn about “yellowcake uranium” going to Iraq from Niger did not pass the smell test, for example, something that it took the International Atomic Energy Agency only a day or two of investigation to demolish.
‘Not Authentic’
Seymour Hersh wrote in the March 24, 2003 New Yorker, just days after the attack on Iraq:
“On March 7th, Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director-General of the IAEA in Vienna, told the UN Security Council that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes. ‘The I.A.E.A. has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents . . . are in fact not authentic,’ ElBaradei said.
One senior I.A.E.A. official went further. He told [Hersh], ‘These documents are so bad that I cannot imagine that they came from a serious intelligence agency. It depresses me, given the low quality of the documents, that it was not stopped. At the level it reached, I would have expected more checking.’”
Sources
Dearlove.
Intelligence analysts must pay close attention, of course, to provenance. What is this or that source’s record for accuracy, for reliability. What kind of trough might this or that source be feeding from; and what agenda might she or he have? Discriminating readers of the corporate media — and especially the Times — should do the same with respect to journalists. When they see the byline of David Sanger they need to examine his record.
Those who look back to before the U.S./UK attack on Iraq will discover that Sanger was heavily promoting the existence of WMD in Iraq as a certainty. In a July 29, 2002 article co-written with Thom Shanker, for example, Iraq’s (non-existent) “weapons of mass destruction” appear no fewer than seven times as flat fact.
This Sanger/Shanker article, apparently fed by intelligence sources, came just nine days after the head of British intelligence, Sir Richard Dearlove, was briefed by CIA chief Tenet at CIA headquarters in Langley, VA. Three days later, on July 23, Dearlove told then Prime Minister Tony Blair that the coming attack on Iraq was a done deal.
We did not know this until May 2005 when The Times of London was given the text of what became known as the Downing Street Memo — the minutes of the briefing that Dearlove gave Blair on July 23, 2002. No one has disputed its authenticity. Here’s an excerpt:
“C [[Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6]] reported on his recent talks in Washington [[with George Tenet, CIA director at CIA headquarters on July 20, three days earlier]].
… Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.
But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
More instructive still, in May 2005, when first-hand documentary evidence from the now-famous “Downing Street Memorandum” showed that President George W. Bush had decided by early summer 2002 to attack Iraq, The New York Times ignored it for six weeks until David Sanger rose to the occasion with a tortured report claiming just the opposite.
The title given his article of June 13 2005 was “Prewar British Memo Says War Decision Wasn’t Made.”
Against this peculiar reporting record, I was not inclined to take at face value Sanger’s Jan. 6, 2017 report “Putin Ordered ‘Influence Campaign’ Aimed at U.S. Election, Report Says.” Or the report he authored, with Michael Shear the following day, “Putin Led a Complex Cyberattack Scheme to Aid Trump, Report Finds.”
And Therein Lies the Rub
… or the rubbish, as the British might say. The fable of the Russian hack has now gone the way of Russia-Trump collusion. (See, for example: “Mueller’s Forensic-free Findings.”
When will New York Times readers catch on to David Sanger’s story telling? Sadly, there are plenty of Pulitzer presstitutes — particularly on Russiagate, but Sanger is the archdeacon of them all — by far the most accomplished at the art.
Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. During his 27-year CIA career, he worked on The President’s Daily Brief under Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, briefing it in person from 1981 to 1985. In retirement, he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Russian ‘bounty killing’ forces Trump’s hands on troop withdrawal from Afghanistan
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | July 1, 2020
As expected, the controversy over Russia’s alleged bounties for killing American and NATO troops in Afghanistan is steadily snowballing. The New York Times has come out with more leaks such as bank transfers from accounts identified with the Russian military intelligence to the Taliban, “hawala” transactions as well as the Afghan government’s assistance to the US intelligence to zero in on the Russian-Taliban nexus.
Meanwhile, the US Congress is seized of the matter, possibly triggering another “Russiagate”. The Democrats are on the warpath. Top White House aides are briefing the Senate Intelligence Committee later today.
The Times also featured today an Op-Ed on this topic by former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, who is widely mentioned as a possible vice-presidential running mate on the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s ticket in the November elections. Rice tore into President Trump and his key aides.
To be sure, the controversy will seriously impact the endgame in Afghanistan. The first sign of it appeared on Tuesday when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held a video conference with the Taliban’s deputy head and chief negotiator at Doha, Mullah Baradar. The White House readout said Pompeo discussed with the Taliban leader the implementation of the Doha pact of February on the Afghan peace process and “made clear the (US) expectation for the Taliban to live up to their commitments, which include not attacking Americans.”
Evidently, the White House is directly warning the Taliban against any attacks on the US troops. An AP report cited the Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen as tweeting that Pompeo and Baradar also “discussed ways of moving … forward” the implementation of the Doha pact.
The White House is anxious that the intra-Afghan peace talks should take place without further delay so that the US troop withdrawal can be announced. There were reports recently that a decision to withdraw another 4,000 American troops out of the 8,600-strong contingent is under consideration.
In the light of the present controversy over alleged Russian bounty killings and given the likelihood of Congressional hearings, Trump will be keen to summarily withdraw all troops from Afghanistan. The US special representative for reconciliation with the Taliban Zalmay Khalilzad has also reached Doha for discussions with Mullah Baradar.
All in all, the series of Times reports since June 26 has compelled the White House to kickstart the intra-Afghan peace talks somehow, where a complete ceasefire tops the agenda of discussion. The Times reports significantly weaken the US’ capacity to influence the outcome of the intra-Afghan peace talks.
The US stands badly isolated in the region. The controversy over bounty killings has upset Moscow and in turn makes it impossible to carry forward any US-Russian cooperation and coordination over the intra-Afghan peace talks, as was envisaged earlier.
At the same time, the US-China tensions are spinning out of control and Washington is no longer in a position to leverage Beijing’s cooperation in the Afghan peace process. Similarly, Washington is on a collision course with Tehran following Pompeo’s appearance at the UN Security Council on Tuesday to formally table the US proposal seeking an extension of the UN embargo on arms supplies to Iran.
Russia and China have made it clear that they will veto any such US resolution, which, in turn, may lead to Pompeo pressing a claim to invoke the snapback clause of the Iran nuclear deal to kill the 2015 agreement. Heightened tensions can be expected between Washington and Tehran in the weeks and months ahead.
With Russia, China and Iran on a path of confrontation with the US, the burden falls entirely on the Trump administration to carry froward the Afghan peace process. The US’ reliance on Pakistan becomes more critical than ever before. (Khalilzad is set to travel to Islamabad this week.)
Clearly, the initiative is slipping out of the American hands to script its exit strategy in Afghanistan. To be sure, Taliban will negotiate from a position of strength. Mullah Baradar reportedly made humiliating demands to Pompeo during the videoconference yesterday.
Given the unfriendly mood in the three key regional capitals — Moscow, Tehran and Beijing — Washington may be left with no choice now but to cut loose and make its way for the exit door as quickly as possible. Trump will not risk a prolonged stay for the troops in Afghanistan.
Curiously, there is an eerie similarity to the Afghan situation around the Geneva Accords of April 1988 between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the US and the Soviet Union serving as guarantors.
The Geneva Accords had envisaged a matrix of several elements — principally, a bilateral agreement between Islamabad and Kabul on the principles of mutual good neighbourly relations; a declaration on international guarantees, signed by the Soviet Union and the US; and a Pak-Afghan agreement on the interrelationships for the settlement of the Afghan situation as such, which was witnessed by the Soviet Union and the US.
It was an impressive peace agreement but it was still-born and its only positive outcome was that Moscow faithfully (and eagerly) observed the agreement’s provisions for the timetable of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. (The Soviet contingent completed the withdrawal on 15th February 1989.)
The intra-Afghan peace talks will also be taking place in a dismal setting involving two intransigent protagonists (Afghan government and Taliban), and two “guarantors” (the US and Pakistan) pursuing different priorities. Again, the only positive outcome of the intra-Afghan peace talks might be that it will have put an end to the 2-decade old American occupation of Afghanistan.
‘Russian bounty’ story shifts: NYT now claims Afghan CRIMINALS & not Taliban were paid, cites anonymous sources again
RT | June 30, 2020
The New York Times is doubling down on claims that Russia offered bounties for the killing of US troops in Afghanistan, but now says local criminals and not the Taliban were the recipients, again offering no actual evidence.
The new article, published Tuesday, says that “electronic data showing large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency to a Taliban-linked account” was intercepted by US spies and “bolsters suspicions” that Russia offered bounties to militants – as claimed by the Times last week.
Once again, the Times quotes anonymous sources – “three officials familiar with the intelligence” – so the claim is impossible to verify. No evidence of the alleged electronic transfer is provided, only a third-hand hearsay that “analysts concluded from other intelligence that the transfers were most likely part of a bounty program.”
The article eventually gets around to quoting several local officials from Afghanistan, who say that several people who transfer money through an Islamic banking system are “suspected of being part of a ring of middlemen” between Russia and “Taliban-linked militants.”
The ‘hawala’ banking system does not actually use electronic transfers. Moreover, the article says the Afghan security forces found “a half-million dollars” – presumably in cash – in one Kabul home about six months ago. Safiullah Amiry, described as “the deputy provincial council chief” in Kunduz, “said the Afghan intelligence agency had told him the raids were related to Russian money being dispersed [sic] to militants.”
In the original article, the Times claimed President Donald Trump had been briefed on this alleged plot sometime in March. The White House, the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have since denied this.
So the narrative has now shifted, with the Times citing “two officials” who say the information was included in Trump’s written presidential daily brief (PDB) “in late February,” accompanied by the – likewise unverified – claim that Trump typically doesn’t read those. The article also claims the CIA mentioned the intelligence in its World Intelligence Review newsletter, also known as The Wire, dated May 4.
The identity of the suspected recipients of the “Russian bounties” has shifted as well, from the Taliban to “criminals closely associated with the Taliban” – according to yet another anonymous US official.
Most mainstream US media outlets and the Democrats have taken the original New York Times reporting at face value, denouncing Trump as “Putin’s puppet” and a traitor for allegedly not doing anything to “punish Russia” based on the purported intelligence assessments, rather than demanding to see evidence there was anything to it.
Fake story on Russians paying Afghans ‘bounty’ to kill Americans latest example of appalling media coverage of Russia
By Bryan MacDonald | RT | June 29, 2020
The Anglo-American press is difficult to understand. Anonymous sources are treated as gospel – when they suit the ideological and political biases of news outlets – and spy agencies seem to be beyond reproach.
This, of course, is how America and Britain were drawn into the Iraq War. Mainstream media was complicit in manufacturing consent by publishing stories handed down by intelligence agencies – a great many of them later proven untrue. Perhaps most notably, the New York Times went big on the bogus “weapons of mass destruction” yarn.
After the damage was done, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis had died, the paper apologized. It admitted it was encouraged to report the claims by “United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq.”
Almost two decades on, it has plainly learned nothing. This weekend the Times had three of its most senior journalists basically rewrite a CIA press release as part of its latest attempt to undermine President Donald Trump by playing the “Russia card.” Quite why it took so many of them is hard to understand – unless none wanted to be the sole name on the piece, preferring safety in numbers.
The story claimed that Russia is paying Afghan militants to kill American soldiers and that Trump’s team has known for months but done nothing. The US director of national intelligence quickly denied the allegations, as did the president himself. It surely wasn’t coincidental that the drop took place in the same weekend that reports emerged of Trump planning to withdraw 4,000 troops from Afghanistan.
If you know anything about Russia, the story is obviously false. The Americans are totally bogged down in Kabul, which suits Moscow in myriad ways. In fact, the Kremlin would be only delighted if the US stayed there forever. What’s more, the Taliban hardly needs a financial incentive to attack a hated occupying force. So why would Moscow need to be handing out bounties to encourage people who already have it in for Americans?
Another interesting detail was the New York Times’ assertion that its allegations are “based at least in part on interrogations of captured Afghan militants and criminals.” Given we know the US uses torture in Afghanistan that should be an immediate red-flag to any self-respecting journalist. Not to mention the fact that even if Afghan prisoners did say this, it’s likely no more than prison gossip: “Daud told Nadir that Hashem heard the Russians will pay you for killing an American.”
The Times trio even threw in a bit of casual xenophobia. “I think we had forgotten how organically ruthless the Russians could be,” they quoted Peter Zwack, a retired military intelligence officer, as saying. Imagine a report saying Asians, Africans, Mexicans or Jews are “organically ruthless.” That’s right, you can’t, because it wouldn’t happen. But Russians, being predominantly white and Christian, are considered to be fair game.
Soon after, the Washington Post said it had ‘confirmed’ the Times’ story. All this means is they were fed the same bulls**t by the same anonymous spooks. Even more hilariously, the paper managed to get a named Taliban spokesman to go on the record with his denial, while it allowed the Americans who pushed the yarn to remain in the shadows. Nevertheless, which narrative do you think was given more credence?
This carry-on is deeply unethical. Especially given it comes just a couple of months after US/UK media went big on another fake story alleging Russia was trying to poison Czech politicians with ricin. Prague eventually admitted the tale was entirely made up. This confession, of course, received about one percent of the coverage granted to the original fabrication.
Predictably, broadcast media followed up on the Times and Post’s reports. Rachel Maddow was front and center, naturally. You’ll remember she spent a few years airing false and hysterical smears about Trump’s alleged ties to Moscow and suffered no professional consequences when the Mueller Report proved her allegations to be untrue.
But it wasn’t just Maddow. On Saturday, CNN ran “breaking news” saying it had found “a European intelligence official” to corroborate the tale. It then cut to its own correspondent, one Nick Paton Walsh. He provided no named source and his comments basically amounted to “some fella told me down the pub” stuff. Honestly, in any sane media culture, Paton Walsh would be laughed at, not encouraged.
For example, at one point he said “it’s not clear when this happened” and then added, “it’s clear it has caused casualties.” But instead of asking “how is it possible to know that if you can’t say when it happened?” the anchor just sat there nodding along with that vacuous look in her eyes which seems to be mandatory for CNN presenters.
Later, Britain’s Sky News ran the same yarn, but said “British security officials have confirmed… that the reports about the plot are true.” Presumably, Sky was spoon-fed by the same spooks who exploited Paton Walsh as a ‘useful idiot’. Later, the Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner tweeted “this confirmation by closest intel allies is critical and damning: Russia paid Taliban fighters to attack British troops in Afghanistan.”
Again, the reporter expressed no doubts, because apparently the word of spooks is golden, and they would never lie.
It’s established that mainstream US/UK media operates in a self-contained pit of rumor, fear, braggadocio, bullshit, and propaganda when it comes to Russia. But what’s most bizarre is the sheer obviousness with which outlets circulate the same false stories and then use each other as corroborating sources even though they are all getting the information from the same people.
Folk who obviously have their own agendas, and are playing gormless hacks like a fiddle. The other incredible thing is a clear lack of understanding about what ‘confirmation’ even means. It obviously requires tangible evidence, on the record.
The New York Times’ coverage of Russia basically only has two tricks. They either rip-off articles from smaller Russian liberal outlets (who often can’t complain too loudly as they rely on Western funding) or they regurgitate anonymous sources in the US military-intelligence establishment looking to run scare stories about the country. None of this involves any reporting, and it cannot be considered journalism under any accepted definition of what the trade involves.
Given the New York Times is arguably the biggest, and most visible, fish in the US/UK media world, you can only imagine the even lower standards that permeate further down the food chain.
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The 9/11 “Double-Cross” Conspiracy Theory
BY LAURENT GUYÉNOT • UNZ REVIEW • SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Is it true that “9/11 was an inside job”? Yes, insofar as Israel is “inside” the U.S. But for the 9/11 truthers who have identified Israel as the main perpetrators, “9/11 was an inside job” is at best a half-truth, and at worst an integral part of the Zionist operation, like a secondary flag sewn as a lining under the false flag of Islamism. Victor Thorn (1963-2017) wrote in his book 9/11 made in Israel: The Plot Against America (2011): “In essence, the ‘9-11 truth movement’ was created prior to Sept. 11, 2001 as a means of suppressing news relating to Israeli complicity. . . . The slogan ‘9-11 was an inside job’ was quite possibly the greatest example of Israeli propaganda ever devised.” In milder terms, it is “controlled opposition”.
A genuine truth movement would have pointed to Israel as the prime suspect from the start. From day one, it was obvious who would benefit. … continue
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