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Netanyahu: Lebanese PM’s Resignation a ‘Wake-Up Call’ to Unite Against Iran

Al-Manar | November 5, 2017

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman have turned Lebanese PM Saad Hariri’s resignation to Israel’s advantage by attacking Iran and Hezbollah.

“The resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri and his statements are a wake-up call for the international community to act against Iranian aggression,” Netanyahu said, adding that Iran was “trying to turn Syria into a second Lebanon,” Netanyahu, who is in London, tweeted.

“This aggression endangers not only Israel, but the entire Middle East. The international community needs to unite and stand against this aggression,” the Israeli PM added.

For his part, Israeli DM warned that Lebanon “would become like Iran.”

“Lebanon=Hezbollah. Hezbollah=Iran. Lebanon=Iran,” Liberman tweeted.

“Iran is a danger to the world. Saad Hariri proved this today. Period,” the Israeli minister added.

November 5, 2017 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

State Department’s New Victoria Nuland… is Just Like the Old Victoria Nuland!

By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | November 3, 2017

Yesterday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson swore into office a new Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Dr. A. Wess Mitchell became the Trump Administration’s top diplomat for Europe, “responsible for diplomatic relations with 50 countries in Europe and Eurasia, and with NATO, the EU and the OSCE.”

Readers will recall that the position was most recently held during the Obama Administration by Kagan family neocon, Victoria Nuland, who was key catalyst and cookie provider for the US-backed coup overthrowing the elected government in Ukraine. Victoria Nuland’s virulently anti-Russia position was a trademark of the neocon persuasion and she put ideology into action by “midwifing,” in her own words, an illegal change of government in Ukraine.

It was Nuland’s coup that laid the groundwork for a precipitous decay in US/Russia relations, as Washington’s neocons peddled the false line that “Russia invaded Ukraine” to cover up for the fact that it was the US government that had meddled in Ukrainian affairs. The coup was bloody and divisive, resulting in a de-facto split in the country that continues to the day. Ukraine did not flourish as a result of this neocon scheme, but has in fact been in economic free-fall since the US government installed its preferred politicians into positions of power.

You don’t hear much about Ukraine these days because the neocons hate to talk about their failures. But the corruption of the US-installed government has crippled the country, extreme nationalist elements that make up the core of the post-coup elites have imposed a new education law so vicious toward an age-old Hungarian population stuck inside arbitrarily re-drawn post-WWI borders that the Hungarian government has blocked Ukraine’s further integration into NATO, and a new “Maidan” protest has steadily gathered steam in Kiev despite Western cameras being uninterested this time.

Fortunately Donald Trump campaigned on and was elected to improve relations with Russia and end the Obama Administration’s neocon-fueled launch of a new Cold War. He raised eyebrows when he directly challenged the neocon shibboleth — amplified by the mainstream media — that Russia was invading Ukraine. But candidate Trump really blew neocon minds — and delighted voters — when he said he was looking into ending US sanctions on Russia imposed by Obama and may recognize Crimea as Russian territory.

Which brings us back to Wess Mitchell. Certainly President Trump, seeing the destruction of Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Victoria Nuland’s anti-Russia interventionism, would finally restore a sane diplomat to the position vacated by the unmourned former Assistant Secretary. Would appoint someone in line with the rhetoric that landed him the Oval Office. Right?

Wrong!

If anything, Wess Mitchell may well prove to be Victoria Nuland on steroids. He was co-founder and CEO of the neocon-dominated Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Mitchell’s CEPA is funded largely by the US government, NATO, neocon grant-making mega-foundations, and the military-industrial complex. The “think tank” does the bidding of its funders, finding a Russian threat under every rock that requires a NATO and defense industry response — or we’re doomed!

Mitchell’s CEPA’s recent greatest hits? “The Kremlin’s 20 toxic tactics,” “Russian disinformation and anti-Western narratives in Romania: How to fight back?,” “Winning the Information War,” “Alliances and American greatness,” “Russia’s historical distortions,” “What the Kremlin Fears Most,” and so on. You get the idea. The raison d’etre of the organization founded by the new Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia is to foment a new (and very profitable) Cold War (and more?) with Russia.

Last month, CEPA put on its big conference, the “CEPA Forum 2017.” Speakers included central European heavy hitter politicos like the president of Latvia and also Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe, who gave a talk on how “the unity of the NATO Alliance” is “what Russia fears the most.” The grand event was funded, as might be expected, by war contractors Raytheon and Lockheed-Martin. But also, surprisingly, significant funding came from the Hungarian government of Viktor Orban, who is seen as somewhat of a maverick in central Europe for refusing to sign on to the intense Russia-hate seen in the Baltics and in Poland.

The no-doubt extraordinarily expensive conference was funded by no less than three Hungarian government entities: the Embassy of Hungary in Washington, DC, the Hungarian Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Hungarian Presidency of the Visegrad Group. Again, given Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s reputation for bucking neocon positions vis-a-vis Russia it is surprising to see the virulently anti-Russia CEPA conference so awash in Hungarian taxpayer money. Perhaps there is something to explore in the fact that the recently-fired Hungarian Ambassador to Washington, Réka Szemerkényi, was recently named executive vice president of CEPA. Hmmm. Makes you wonder.

But back to Mitchell. So he founded a neocon think tank funded by a NATO desperate for new missions and a military-industrial complex desperate for new wars. What about his own views? Surely he can’t be as bad as Nuland. Right? Wrong! Fortunately Assistant Secretary Mitchell is a prolific writer, so it’s easy to track his thinking. In a recent piece for neocon Francis Fukuyama’s American Interest, titled “Predators on the Frontiers,” Mitchell warns that, “From eastern Ukraine and the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea, large rivals of the United States are modernizing their military forces, grabbing strategic real estate, and threatening vulnerable US allies.”

Mitchell continues, in a voice right out of the neocon canon, that:

By degrees, the world is entering the path to war. Not since the 1980s have the conditions been riper for a major international military crisis. Not since the 1930s has the world witnessed the emergence of multiple large, predatory states determined to revise the global order to their advantage—if necessary by force.

We are on a path to war not seen since the 1930s! And why are our “enemies” so hell-bent on destroying us? Because we are just so isolationist!

Writes Mitchell: “Over the past few years, Russia, China, and, to a degree, Iran have sensed that the United States is retreating in their respective regions…”

We are “retreating”?

So what can we do? Mitchell again does the bidding of his paymasters in advising that the only thing we can do to save ourselves is… spend more on militarism:

The United States should therefore enhance its nuclear arsenal by maintaining and modernizing it. It needs to sustain a credible nuclear extended deterrent at a time when revisionist states are gradually pushing their spheres of influence and control closer to, if not against, U.S. allies. Moreover, it should use the limited tactical nuclear weapons at its disposal and seed them in a few of the most vulnerable and capable frontline states (Poland and Japan, for instance) under “nuclear sharing” agreements.

There is our new Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia. Our top diplomat for Europe. The only solution is a military solution. President Trump. Elected to end the endless wars, to forge better relations with Russia, to roll-back an “outdated” NATO. President Trump has replaced Victoria Nuland with something far more dangerous and frightening. Heckuva job, there, Mr. President!

November 4, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

The Trumped-Up Syria-Sarin Case

By Rick Sterling | Consortium News | November 4, 2017

In early 2003, it was claimed that Iraq was a threat to other countries. Despite ten years of crushing economic sanctions plus intrusive inspections, supposedly Iraq had acquired enough “weapons of mass destruction” to threaten the West. It was ridiculous on its face but few people in power said so. Establishment politicians and media across the U.S. promoted the idea. In the Senate, Joe Biden chaired the committee looking into the allegations but excluded knowledgeable critics such as Scott Ritter. This led to the invasion of Iraq.

Today we have something similarly ridiculous and dangerous. Supposedly the Syrian government decided to use a banned chemical weapon, which they gave up in 2013-2014. Despite advancing against the insurgents, the Syrian government supposedly put sarin in a Russian chemical weapon canister and dropped this on the town Khan Sheikhoun which has been under the control of Syria’s version of Al Qaeda for years. To top off the stupidity, they left paint markings on the canister, which identify it as a chemical weapon.

Supposedly the Syrian government did this despite knowing there are many “White Helmet” activists in the town along with their cameras, videos, computers, Internet uplinks and Western social media promoters. Supposedly the Syrian government did this despite knowing that neoconservatives, neoliberals and Zionists are keen to prolong the conflict and drag the U.S. and NATO into it more directly. Supposedly the Syrian government did this despite knowing the one thing that could trigger direct U.S. aggression in the conflict is the use of chemical weapons: the “red line” laid down by Barack Obama.

If the above sounds unlikely, it is. But even if these accusations should be laughed out of the room, as they should have been in 2002, let’s take the claims about the event at Khan Sheikhoun in Syria on April 4 seriously if, for no other reason, than that certainly the consequences will be serious if the exploitation of this incident is not stopped.

What Happened at Khan Sheikhoun?

The report titled “Seventh report of the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism” was provided to select governments and media on Oct. 26. The world’s media announced the key finding without criticism or question: the sentence that the committee is “confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin in Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017.”

About 36 hours later, the report was leaked via the Internet. But the die was already cast as establishment media had “confirmed” Syrian guilt.

Following are key contradictions and inconsistencies in the report produced by the Joint Investigative Mechanism of the U.N. and Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

–The Investigation Ignores the Essential Element of Motive.

The three essentials in criminal investigation are Motive, Means and Opportunity. All three must be present. Yet the investigation team ignores the question of motive. The Syrian government has every motive to NOT use proscribed weapons. On the other side, the armed opposition has a strong motive to implicate the Syrian government. They have been calling for U.S. and NATO intervention for years. They are losing ground, recruits and allies. Yet these facts are never considered.

–The Investigation Relies Primarily on Biased Sources.

On page 1 the Joint Investigative Mechanism claims they have conducted a “rigorous independent examination.” But most experts and witnesses are biased in favor of the “regime change” policies of Western governments. On page 4 the report says, “The Mechanism engaged several internationally recognized forensic and specialist defense institutes … to provide forensic and expert support to the investigation.”

Any “defense institute” connected or contracting with France, U.K. or U.S. will have inherent assumptions and bias since these governments have actively promoted overthrow of the Syrian government.

–The Investigation Ignores Credible but Critical Analyses.

The Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) team makes no mention of the published analysis and findings of numerous researchers, investigative journalists and scientists. For example:

– MIT Professor Theodore Postol has analyzed the Khan Sheikhoun incident. He persuasively challenges the main theory about the crater site and munition.

– American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has also written about he incident. His information from U.S. military and intelligence officers reveal that the American military knew about the forthcoming attack in advance. He reports the Syrian jet attack was “not a chemical weapons strike …. That’s a fairy tale.”

– Investigative journalist Gareth Porter has written an exposé titled “Have We Been Deceived over Syrian Sarin Attack? Scrutinizing the Evidence in an Incident Trump Used to Justify Bombing Syria.” Porter presents a devastating critique of the sarin-crater theory. He documents how easily false positives for sarin could have been created and how the OPCW has violated their own investigation protocols.

– Researcher Adam Larson has written an exposé titled “Syria Sarin Allegation: How the UN-Panel Report Twists and Omits Evidence”. After closely inspecting the photographs and videos, he questions whether the victims are civilians kidnapped from a nearby village five days previously. Larson’s site “A Closer Look at Syria” has a good index of videos and articles on this and other events.

The above “open source” analysis and information was published well before the current report but apparently not considered. A “rigorous, independent examination” needs to evaluate investigations such as these.   

–Victims Appear Before the Attack.

On pages 28-29, it is reported that “Certain irregularities were observed in elements of information analyzed. For example, several hospitals appeared to start admitting casualties of the attack between 0640 and 0645 hours…. in 57 cases patients were admitted in five hospitals before the incident in Khan Shaykhun…. in 10 such cases, patients appear to have been admitted to a hospital 125 km away from Khan Shaykhun at 0700 hours while another 42 patients appear to have been admitted to a hospital 30 km away at 0700 hours.”

It is reported that “The Mechanism did not investigate these discrepancies and cannot determine whether they are linked to any possible staging scenario, or to poor record-keeping in chaotic conditions.” Given the importance of determining whether this incident was caused by the Syrian government or staged by elements of the armed opposition and their supporters, why were these discrepancies not investigated further? Clearly it is not possible that victims were transported 125 kilometers and delivered to a hospital in 15 minutes. This is potentially powerful evidence of a staged event.

–‘White Helmets’ Were Warning of a Chemical Weapons Attack Before the Attack.

On page 20 it says “The Mechanism collected information from witnesses to the effect that a first warning of a possible upcoming chemical attack was received by ‘Syrian Civil Defense’ (also known as the ‘White Helmets’) and spotters in Kahn Shaykun…. The witness stated that the alert advised residents to be careful as the aircraft was likely carrying toxic chemicals.”

It seems reasonable to ask: Was the advance talk of “toxic chemicals” a signal to get ready for a staged event? How would a plane spotter know there was a one-time chemical bomb aboard? This is another area that needs more investigation.

–Were Syrian Planes Over Khan Sheikhoun at the Critical Time?

The basic question of whether or not there were Syrian jets over Khan Sheikhoun is unanswered. The Syrian military says they did NOT fly over Khan Sheikhoun in the early morning.

Page 21 documents that the Syrian pilot and log books record that the Su-22 jet was executing attacks at other nearby towns and not closer than 7 to 9 kilometers from Khan Sheikhoun. Radar track data from the U.S. appears to support this, indicating the Syrian jet path was 5 kms from Khan Sheikhoun.

On page 7 it says “SAAF aircraft may have been in a position to launch aerial bombs” (underline added). On page 22 it says, “the witness reported waking up at around 0700 hours on 4 April 2017 to the sound of explosions. The witness stated that there had been no aircraft over Khan Shaykhun at the time and that aircraft had only started launching attacks at around 1100 hours.” (underline added)

There are conflicting testimonies on this issue but curiously no video showing jet fighters at the time of the explosions in Khan Sheikhoun. It is unconfirmed how the ground explosions occurred.

–The Investigation Team Did Not Try to Visit the Scene of the Crime.

On page 3 the report says “The Mechanism did not visit the scenes of the incidents…. While the Leadership Panel considered that a visit to these sites would have been of value, such value would diminish over time. Further, the panel was required to weigh the security risks against the possible benefits to the investigation.”

While it is certainly appropriate to consider security, the actual scene of a crime provides unique opportunities for evidence. The OPCW has previously stated the necessity of having access to a crime site then taking and transferring samples to a certified lab with a clear chain of custody.

If the insurgents still controlling Khan Sheikhoun have nothing to hide, they should welcome the investigation.

Furthermore, Russian authorities offered to guarantee the safety of the inspection team. Yet the investigation team apparently made no effort to visit the site. Why? In an investigation of this importance, with potentially huge political consequences, visiting and analyzing the scene of the crime should be a requirement if at all possible.

–The Material Evidence Comes from Insurgents with No Verifiable Chain of Custody.

On page 23 it says “Samples taken from the crater and its surroundings were found by the Fact Finding Mission to contain sarin.” On the day of the event, insurgents took soil samples and victims to Turkey where they were received and subsequently tested. Without verified origins and “chain of custody”, this data cannot be verified and must be considered skeptically.

As indicated in the report, one theory about the April 4 event is that it was staged to implicate the Syrian government. If that theory is correct, it is predictable that the plotters would have samples prepared in advance, including sarin samples with markers matched to the Syrian stockpile. The Syrian sarin was destroyed aboard the U.S. vessel “MV Cape Ray.” Given the heavy involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Syrian conflict it is likely they analyzed and retained some portion.

–The Report Repeats Discredited Claims about Bomb Fragment and Filler Cap.

On page 26 it is reported that “two objects of interest … were the filler cap from a chemical munition and a deformed piece of metal protruding from deep within the crater. According to information obtained by the Mechanism, the filler cap, with two closure plugs, is uniquely consistent with Syrian chemical aerial bombs.”

This information may come from a Human Rights Watch report, which has been discredited. The “filler cap” was supposedly a match for an external plug for a Russian chemical weapon bomb but was found to not match and to be based on a 1950’s era museum photo. An insightful and amusing critique of the HRW report is here.

The authenticity of the fragments in the crater is also challenged by the lack of a tailfin or any other bomb fragments. A chemical weapon bomb is designed to release and not burn up the chemical and therefore the munition casing should be on site.

–Strange Actions Suggesting a Staged Event.

On page 28, the report notes methods and procedures “that appeared either unusual or inappropriate in the circumstances.” For example they observe that a Drager X-am 7000 air monitor was shown detecting sarin when that device is not able to detect sarin, and “para-medical interventions that did not seem to make medical sense, such as performing heart compression on a patient facing the ground.”

On page 29, it is reported that one victim had a blood test showing negative for sarin and urine test showing positive. This is an impossible combination. Also on page 29 it is noted that some of the rescue operations were inappropriate but might have been “attempts to inflate the gravity of the situation for depiction in the media.”

The report does not mention the video, which shows “White Helmet” responders handling victims without any gloves or protection. If the patients truly died from sarin, touching the patients’ skin or clothing could be fatal. Incidents such as these support the theory that this was a contrived and staged event with real victims.

–The Team Is ‘Confident’ in Their Conclusions Yet Basic Facts Are in Dispute.

On page 22, the report acknowledges that “To date the Mechanism has not found specific information confirming whether or not an SAA Su-22 operating from Al Shayrat airbase launched an aerial attack against Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017.”

How can they be “confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017” when such basics have not been confirmed?

Conclusion

The report of the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) gives the impression of much more certainty than is actually there. Seizing on the false “confidence,” the White House has denounced the “horrifying barbarism of Bashar al Assad” and “lack of respect for international norms” by Syria’s ally Russia. International diplomacy is being steadily eroded.

Most Western “experts” were dead wrong in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Are these same “experts,” institutes, intelligence agencies and biased organizations going to take us down the road to new aggression, this time against Syria?

In contrast with the JIM report, Gareth Porter reached the opposite conclusion: “The evidence now available makes it clear that the scene suggesting a sarin attack at the crater was a crudely staged deception.” That is also more logical. The armed opposition had the motive, means and opportunity.

Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist who lives in the SF Bay Area. He can be contacted at rsterling1@gmail.com

November 4, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Shameless, ridiculous CIA 9/11 falsification aimed at saving US allies in Mideast: Iran

Press TV – November 4, 2017

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has dismissed new “shameless” falsification of 9/11 records by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to incriminate the Islamic Republic, saying such a futile propaganda campaign is meant to protect some of Washington’s allies in the Middle East.

“The fresh US allegations and claims against Iran are a clear example of shameless falsification to corroborate remarks by the country’s president and are for domestic consumption inside the US,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Saturday.

Qassemi made the remarks after the release of a 19-page al-Qaeda report in Arabic, which claimed Iran had supported the extremist group before the 9/11 attacks.

The document was part of nearly 47,000 documents recently released by the CIA.

The US government’s 9/11 Commission has made similar allegations, saying Iranian officials met with al-Qaeda leaders in Sudan in either 1991 or early 1992.

Ignoring the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers involved in the 9/11 attacks were Saudi nationals, the US government’s 9/11 Commission mad yet another wild claim, alleging that eight of the hijackers who kept passengers on the hijacked flights under control passed through Iran before arriving in the US.

Qassemi said US officials have yet to comment on these documents, but added that the country’s government and intelligence agency had a grim record of falsification and deception of world public, even the American people, to achieve their own political and strategic goals.

He emphasized that conscientious minds in the international community have no doubt about the US role in creating and intellectually and ideologically nurturing terrorist groups over the past two decades.

The publication of such fake and delusional documents would not change the internationally-acknowledged facts about the countries that are the intellectual breeding ground of terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and those who have had a role in creating them and providing them with military, political and logistic support, the Iranian spokesperson pointed out.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Thursday dismissed US allegations about Iran’s support for the al-Qaeda terror group, describing the claims as an attempt to “whitewash” the truth about the role US allies had in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Iran’s foreign minister says instead of making false allegations against Iran, the US must stop covering up its allies’ role in the 9/11 attacks.

“A record low for the reach of petrodollars: CIA & FDD fake news w/ selective AlQaeda docs re: Iran can’t whitewash role of US allies in 9/11,” Zarif wrote on his Twitter account.

November 4, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

RussiaDidIt: Cheap Meddling, Closet Marxists and Racial Tensions

By Ricardo Vaz | Investig’Action | November 2, 2017

Are you a western journalist or analyst with an issue you cannot explain? Do your symptoms include an unwillingness to learn anything from history and an unconditional embrace of western exceptionalism? Then we have just the thing for you: RussiaDidIt! Taken in the appropriate dosage, RussiaDidIt can be used for just any issue, small and large, old and new, near and far. Call your local US embassy or EU office and order your RussiaDidIt talking points. Side effects may include total paranoia, loss of credibility and a desire to wear the EU flag as a cape.

It seems like all the evils that plague the western world these days have a common cause. Brexit, Catalonia, Trump, racial tensions, the lack of credibility of the EU, all of these have a simple explanation, if we are to believe the mainstream media and pundits: Russia is behind it. And not just Russia, but Putin himself. He must be the busiest villain in history.

True journalists like Robert Parry have analysed and exposed the rise of this new McCarthyism, and how uncorroborated, or sometimes outrightly false, allegations gradually become unquestionable facts.(1)

Screenshots from the Washington Post and Politico

In this piece we examine three articles that have different angles of this RussiaDidIt approach. They have the paranoia of Russian meddling in US elections as a background, but everything applies just as well to similar stories about the EU. Inevitably it all ties back to an inability, or unwillingness, to learn anything from history, and this disgusting myth that everyone should look up to the West as a beacon of superior values. We start of course with the ineffable Guardian.

Cheap journalism and cheap meddling

One day journalism students will study the spiral of lowering standards that took hold of the Guardian. One can sense the denial taking hold of the newspaper as their liberal centrist paradise crumbles. They yearn for a knight in shining armour who can come and save them from Brexit, even if it is Tony Blair, because, believe it or not, the idea of the EU has been here since the Renaissance!(2)

As expected, the Guardian has embraced the idea that the Russians “hacked” the 2016 US elections (whatever that means) wholeheartedly. And it recently reported on new, ground-breaking revelations:

“Russian trolls posing as Americans made payments to genuine activists in the US to help fund protest movements on socially divisive issues […]

[…] the newspaper RBC published a major investigation into the work of a so-called Russian “troll factory” since 2015, including during the period of the US election campaign, disclosures that are likely to put further spotlight on alleged Russian meddling in the election.”

So far it sounds very serious. We then learn that the main “socially divisive issue” was race relations.

“RBC counted 16 groups relating to the Black Lives Matter campaign and other race issues that had a total of 1.2 million subscribers. The biggest group was entitled Blacktivist and reportedly had more than 350,000 likes at its peak.

Last month, CNN also reported that US authorities believed the Blacktivist Facebook group and Twitter account were the work of Russian impostors.”

The liberal media have often thrown these outrageous suggestions that activism like Black Lives Matter is part of a foreign agenda, as opposed to a reaction to the structural racism that exists in the US (more on this later). But the main point that needs to be addressed about this cunning plan is the following: how much did the Russians spend in these devious activities of inflaming tensions in the US? A whopping… 80,000 dollars! The Guardian thinks the activities of some alleged troll factory engaging in social media activity and paying activists a grand total of $80,000 represents unacceptable Russian “meddling”!

Billboard accusing Martin Luther King Jr. of being a communist

Let us put this number in perspective. Hillary Clinton made $3 million out of 12 speeches to big banks. The entire spending in the US presidential election was almost $2 billion. And the Guardian is worried about $80,000 worth of meddling. For comparison USAID spent $4.2 million advancing US interests in Venezuela in 2015 alone. Even if these $80,000 had been spent in a single year, it would still be 50 times smaller than what one of the US empire’s foreign policy branches spent only in Venezuela.

The Guardian piece closes by mentioning that the evil Russians also bought ads on Google and Facebook for “tens of thousands of dollars” and “$100,000”, respectively. So in essence, the Guardian is reporting that it found suspicious grains of sand in the desert.(3) It would seem Putin is not just an evil mastermind, he is also a legendary bargain hunter. It should also be clear that the tech giants are more than happy to play their part in the witch-hunt and the crusade against “fake news”, which is nothing but an attempt by the dominant classes to monopolise their control over information.

Trump is a closet Marxist!

Next we look at an opinion column which has got to be one of the most ludicrous texts ever written. At first glance it could be mistaken for satire, but it was actually written by Cass Sunstein, a professor at Harvard and former member of the Obama administration, for Bloomberg News. The title is “Russia Is Using Marxist Strategies, and So Is Trump”!

While the entire piece should be framed for posterity, we will just quote some of the highlights:

“Karl Marx and his followers argued that revolutionaries should disrupt capitalist societies by “heightening the contradictions.” Russia used a version of that Marxist idea in its efforts to disrupt the 2016 presidential campaign. […]

What is more surprising, and far more important for American politics, is that President Donald Trump is drawn to a similar strategy.

Marx contended that as the conditions of workers started to improve, they would cease to be content with their lot, or to regard their alienation as inevitable. Lenin seized on this idea and transformed it into a revolutionary strategy. […] The job of the communist revolutionary was to “heighten” or “accelerate” those contradictions.

During the 2016 campaign, Russians did something very much like that, not to produce a revolution, but to deepen and intensify social divisions (and to help elect Donald Trump).

In short, the Russians tried to foster a sense of grievance and humiliation on all sides. […] Lenin would have been proud.”

The Russian actions that Sunstein is talking about are none other than the buying of social media ads and fostering of activism that we described in the previous section. But how about that for a deep understanding of Marx and Lenin? Sunstein does try to shield himself with a footnote that says:

“I am giving a brisk summary of some famously complex and ambiguous arguments from both Marx and Lenin.” (my emphasis)

Marx, Engels, Lenin… and Trump? Cass Sunstein of Harvard University and Bloomberg News is on the maximum dosage of RussiaDidIt !

There is nothing ambiguous about Marx and Lenin. Sunstein’s argument, on the other hand, is unambiguously idiotic. The fundamental contradiction in capitalist society is that one (large) group, the working-class, sells its labour, while another one, the bourgeoisie, profits from it because it owns the means of production. These two groups have fundamentally different interests and are irrevocably at odds, this is called class struggle. Marx’s work is monumental because it was the first truly scientific analysis of the capitalist system, which meant it also explained how it could be destroyed.

The “accelerating of these contradictions” means accelerating this class conflict in order to do a little more than “disrupting” capitalism. The goal is to overthrow capitalism altogether, have the workers seize power and the means of production, and have a society free of exploitation(4) and where production is directed to satisfy human need and not the profit of capitalists. In other words, socialism.

Lenin’s contributions to Marxism, both in theory and practice, are of course way beyond the childish arguments in this piece, from his understanding of capitalism’s inevitable development into imperialism, to his development of the role of the vanguard party. Lenin and the Bolsheviks were responsible for the October Revolution of 1917, the first time that capitalism was overthrown, and the starting point for all the liberation movements that followed.

The whole argument, if it were taken seriously, would be about the strategy to “divide and conquer”, which has nothing to do with Marxism. Just like Trump, the real-estate mogul and reality-TV star, has nothing Marxist about him. If anything, Trump is the highest embodiment of western capitalism.

Surely among the vast libraries at Harvard there must be a “Marx for dummies” book that Professor Sunstein can read. But of course, writing these disingenuous pieces is much easier. The goal of course is to simultaneously push the RussiaDidIt argument and discredit a true alternative to the (capitalist) system, which has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton and a lot (or everything!) to do with Marx and Lenin.

Black Power and Red Baiting

The final article we wish to examine appeared in The Atlantic magazine, and it focuses on the long history of Russia’s “involvement in America’s race wars”. First of all, for a country with a history of slavery and segregation of African-Americans, not to mention the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW2, the term “race wars” seems like an awful understatement. One thing that actually has not changed is the red-baiting practices of the mainstream media, accusing anyone who deviates from the approved narrative of being a Soviet/Russian agent.

The article explores the history of the Soviet Union taking advantage of racial injustice in the United States for propaganda purposes. How dare those commies bring up the plight of black people in the US? Anyone who knows a bit of history knows that this is not entirely out of place. For example, in the struggle against apartheid, notably in the war in Angola, the US was on the side of apartheid South Africa and the Soviet Union was on the side of the Angolans (and of black South Africans), even if their hand might have been forced by the Cubans.

Soviet posters about the struggle against colonialism: Left: “Capitalism is doomed!” (Artsrunyan, 1966); Right: “People of Africa Will Overpower the Colonizers!” (Kukryniksy, 1960)

There is plenty to be said about the Soviet Union’s foreign policy, but the fact is that there was not a single liberation struggle in the Third World in which the Soviet Union was on the side of the oppressor/colonist and the US on the side of the liberation movement. In fact it is the opposite that was true in most cases, if not all.

This takes us to the crux of the matter. According to historian Mary Dudziak, quoted in this piece,

“Early on in the Cold War, there was a recognition that the U.S. couldn’t lead the world if it was seen as repressing people of color,”

Dudziak and all these analysts and journalists take for granted that the US, and the west in general, are supposed to lead the world. According to them, these issues of treating black people as second class citizens are a problem mainly because they make the US look bad, and its noble mission of spreading freedom and democracy becomes much harder! It would seem that if racism was a little more polite (or if the Soviets did not bring it up!), then the Sandinistas would have been happy with Somoza, the Viet Cong would have had nothing to fight for, etc.

This unquestioned embrace of US exceptionalism, coupled to a complete ignorance of history, is what ensures that these analysts completely miss the point. For them, people rejecting and resisting US imperialism, or rejecting the EU after years of austerity policies, is just a misunderstanding, which needs to be explained by nonsense such as RussiaDidIt. Had these people actually read Marx and Lenin, as opposed to spewing these idiocies, they would understand that backlash against neoliberalism, or resistance against US imperialism, is to be expected. And there is no amount of fancy speeches by the likes of Obama, saying “freedom” and “democracy” in every other sentence, that will fix that.

The loyal flag-bearers of the imperial establishment are outraged at the idea of someone paying $80,000 to US activists, but the US spending tens of millions funding NGOs and political parties all over the world is more than natural. They are outraged that RT reports on Occupy Wall Street or Ferguson, but Voice of America and Radio Martí are supposed to be welcomed by the rest of the world. Because they stand for the better values… Apart from all the death and misery that is caused by US imperialism, it is this belief in American exceptionalism that makes the US so despised around the world.

Finally, we should stress that our argument is not whataboutism. We are not saying that this issue in place X should not be discussed because there is this other issue in the US. Outlets like RT and Sputnik should have their editorial lines and journalism standards analysed and criticised. The same holds true for Russia’s foreign policy. But, paraphrasing someone who was also accused of being a Soviet agent, it cannot be the greatest purveyor of meddling in the world and media outlets with ever lowering standards bringing these charges forward and pretending to be the Guardians of truth.

Notes

(1) We have also written on the ridiculous report published by the CIA, FBI and NSA on the Russian “hacking” of US elections.

(2) One wonders why the EU is symbolised by the Medici paying Leonardo da Vinci or by Erasmus and Thomas More being friends and not, for example, by the bubonic plague or Lucrezia Borgia’s antics. You know what else was common to all of Europe before the EU? The slave trade.

(3) More recently the Guardian published another bombshell piece, saying that Russia’s Facebook posts reached 126 million Americans. But we are talking about 80,000 posts, only 0.004% of news feed content according to Facebook, during a two year period. The big number is perfect for propaganda, but conveniently it is not made clear whether 126m different users saw the posts, or if for example 10m users on average saw 120 of these posts.

(4) We should clarify that exploitation does not mean having an evil boss that pays low salaries and forces workers to work weekends. Workers in capitalism are exploited simply because there is a value difference between what they earn and what they produce. In other words, profit comes from unpaid labour. Exploitation is the foundation of capitalism and should not be framed in moral terms, which imply that the problem is not the system but a matter of finding “good capitalists”.

November 4, 2017 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Russia, US craft rival UN resolutions on extending chemical probe in Syria

Press TV – November 3, 2017

Russia and the United States have drawn up rival UN Security Council resolutions on extending the mission of a body of international experts probing chemical attacks in Syria.

The Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) was formed by a Security Council resolution in 2015, and is run jointly by the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the world body’s chemical weapons watchdog.

Russia, however, has been exceedingly critical of JIM’s reports, finding faults with its evidence gathering techniques.

On October 14, Russia vetoed a US-sponsored Security Council resolution that would have renewed the experts’ mandate for a year. It said it would wait for an official report on an alleged sarin gas attack last year in northwestern Syria by the mission to decide whether it would back extending its mandate.

The report came out two days after the veto, blaming Syria for the incident which took place in April 2016 in the town of Khan Shaykhun and killed over 90 people.

Both Russia and Syria have rejected the report.

Reacting to the report on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry said the JIM experts had produced it without even turning up on site despite being offered guarantees of safety.

Mikhail Ulyanov, the head of the ministry’s arms control and non-proliferation department, said, “Imagine a criminal investigation in which police refuse to visit the site of the crime. No court will ever accept it.” “But they consider it possible to do such thing at the UN Security Council,” he noted.

According to a draft resolution obtained by news agencies, both the American and Russian versions demand the JIM mission’s extension, but under totally different conditions.

According to AFP, Russia wants the UN Security Council to shelve the latest JIM report and launch a new investigation into the Khan Shaykhun incident.

The Russian draft also urged a six-month extension of the UN-led panel’s mission, while the version put forward by the US calls for a two-year extension of the mandate, the report added.

The Associated Press also reported that the Russian draft resolution on the future of JIM’s mandate urges the mission to send investigators to Khan Shaykhun, where the attack reportedly happened, and the Shayrat airfield in Syria’s central Homs Province, which the US attacked later in April with missiles under the pretext of punishing Syria.

The accusations against the Damascus government come while Syria has turned over its entire chemical stockpile under a deal negotiated by Russia and the United States back in 2013. The OPCW supervised that removal process.

November 3, 2017 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

Will RussiaGate Result In Social Media Regulation?

By Andrew KORYBKO – Oriental Review – 03/11/2017

Whether preplanned or inadvertent, one of the most likely and far-reaching consequences of the fake news RussiaGate scandal is that Facebook and other social media giants might soon come under strict regulation by the state.

The artificially contrived and “deep state”-driven RussiaGate scandal has been inflated to epic proportions and has already resulted in the unexpected suicide of the US’ soft power, but this never-ending conspiracy theory is now poised to affect the rest of the world in a completely different way due to the likely “regulation” that Washington might soon impose on social media giants like Facebook. “Traditional” media has long been clamoring for the American government to do something about the astronomical rise of social media, which has poached millions upon millions of people away from newspapers and TV stations and redirected them to their smartphones instead. From the perspective of social media and many of its users, however, these people weren’t “poached”, but liberated from their prior status as a captive audience to conventional influence techniques and allowed to roam freely in cyberspace as they searched for alternative non-mainstream interpretations of current and past events.

The rise of social media coincided with that of Russia’s publicly funded RT and Sputnik media outlets, whose reporting and analyses soon went viral all over the internet because they satisfied the crucial information desire that so many people were craving for years. Their explosive popularity led to them gaining a sizeable following among Western audiences, who voluntarily shared their content online and contributed to what Facebook describes as “organic growth”, or the natural trending of non-advertised posts. While posing a challenge to Establishment narratives all across the world, neither RT nor Sputnik were seriously viewed as  “threat” by the US and its allies because they had yet to be blamed for affecting any real-life change outside of the internet “matrix” of clicks, likes, and shares.

That all changed during the 2016 US election, however, since the Mainstream Media’s monopoly on information was wielded in such a blatantly and obviously biased nature against Trump that countless Americans began countenancing what would have previously been unthinkable to many of them just a year prior, and that’s trawling foreign-based media outlets in order to get a more accurate sense of the truth that their own country’s media barons were suppressing. This certainly says a lot about the deep distrust that was already prevalent among many Americans towards their own government, but it hit its climax the more that the Mainstream Media began concocting openly fraudulent “news” stories about Trump in a bid to derail his candidacy, with this effort becoming unquestionably clear when compared with the flowery coverage given to anything that Clinton said or did. As is now known, Americans rebelled against the Establishment by voting Trump into office, and the “deep state” was left scratching its head about how this could happen.

The author explained the domestic dynamics at play in his November 2016 article right after the election titled “Dear Foreign Friends, Here’s Why Trump Won (From A Clevelander)”, but the general idea is that the Democrats’ weaponization of identity politics miserably backfired as Americans sought out a radical solution to bring balance to their “deep state”-destabilized country. Nevertheless, the Establishment couldn’t bring itself to recognize the obvious, take the loss, and move on to fight another battle later on, hence why they decided to continue pressing the cringe-inducingly ridiculous narrative that “Russian trolls” somehow swayed the election due to their social media activity, and hinting that there might even be a whiff of outright collusion between Presidents Trump and Putin in organizing this movie-like conspiracy.

This narrative is convenient for many geopolitical reasons that are outside the scope of this analysis, but the domestic benefit that was expected to be derived from this storyline is that “traditional” media and the Establishment finally had the pretext that they were looking for to “regulate” social media. Bringing Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and others into compliance with already existing American laws about revealing the source of election-related advertisements is one thing, but pressing these platforms to restrict the activity of Russian publicly financed media outlets like RT and Sputnik, as well as speculatively “shadow banning” some of their staff and supporters, is a bridge too far into dystopia, as is doing so on the US governments’ double-standard FARA witch hunt which alleges that the two are “foreign agents”. As a result, it appears as though the “good ‘ole days” of “freewheeling” across Facebook and sharing whatever content one finds enjoyable is soon coming to an end as Washington begins to “regulate” social media on the basis of “safeguarding democracy”.

Of course, the real reason is that some vested power interests also have a stake in supporting their decades-long allies in the “traditional” media against their new social media rivals, to say nothing of the self-evident imperative in suppressing non-mainstream news and analyses through the US’ War on Russian Media. The forthcoming “regulation” might even go further than what’s presently being observed, as there’s a chance that Washington could seek to label social media platforms like Facebook as being “media companies” in their own right, which would then instantly force them to comply with the existing legislation that their “traditional” media counterparts have had to contend with for years. In a sense, this would “level the playing field” between “traditional” and social media, but it could also destroy the very essence of social media itself. Not only that, but if the US comes to consider Facebook and Google as “monopolies”, then they could be broken up and “regulated” even further.

What’s terribly ironic about all of this is that the US government’s international stance has always been in favor of “internet freedoms”, routinely attacking Russia, China, and Iran for implementing national security-based legislation aimed at thwarting the risk that Color Revolutions and Hybrid Wars could dangerously recruit across social media, but now all of a sudden “the land of the free” is doing the same thing as the countries that it regularly smears as “dictatorships”, though without any convincing reason and depending solely on a trumped-up fake news conspiracy theory. As is typical, the ruling Establishment and their “deep state” supporters condescendingly believe that their true intentions are invisible to the naked eye because of their presumption that the populace is stupid and politically unaware, though the very fact that their “perfect candidate” was defeated by a “dark horse” like Trump totally disproves this notion.

The reality is that most Americans, and the rest of the world at large, see the US government’s “regulation” of social media for what it actually is, and that’s a dictatorial power grab which crushes any remaining doubt that “the land of the free” is anything but, and that the “freedom of speech” is only allowed if one is either supporting the Establishment or behaving as its “controlled opposition”. The number one thing that “American Democracy” can’t accept is the free flow of information and interpretations that challenge the prevailing state-supported narrative, which in and of itself negates the very basis of what the world always thought that “American Democracy” was supposed to be about, and this powerful revelation proves that the US government’s accusations that its geopolitical rivals are “authoritarian” was never anything more than a psychological projection of its own self.

November 3, 2017 Posted by | Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Zero evidence, but… DOJ source says it ‘knows identities of Russians involved in DNC hack’

RT | November 2, 2017

Just days after the Mueller investigation came up short on Kremlin involvement in the US presidential election, a source in the Department of Justice says the names of the Russians who hacked the DNC computers are known, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In yet another effort to make a connection between the Kremlin and Hillary Clinton’s loss in the November 2016 US presidential elections, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department “has identified more than six members of the Russian government involved in hacking the Democratic National Committee’s computers and swiping sensitive information.” The leaked materials divulged a mountain of unsavory information related to the Clinton campaign.

Although relations between the world’s two preeminent nuclear powers hang in the balance over the charges, the accusations about “Russian meddling” in the US democratic process come without the outlet offering any evidence to support the claims. This much was admitted by the authors of the WSJ article early in the report.

“US intelligence agencies have attributed the attack to Russian intelligence services, but haven’t provided detailed information about how they concluded those services were responsible, or any details about the individuals allegedly involved,” authors Aruna Viswanatha and Del Quentin Wilber wrote.

Curiously, the US mainstream media has only shown interest in pursuing the “Russian hack” narrative regarding the release of thousands of the DNC’s emails, which were made public by WikiLeaks last year. Yet there were possible other suspects in this case, not least of all Seth Rich, former Voter Expansion Data Director, who was gunned down on July 10, 2016, in Washington DC.

WikiLeaks offered $20,000 reward for information regarding Rich’s death, while saying their offer should not be taken as implying Rich had been involved in leaking information to them. At the same time, however, WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, stated emphatically that Russia was not the source of the DNC data leak.

“We can say, we have said, repeatedly over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party,” he said in an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News.

Nevertheless, despite providing zero evidence to support these extremely severe charges, the Obama administration took the unprecedented step of expelling 35 Russian diplomats right before the New Year, and the changing of the presidential guard, as well as imposing sanctions.

Meanwhile, this is not the first time the Wall Street Journal has produced “evidence” allegedly incriminating Russia in some conspiracy, only to be debunked later.

In early October, the influential business newspaper reported that the Russian government used software, created by the Moscow-based company Kaspersky Lab, to “secretly scan computers around the world for classified U.S. government documents and top-secret information.”

Without identifying its sources, WSJ accused the respected anti-virus company of being aware of “an adjustment to its normal operations,” allowing the company to search for terms as broad as “top secret,” as well as the “classified code names of US government programs.”

These accusations were immediately refuted by Germany’s BSI federal cyber agency.

“There are no plans to warn against the use of Kaspersky products since the BSI has no evidence for misconduct by the company or weaknesses in its software,” BSI said in an emailed response to questions about the latest media reports. “The BSI has no indications at this time that the process occurred as described in the media.”

The unsubstantiated report by the WSJ comes as Robert Mueller’s investigation into “Russian interference” in the 2016 presidential election has failed to turn up any evidence.
Attempts by US investigators to find alleged Russian collusion with President Donald Trump’s campaign have led to the discovery of a “Ukrainian trail,” Russia’s FM Sergey Lavrov said, suggesting Washington should now investigate Kiev’s role.

Over the past several years, Washington has attempted to blame any negative world events on Russia, “be it political protests, companies going bankrupt, or man-made disasters,” Lavrov said. “I’ve already heard we’ll soon be not only interfering in elections, but also manipulating the environment in order to create floods,” he added.

November 2, 2017 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Putin, Trump and Manafort

By Margaret Kimberley | Black Agenda Report | November 1, 2017

The American propaganda campaign being waged against the Russian Federation and its president Vladimir Putin has reached a stage of perverse perfection. It is virtually impossible to put forth a dissenting opinion that will be accepted or considered worthy of consideration. The Democrats are leading the charge to silence and censor and they are getting buy-in from people who otherwise consider themselves to be progressive.

This columnist has been interviewed on Radio Sputnik on two occasions. That fact should not be at all noteworthy but in the current atmosphere of Russophobia being pushed by the corporate media and Democratic politicians, it is a risky statement to make. Sputnik International is a Russian government entity, just as the BBC is “state run media” on behalf of the British government and the CBC for Canada. But anyone and anything connected to Russia gets the double standard treatment and is targeted for attack.

Marcus Ferrell was until recently a campaign staffer for Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. He resigned after the Atlanta Journal Constitution revealed that he had been a guest on the program By Any Means Necessary which is hosted by Sputnik. Ferrell didn’t discuss Russia at all. Confederate monuments were the topic of conversation. But the level of fear is so great that he felt compelled to resign. His boss made no effort to fight against the tide and she didn’t defend him either.

Every day a new shoe drops in this faux scandal. Twitter announced that it would not accept advertisements from Sputnik or RT, formerly known as Russia Today. Sputnik had never even paid for ads on Twitter but why be bothered by facts when ginned up phony outrage is so readily available.

It is Democrats who demanded that Facebook and Twitter stop telling the truth about Eastern European click bait schemes and instead join in that party’s witch hunt. Now we are told that Russian social media posts meant to influence American politics reached 126 million people on Facebook over a two-year period. Of course the last paragraphs of that story reveal that only one out of 23,000 pieces of content actually reached anyone. That fact is too inconvenient and makes for a bad headline.

While social media giants are submitting to marching orders, the state and corporate sponsored Public Broadcasting System (PBS) produced its second anti-Putin documentary in as many years. First “Putin’s Way” in 2015 and now “Putin’s Revenge” feature so-called experts who outdo one another in stoking anti-Russian flames. PBS can never seem to find any expert who can make counter arguments.

While the corporate media compete to see who can dumb down the country the fastest, the legal wheels are turning to get Trump out of office and Russia is the pretext for the action. Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort has been indicted for tax fraud. His indictment is just the beginning of the bipartisan effort to end the Trump presidency. They hope to resume doing the elites’ business without hindrance from the man who is so bad for the neoliberal brand.

Nothing matters to liberals more than getting Trump out of office. Their juvenile political understanding was turned upside down by Hillary Clinton’s defeat and they haven’t been the same since. They are obsessed with the man they hate. They have been fed a steady diet of red meat which explains away their illusions about the failed Democratic Party and the fact that millions of their fellow citizens don’t see the world the way they do.

Paul Manafort was a long time Republican Party operative going back to the days of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign. He used his connections to become a lobbyist, a hired gun for governments ranging from Nigeria to the Philippines to Kenya to Romania to Ukraine. Manafort would not be facing serious legal jeopardy if he hadn’t taken on that particular gig.

We are told that Ukraine’s former president Victor Yanukovich was “pro Russian” and that Manafort’s representation proves Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. Neither statement is true but no one knows outside of the small circle of people who make herculean efforts to educate themselves about world affairs.

As the old saying goes, the fix is in. Manafort is just the first notch on former FBI director Robert Mueller’s gun. He will go after other Trump connected cronies and relatives who have done shady business but that won’t be the reason for the pursuit. There are many sleazy American lobbyists and business people but no one cares until there is a moment when their downfall is politically useful.

Free speech is being undermined, the left are losing their access to media and prosecutors are going after crooks, but not because they want justice to be done. If Putin was trying to destroy America he couldn’t do a better job than the media, crooked politicians and the deluded liberals who all work together.

Margaret Kimberley can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

November 2, 2017 Posted by | Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

UK PM Takes Russia’s Alleged Attempts to Intervene in Elections ‘Very Seriously’

Sputnik – 01.11.2017

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has voiced London’s concern over Russia’s alleged attempts to interfere in the electoral or democratic processes of any country.

“We take very seriously issues of Russian intervention or Russian attempts to intervene in the electoral processes or in the democratic processes of any country,” May told the House of Commons.

The British prime minister’s statement comes in the wake of the ongoing investigation in the US into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election dubbed a “witch hunt” by Donald Trump.

Asked if the UK authorities were cooperating with US Special Counsel Robert Mueller in his inquiry into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, May pointed out that London was working closely with Washington.

“As part of that relationship, we do cooperate when required,” May said.

The statement comes amid the launch of a UK Electoral Commission investigation into the funding of the campaign supporting Brexit by a pro-Leave campaigner.

Russia’s Alleged Meddling

Moscow has repeatedly denied Russia’s interference in the US election which is being investigated separately by US Congress and Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, calling the claims “groundless” and “absurd.”

In the wake of US media reports claiming about the alleged Russia’s meddling in the November 2016 election, media outlets in several European countries, including France and Germany, have began speculating about Moscow’s “attempts” to interfere in their countries’ affairs.

Commenting on the growing number of foreign states’ accusations of alleged attempts by Moscow to undermine democracy, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called the claims ridiculous, emphasizing that there was no proof that Russia was involved in the election processes of the United States, Germany, France, or the United Kingdom.

READ MORE:

UK Electoral Commission Opens Probe Into Brexit Campaigner Banks

German Election: Futile Hunt for ‘Russian Meddling’ Continues

France Finds No Traces of Russian Hackers in Attack on Macron’s Campaign

November 1, 2017 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

First Indictment in Russiagate: Special Counsel Not Up to the Task

Strategic Culture Foundation | 01.11.2017

Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the “Russiagate” investigator aided by a team of seasoned prosecutors, has launched the first wave of charges. The indictment of Paul Manafort, the veteran GOP operative who once chaired Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and his former longtime business associate Rick Gates, went public on October 30. It made Russia’s alleged meddling into the 2016 US presidential election hit media headlines but they happened to be wrong. It wasn’t Russia the indictment was about.

In May, Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel of the Russia probe. He was given a mandate to investigate “any links and/or coordination” between the Russian government and Trump campaign associates. Surprising or not, the indictment does not mention either Trump nor Russia! The story is about Ukraine. Paul Manafort had ties with Ukraine’s Party of Regions, which was considered as a “pro-Moscow” political force. That’s the only “Russia connection.” Everything related to Manafort pertains to the period before he started to work for Donald Trump. And Rick Gates has never had any relation to the incumbent president or his team.

The text of indictment prepared by the one who media have often called the best US investigator is fraught with speculations, inaccuracies and mistakes to make the horse laugh.

For instance, Manafort’s indictment (Item 22, page 15) states very seriously that Yulia Tymoshenko had served as Ukraine’s President prior to Yanukovych! It takes a few seconds to have a look at the list of Ukraine’s presidents to find out that Yulia Timoshenko has never been the holder of the highest office.

Another indictment says Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, a cooperating witness, had repeatedly contacted individuals tied to the Russian government in an attempt to broker a meeting with Kremlin officials. Who do you think he met? “Putin’s niece” in flesh and blood! She was supposed to help him organize a meeting between the then-candidate and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The same document says it was later established she was not a relative of the Russian president and it is still not known who the Russian lady was! Ridiculous, isn’t it? Can it be called a high-quality investigation done by a team of seasoned prosecutors?

The document also mentions unmanned contacts preparing a top-level meeting. The indictment does not provide any explanation why Donald Trump should need any dubious mediators at all. He visited Moscow in 2013 and there were no problems.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Papadopoulos never was a presidential adviser. According to her, he was “nothing more than a campaign volunteer” not paid by the campaign. Was it so hard for such an experienced lawyer as Robert Mueller to make precise who exactly the man was before publishing the document?

Can the fancy stories based on mere rumors about “Putin’s nieces” and nonexistent presidential advisers preparing summits be considered serious evidence to go upon? The charges appear to be harmless for the White House and the nature of any potential allegations could be nebulous.

Nevertheless, Paul Manafort may be sentenced to 80 years behind bars; Rick Gates may get a 70-year term of imprisonment. The prospects are scary enough to make the indicted give any testimony the prosecution wants as the only way to reduce their sentences. The charges appear to be elements of a larger investigation. The threat of long prison sentences allows investigators to extract plea deals from potential witnesses, which can then be used to bring charges against more significant targets. Pressure is exerted on the indicted to provide information in connection with other possible violations of law involving other persons. The special counsel could file additional charges in the future. President Trump or one of the top officials may say something under oath and then Manafort or Gates will say it wasn’t true. Then the evidence given by those who are charged could constitute grounds for impeachment. Setting up the scene is the name of the game.

Donald Trump claimed on October 25 that former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton‘s campaign paid nearly $6 million to the firm behind a controversial opposition research dossier alleging ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. But nobody talks about the need to launch an inquiry. That’s what justice is like in the United States.

Evidently, Mueller’s team is not up to the task. It has failed to find new examples of communication between the Trump campaign associates and Russia. If the mission is to smear Russia, then Robert Mueller has done a very poor job.

November 1, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Neocons Hijack Trump’s Syria Policy

By Ron Paul | October 30, 2017

Does anyone in the Trump Administration have a clue about our Syria policy? In March, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appeared to be finally pulling back from President Obama’s disastrous “Assad must go” position that has done nothing but prolong the misery in Syria. At the time, Tillerson said, the “longer-term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people.”

Those of us who believe in national sovereignty would say that is pointing out the obvious. Nevertheless it was a good sign that US involvement in Syria – illegal as it is – would no longer seek regime change but would stick to fighting ISIS.

Then out of the blue this past week, Tillerson did another 180 degree policy turn, telling a UN audience in Geneva that, “[t]he reign of the Assad family is coming to an end. The only issue is how that should that be brought about.”

The obvious question is why is it any of our business who runs Syria, but perhaps that’s too obvious. Washington’s interventionists have long believed that they have the unilateral right to determine who is allowed to head up foreign countries. Their track record in placing “our guy” in power overseas is abysmal, but that doesn’t seem to stop them. We were promised that getting rid of people like Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi would light the fire of freedom and democracy in the Middle East. Instead it has produced nothing but death and misery – and spectacular profits for the weapons manufacturers who fund neocon think tanks.

In Syria, Assad has been seen as a protector of Christians and other minorities against the onslaught of in many cases US-backed jihadists seeking his overthrow. While the Syrian system is obviously not a Switzerland-like democracy, unlike our great “ally” Saudi Arabia they do at least have elections contested by different political parties, and religious and other minorities are fully integrated into society.

Why has the Trump Administration shifted back to “Assad must go”? One reason may be that, one-by-one, the neocons who opposed Trump most vociferously during the campaign have found themselves and their friends in positions of power in his Administration. The neocons are great at winning while losing.

The real story behind Washington’s ongoing determination to overthrow the Syrian government is even more disturbing. In a bombshell interview last week, a former Qatari Prime Minister confessed that his country, along with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States, began shipping weapons to jihadists from the very moment Syrian unrest began in 2011. The well-connected Qatari former minister was trying to point out that his country was not alone in backing al-Qaeda and even ISIS in Syria. In the course of defending his country against terrorism charges leveled by Saudi Arabia he has spilled the beans about US involvement with the very groups claimed to be our arch-enemies. As they did in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the CIA supported radical Islamic terrorism in Syria.

Haven’t we done enough damage in Syria? Do we really need to go back to 2011 and destroy the country all over again? The neocons never admit a mistake and never change course, but I do not believe that the majority of Americans support their hijacking of President Trump’s Syria policy. It is long past time for the US to leave Syria alone. No bases, no special forces, no CIA assassination teams, no manipulating their electoral system. We need to just come home.

October 31, 2017 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

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