UK « Aletho News

Lord Correlli Barnett and the Collapse of American Power

By Martin SIEFF | Strategic Culture Foundation | 16.07.2018

My old teacher and mentor, Elie Kedourie, Professor of Politics at the University of London liked to say that Clio, the Greek muse of history had a great sense of humor and irony. This thought comes vividly to mind rereading one of the most important books ever written on the causes of the decline and disintegration of the British Empire in the first half of the 21^th century, Correlli Barnett’s The Collapse of British Power.

Barrett’s enormous and still controversial masterpiece was published in 1972. Yet today it has a greater relevance than ever. For every time “Britain” is mentioned in the text, cross the word out, then replace it with “the United States” or “America” and his explanations for British decline and fall apply and explain even more presciently the current dilemmas of the United States.

Barnett gave as major reasons for the collapse of British power strategic over-extension after World War I when the British, already administering an empire covering one quarter of the entire land territory and one quarter of the human race, stretched even further and saw themselves as the global hyper-power and police, charged with maintaining a true World Order across the entire planet.

Today, those words and conceptions have an especially eerie and contemporary ring.

By claiming to be the global hyper-power, Barnett cogently argued, the British instead guaranteed that they could not even remain as an international superpower. They overextended and exhausted themselves. They over-stretched and exhausted their land combat forces in a plethora of minor wars and counter-insurgencies around the world, most notably in Iraq, Palestine, Ireland and Afghanistan – all regions that have today an astonishingly contemporary ring.

In the end Britain’s imperial leaders extended their network of guarantees to the tiny, unstable and narrowly parochial states of Central and Eastern Europe, ensuring their inevitable strategic collisions with first Germany and then the Soviet Union – again, strategic misconceptions that echo with especial relevance today.

Barnett most of all explored the crumbling and collapse of Britain’s once awesome industrial base. He put this down to a fatal, blind – indeed deluded – reliance on the workings of the free market without any government intervention, encouragement or protection for strategic industries.

Britain practiced Free Trade from 1860 to 1931 except for the four years of World War I at the very same time its arch rivals Germany, the United States and Imperial Japan applied high industrial and agricultural tariffs and successfully developed their modern industries and rural economies, dramatically raising the standard of living of their peoples in the process.

The British then, like the Americans today believed in Free Trade as an economic panacea blind to the avalanche of empirical, practical evidence to the contrary.

Like modern Americans, they laid exaggerated importance on theoretical university education in the humanities and on liberal theories of economics and politics, while their ruling elites were pathetically ignorant of what today are known in the United States as the STEM subjects – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

It is therefore no coincidence that Margaret Thatcher, the only British leader to revive and stabilize her country’s economy and international standing since World War II, had worked professionally as a research scientist in the chemical industry. Thatcher also regarded Barnett as her favorite historian and raised him to the House of Lords as a Life Peer, an almost unprecedented honor for an academic British scholar.

Today Thatcher is gone but Barnett lives on at a remarkable 91. He followed up his 1972 masterpiece with three searing sequels on how the British threw away the manufacturing advantages they still enjoyed after being rescued in World War II by the alliance and support of the United States and the Soviet Union. Those three later books, The Audit of War: The Illusion and Reality of Britain as a Great Nation (1986), known in the United States as The Pride and the Fall; The Lost Victory: British Dreams and British Realities, 1945-50 (Macmillan, 1995) and The Verdict of Peace: Britain between her Yesterday and the Future remain definitive works today. They are known collectively as The Pride and Fall Sequence.

Ironically, Barnett greatly admired the America of the first half of the 20th century and held it up as an example of wise industrial, social, economic and strategic policies that Britain should have emulated but did not.

Instead the opposite happened, the Americans following the end of the Cold War plunged precisely into the same mad and futile dreams of eternal global leadership as the British had done, dragging them inexorably into one vicious, morally reprehensible and financially exhausting little “colonial” war after another to crush emerging national, social and economic movements around the world. They failed repeatedly.

Eventually these self-righteous and moralistic – but never moral – policies propelled Britain and its Empire into the one catastrophe they should have avoided at all costs – another world war.

Barnett recognized the fateful path the United States had taken. In 2003, never fearful of controversy he was scathingly critical of the US invasion of Iraq and its claimed moral and grand strategic goals. Clio, Muse of History must have applauded.

July 16, 2018 Posted by aletho | Book Review, Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | UK, United States | Leave a comment

Time to Invite Russian Diplomats Back with an Apology

By James ONeill – New Eastern Outlook – 16.07.2018

On 4th of March 2018 former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were discovered on a park bench in Salisbury England in a distressed state. They were treated by passers-by, including a doctor, before being taken to Salisbury General Hospital.

The hospital initially treated the Skripals for a suspected drug overdose as the symptoms they exhibited were consistent with poisoning by fentanyl, a substance 10 times stronger than heroin, and with which the hospital had prior experience. The hospital’s initial diagnosis was confirmed in an article that appeared in the Clinical Services Journal on 27 April 2018. After the journal’s online article was publicized on social media, references to “fentanyl” were changed to “a substance.”

It was not the first or last time that the official story about what happened to the Skripals was changed.

Three days after the Skripals were found, the British government issued a “D” Notice. The ‘Notice”, officially a “request” but in effect a demand, forbade mention of Mr Skripal’s friend Pablo Miller. Why publicity about Mr Miller was to be suppressed is one of the features of this case, and apart from the initial report in the UK newspaper the Daily Telegraph, which led to the ‘D’ Notice, he has not been referred to again in the mainstream media.

On 12 March 2018 the British Prime Minister Theresa May made her first statement to the House of Commons in which she alleged that the Skripals had been poisoned with a nerve agent “of a type developed by Russia,” and that it was “highly likely” Russia was responsible.

The British government subsequently circulated a memorandum and power point presentation to 80 embassies setting out the argument that Russia was responsible for what happened to the Skripals, and seeking support for their intention to expel Russian diplomats as a punishment. The various allegations made in the PowerPoint presentation were at best contentious and some were demonstrably untrue. It is suffice for present purposes however to focus only on the claims of alleged Russian responsibility for the Skripal attacks.

A number of countries, including Australia, acceded to the British demand and expelled diplomats. The statement made by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announcing that two Russian diplomats would be expelled made no attempt to establish the truth of the matter or indicate any desire to do so. His statement simply echoed the allegations made in the British document.

Turnbull said that the use of a chemical weapon to try to murder Sergei and Yulia Skripal reflected a “pattern of recklessness and aggression” by the Russian government that had to be stopped. Russia, he said was threatening no less than “the democratic world” in deliberately undermining the international rules based order. He went on to list a series of other alleged transgressions that echoed the claims made by the United Kingdom government.

One of the interesting features of this case is that not only was it a rush to judgement before the evidence could possibly have been gathered and analysed, but that the mainstream media and the politicians have not deviated from their initial claims, despite the wealth of evidence that has subsequently emerged.

Like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, they demanded the sentence before the evidence had been presented, and also like Alice in the eponymous story, asked us to believe six impossible things before breakfast.

The diligent reader is able to readily ascertain just how lengthy that list of impossible things is. It is suffice for present purposes to mention only a few to demonstrate that the United Kingdom’s entire story is a fabrication that would be funny were its potential consequences not so serious.

The United Kingdom government claimed that the Skripals had been poisoned by “a military grade nerve agent” that they see it was a Novichok “of a type of developed by Russia.” From that combination of alleged facts, we were expected to infer that only the Russians could have been responsible.

”Novichok” is a sufficiently Russian sounding nomenclature to give superficial credence to at least part of the claim. The first difficulty however is that there is no “Novichok” nerve agent. The term simply refers to a class of organophosphate chemical weapons. It is true that this class of chemical weapon was developed in the former Soviet Union, as described in a book published by a former employee of the chemical centre, readily available on Amazon.

That manufacturing and research development centre was demolished pursuant to the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1999, as was described as the time in an article in the New York Times. Material from the demolition process was taken back to the United States. All of this information is readily available and politicians and journalists prior to their making claims about nerve agents “of a type developed by Russia” should have known it

The Novichok class of nerve agents may or may not have been initially developed by the Soviet Union, but that is a far cry from linking the substance allegedly used in Salisbury with that original program. A number of European governments have acknowledged that they possess the Novichok class of nerve agents.

A search of the United States Patent Office records however, reveals that between 2002 and November 2017 81 patents were applied for using the name “Novichok”. A patent filed in April 2013 includes a description of a delivery method, including bullet like projectiles that can target a single person.

Secondly, the former United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told the Russian ambassador to the United Kingdom on 12 March 2018 that the nerve agent used on the Skripals was an A234. You are a number of problems with this claim quite apart from Mr Johnson’s general difficulty with the truth. The consulting surgeon at Salisbury Hospital, Dr Steven Davies had a letter to The Times newspaper published on 14 March 2018 in which he stated that “no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury.” In contradistinction to unsubstantiated claims that as many as 40 people had been affected, Dr Davies referred to only three patients receiving treatment in this context. This was presumably a reference to the two Skripals and a police officer.

A234 is a highly toxic substance, 8 to 10 times more powerful then VX (of a type developed by the UK) that had been used to kill a relative of North Korean leader Kim at the Kuala Lumpur airport. VX will kill within a few minutes, yet the A234 allegedly used on the Skripals failed to kill or even severely disable them or the third alleged victim, detective Sergeant Bailey.

A further and likely conclusive reason to reject A234 as the substance used, was that the report by the OPCW based on samples collected from Salisbury 17 to 18 days after the incident said that the substance in the samples was of “high purity”.

The scientific evidence, again readily ascertainable by a reasonably diligent journalist is that A234 and similar substances degrade rapidly. It is literally impossible for samples collected 17 to 18 days after the event to be of “high purity.” The purity also makes it impossible to identify the specific source of the manufacture, and furthermore guarantees that it originated in a properly equipped laboratory. That OPCW report effectively destroyed the last shreds of the UK government’s claims.

Given that Bailey and the Skripals have both made complete recoveries, it could not have been a “military grade” nerve agent that caused their plight. There is also the indisputable fact that whatever was used on the Skripals could not have come from Yulia’s suitcase, the air vents of their motor vehicle, or the front door knob of Mr Skripal’s house, or any of the other fantastical claims made at various times by the UK government for the simple reason that they were alive and well approximately six hours after leaving the house.

During that time the Skripals visited the cemetery, had a meal at Zizzi’s restaurant, and had an untroubled walk through the centre of Salisbury, captured by the CCTV camera. The fact that they both took ill, at the same time and in the same specific location, leads to the almost irresistible inference that they were attacked at or near the park bench where they were found in a distressed state.

For these various reasons, and a great deal of the others in the now considerable body of literature on this topic, we do not know with what they were attacked, nor by whom. At best we know approximately where and at approximately what time. A proper inquiry, as opposed to the wild and unjustified accusations and premature conclusions constantly reiterated in the mainstream media, would approach this question with an open mind. It has been abundantly clear that a proper enquiry is the furthest thing from the minds of the British government or their acolytes such as Australia.

A proper inquiry would also consider the relevance of motive. There has been no plausible suggestion, much less evidence, as to why the Russian government would wish to do the Skripals harm, and some solid reasons why the Russian government would be the least likely candidate to wish ill upon the Skripals.

This brings us back to Sergei Skripal, his history and the aforementioned D notices. One of those D notices inhibited publication of the details relating to Pablo Miller. That raises the obvious question, not pursued by the mainstream media unfettered by the D notice, as to why the British government would wish to protect Mr Miller’s identity and his links to Mr Skripal.

Miller and Skripal are friends, both living in Salisbury and known to socialize together. Their history goes rather deeper. Miller is a former MI6 officer and during the time that Skripal was a double agent in the employ of the Russian GRU Agency and selling Russian secrets to the British, Miller was his ‘handler.’

Miller worked in Moscow in conjunction with Christopher Steele, the assumed author of the infamous Trump dossier that collected together various allegations about Trump’s Russian activities, both business and personal.

That dossier was commissioned by the Democratic National Committee on behalf of Trump’s opponent in the 2016 presidential election, Hilary Clinton. The DNC commissioned Fusion GPS who in turn contracted with Orbis Business Intelligence. Christopher Steele was the principal of Orbis and Miller was one of his associates.

The American outlet Buzzfeed released the complete dossier on 10 January 2017 and on the same day the May government issued a D notice prohibiting the British press from revealing Steele to be the author. The Wall Street Journal however, published his name the following day.

According to the Czech magazine Respekt, Skripal had recent links to Czech intelligence and he travelled to both the Czech Republic and Estonia in 2016 and had met with intelligence officers from both countries.

This evidence strongly supports the inference that Skripal was still an active agent on behalf of the British who were known to be strongly opposed to the election of Donald Trump. Given Skripal’s knowledge of Russian intelligence, his links with the intelligence community in at least four countries, his close ties to both Miller and Steele going back to his GRU days, and at least according to one textual analysis of the dossier, it is entirely possible that Skripal was in fact one of the authors of the dossier.

These facts are now well established. At the very least it raises serious questions about who else might have a motive to give Mr Skripal a “message.” Whoever was responsible, the incident was certainly used by the UK government as part of a wider campaign to discredit the Russian government in general and President Putin in particular. In this endeavour, they have been willingly aided and abetted by the Australian government and mainstream media.

The failure of either to acknowledge the manifold flaws in the original allegations and to accept that the UK government’s version has been comprehensively discredited is an enduring disgrace.

At the very least the Russian government is owed an apology. That would go at least some way to acknowledging that the premature judgement and intemperate response has damaged Australia’s international image and its foreign relations.

July 16, 2018 Posted by aletho | Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | Australia, UK | Leave a comment

Ireland’s Intellectuals Bow to the Queen of Chaos

By Aidan O’Brien | CounterPunch |July 13, 2018

Ireland’s oldest university – Trinity College Dublin – gave Hillary Clinton an honorary doctorate in late June. It was one big love in. Clinton was paraded and praised like a people’s champion. And in return Clinton fawned over Dublin’s cutting edge liberal politics.

A Trinity College professor orated about Clinton: “Almost sixty-six million people have given her their vote of confidence, sharing her belief that a true democracy is a society in which everyone is equally valued as a human being.”

And Clinton’s response: “These last few years in Ireland have been a testament to the power of young people to shape the future – from the 2015 marriage equality referendum, which saw historic youth turnout, to this year’s abortion referendum…. No demographic is better positioned to be a force on the side of democracy, progress and equality.”

Behind these delusions, platitudes and lies there is a logic. A disturbing one – one that actually built Trinity College Dublin way back in 1592. And one that sustains the same College today in 2018. It sustains Clinton too. It’s the logic of imperialism. And the shameless culture of empire worship that goes with it.

Hillary Clinton personifies the last thirty years of US imperialism. And so by honoring her, Trinity College honors three decades of US savagery across the planet. Firstly, during Hillary’s “reign”, there were the wars which the US orchestrated – for example, in Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen. And secondly, there’s the neoliberal wars against the global working class which Bill and Hillary Clinton have sold nonstop – from NAFTA (1994) to the repeal of Glass-Steagall (1999) and onto the bailout of the banks (2008 – to the present). The resulting social chaos across the world is a testament to Hillary Clinton’s politics. She more than Donald Trump is the face of the corrupt American Empire.

Her contempt for America, democracy and the world is no secret. The Podesta emails (released by WikiLeaks in 2016) – for example – reveal a two faced politician: a Wall Street Clinton and a Main Street Clinton. For $225,000 a speech Clinton tells the banksters the truth. And for votes she tells the American people fairytales. In her own words: “But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.”

Referring to the Podesta emails in October 2016, the New York Times noted that: “Mrs. Clinton describes herself as “far removed” from average Americans and their finances.” The reason? “The Clintons have made more than $120 million in speeches to Wall Street and special interests since Bill Clinton left the White House in 2001.” These facts sum up the deep politics of Clinton. To say the least, she represents America’s 1%.

And so she had no problem dismissing half of America’s 99% as “a basket of deplorables”. And no problem either conspiring against the other half of America’s 99% – those who vote Democrat. In November, 2017 CNN reported: “Sen. Elizabeth Warren [Massachusetts] said she believes that the Democratic National Committee [DNC] was “rigged” in favor of former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the 2016 primary. Asked…… by CNN’s Jake Tapper whether she believes that the Democratic campaign organization was tipped in favor of Clinton over her primary opponent, independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Warren responded without hesitation: “Yes.””

Because Clinton’s political machine had all the corporate money – she or her handlers got to pick the members of the DNC. Therefore in key Democratic primaries the superdelegates, which decided the vote, were her puppets. Such are Clinton’s democratic credentials.

Clinton’s real heart of darkness, however, is found in the bowels of US foreign policy. The key to understanding Hillary Clinton’s view of the world and humanity is Madeleine Albright (Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State). And the key to understanding Albright’s dark heart is her infamous words on CBS television in 1996. Asked about the death of 500,000 children – caused by the US / UK sanctions against Iraq – Madeleine Albright said that “we think the price is worth it”.

This barbaric sentiment reflects the soul of Hillary Clinton’s Weltanschauung because it was Hillary who prompted Bill Clinton to appoint Madeleine Albright as Secretary of State. Hillary clearly identified herself with Albright’s take on the world. Writing in popsugar.com in 2016, Lisette Mejia quotes Albright as saying: “I would not have been secretary of state if it had not been for Hillary Clinton….. She would go to [Bill] and say,…. ’Why wouldn’t you name Madeleine? She is more in tune with your views than anyone else and she expresses them better than anyone else.”

The fact that Hillary Clinton tried to quickly follow in the footsteps of Bill Clinton (she twice attempted to be the US President – in 2008 and 2016), indeed suggests that Madeleine Albright was “more in tune with [her own] views than anyone else”. And expressed “them better than anyone else”. And the fact that Hillary actually ended up following in the footsteps of Albright in the US Department of State (she was Obama’s first Secretary of State, 2009-13), points to a startling parallel between these two female imperialists. One that eerily manifested itself in another blunt barbaric remark caught on camera. When asked in a 2011 television interview to comment on the murder of Muammar al-Gaddafi (and indirectly on the murder of Libya – a clear case of genocide), Hillary casually said “we came, we saw, he [and Libya] died”. And then she laughed.

No one has expressed the horrors of US imperialism in the last three decades better than Hillary Clinton (in one guise or the other). And no one has supported them more than Hillary Clinton.

So why did Trinity College Dublin celebrate her? Firstly: as Edward Said wrote in a 2003 preface to his book Orientalism (1978), “there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn’t trust the evidence of one’s eyes watching the destruction and misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.” Trinity College Dublin is the embodiment of this chorus.

And secondly: Trinity College Dublin was built in 1592 by the first queen of chaos (Britain’s Queen Elizabeth I), so it only makes sense that it celebrates the latest queen of chaos – Hillary Clinton (the image is Diana Johnstone’s). The chaos theory of Empire is in the DNA of Ireland’s model university. Trinity College might reject the chaos of revolution (a statue of Edmund Burke – the critic of the French Revolution – guards the entrance of the university), but it has always defended the chaos of imperialism.

When Britain’s Tudor Queen built Trinity College in Dublin – the Irish were like the Iraqis and Libyans of today. They were fair game, thrash, expendable, a price worth paying and a laugh. And Trinity College rationalized it for the imperialists. That was it’s raison d’être.

Edward Said explains, in his book Culture And Imperialism (1993), the Irish situation back then as follows: “In Ireland, [Angus] Calder says, the idea of murdering Gaels was from the start ‘as part of a royal army or with royal approval, [considered] patriotic, heroic and just.’ The idea of English racial superiority became ingrained; so humane a poet and gentleman as Edmund Spenser in his View of the Present State of Ireland (1596) was boldly proposing that since the Irish were barbarian Scythians, most of them should be exterminated.”

The idea of Irish inferiority and the inferiority of colonized people’s everywhere ‘became ingrained’ in places like Trinity College Dublin. How else could the Empire have survived?

Today the American establishment continues what the British establishment started way back in the 16th century. And so places like Trinity College Dublin continue to dress up barbarism in the clothes of civilization – yesterday they did it for Britain, today for America. As Noam Chomsky has insinuated so often – the general rule is that intellectuals lie for a living. Ireland’s intellectual-class have just proved the point.

Aidan O’Brien lives in Dublin, Ireland.

July 13, 2018 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Hillary Clinton, Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, UK, United States | Leave a comment

The Globalist Elite Fears Peace, Wants War

By Federico PIERACCINI | Strategic Culture Foundation | 13.07.2018

The announced meeting between Trump and Putin has already produced a good result by revealing the hypocrisy of the media and politicians. The meeting has been branded as the greatest danger to humanity, according to the Western globalist elite, because of the danger that “peace could break out between Russia and the United States”.

Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. The following so stretches credulity that sources will have to be cited and exact quotations given to be believed.

A case in point is the following title: “Fears growing over the prospect of Trump ‘peace deal’ with Putin.” The Times does not here fear a military escalation in Ukraine, an armed clash in Syria, a false-flag poisoning in England, or a new Cold War. The Times does not fear a nuclear apocalypse, the end of humanity, the suffering of hundreds of millions of people. No, one of the most authoritative and respected broadsheets in the world is fearful of the prospect of peace! The Times is afraid that the heads of two nuclear-armed superpowers are able to talk to each other. The Times fears that Putin and Trump will be able to come to some kind of agreement that can help avert the danger of a global catastrophe. These are the times in which we live. And this is the type of media we deal with. The problem with The Times is that it forms public opinion in the worst possible way, confusing, deceiving, and disorienting its readers. It is not by accident the world in which we live is increasingly divorced from logic and rationality.

Even if the outcome of this meeting does not see any substantial progress, the most important thing to be achieved will be the dialogue between the two leaders and the opening of negotiation channels for both sides.

In The Times article, it is assumed that Trump and Putin want to reach an agreement regarding Europe. The insinuation is that Putin is manipulating Trump in order to destabilize Europe. For years now we have been inundated with such fabrications by the media on behalf of their editors and shareholders, all part of the deep state conglomerate. Facts have in fact proven that Putin has always desired a strong and united Europe, looking to integrate Europe into the Eurasian dream. Putin and Xi Jinping would like to see a European Union more resistant to American pressure and able to gain greater independence. The combination of mass migration and sanctions against Russia and Iran, which end up hurting Europeans, opens the way for alternative parties that are not necessarily willing to [obey] Washington’s marching orders.

Trump’s focus for the meeting will be to convince Putin to put even more pressure on Europe and Iran, perhaps in exchange for the recognition of Crimea and the ending of sanctions. For Putin and for Russia it is a strategic issue. While sanctions are bad, the top priority for Moscow remains the alliance with Iran, the need to further strengthen relations with European countries, and to defeat terrorism in Syria. Perhaps only a revision of the ABM treaty and the withdrawal of these weapons from Europe would be an interesting offer for Putin. However, reality shows us that the ABM treaty is a pillar of Washington’s military-industrial complex, and that it is also Eastern European countries that want such offensive and defensive systems in their own countries, seeing them as a deterrents against Russia. Are they victims of their own propaganda, or are billions of dollars pouring into their pockets? Either way, it does not really matter. The most important point for Moscow will be the withdrawal of the Aegis Ashore ABM systems as well as military ships with the same Aegis system. But this is not something that Trump will be able to negotiate with his military leaders. For the military-industrial complex, the ABM system, thanks to maintenance, innovation and direct or indirect commissions, is a gravy train that too many interests intend to keep riding.

From the Kremlin’s point of view, the removal of sanctions remains necessary for the restoration of normal relations with the West. But this would be difficult to achieve, given that Moscow would have little to offer Washington in exchange. The strategists at the Pentagon demand a withdrawal from Syria, an end to support for Donbass, and a cessation of relations with Iran. There is simply too much divergence to reach a common position. Moreover, Europe’s sanctions against Russia benefit Washington, as they hurt the Europeans and thereby undermine what is a major trading competitor to the US. The US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) can be looked at in the same light, blocking US allies from doing business with Iran.

Putin will keep faith with his commitments to Syria and with his allies, unwilling to betray his word even for the recognition of Crimea. On the other hand, as already mentioned, the priority remains the removal of the ABM; and while Crimea is already under the control of the Russian Federation, Syria remains an unstable territory that risks propelling Islamist terrorism to Russia’s soft underbelly in the Caucasus. For Moscow, involvement in Syria has always been a matter of national security, and this certainly remains the same now, even with Donald Trump’s unrealistic offers.

It should be kept in mind that Putin is aiming for a medium- to long-term strategy in the Middle East, where Iran, Syria and the entire Shiite arc serves to counter Saudi and Israeli aggression and hegemony. This strange alliance has emerged as the only way to deter war and dial down the heat in the region, because the crazy actions from Netanyahu or Mohammad bin Salman are deterred by a strong Iranian military. Preventing a confrontation between Iran and Saudis/Israelis also means not making Tehran appear weak or isolated. Such considerations seem beyond the strategists in Washington, let alone in Tel Aviv or Riyadh.

While it is difficult to achieve a positive outcome from the meeting between Trump and Putin, it is important that there is a meeting in the first place, contrary to what The Times thinks. The media and the conglomerate of power that revolves around the US deep state fear diplomacy in particular. The same narrative that was proclaimed weeks before and after the meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un is being repeated with regard to Trump’s meeting with Putin.

Washington bases its power on force, both economic and military. But this power also rests on the posture assumed and image projected. The United States and its deep state considers negotiating with opponents to be wrong and counterproductive. They consider dialogue to be synonymous with weakness, and any concession is interpreted as surrender. This result of 70 years of American exceptionalism and 30 years of Unipolarity, has allowed the US the ability to decide unilaterally the fate of others.

Today, in a multipolar world, the dynamics are different and therefore more complex. You cannot always employ a zero-sum mentality, as The Times does. The rest of the world recognizes that a dialogue between Putin and Trump is something positive, but we must not forget that, as in Korea, if diplomacy does not bring significant progress, then the hawks surrounding Trump will again be in the ascendant. The tasks for Rouhani, Putin and Kim Jong-un are complex and quite different from each other, but they share in common the belief that dialogue is the only way to avoid a catastrophic war. But apparently, peace is not the best possible result for everyone.

July 13, 2018 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Wars for Israel | Russia, Sanctions against Iran, UK, United States | Leave a comment

The Holes in the Official Skripal Story

By Craig Murray | July 12, 2018

In my last post I set out the official Government account of the events in the Skripal Case. Here I examine the credibility of this story. Next week I shall look at alternative explanations.

Russia has a decade long secret programme of producing and stockpiling novichok nerve agents. It also has been training agents in secret assassination techniques, and British intelligence has a copy of the Russian training manual, which includes instruction on painting nerve agent on doorknobs.

The only backing for this statement by Boris Johnson is alleged “intelligence”, and unfortunately the “intelligence” about Russia’s secret novichok programme comes from exactly the same people who brought you the intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s WMD programme, proven liars. Furthermore, the question arises why Britain has been sitting on this intelligence for a decade and doing nothing about it, including not telling the OPCW inspectors who certified Russia’s chemical weapons stocks as dismantled.

If Russia really has a professional novichok assassin training programme, why was the assassination so badly botched? Surely in a decade of development they would have discovered that the alleged method of gel on doorknob did not work? And where is the training manual which Boris Johnson claimed to possess? Having told the world – including Russia -the UK has it, what is stopping the UK from producing it, with marks that could identify the specific copy erased?

The Russians chose to use this assassination programme to target Sergei Skripal, a double agent who had been released from jail in Russia some eight years previously.

It seems remarkable that the chosen target of an attempt that would blow the existence of a secret weapon and end the cover of a decade long programme, should be nobody more prominent than a middle ranking double agent who the Russians let out of jail years ago. If they wanted him dead they could have killed him then. Furthermore the attack on him would undermine all future possible spy swaps. Putin therefore, on this reading, was willing to sacrifice both the secrecy of the novichok programme and the spy swap card just to attack Sergei Skripal. That seems highly improbable.

Only the Russians can make novichok and only the Russians had a motive to attack the Skripals.

The nub of the British government’s approach has been the shocking willingness of the corporate and state media to parrot repeatedly the lie that the nerve agent was Russian made, even after Porton Down said they could not tell where it was made and the OPCW confirmed that finding. In fact, while the Soviet Union did develop the “novichok” class of nerve agents, the programme involved scientists from all over the Soviet Union, especially Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia, as I myself learnt when I visited the newly decommissioned Nukus testing facility in Uzbekistan in 2002.

Furthermore, it was the USA who decommissioned the facility and removed equipment back to the United States. At least two key scientists from the programme moved to the United States. Formulae for several novichok have been published for over a decade. The USA, UK and Iran have definitely synthesised a number of novichok formulae and almost certainly others have done so too. Dozens of states have the ability to produce novichok, as do many sophisticated non-state actors.

As for motive, the Russian motive might be revenge, but whether that really outweighs the international opprobrium incurred just ahead of the World Cup, in which so much prestige has been invested, is unclear.

What is certainly untrue is that only Russia has a motive. The obvious motive is to attempt to blame and discredit Russia. Those who might wish to do this include Ukraine and Georgia, with both of which Russia is in territorial dispute, and those states and jihadist groups with which Russia is in conflict in Syria. The NATO military industrial complex also obviously has a plain motive for fueling tension with Russia.

There is of course the possibility that Skripal was attacked by a private gangster interest with which he was in conflict, or that the attack was linked to Skripal’s MI6 handler Pablo Miller’s work on the Orbis/Steele Russiagate dossier on Donald Trump.

Plainly, the British government’s statements that only Russia had the means and only Russia had the motive, are massive lies on both counts.

The Russians had been tapping the phone of Yulia Skripal. They decided to attack Sergei Skripal while his daughter was visiting from Moscow.

In an effort to shore up the government narrative, at the time of the Amesbury attack the security services put out through Pablo Miller’s long term friend, the BBC’s Mark Urban, that the Russians “may have been” tapping Yulia Skripal’s phone, and the claim that this was strong evidence that the Russians had indeed been behind the attack.

But think this through. If that were true, then the Russians deliberately attacked at a time when Yulia was in the UK rather than when Sergei was alone. Yet no motive has been adduced for an attack on Yulia or why they would attack while Yulia was visiting – they could have painted his doorknob with less fear of discovery anytime he was alone. Furthermore, it is pretty natural that Russian intelligence would tap the phone of Yulia, and of Sergei if they could. The family of double agents are normal targets. I have no doubt in the least, from decades of experience as a British diplomat, that GCHQ have been tapping Yulia’s phone. Indeed, if tapping of phones is seriously put forward as evidence of intent to murder, the British government must be very murderous indeed.

Their trained assassin(s) painted a novichok on the doorknob of the Skripal house in the suburbs of Salisbury. Either before or after the attack, they entered a public place in the centre of Salisbury and left a sealed container of the novichok there.

The incompetence of the assassination beggars belief when compared to British claims of a long term production and training programme. The Russians built the heart of the International Space Station. They can kill an old bloke in Salisbury. Why did the Russians not know that the dose from the door handle was not fatal? Why would trained assassins leave crucial evidence lying around in a public place in Salisbury? Why would they be conducting any part of the operation with the novichok in a public area in central Salisbury?

Why did nobody see them painting the doorknob? This must have involved wearing protective gear, which would look out of place in a Salisbury suburb. With Skripal being resettled by MI6, and a former intelligence officer himself, it beggars belief that MI6 did not fit, as standard, some basic security including a security camera on his house.

The Skripals both touched the doorknob and both functioned perfectly normally for at least five hours, even able to eat and drink heartily. Then they were simultaneously and instantaneously struck down by the nerve agent, at a spot in the city centre coincidentally close to where the assassins left a sealed container of the novichok lying around. Even though the nerve agent was eight times more deadly than Sarin or VX, it did not kill the Skripals because it had been on the doorknob and affected by rain.

Why did they both touch the outside doorknob in exiting and closing the door? Why did the novichok act so very slowly, with evidently no feeling of ill health for at least five hours, and then how did it strike both down absolutely simultaneously, so that neither can call for help, despite their being different sexes, weights, ages, metabolisms and receiving random completely uncontrolled doses. The odds of that happening are virtually nil. And why was the nerve agent ultimately ineffective?

Detective Sergeant Bailey attended the Skripal house and was also poisoned by the doorknob, but more lightly. None of the other police who attended the house were affected.

Why was the Detective Sergeant affected and nobody else who attended the house, or the scene where the Skripals were found? Why was Bailey only lightly affected by this extremely deadly substance, of which a tony amount can kill?

Four months later, Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess were rooting about in public parks, possibly looking for cigarette butts, and accidentally came into contact with the sealed container of a novichok. They were poisoned and Dawn Sturgess subsequently died.

If the nerve agent had survived four months because it was in a sealed container, why has this sealed container now mysteriously disappeared again? If Rowley and Sturgess had direct contact straight from the container, why did they not both die quickly? Why had four months searching of Salisbury and a massive police, security service and military operation not found this container, if Rowley and Sturgess could?

I am, with a few simple questions, demolishing what is the most ludicrous conspiracy theory I have ever heard – the Salisbury conspiracy theory being put forward by the British government and its corporate lackies.

My next post will consider some more plausible explanations of this affair.

July 12, 2018 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | UK | Leave a comment

From Holocaust Industry to Judicial Industry

By Hafsa Kara-Mustapha | American Herald Tribune | July 12, 2018

For decades Palestinians insisted that whatever European Jews suffered at the hands of the Nazi regime, Palestinians should not be made to pay for it.

That of course fell on deaf ears while generations of Zionist Jews continued to milk the horrors of the Second World War in order to justify to world opinion Israel’s genocidal policies in Palestine.

In 2000, American academic Norman Finkelstein produced a book that would eventually shed light on Zionist methods used to reap much financial as well as political capital out of the concentration camps.

Since then it has been revealed that much of the literature was often faked, exaggerated or imagined. These embarrassing revelations would come to light but rapidly swept under the carpet as long as Holocaust survivors were still alive and able to be wheeled out at any given opportunity to inflate Israel and Zionist organisations’ coffers.

Perhaps the most mystifying and tragic-comical is the heart-wrenching Anne Frank diary. Described for years as the account of a young teenage girl forced to live in hiding because of her Jewish faith, it emerged once the copyrights on the book came to an end that the story had in fact been written by her father thus extending by some thirty years the [copyrighted] monetary potential of this work whose authenticity is now difficult to ascertain.

Never the less, with all the Chutzpah Israel’s advocates are known for, the Diary we are told still represents an accurate depiction of life for the Franks during WW2. Except that its entire premise is now proved to be wrong and that those who exposed it in the past were accused of the dubious ‘absence of belief’ otherwise known as Holocaust denial. The most pressing case that comes to mind is that of French philosopher and resistance fighter Roger Garaudy who was accused of that very crime for noting that the original manuscript written in ball point pen could not have been genuine since those pens were introduced in the 50’s, years after the alleged demise of little Anne in Bergen Belsen.

His crime was considered such that when he died in 2012 his family were forced to cremate his remains, despite it being contrary to his religious beliefs, because the Jewish Defence League had promised to come and unearth his body and desecrate his grave.

Needless to say no action was taken against this group in France despite their threat against a deceased war hero who fought the Nazis.

Today of course Holocaust survivors are harder to come-by. Nature being what it is, these victims or supposed victims of Nazi crimes, are meeting their natural ending forcing Israel and its supporters to look for new ways to make money and increase the Israel sympathy capital.

That however is an increasing hard sell as more and more people come to the realisation that while Israel claims to be a victim, it is the one responsible of the occupying, destroying, slaughtering and subjugating of the Palestinian people.

A new era, a new financial plan

In recent years it has been more obvious that falling foul of the pro-Israel thought police is a career-jeopardising if not career-breaking move. This is why even the most notorious bigots, famed for spewing out hatred for all and sundry, are careful not to cross the ‘Jewish’ line.

Katie Hopkins well-known for her extreme views which included comparing drowned black children to cockroaches has always been very careful to broadcast her love for Judeo-Zionism. Often tweeting about her admiration for Israel and how Netanyahu is a brilliant leader. Yet even she fell foul of the ‘tribe’ when she called for a ‘final solution’ for Muslims. That vocabulary, viewed as exclusive to Jewish suffering lead to her consequent dismissal from her radio-hosting job which had up until then remained safe despite her outrageous outbursts.

In the context of dying Holocaust survivors coupled with young generations no longer interested in the WW2 narrative, new forms of funding have to be unearthed. For the Zionist lobby a new opportunity offering generous financial return has appeared: the Judicial sector.

Hiding, as ever, behind the dubious claim of Antisemitism, Zionist organisations have taken it upon themselves to sue left right and centre anyone breathing in the opposite direction of Tel Aviv, or should it be Jerusalem?

With anti-Semitism increasingly difficult to define Zionists in the UK have discovered a new lucrative project. Thanks to an ever favourable pro-complainant British legal system, Zio milk-maids have found a new cash cow with a near-endless supply udder. Irrespective of the value of the complaint, these organisations will make money whatever the outcome.

Forget the Holocaust industry and make way for the Judicial industry: a way to extract money from journalists, activists, authors and even comedians for saying something that Israel supporting Jews will claim is anti-Semitic in a bid to favour a Zionist narrative of world events i.e.: if Jews suffer from anti-Semitism, then the existence of Israel and supporting it –even when it commits endless crimes- is justified.

This financial planning has obviously been made easy by a complicit political class and media that has allowed the most dubious of definitions to apply to allegations of Antisemitism.

In today’s world claiming there is no anti-Semitism is anti-Semitic. Criticising the gunning down of 20 year old nurses is anti-Semitic, drawing a cartoon of Israeli premier is anti-Semitic actually even defending yourself from claims of anti-Semitism is well anti-Semitic. The buck –or should I say shekel- stops with Zionists and whoever says otherwise is an… you get the picture.

Looked at thoroughly some claims are truly ridiculous except that to Israel supporters they are anything but.

In recent years they have successfully brought charges against a plethora of free-thinkers and have made a great deal of money doing it.

When in 2014, the Israeli army was pounding yet again civilians in Gaza, a group of UK Zionist Jews decided that the most civilised response to this latest onslaught was to set up an organisation that would tackle anti-Semitism. The idea behind this latest Zionist endeavour is that criticism of excessive use of force against a people that have no army or navy and are living under siege is offensive to Jews.

Some would argue that it’s the mass slaughter of innocent men and women that should offend Jews as well as Christians, Muslims, Taoists, atheists, deists, agnostics, Sikhs etc… but it is apparently an affront to Britain’s Jewish population to report accurately on what happens in Gaza.

With that in mind the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) was founded in a bid to expose and counter ‘anti-Semitism through education and zero-tolerance enforcement of the law.’

Having identified a new source of financial reward, the CAA went about scrolling for any tweet any paragraph any t-shirt that could be construed as anti-Semitic that could therefore offer monetary returns.

The principle is simple. This organisation that operates as a British charity and thus benefits of charitable status, appeals for donations in order to take those it considers guilty to court.

Irrespective of the sheer absurdity of the claim, the CAA will force the accused to launch a costly defence with the added potential of earning dividends on the sideline.

The CAA, whose motto aptly calls for a ‘pursuit’ of justice, manages a dual tour de force of ruining financially or professionally someone and then making money out of his or her misfortune.

Ultimately it’s a win-win for outfits such as the CAA whose methods are slowly but surely shutting down debate.

Last month it was Israeli-born musician and author Gilad Atzmon who fell foul of the organisation headed by Gideon Falter.

Atzmon, who also studied mathematics, undertook the task the British media has failed to address and decided to look into the figures put forward by the CAA.

The figures, he wrote in a blog, didn’t add up and went on to say that these exaggerated claims are causing unnecessary fear mongering among Jews who interpret these as a return to more worrying times, when in fact life in Britain is perfectly safe for them and that very few will have experienced acts of hostility towards their faith or group.

While the essence of the blog was not scrutinised, a judge ruled that Atzmon had somewhat claimed Falter acted fraudulently and ruled in favour of the CAA.

Falter made £7.5k in the process while other relevant fees would swell lawyer’s accounts.

Falter is of course well-known to British courts. In 2009 he claimed to have over-heard a British Foreign Office official say ‘Fuck Jews’ in a gym. Rowan Laxton was said to be watching a report of an elderly Palestinian shot dead by Israeli soldiers when he uttered those fateful words.

While the official denied he said those exact words he was arrested, forced out of his job and sentenced to pay a fine and apologise for his alleged remark.

He appealed and consequently won when it emerged Falter could not have heard that or indeed any other outburst.

Rowan Laxton was reinstated and now serves as British high commissioner to Cameroon.

There is no report as to what happened to Falter after this. Did Falter hear the damning comments in which case how could Laxton win on appeal? If he was too far to hear anything Laxton said did Falter invent the incident or perhaps modify the wording of the outburst to suit his case? We shall never know, either way Mr Falter has a way of unearthing anti-Semitism few other British Jews could recognise.

Antisemitism? What anti-Semitism?

LSE professor Jonathan Rosenhead left the Labour party during the Blair years in disgust at the Iraq war, he returned after the much maligned Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader. Asked if he had ever experienced anti-Semitism, Rosenhead now in his autumn years insisted that he had never experienced any such animosity towards his faith but was far less reluctant to share his anti-Israel views with certain fellow Jews who’d proved to be far less tolerant of his political inclinations.

It would be difficult if not impossible to meet a black or Asian man of the same generation who had never experienced racism yet for all the glaring examples of bigotry towards visible minorities, it is allegations of anti-Semitism that get the most headlines.

This two-tier approach to bigotry is worrying and seems to imply that Jews are worthy of special attention thus re-enforcing the far right narrative that Jews are different.

In pursuing this hugely divisive and dangerous route for the health of democracy and freedom of speech in this country, organisations such as the CAA are willing to jeopardise the safety of those they claim to support in order to justify their ‘raison d’être.’

After all if there is no anti-Semitism, what would Falter, who studied law but does not practise –for reasons that remain unknown- do with his days?

Help the fight against poverty perhaps? Is there potential for ruining activists in that process and for boosting Israel’s narrative? No there isn’t.

Antisemitism it will have to be then!

July 12, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Campaign Against Antisemitism, Holocaust industry, Israel, Palestine, UK, Zio milk-maids, Zionism | Leave a comment

It’s the Wrong Park! How the Ducks Raise Some Serious Questions in the Salisbury Poisonings

By Rob Slane | The Blog Mire | July 11, 2018

According to the Metropolitan Police investigation into the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, here is a timeline of events on 4th March:

13:40: Sergei and Yulia arrived at the Sainsbury’s upper level car park in The Maltings. The pair go to The Mill pub.

Approximately 14.20: They eat at Zizzi restaurant on Castle Street

15:35: They leave the restaurant

16:15: Emergency services are called by a member of the public to the bench where Sergei and Yulia are slumped on a bench

So: car park, pub, restaurant, bench. Simples? Not so, as we shall see.

On 28th March, an article appeared in the Sun, which talked about a 12-year-old boy from Salisbury, Aiden Cooper, who was apparently in a park with his parents, when he saw the Skripals and went over to them to feed the ducks:

“A schoolboy told yesterday how he was caught up in the poison spy drama after assassination target Sergei Skripal gave him bread to feed ducks. Aiden Cooper, 12, was playing in a park with pals when they saw Skripal and daughter Yulia beside a stream. They were handed bread and are among the last people to have had contact with the retired Russian military intelligence colonel, now fighting for his life.“

Of course, I would always want to have a large bucket of salt on standby when reading anything in The Sun, but in this case I see no reason why they, or the people quoted in the article, would make this up. In any case, the story was repeated in a number of other outlets (The Mirror, The Mail and Metro for instance), and it mentions that the parents only found out about the identity of the breadman when they were contacted by police.

Now, the interesting thing about The Mirror, The Mail and Metro pieces is that they are all either very wrong or very vague about a quite crucial detail. The Mirror and The Mail both tell us that the incident took place “near the Avon Playground”. And Metro tells us that the incident took place at “Riverside Park”.

For those of you not familiar with Salisbury, let me shed some light. The Avon Playground mentioned by The Mirror and The Mail is next to the Avon River, and it is also about 50 yards or so from the bench where the Skripals were found (as an aside, this is not the same Avon as in Stratford-upon-Avon. Avon is a Celtic word meaning river). As for Riverside Park mentioned by Metro, this may be a figment of their imagination, as no such named park exists in Salisbury. But the important point is that from the details given in these articles, nobody would think anything other than that the duck-feeding incident took place in the same park as the bench on which the Skripals were found.

Yet all three of these media outlets are wrong, and in a way that may well be very significant. Turning back to the report in The Sun, we find that it is by far the most detailed of all the reports on the duck incident. In fact, it appeared three days after the others appeared, with The Sun sending a reporter to interview the boy and his parents. Here is a snippet:

“Aiden and his pals are thought to be the youngest of 130 exposed to the nerve agent Novichok, said to have been unleashed in Salisbury by President Vladimir Putin…

Aiden’s family were alerted after cops traced him from CCTV pics.

Aiden’s civil engineer dad Luke, 33, said: ‘Obviously we had seen the incident on the news but didn’t think we were involved at all. Aiden was playing in the park with his friends when they spotted the Russian gentleman and his daughter. Kids being kids they went over and he gave them some bread and they fed the ducks. We didn’t think anything of it until two weeks later when then the police knocked on our door.’

It was terrifying. We took Aiden to hospital for a load of tests and then the police told us they had to burn everything Aiden was wearing that day.’”

So presumably, Aiden and his friends were seen on camera, as was Sergei Skripal and possibly Yulia, and this was on 4th March. We aren’t told when in the day this was, but given that the police traced the family, and Aiden then had to go to hospital, it clearly must have been after the police claim Mr Skripal came into contact with nerve agent on his door handle.

But here’s the significant fact (I am indebted to a lady who contacted me to point it out, and I must say I kicked myself for not having realised it before). Unlike the media outlets mentioned above, The Sun doesn’t mention the name of the park, but the piece is accompanied by four photographs of Aiden with his parents in the park where they saw the Skripals, and indeed one of them has the caption “Aiden with his parents by the pond where he spoke to Skripal”. Here is one of the pictures:

But do you know something? This isn’t the Avon Playground. It isn’t even the non-existent Riverside Park. Do you want to know where it is? It happens to be Queen Elizabeth Gardens.

Why is this important? As you are probably aware, Queen Elizabeth Gardens is now a focal point of Skripal 2.0, as it is alleged to be the place where Dawn Sturgess, who has now sadly passed away, picked up a syringe or a container with the toxic substance in. And whilst I’m not entirely sure whether the location of the duck incident being in Queen Elizabeth Gardens, rather than the Avon Playground, has any bearing in terms of the cases themselves, it does raise three huge questions:

Firstly, according to the Metropolitan Police timeline at the top of this piece, there is no mention of Mr Skripal and Yulia going to Queen Elizabeth Gardens. Why is this, since according to the parents of Aiden Cooper, the police knew that they had been there, having seen footage of them feeding the ducks with their son and his friends?

Secondly, if the police knew that Mr Skripal and Yulia had been in Queen Elizabeth Gardens, and that this was after they were poisoned (as they claim), why was Queen Elizabeth Gardens not closed off immediately and subject to a clean-up operation, as were other places in the City where the Skripals were known to have visited?

Thirdly, assuming the latest official narrative, did the failure to close off and clean up Queen Elizabeth Gardens back in March, when it was known the Skripals had been there, make it more or less likely that someone would come into contact with the alleged nerve agent container at some point?

These are serious questions. I think you’ll agree that they deserve serious answers.

POSTSCRIPT

One or two comments suggest that a map would be helpful. Again, I am indebted to the lady who pointed the Queen Elizabeth Gardens connection out to me, who has helpfully created a map with the main areas of interest (see below).

Can I just caution about one thing though. The point of my post was not to try and work out whether Queen Elizabeth Gardens is important as regards the original case. I think we could go down endless rabbit holes trying to work out where the Skripals went, when they went there, and what this might mean. Unfortunately, we simply do not know this, as there is too much information that we are not party to.

What I am trying to do at the moment is exploit holes in the official story (of which there are more than a few). The police have not included QEG in their timeline, and yet they apparently know that the Skripals were there that day. Why have they not included it? Why did they not close the Gardens down? And had they done so, could this have prevented others from coming into contact with the substance?

I am not saying that I necessarily think there was a substance there. There may or may not have been. However, the point is that the authorities are saying this and yet those same authorities apparently know that the Skripals were there on 4th March, but have hushed this up. Therefore, we need to turn up the volume on it and they need to explain themselves.

July 11, 2018 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | UK | Leave a comment

British Collusion and Criminality

By Margaret Kimberly | Black Agenda Report | July 11, 2018

Most people believe that Donald Trump owes his presidency to Russian activity because they have been told this repeatedly for the past two years. There was indeed high level collusion taking place in the 2016 presidential campaign but it wasn’t carried out by Trump. It was Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee who acted in concert with intelligence assets in the United States and in the United Kingdom. The British government continues to manufacture false flag incidents, force international agencies to do its bidding, and push for regime change in Syria. Having failed to defeat Trump, they kept up the campaign to cover their tracks, escape blame for Hillary Clinton’s failure, and maintain the foreign policy status quo.

A law firm retained by the Democratic National Committee paid for the opposition research undertaken by former MI6 agent, Christopher Steele. Steele produced a dossier alleging that Trump was compromised by the Russian government and shopped it to the FBI, CIA, influential journalists and politicians like Senator John McCain. The dossier was used to obtain a FISA surveillance warrant against Trump aide Carter Page but the DNC connection was not disclosed to the judge.

Steele isn’t the only British spook in the story. A man named Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, is a business partner of Stefan Halper, a CIA asset who also spied on Donald Trump. Halper had contacts with Page and George Papadopoulos, two men now under indictment by Robert Mueller’s special investigation. The lesser lights of the Trump team were no match for seasoned professionals who get protection from the New York Times. The Times calls Halper “an FBI informant” and tries to claim that is somehow different from being a spy.

While Russia is vilified at every turn the British government conducts very public and very shady business which could conceivably impact both countries. The case of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal has the British government’s finger prints all over it. There is no reason for Russia to poison a former spy whom they had swapped eight years earlier. The only logical conclusion is that the act was carried out with the goal of embarrassing Vladimir Putin and creating a possible pretext for war. The Skripal case was soon followed by questionable reporting of yet another chemical weapons attack in Syria which resulted in a short lived United States, British and French attack on that country.

It is the British who use lies and trickery to sway public opinion into supporting a wider war in Syria. Three months after the Skripals were attacked another pair of Britons are said to have been poisoned with Novichok, a chemical weapon originally produced by Russia but which now can be made anywhere. One of the victims died and the claims of Russian involvement have suddenly become much more dangerous.

This second poisoning took place less than one week after the UK pressured the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to take on the role of judge and juror. No longer will the OPCW just determine if chemical weapons have been used, but they will also be tasked with assigning blame, too. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson proudly stated, “The U.K. has led the diplomatic efforts to secure this action.”

Collusion continues not between Trump and Russians, but between intelligence agencies, the media and American politicians with hidden agendas. While the public are fed a steady diet of tales of an unfree press in Russia, it is the British press which has been censored by its government. A Defence and Security Media Advisory Notice (D Notice) has been issued which prevents them from reporting fully on the Skripal case. Most Americans are unaware that the British government may prevent the media from reporting on any subject or person they choose. The person being protected now may be a man named Pablo Miller.

Miller was Skripal’s MI6 handler and was also employed at Christopher Steele’s firm Orbis. Miller and Steele may have involved Skripal in writing the anti-Trump dossier. While Americans are given endless misinformation making Russia look like the foreign interloper in their nation’s affairs it is actually the British deep state that is well connected to American media and politicians.

The Russiagate purveyors constantly say, “Connect the dots.” If there are any dots to connect they run from the DNC to former MI6 spies to CIA assets to Russian double agents to American intelligence to alleged chemical weapons attacks used to justify war or to stop the upcoming Trump and Putin summit. It is all being used to further the now obligatory anti-Russian propaganda that is pervasive on both sides of the Atlantic.

Anti-Russia sentiment has been stoked for two years straight and with expert precision. Any counter narratives have been obscured with equal precision. Honest discourse is now nearly impossible and the likelihood of public support for anything up to and including hot war between nuclear powers has increased. The world is a more dangerous place but not because of Russia. As always the United States and its allies are the cause of turmoil. This time they may have created dangers that they are unable to contain.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. Ms. Kimberley can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

July 11, 2018 Posted by aletho | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | CIA, DNC, MI6, Orbis, Pablo Miller, UK, United States | Leave a comment

Dawn Sturgess and the case against Russia

By Craig Murray | July 9, 2018

The terrible death of Dawn Sturgess casts a new shadow over the Salisbury Affair. Dawn appears to have been a popular and well grounded woman with close friend and family ties, whose life had taken a downward turn before being cruelly ended.

The illogical, inconsistent and shifting government narrative over events in Salisbury and Amesbury had appeared so ludicrous as to be tragi-comic. Any sense of amusement is now abruptly dispelled. But less us take a serious and sober look at the government case.

Savid Javid stated today:

We know back in March that it was the Russians. We know it was a barbaric, inhuman act by the Russian state. Again, for this particular incident, we need to learn more and let the police do their work.

Actually, we know no such thing and, contrary to Javid’s deliberate insinuation, the police have adduced no evidence that it was the Russian state.

The media appear to have entirely excluded from the narrative that Porton Down specifically stated that they cannot determine the origin of the poison that attacked the Skripals. Nor has the OPCW. There are scores of both state and non-state actors who could have produced the nerve agent. No evidence has been produced as to the physical person who allegedly administered the poison. In short, nothing so far has been shown which would lead any reasonable person to conclude a case against the Russian state was proven.

I believe that the following is the government narrative currently. I hope I am not mistating it:

Russia has a decade long secret programme of producing and stockpiling novichok nerve agents. It also has been training agents in secret assassination techniques, and British intelligence has a copy of the Russian training manual, which includes instruction on painting nerve agent on doorknobs. The Russians chose to use this assassination programme to target Sergei Skripal, a double agent who had been released from jail in Russia some eight years previously.

Only the Russians can make novichok and only the Russians had a motive to attack the Skripals.

The Russians had been tapping the phone of Yulia Skripal. They decided to attack Sergei Skripal while his daughter was visiting from Moscow. Their trained assassin(s) painted a novichok on the doorknob of the Skripal house in the suburbs of Salisbury. Either before or after the attack, they entered a public place in the centre of Salisbury and left a sealed container of the novichok there.

The Skripals both touched the doorknob and both functioned perfectly normally for at least five hours, even able to eat and drink heartily. Then they were simultaneously and instantaneously struck down by the nerve agent, at a spot in the city centre coincidentally close to where the assassins left a sealed container of the novichok lying around. Even though the nerve agent was eight times more deadly than Sarin or VX, it did not kill the Skripals because it had been on the doorknob and affected by rain.

Detective Sergeant Bailey attended the Skripal house and was also poisoned by the doorknb, but more lightly. None of the other police who attended the house were affected.

Four months later, Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess were rooting about in public parks, possibly looking for cigarette butts, and accidentally came into contact with the sealed container of novichok. They were poisoned and Dawn Sturgess subsequently died.

I am going to leave you to mull over that story yourselves for a while. I believe it is a fair statement of the British government narrative. I also believe almost (but not quite) every single sentence is very obviously untrue. I hope tomorrow to publish a detailed analysis explaining why that is, but want you to look at it yourselves first.

One final thought. I trust that Dawn Sturgess will get a proper and full public inquest in accordance with normal legal process, something which was denied to David Kelly. I suspect that is something the government will seek to delay as long as possible, even indefinitely.

July 9, 2018 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | UK | Leave a comment

UK Defense Secretary Blames Russia for Death of Woman in Amesbury

Sputnik – 09.07.2018

Though earlier in the day UK counter-terrorism officer Neil Basu was unable to confirm that a toxic substance allegedly used for the poisoning of Dawn Sturgess was similar to those claimed to be used for the attack on Skripals, the UK Defense Secretary blamed the incident on Russia.

UK Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson, when asked in parliament about a threat British people are facing after a woman died allegedly from a toxic agent, said that Russia had committed an attack on the UK soil, which resulted in the death of a British national.

“The simple reality is that Russia has committed an attack on British soil which has seen the death of a British citizen,” Williamson said, adding that the incident is something that in his opinion “the world will unite with us [the UK] in actually condemning.”

The statement came after one of the two people who were allegedly exposed to a toxic agent Amesbury died in a hospital on July 8.

The UK police were unable to confirm whether the toxin the couple was exposed to was the same as that allegedly used against Russian ex-military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March.

On Thursday, UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid said that the United Kingdom would take “further action” should Russia’s involvement in the incident be confirmed. He noted, however, that “we don’t want to jump to conclusions.”

The news about the alleged poisoning in Amesbury broke on July 4, exactly four months after former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench near a shopping mall in Salisbury on March 4.

At the time, the UK authorities blamed Russia for attempting to assassinate Skripal, who worked for the British intelligence, with what is believed by London to be the A234 nerve agent. Although the UK failed to provide evidence to substantiate its accusations, London rushed to retaliate, expelling Russian diplomats.

Russia denied having any role in the alleged poisoning and has offered to assist in the investigation. However, its request for samples of the chemical substance used to poison the Skripals was rejected. Both Skripals have since been discharged from the hospital.

July 9, 2018 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | Gavin Williamson, UK | Leave a comment

British MP, establishment journalists rush for Putin’s blood after Amesbury chemical death

RT | July 9, 2018

The death of Dawn Sturgess from what police say was exposure to Novichok has sparked a new fit of Russia-blaming, as an MP, high-profile commentators and mainstream journalists pointed the finger at Moscow.

As British police launched a murder investigation into the poisoning and death of Dawn Sturgess, 44, in Amesbury, various self-styled chemical weapons experts on Twitter have cried for Russia’s blood, squarely blaming Moscow for the incident yet in the early stages of the investigation.

Mike Gapes, the Labour and Co-operative MP for Ilford South who recently got some limelight by urging British parliamentarians against providing any commentary to RT, immediately named Russia as a party responsible for Sturgess’ death.

“This was a murder of a British citizen as a result of use of a chemical nerve agent produced by the Russian state,” Gapes wrote on Twitter, voicing something even Theresa ‘highly likely’ May has yet been wary of saying.

Gapes’ vitriol was joined by Kremlin watchers from UK establishment media, Russia correspondent for The Telegraph Alec Luhn, and The Guardian’s Luke Harding.

Harding, a well-known critic of the Russian government, implied that Sturgess was “collateral damage” of the Kremlin-orchestrated operation that was the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March in Salisbury.

“Dawn Sturgess dies after exposure to #novichok. The circumstances unclear. An utter indifference to collateral damage one of the hallmarks of the #Putin regime and its extra-territorial operations,” he tweeted.

Harding was a long-time Guardian correspondent in Moscow until 2011, when he was denied entry into Russia after violating accreditation rules. While the issue was promptly resolved and he was allowed back several days later, Harding alleged that he was a victim of a Kremlin crackdown on dissenting opinions.

Alec Luhn, another high-profile Russia critic, has used Sturgess’ death to defy Russian President Vladimir Putin, who, commenting on the Skripals poisoning, said that if the father and daughter were indeed attacked by a military-grade toxic agent they would not have survived.

Putin’s remark, according to Luhn’s logic, somehow gives more credibility to the version that it was Moscow behind the Salisbury poisoning.

“Vladimir Putin previously argued that the Russian state couldn’t have used a military nerve agent in the UK because the victims would have died. Now one of them has,” Luhn wrote.

Some commentators have gone as far as accusing the Russian president of personally killing Sturgess. The upcoming Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki was inevitably dragged into the picture.

“Putin is a murderer. What are the odds Trump doesn’t bring this up next week. Putin is our ENEMY!!!” Brian Krassenstein, an editor at Hill Reporter with nearly 500,000 Twitter followers, wrote.

Since the 12 July meeting was announced, hardliners have ostracized the US President for cozying up to his supposed puppet master, denouncing him as “traitor-in-chief” for his intention to have good relations with Russia and calling the Russian leader “fine.”

Far from everyone was convinced by the allegations of Russian involvement, which is still based entirely on speculation, as it’s unclear at this stage how Sturgess came into contact with the substance. Moreover, neither Sturgess nor her partner Charlie Rowley, 45, who remains in critical condition in the hospital, have anything in their background to suggest they might be of interest to the Kremlin, police said.

However, when faced with backlash (or, indeed, legitimate questions) over his tweet, Gapes preferred to label anyone asking for evidence or doubting Russia’s guilt “Kremlin bots” and “squawking abusive trolls” from Russia.

Gapes reacted the same way when he was accused of attempting to censor alternative opinions in the wake of his attack on RT. At the time, he called those who ventured to disagree with him “Putin apologists.”

July 8, 2018 Posted by aletho | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | UK | Leave a comment

Nothing about the latest ‘novichok’ attacks adds up

We simply cannot trust the Establishment media’s reporting on the dramatic events in Amesbury

By KENNY COYLE | Morning Star | July 9, 2018

Tranquil rural Wiltshire is now the epicentre of Cold War 2.0 it seems.

The dramatic events in Amesbury at the start of the month are once again creating a frenzy of media speculation and confusion, if not outright disinformation.

However idyllic this spot of the English countryside might appear, the Salisbury/Amesbury area is ground zero for Britain’s chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) warfare infrastructure.

Amesbury’s closeness to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down has been noted in some media reports, although usually with the implication that the location is a stroke of good luck in allowing super-swift scientific identification of the mysterious “novichok” substance that apparently poisoned Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess.

Less attention has been paid to the fact that the area is also home to the Defence Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear Centre at RAF Winterbourne Gunner, Salisbury. This was originally established in 1926 as the Chemical Warfare School.

The centre, according to its website, is also “home of the joint CBRN medical faculty. The centre also provides CBRN medical training to all medical officers in the UK armed services as well as specialist medical training to UK and NATO/allied nations.

“As well as military training, [the Defence CBRN Centre] also supports civilian response in partnership with the Health Protection Agency and Department of Health.”

Amesbury is little more than 10 minutes away by car.

Also handily located nearby is Boscombe Down air base. The site is currently run, managed and operated by QinetiQ, a private military company created out of the breakup of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (Dera) in 2001 by the Ministry of Defence.

The other part of the former Dera is Porton Down’s DSTL.

QinetiQ’s US arm produces a range of military robots. The QinetiQ Talon Hazmat is specially designed for the chemical weapons market and the company boasts it can identify “over 7,500 explosives, precursors and chemicals.”

At £4.5 million apiece, this is big business and with an increasing media focus on CBRN threats, real or imagined, this is very good news for the company’s shareholders, who snapped up its Dera parent for a song.

Amesbury also sits close to Salisbury Plain Training Area, one of the largest military zones in Britain.

In February, just weeks before the Skripal attack, Salisbury Plain hosted Exercise Toxic Dagger, a three-week chemical weapons training exercise involving 40 Royal Marine Commandos, Public Health England, the Atomic Weapons Establishment and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory of Porton Down.

It’s in this neck of the woods that we are asked to believe that a Russian agent or agents skillfully avoided all detection and identification and managed to attack the Skripals by smearing a doorknob.

These agents then left behind a chemical trail that could be traced all the way back to Moscow, rather than disposing of the substance securely.

All this within miles of a cluster of NATO’s key chemical weapons facilities.

Then there’s the issue of timing.

The Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill noted:“The latest twist comes at a time when Russia’s image has been burnished by a successful staging of the World Cup.

“More significantly though, it comes less than a week before a NATO summit in Brussels to discuss how the transatlantic alliance should deal with Russia and ahead of Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin.”

Quite so.

The case might not cause quite so much scepticism if we only had the inconsistencies and absurdities of the Skripal case to contend with.

This second “novichok” case creates additional problems.

According to an initial statement on Wiltshire Police’s website, “emergency services were called to an address in Muggleton Road on Saturday evening after a man and woman, both in their 40s, were found unconscious in a property.

“They are both currently receiving treatment at Salisbury District Hospital and are both in a serious condition.

“Det Sgt Eirin Martin, from Salisbury CID, said: ‘At this stage we believe the two patients have fallen ill after using a contaminated batch of drugs, possibly heroin or crack cocaine’.”

This first police statement suggested that both victims were hospitalised at the same time, on Saturday evening and that it was being treated as a Class A drug-related incident.

However, a few days later Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu gave an entirely different timeline of events.

Basu’s statement said: “The ambulance service was called to Muggleton Road on Saturday (June 30) at about 10.15am where a 44-year-old woman had collapsed. She was taken to hospital.

“And at about 3.30pm, an ambulance was called to the same address where a 45-year-old man had also fallen ill. The man was taken to hospital and Wiltshire Police were informed.”

Video footage shown by BBC and Sky News claimed to show Rowley being put in an ambulance. One pictured paramedic was wearing a full hazmat suit, which is an uncommon response to an emergency call for what was supposedly a suspected drug overdose.

However, three separate local Wiltshire media reports from July 1 contradict the official narrative.

The website of Salisbury radio station Spire FM reported that:

“An incident in the Kings Gate area of Amesbury on Saturday evening (June 30) is thought to have been a drug-related medical episode.

“More than 10 emergency vehicles arrived on the scene from police, ambulance and fire service.

“A number of roads around the estate were closed for a time, but reopened within a couple of hours.

“A South Western Ambulance Trust spokesperson told Spire FM News they were called at 6.20pm.

“One patient has been taken to Salisbury District Hospital by land ambulance.”

Initial reports in the Salisbury Journal newspaper also put the ambulance call later than Basu.

“The ambulance service was called at about 6.20pm and the fire service were called just before 7pm.

“Witnesses told the Journal that a number of residents were evacuated from their homes by firefighters.

“They also reported seeing people in hazmat suits at the scene.

“Witnesses also said about eight fire engines along with police and ambulance vehicles as well as specialist incident response vehicles were also at the scene.”

The Journal report continues: “A police spokesman said: ‘At the moment it is not a police incident. It is being led by the fire and the ambulance.

“‘It appears that there are three people who have taken drugs and had a medical incident. They have all been taken to hospital’.”

Finally, Charlotte Callen, BBC West Home Affairs Correspondent, reported on BBC online, datelined July 4, that: “neighbours tell me the peace at this usually quiet new estate in Amesbury was broken at around 6.30 pm on Saturday evening.

“It was hot and many were out BBQ’ing when they heard sirens and saw flashing lights as first ambulances then the fire brigade and police arrived at Muggleton Road.

“They saw seven fire engines and fire officers wearing Hazmats at the scene. The house was cordoned off and the word here was that this was a suspected drugs overdose,” Callan reported from the scene.

So according to three local media reports, the ambulance was called much later than the times given by Basu. Although this was supposedly being treated as a drugs-related incident, fire crews were called, residents evacuated, roads closed, hazmat personnel deployed and specialist incident response vehicles, some from as far away as Swindon, were sent to the scene. Some details differ.

Three people were in the property, according to the local police version. Presumably this was Rowley, Sturgess and Hobson, with the police claiming that all three had been taken to hospital, but only one was confirmed to the media by the Ambulance Service as being hospitalised.

This simply does not add up.

The willingness of the Establishment media not only to echo official narratives but to help create them is impressive.

From the BBC to The Guardian, the Establishment media presents a neutral narrative that would not be so readily accepted if put forward directly by government officials or ministers.

Yet the interlocking of media, military and political elites is also now on show.

The Amesbury event apparently provides a new sample of the substance, helpfully kept in a carelessly discarded container in a public space, safe from the elements.

This is presented as the final missing piece of the puzzle that had so far eluded one of the biggest peacetime counter-terrorism hunts.

BBC diplomatic and defence correspondent Mark Urban took to the air on Newsnight this week to outline what may become the official standard explanation for the whole novichok case.

Yet only now has Urban revealed that he had in fact been meeting secretly with Sergei Skripal over a year ago.

“I met Sergei on a few occasions last summer and found him to be a private character who did not, even under the circumstances then prevailing, wish to draw attention to himself.

“He agreed to see me as a writer of history books rather than as a news journalist, since I was researching one on the post-Cold War espionage battle between Russia and the West.

“Information gained in these interviews was fed into my Newsnight coverage during the early days after the poisoning. I have not felt ready until now to acknowledge explicitly that we had met, but do now that the book is nearing completion,” Urban wrote on BBC online.

Urban has strong military links, penning nearly a dozen books on British army units over the years, while collecting his BBC salary.

He is a former second lieutenant in the fourth Royal Tank Regiment, which until 1993 was garrisoned in Tidworth, Wiltshire, 15 minutes or so from Amesbury.

Leaving aside Urban’s obvious contractual conflict of interest and his commitment to writing a spy book supposedly overruling his duty as an impartial public broadcaster, it is a bombshell to find that for four months the link between Skripal and a senior BBC journalist with intimate links to the British military was kept secret from viewers.

How much did Urban’s BBC managers know of his extra-curricular activities?

Did Skripal’s MI6 handlers introduce Urban to him, did they arrange his meetings, vet or coach Skripal’s answers?

It raises once again the question of just how cosy the links are between British intelligence and many senior employees of Auntie Beeb.

And why is this information only being revealed now? Because of a looming and now, no doubt, ultra-lucrative book deal for Urban or instead to bolster the case that Skripal was indeed a likely target for Russian assassination due to continuing work for British and NATO intelligence services?

More and more questions, but don’t expect the Establishment media to ask, never mind answer, them.

July 8, 2018 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | UK | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries Next Entries »

Israeli Military Medics Are Training On Dead Americans

Aletho News Videos

or go to

Aletho News Archives – Video-Images

From the Archives

On ‘conflict’, ‘peace’ and ‘genocide’: Time for new language on Palestine

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 12, 2021

On 25 May, famous US actor Mark Ruffalo tweeted an apology for suggesting that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.

“I have reflected and wanted to apologise for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing ‘genocide’,” Ruffalo wrote, adding: “It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful and is being used to justify anti-Semitism, here and abroad. Now is the time to avoid hyperbole.”

But were Ruffalo’s earlier assessments, indeed, “not accurate, inflammatory and disrespectful”? And does equating Israel’s war on besieged, impoverished Gaza with genocide fit into the classification of “hyperbole”? … continue

Blog Roll

Subscribe to Aletho News

Enter your email address to receive new posts by email.

Email Address:

Join 2,457 other subscribers
Visits Since December 2009
- 7,510,018 hits
Looking for something?

Search for:
Archives
Archives
Calendar

May 2026

M T W T F S S

1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

« Apr
Categories

Aletho News Civil Liberties Corruption Deception Economics Environmentalism Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism Fake News False Flag Terrorism Full Spectrum Dominance Illegal Occupation Mainstream Media, Warmongering Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity Militarism Progressive Hypocrite Russophobia Science and Pseudo-Science Solidarity and Activism Subjugation - Torture Supremacism, Social Darwinism Timeless or most popular Video War Crimes Wars for Israel
Tags
9/11 Afghanistan Africa al-Qaeda Australia BBC Benjamin Netanyahu Brazil Canada CDC Central Intelligence Agency China CIA CNN Covid-19 COVID-19 Vaccine Donald Trump Egypt European Union Facebook FBI FDA France Gaza Germany Google Hamas Hebron Hezbollah Hillary Clinton Human rights Hungary India Iran Iraq ISIS Israel Israeli settlement Japan Jerusalem Joe Biden Korea Latin America Lebanon Libya Middle East National Security Agency NATO New York Times North Korea NSA Obama Pakistan Palestine Poland Qatar Russia Sanctions against Iran Saudi Arabia Syria The Guardian Turkey Twitter UAE UK Ukraine United Nations United States USA Venezuela Washington Post West Bank WHO Yemen Zionism

May 2026
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
	1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Aletho News
If Americans Knew
No Tricks Zone
Contact:

atheonews (at) gmail.com
Disclaimer

This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.

This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.

Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.

Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.

The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.

The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.

Fair Use

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

DMCA Contact

This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.

If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.

We will respond and take necessary action immediately.

If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.

All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Featured Video

From the Archives

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 12, 2021

Blog Roll

Subscribe to Aletho News

Visits Since December 2009

Looking for something?

Archives

Calendar

Categories

Tags

Contact:

Disclaimer

Site info