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UK has spent $2.4bn on bombing Iraq, Syria: Official data

Press TV – February 27, 2018

The British government has spent over $2.44 billion (£1.7bn) to carry out airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since 2014, the year the US and its allies formed a so-called coalition to allegedly counter terrorist groups wreaking havoc in the two Arab countries, according to official data.

The larger chunk of the money, around $2 billion (£1.5bn), has gone into flying the Royal Air Force (RAF)’s Tornado and Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets as well as Reaper attack and surveillance drones for more than 42,000 hours.

The figures, revealed on Monday in response to a Freedom of Information requests by anti-war group Drone Wars UK, seemed to be a fraction of what London has spent over the course of its unauthorized intervention dubbed Operation Shader.

The British air force has also dropped over 3,500 units of various munitions in over 1,700 airstrikes on Syrian and Iraqi targets at a cost of around $375 million (£267mn) over the past three and a half years.

That includes Paveway IV laser-guided bombs that cost an estimated $98,000 (£70,000) apiece for the older version and $140,000 (£100,000) for the enhanced ones.

RAF pilots have also fired no less than 8 Storm Shadow cruise missiles that are said to cost around $1,100,000 (£800,000) per unit, the activist group said.

The costs would grow if besides fuel, which is included in official figures, undisclosed data such as crew payments, aircraft maintenance and capital data are also included.

Drone Wars UK estimates that it costs the RAF $112,000 (£80,000) to keep the multi-role Typhoons airborne for an hour, while the figure drops to $49,000 (£35,000) and ($4,900) £3,500 for Tornado and Reaper aircraft respectively.

However large, the numbers are still a fraction of what the US-led coalition has collectively spent during the campaign, which has seen 105,000 bombs and missiles used in some 29,000 airstrikes. Drone Wars said the military campaign has cost around $10.5 billion (£8 bn).

The sheer number of US-led airstrikes since 2014 has alarmed rights activists about the possible civilian casualties.

While the US has only admitted to killing 841 civilians in the strikes, Drone Wars UK said it had recorded over 6,000 civilian deaths as a result of the military campaign. Neither Syria nor the United Nations have authorized the attacks.

The coalition forces have on many occasions air-dropped weapons and equipment for terrorists while targeting Syrian and Iraqi government forces who fight them.

February 27, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Russia vetoes anti-Iran UNSC resolution

Press TV – February 26, 2018

A UK-drafted resolution aimed at pressuring Iran over alleged weapons supplies to Yemeni fighters has failed at the UN Security Council.

On Monday, the resolution gained 11 favorable votes at the 15-member Security Council but was halted by Russia’s veto.

“We cannot concur with uncorroborated conclusions and evidence which requires verification and discussions within the sanctions committee,” Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council.

Earlier in the month, Britain circulated a draft resolution that would renew sanctions on Yemen for another year and also “condemns” Iran for allegedly breaching the 2015 arms embargo on the country by “failing to take the necessary measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer” of short-range ballistic missiles, UAVs and other military equipment to Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The Houthi movement has been defending Yemen against a bloody Saudi-led military campaign, which was launched in 2015 with the help of the US and the UK to reinstall the country’s former Riyadh-friendly government.

The draft resolution, backed by France and the US, called for unspecified measures in response to the UN report about Iran’s alleged role in Yemen, stressing that the UNSC will take “additional measures to address these violations,” and that “any activity related to the use of ballistic missiles in Yemen” is a criteria for sanctions.

A group of UN experts monitoring the sanctions on Yemen reported to the Security Council in January that it had “identified missile remnants, related military equipment and military unmanned aerial vehicles that are of Iranian origin and were brought into Yemen after the imposition of the targeted arms embargo.”

The UN experts, however, said they were unable to identify the supplier.

Both Tehran and Sana’a have repeatedly rejected the allegations as a fabricated scenario, and said the armed forces of Yemen have strengthened their missile power on their own.

After the veto, the UNSC unanimously adopted a Russian-drafted measure to extend for one year the sanctions regime against Yemen.

February 26, 2018 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jaafari: Ending Civilians’ Suffering Requires Implementing UN Resolutions

Al-Manar | February 25, 2018

Syria’s Permanent Representative at the UN Bashar al-Jaafari said that ending the suffering of Syrians doesn’t require showboating sessions or forming UN committees; it only requires applying the 30 resolutions issued by the UN.

In a speech after the Security Council voted on a resolution calling for the cessation of combat activities in Syria for at least 30 days, Jaafari said that the people in Damascus are truly suffering due to the acts of the terrorists positioned in the Eastern Ghouta, adding “the appeals of 8 million Syrians do not reach the General Secretariat or the mailboxes of Britain and France’s representatives, but the appeals of terrorists do reach them.”

He noted that the Syrian Arab Red Crescent HQ in Damascus was targeted by 10 shells fired by the so-called “moderate” terrorists located in Ghouta, killing and injuring people including a doctor.

Jaafari stressed meanwhile, that the Syrian government has dealt in a serious manner with all initiatives and was committed to them due to its care for the lives of Syrian citizens, and that the government has called on armed groups in the Eastern Ghouta to lay down their weapons and provided safe corridors for civilians to exit it.

Syria’s Representative said that the Astana agreement had stipulated for committing the armed groups to break any ties to ISIL and Nusra Front terrorist groups, and gave the Syrian government the right to retaliate to any attack.

“We practice a sovereign right of self-defense and we will continue to fight terrorism wherever it is found on Syrian soil,” Jaafari affirmed, adding that the Syrian government reserves the full right to retaliate against armed terrorist groups if they target civilians with even a single shell.

The Syrian diplomat asserted that the new resolution should be applied to the entirety of Syrian territory, including Afrin, and areas occupied by US forces, and the occupied Syrian Golan.

He also said that what is required is for the governments of the United States, Britain, and France to stop holding meetings and making strategic plans that bring to mind the age of colonialism and that seek to divide Syria and change the governing system in it by force.

February 25, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Tories Resurrect Ghost of Communism in Desperate Attack on Corbyn

Sputnik – February 20, 2108

Leader of Opposition and head of the UK Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn is facing numerous attacks from the Tories, who recalled their Cold War practices to discredit their left-wing opponent, branding him a communist spy.

The scandal was sparked by the allegations made by former Czechoslovak intelligence officer Jan Sarkocy, who claimed that Corbyn supplied sensitive information to the communist government.

The Conservatives were quick to jump on the bandwagon, calling on Corbyn to disclose a file that was opened on him by the East German intelligence agency, the Stasi, when he visited the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1980s. For instance, British Prime Minister Theresa May has publicly called on Corbyn to be “accountable for his actions in the past”.

“Where there are allegations of this sort, MPs should be prepared to be open and transparent,” May said.

Tory Minister State for Security and Economic Crime Ben Wallace even alluded to Kim Philby, the ringleader of Cambridge Five, a group of Britons that spied for the Soviet Union during the Cold War, in his tweet about Corbyn.

“Jeremy has been interested in Foreign Policy issues his entire political career ” — Labour MP Louis Haigh, BBC Daily Politics — yup so was Kim Philby”- the tweet read.

Wallace was eventually forced to backtrack by Twitter users, who mocked the logic behind his attack.

“Wasn’t comparing just saying that being interested in Foreign policy isn’t an answer to the allegations being made,” another tweet read.

Junior defense minister Tobias Ellwood, however, did not hold back, telling The Telegraph that the allegations raise “legitimate concerns” about Corbyn’s “patriotism”.

The Conservatives are keen on pushing the story and are planning to invite Sarkocy to testify before the House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee, which is chaired by a senior Tory MP, Tom Tugendhat.

Tugendhat stated that his committee is “planning to look at how nation states undermine democracy and the rule of law”, invoking the tried-and-tested anti-Russian rhetoric to further undermine Corbyn.

“It is Russia and other countries as well that are trying to do it. While we are doing that it may be worth asking people who have actually tried to do this in the past to tell us how they did it,” Tugendhat said.

The scandal comes just as the latest YouGov poll revealed a slight lead that the Labour Party holds over the Conservatives in voting preferences of British citizens.

The new figures show that 41% of Britons are likely to vote Labour, while the Conservatives enjoy the support of 40% of the UK electorate.

However, the scandal is likely to backfire and discredit the Tories themselves, as there is evidence that directly debunks the allegations.

According to the Sun, the Czechoslovak intelligence archives actually reveal that the communist spies never managed to successfully recruit Corbyn.

The Labour leader has confirmed that he indeed met with Sarkocy, who posed as a diplomat during his tenure in London, but staunchly denied supplying any information to the communist spy and dismissed the claims as “ridiculous smears.”

READ MORE:

Labour’s Poll Surge Has Establishment ‘Pundits’ in a Flap

UK Labour Leader Corbyn Refutes Allegations of Being Spy — Spokesman

February 20, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

US-Russia rivalry surges in Syria

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | February 20, 2018

A major speech by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday at an international conference on the Middle East turned into the strongest Russian denunciation to date of the shift in the US policies under the Trump administration towards Syria, where the Pentagon now intends to keep a military presence indefinitely. (here and here)

The overall impression Lavrov conveyed is three-fold. One, in immediate terms, a spurt in fighting in Syria can be expected, as the US attempts to create new facts on the ground by using local proxies — Kurdish militia plus al-Qaeda affiliates and ISIS fighters — as well as to push back at Russia, Iran and the Syrian government.

Two, Russia concludes that the shift in the overall US strategy aims at balkanizing Syria. (Later on Monday, while speaking to the media in Moscow, Lavrov also drew attention to the presence of mercenaries and the Special Forces of France and Britain in northeastern Syria working in league with the US forces in implementing the American agenda to create zones of influence.)

Three, the conversation between Moscow and Washington regarding Syria is at a dead end. Lavrov specifically warned Washington that it is “playing with fire” in Syria, implying that the US strategy will run into resistance.

Two other features of the Moscow conference in Moscow are that, first, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohamad Javad Zarif took part in it, and, second, the event also talked up a Russian mediatory role to calm down the tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Zarif told Lavrov at a meeting in Moscow on Monday that Tehran seeks Russia’s help in resolving the intra-regional rifts in the Muslim Middle East. Later, Zarif posted on his official Tweeter account: “With Russia’s sober strategic perspective and its growing influence in West Asia, it can play an instrumental role to help a paradigm shift in the Persian Gulf to one based on dialogue and inclusion.”

The conference was attended by non-official delegates from several Middle East countries, including Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, King Abdullah of Jordan had paid a ‘working visit’ to Moscow on February 15 and met Putin. On the previous day, Lavrov had spoken to his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Hassan Shoukry on phone. Yesterday, Putin also telephoned Turkish President Recep Erdogan. The focus was on Syria in all these exchanges.

The Russian strategy will be to persuade important regional states who have been the US’ key regional allies – Saudi Arabia and Jordan, in particular – not to rejoin the conflict in Syria by fueling a new round of fighting. If the approach succeeds, the US may find itself at a disadvantage in lacking regional support for pressing ahead with the military track.

However, although Russia’s ties with Saudi Arabia have appreciably strengthened in the recent years, Moscow’s capacity to mediate a Saudi-Iranian rapprochement remains to be seen. Syria continues to be a major source of rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. And, the irony is that, finally, the Trump administration is doing what Saudi Arabia had wanted the previous Obama administration to do by pushing upfront the ‘regime change’ agenda in Syria through coercive methods.

In the Saudi perception, Russia suffered a series of setbacks in Syria recently. Summing up the Syrian situation, Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of the influential Saudi establishment daily Asharq Al-Awsat wrote on Monday, “ Never before have all these flags, interests, dangers, armies, militias, internal divisions and regional and international clashes come together on its (Syria’s) territories. From the South to Idlib to Hmeimem to Afrin, Syria is like a powder keg. It is at the heart of a complex and vast geo-strategic conflict that is impossible to resolve with force and where losses and rewards will be difficult to predict… The regional and international circumstances do not appear ripe for… talks to happen. The Syrian tragedy is open to the most dangerous possibilities.”

The Saudi inclination will be to wait and watch which way the winds are blowing. On the other hand, the war in Yemen remains Saudi Arabia’s number one priority today and Riyadh seeks a Russian role in ending the war in Yemen by leveraging its influence with Iran.

February 20, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran strongly rejects claims of delivery of missiles to Yemen

Press TV – February 20, 2018

Iran has once again rejected the allegations about the Islamic Republic’s provision of missiles to Yemeni forces, saying such claims are lies and a foolish scenario.

“Iran’s missile program is for defensive and deterrent [purposes] and claims about the dispatch of missiles to Yemen despite the all-out blockade on this country are lies and a foolish scenario designed to exonerate the aggressors,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Tuesday.

He added that Britain and France have expressed their concern over Iran’s defensive missile program without providing any reason or wise justification.

A group of so-called independent United Nations experts monitoring the sanctions on Yemen reported to the Security Council in January that it had “identified missile remnants, related military equipment and military unmanned aerial vehicles that are of Iranian origin and were brought into Yemen after the imposition of the targeted arms embargo.”

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in a statement on Monday called on Iran to stop taking actions which could lead to further escalation of the Yemeni conflict.

“I call on Iran to cease activity which risks escalating the conflict and to support a political solution to the conflict in Yemen,” Johnson said.

His remarks came on the same day that the French foreign ministry also said in a statement that Paris was concerned about Iran’s ballistic missiles program and its activities in the region, mentioning its support for the Houthis in Yemen.

In reaction to the allegations, Qassemi said the Islamic Republic has designed its defensive missile program based on its military doctrine and valuable experience it obtained during the eight-year war imposed on it by Iraq backed by major global powers in the 1980s.

He added that Iran’s missile program aims to deter any aggression by extremist powers against the country.

“In this clear path that is completely in conformity with international principles, we will never accept other countries’ intervention and regard as irresponsible and suspicious the adoption of such unprincipled stance and strongly reject them,” Qassemi said.

He emphasized that the Yemeni army and people have no need for foreign countries’ weapons, saying the Yemenis’ defense of their country’s dignity with minimum facilities has led to the defeat of aggressors.

The chief commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in January dismissed the allegations leveled by the US and its allies about the Islamic Republic’s provision of missiles to Yemeni forces.

“Missiles fired at Saudi Arabia belong to Yemen which have been overhauled and their range have been increased,” Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari said.

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani also said in December that the Islamic Republic is not providing military assistance to Yemen and all claims to this effect are false.

“We are not a country that would deny providing military assistance to anybody,” Larijani said.

Qassemi further called for an immediate end to the sale of European and US arms to Saudi Arabia and other aggressors and warmongers who are killing innocent Yemeni people on a daily basis.

A Saudi Arabian-led coalition launched a war against Yemen in 2015 and has ever since been indiscriminately hitting targets in the country. Yemeni Houthi fighters have been firing missiles in retaliatory attacks against Saudi targets every now and then.

The US State Department in January approved a possible $500-million sale of missile system support services to Saudi Arabia in defiance of global calls for Washington to stop providing Riyadh with military support due to the regime’s war crimes in Yemen.

The potential sale follows a request by Saudi Arabia for continued technical assistance for Patriot Legacy Field Surveillance Program (FSP), the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) and the Patriot Engineering Services Program (ESP).

During his first trip to Saudi Arabia last year, US President Donald Trump signed a $110 billion arms deal with the Saudis, with options to sell up to $350 billion over a decade.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in December the United States is complicit in Saudi war crimes in Yemen amid Washington’s baseless claim that Tehran is providing supply of ballistic missiles to Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement.

“No amount of alternative facts or alternative evidence covers up US complicity in war crimes,” Zarif said in a post on his official Twitter account.

He added that the US has sold weapons to its allies enabling them to “kill civilians and impose famine,” in reference to Washington’s arms deal with Riyadh in its aggression against Yemen.

February 20, 2018 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How to Steele an Election

Christopher Steele’s Other Job: He Ran an Info Op Against the United States

By Peter Van Buren | We Meant Well | February 18, 2108

Christopher Steele did far more than simply provide an opposition research dossier to the Democratic National Committee, his Job One. As a skilled intelligence officer, Steele ran a full-spectrum information operation against the United States, aided either willingly or unwittingly by the FBI. His second job was the more important one: get his information into the most effective hands to influence the United States in the most significant way.

To understand how effective Steele has been in his op, we need to understand he had two jobs. The first was to create the dossier. The second job was to disseminate the dossier. Steele had to get the information into the most effective hands to influence the United States in the most significant way.

Job One: Create the Dossier

Job One was to create the opposition research. “Oppo” is not a neutral gathering of facts, but a search for negative information that can be used against an opponent. The standards — vetting — vary with the intended use. Some info might be published with documents and verification. Some leads discovered might be planted in hopes a journalist will uncover more “on her own,” creating credibility. Some likely near-falsehoods might be handed out to sleazy media in hopes more legit media will cross report — the New York Times might not initially run a story about a sexual dalliance itself, but it will run a story saying “Buzzfeed reports a sexual dalliance involving…”

Oppo research follows no rules; this is not peer-reviewed stuff that has to pass an ethics board. One goes out with bags of money shouting “Anyone got dirt on our opponent? We’re paying, but only for dirt!” You look for people who didn’t like a deal, people with an axe to grind, the jilted ex-wife, not the happy current one. So to say oppo research might be biased is to miss the point.

You’re not required to look too far under a rock that hides something naughty — stop when you’ve got what you came for. It all depends how the information will be deployed. The less sure you are about the veracity of the information you acquire the more you need that info to be inherently palatable; it has to feel right to the intended audience. The old political joke is you need to find a live boy in bed, or a dead girl, to really smear an opponent with a sex scandal. So if you’re going to run with info that supports what the public already sort of believes, the standards are lower.

What Does the Dossier Say?

Turning to Christopher Steele’s dossier, it looks like he read the same espionage textbook as everyone else. So while it would have been a game-changer had Steele found unambiguous evidence of financial transactions between Trump and the Russian government, that would have required real evidence. Steele’s sources claim money changed hands, but never provide him with proof. On dossier (page 20) one source goes as far as to say no documentary evidence exists.

That means instead of the complex financing scams you might expect out of Trump, the big takeaway from the dossier is the pee tape, sources claiming the Russians have video to blackmail Trump at any moment. The thing reaches almost the level of parody, because not only does the dossier claim Trump likes fetish sex, the fetish sex occurred in the context of an anti-Obama act (Trump supposedly for his pleasure employed prostitutes to urinate on a bed Obama once slept in.) As for other sex parties Trump supposedly participated in, the dossier notes all direct witnesses were “silenced.” You couldn’t do better if you made it all up.

In fact, the thing reads very much like what lay people imagine spies come up with. In real intelligence work, documents showing transactions from cash to commercial paper to gold run through a Cayman Islands’ bank are much more effective than dirty video; the latter can be denied, and may or may not even matter to a public already bored by boasts of pussy grabbing and rawdog sex with porn stars. The former will show up in court as part of a racketeering and tax evasion charge that dead solid perfect sends people to jail. Intelligence officers who pay out sources maintain meticulous receipts; you think their own agencies trust them with bags of cash? And in the dark world, prostitutes don’t need to be “silenced.” They have no credibility in most people’s’ minds to begin with, and a trail of bodies just attracts attention. And unlike Steele’s product, real intel reporting is full of qualifiers, maybes, liklies and so forth, not a laundry list of certainties, because you know your own sources have an agenda. The dossier is also short of the kind of verifiable details of specific dates and places you’d expect. It is a collection of unverifiable assertions by second-hand sources, not evidence. Steele is a smart man, an experienced intelligence officer, who knew exactly what he was writing — a dossier that will read true to the rubes.

So it is not surprising to date there has been no public corroboration of anything in the dossier. If significant parts of the dossier could be proven, there would be grounds for impeachment with no further work needed. At least one fact has been disproven –Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, produced his passport to rebut the dossier’s claim that he had secret meetings in Prague with a Russian official.

Job Two: Run the Info Op, Place the Dossier

Steele excelled at turning his dossier into a full-spectrum information operation, what some might call information warfare. This is what separates his work creating the dossier (which a decent journalist with friends in Russia could have done) from his work infiltrating the dossier into the highest reaches of American government and political society. For that, you need a real pro, an intelligence officer with decades of experience running just that kind of op. You want foreign interference in the 2016 election? Let’s take a closer look at Christopher Steele.

Steele’s skill is revealed by the Nunes and Grassley memos, which show he used the same set of information in the dossier to create a collaboration loop, every intelligence officer’s dream — his own planted information used to surreptitiously confirm itself, right up to the point where the target country’s own intelligence service re-purposed it as evidence in the FISA court.

Steele admits he briefed journalists off-the-record starting in summer and autumn 2016. His most significant hit came when journalist Michael Isikoff broke the story of Trump associate Carter Page’s alleged connections to Russia. Isikoff did not cite the dossier or Steele as sources, and in fact denied they were when questioned.

Isikoff’s story didn’t just push negative information about Trump into the public consciousness. It claimed U.S. intel officials were probing ties between a Trump adviser and the Kremlin, adding credibility; the feds themselves felt the info was worthwhile! Better yet for Steele, Isikoff claimed the information came from a “well-placed Western intelligence source,” suggesting it originated from a third-party and was picked up by Western spies instead of being written by one. Steele also placed articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Mother Jones, and others.

At the same time, Steele’s info reached influential people like John McCain, who could then pick up a newspaper and believe he was seeing the “secret” info from Steele confirmed independently by an experienced journalist. And how did McCain first learn about Steele’s work? At a conference in Canada, via Andrew Wood, former British Ambassador in Moscow. Where was Wood working at the time? Orbis, Christopher Steele’s research firm.

A copy of the dossier even found its way to the State Department, an organization which normally should have been far removed from U.S. election politics. A contact within State passed information from Clinton associates Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer (both men played also active roles behind in the scenes feeding Clinton dubious information on Libya) to and from Steele. The Grassley memo suggests there was a second Steele document, in addition to the dossier, already shared with State and the FBI but not made public.

The Gold Medal: Become the Source of Someone Else’s Investigation

While seeding his dossier in the media and around Washington, Steele was also meeting in secret with the FBI (he claims he did not inform Fusion GPS, his employer), via an FBI counterintelligence handler in Rome. Steele began feeding the FBI in July 2016 with updates into the fall, apparently in the odd guise of simply a deeply concerned, loyal British subject. “This is something of huge significance, way above party politics,” Steele commented as to his motives.

The FBI, in the process of working Steele, would have likely characterized him as a “source,” technically a “extra-territorial confidential human source.” That meant the dossier’s claims appeared to come from the ex-MI6 officer with the good reputation, not second-hand from who knows who in Russia (the FBI emphasized Steele’s reputation when presenting the dossier to the FISC.) Think of it as a kind of money laundering which, like that process, helped muddy the real source of the goods.

The FBI used the Steele dossier to apply for a FISA court surveillance warrant against Carter Page. The FBI also submitted Isikoff’s story as corroborating evidence, without explaining the article and the dossier were effectively one in the same. In intelligence work, this is known as cross-contamination, an amateur error. The FBI however, according to the Nunes memo, did not tell the FISA court the Steele dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee as commissioned opposition research, nor did they tell the court the Isikoff article presented as collaborating evidence was in fact based on the same dossier.

Steele reached an agreement with the FBI a few weeks before the election for the bureau to pay him $50,000 to continue his “research,” though the deal is believed to have fallen through after the dossier became public (though an intelligence community source tells The American Conservative Steele did in fact operate as a fully paid FBI asset.) Along the way the FBI also informed Steele of their separate investigation into Trump staffer George Papadopoulos, a violation of security and a possible tainting of Steele’s research going forward.

Gold Medal Plus: Collaborate Your Own Information

The Nunes memo also showed then-associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr back-channeled additional material from Steele into the DOJ while working with Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and her replacement, Rod Rosenstein. Ohr’s wife Nellie worked for Fusion GPS, the firm that commissioned the dossier, on Steele’s project. Ohr’s wife would be especially valuable in that she would be able to clandestinely supply info to corraborate what Steele told the FBI and, via her husband, know to tailor what she passed to the questions DOJ had. The FBI did not disclose the role of Ohr’s wife, who speaks Russian and has previously done contract work for the CIA, to the FISA court.

Ohr’s wife only began work for Fusion GPS in September/October 2016, as the FBI sought the warrant against Page based on the Steele dossier. Ohr’s wife taking a new job with Fusion GPS at that critical juncture screams of the efforts of an experienced intelligence officer looking to create yet another pipeline inside, essentially his own asset.

Steele’s Success, With a Little Help From His Friends

All talk of Russia aside, it is difficult to find evidence of a foreigner who played a more significant role in the election than Christopher Steele. Steele took a dossier paid for by one party and drove it deep into the United States. Steele’s work formed in part the justification for a FISA warrant to spy on a Trump associate, the end game of which has not yet been written.

Steele maneuvered himself from paid opposition researcher to clandestine source for the FBI. Steele then may have planted the spouse of a senior DOJ employee as a second clandestine source to move more information into DOJ. In the intelligence world, that is as good as it gets; via two seemingly independent channels you are controlling the opponent’s information cycle.

Steele further manipulated the American media to have his information amplified and given credibility. By working simultaneously as both an anonymous and a cited source, he got his same info out as if it was coming from multiple places.

There is informed speculation Steele was more than a source for the FBI, and actually may have been tasked and paid to search for specific information, essentially working as a double agent for the FBI and the DNC. Others have raised questions about Steele’s status as “retired” from British intelligence, as the lines among working for MI6, working at MI6, and working with MI6 are often times largely a matter of semantics. Unless Steele wanted to burn all of his contacts within British intelligence, it is highly unlikely he would insert himself into an American presidential campaign without at least informing his old workmates, if not seeking tacit permission (for the record, Steele’s old boss at MI6 calls the dossier credible; an intelligence community source tells The American Conservative Steele shared all of his information with MI6.) It is unclear if the abrupt January 2017 resignation of Robert Hannigan, the head of Britain’s NSA-like Government Communications Headquarters, is related in any way to Steele’s work becoming public.

As for the performance of the DOJ/FBI, we do not have enough information to judge whether they were incompetent, or simply willing partners to what Steele was up to, using him as a handy pretext to open legal surveillance on someone inside the Trump circle (surveillance on Page may have also monitored Steve Bannon.)

How to Steele an Election

The Washington Post characterized Steele as “struggling to navigate dual obligations — to his private clients, who were paying him to help Clinton win, and to a sense of public duty born of his previous life.” The Washington Post has no idea how intelligence officers work. Their job is to befriend and engage the target to carry out the goals of their employer. When they do it right, the public summation is a line like the Post offered; you never even knew you were being used. In the macho world of intelligence, the process is actually described more crudely, having to do with using enough lubrication so the target didn’t even feel a rough thing pushed up a very sensitive place.

Steele played the FBI while the FBI thought they were playing him. Or the other way around, because everyone was looking the other way. Steele ran a classic info op against the United States, getting himself inside the cycle as a clean source. Robert Mueller should be ashamed of himself if he uses any of Steele’s dossier, or any information obtained via that dossier. That’s where our democracy stands at the moment.

February 19, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The US-UK Deep State Empire Strikes Back: ‘It’s Russia! Russia! Russia!’

By James George JATRAS | Strategic Culture Foundation | 18.02.2018

There’s no defense like a good offense.

For weeks the unfolding story in Washington has been how a cabal of conspirators in the heart of the American federal law enforcement and intelligence apparat colluded to ensure the election of Hillary Clinton and, when that failed, to undermine the nascent presidency of Donald Trump. Agencies tainted by this corruption include not only the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) but the Obama White House, the State Department, the NSA, and the CIA, plus their British sister organizations MI6 and GCHQ, possibly along with the British Foreign Office (with the involvement of former British ambassador to Russia Andrew Wood) and even Number 10 Downing Street.

Those implicated form a regular rogue’s gallery of the Deep State: Peter Strzok (formerly Chief of the FBI’s Counterespionage Section, then Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division; busy bee Strzok is implicated not only in exonerating Hillary from her email server crimes but initiating the Russiagate investigation in the first place, securing a FISA warrant using the dodgy “Steele Dossier,” and nailing erstwhile National Security Adviser General Mike Flynn on a bogus charge of “lying to the FBI”); Lisa Page (Strzok’s paramour and a DOJ lawyer formerly assigned to the all-star Democrat lineup on the Robert Mueller Russigate inquisition); former FBI Director James Comey, former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and – let’s not forget – current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, himself implicated by having signed at least one of the dubious FISA warrant requests. Finally, there’s reason to believe that former CIA Director John O. Brennan may have been the mastermind behind the whole operation.

Not to be overlooked is the possible implication of a pack of former Democratic administration officials, including former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and President Barack Obama himself, who according to text communications between Strzok and Page “wants to know everything we’re doing.” Also involved is the DNC, the Clinton campaign, and Clinton operatives Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer – rendering the ignorance of Hillary herself totally implausible.

On the British side we have “former” (suuure . . . ) MI6 spook Christopher Steele, diplomat Wood, former GCHQ chief Robert Hannigan (who resigned a year ago under mysterious circumstances), and whoever they answered to in the Prime Minister’s office.

The growing sense of panic was palpable. Oh my – this is a curtain that just cannot be allowed to be pulled back!

What to do, what to do . . .

Ah, here’s the ticket – come out swinging against the main enemy. That’s not even Donald Trump. It’s Russia and Vladimir Putin. Russia! Russia! Russia!

Hence the unveiling of an indictment against 13 Russian citizens and three companies for alleged meddling in U.S. elections and various ancillary crimes.

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume all the allegations in the indictment are true, however unlikely that is to be the case. (While that would be the American legal rule for a complaint in a civil case, this is a criminal indictment, where there is supposedly a presumption of innocence. Rosenstein even mentioned that in his press conference, pretending not to notice that that presumption doesn’t apply to Russian Untermenschen – certainly not to Olympic athletes and really not to Russians at all, who are presumed guilty on “genetic” grounds.)

Based on the public announcement of the indictment by Rosenstein – who is effectively the Attorney General in place of the pro forma holder of that office, Jeff Sessions (R-Recused) – and on an initial examination of the indictment, and we can already draw a few conclusions:

  • Finally, “collusion” is dead! If Mueller and the anti-constitutional cabal had any hint that anyone on the Trump team cooperated with those indicted, they would have included it. They didn’t. That means that after months and months of “investigation” – or really, setting “perjury traps” and trying to nail people on unrelated accusations, like Paul Manafort’s alleged circumvention of lobbying and financial reporting laws – and wasting however many millions of dollars, Mueller and his merry band got nothing. Zip. Zilch. Bupkes. Nada. The fake charge that Trump colluded with the Russians is exposed as the fraud it always was.
  • And yet, “collusion” still lives! But while there is no actual allegation (much less evidence) that any American, much less anyone on the Trump team, “colluded” with the indicted Russians, the indictment makes it clear that Moscow sought to support Trump and disparage Hillary. Thus, Trump is guilty of being favored by Russia even if there was no actual cooperation. It’s a kind of zombie walking dead collusion, collusion by intent (of someone else) absent actual collusion. Its purpose in the indictment is to discredit Trump as a Russian puppet, albeit an unwitting one. The indictment says the Russian desperados supported Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein too – so they’re also Putin’s dupes.
  • Any and every Russian equals Putin. Incredibly, nothing in the indictment points to any connection of those indicted to the Russian government! This is on a par with the hysteria over social media placements by “Russian interests” on account of which hysterical Senators demanded that tech giants impose content controls, or dimwit CIA agents getting bilked out of $100,000 by a Russian scam artist in Berlin in exchange for – well, pretty much nothing. (The CIA denies it, which leads one to suspect it is true.) Paragraph 95 of the indictment points to what amounted to a click-bait scam to fleece American merchants and social media sites from between $25 and $50 per post for promotional content. Paragraph 88 refers to “self-enrichment” as one motive of the alleged operation. That makes a lot more sense than the bone-headed claim in the indictment that the Russian goal was to “sow discord in the U.S. political system” by posting content on “divisive U.S. political and social issues.” What! Americans disagree about stuff? The Russians are setting us against each other! In announcing the indictment, Rosenstein said the Russians wanted to “promote discord in the United States and undermine public confidence in democracy. We must not allow them to succeed.” (He wagged his finger with resolve at that point.) It evidently doesn’t occur to Rosenstein that he and his pals have undermined public confidence in our institutions by perverting them for political ends.
  • Demonizing dissent. Those indicted allegedly sought to attract Americans’ attention to their diabolical machinations through appeal to hot-button issues (immigration, Black Lives Matter, religion, etc.) and popular hashtags (#Trump2016, #TrumpTrain, #MAGA, #Hillary4Prison). Have you taken a stand on divisive issues, Dear Reader? Have you used any of these hashtags? Are you reading this commentary? You too might be an unwitting Russian stooge! Vladimir Putin is inside your head! Hopefully DOJ will set up a hotline where patriotic citizens influenced without their knowledge can now report themselves, now that they’ve been alerted. Are you a thought criminal, comrade?
  • An amateurish, penny-ante scheme with no results – compared to what the U.S. does. At worst, even if all the allegations in the indictment are true – a big “if” – it would still amount to the kind of garden-variety kicking each other under the table that a lot of countries routinely engage in. As described in the indictment this gargantuan Russian scheme was (as reported by Politico) an “expensive [sic] effort that cost millions of dollars and employed as many as hundreds of people.” Millions of dollars! Hundreds of people! How did the American republic manage to survive the onslaught? Rosenstein was keen to point out for the umpteenth time that nothing the Russians are alleged to have done (never mind what they actually might have done, which is far less) had any impact on the election. That stands in sharp contrast to the lavishly funded, multifaceted, global political influence and meddling operations the U.S. conducts in nations around the world under the guise of “democracy promotion.” The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), along with its Democratic and Republican sub-organizations, can be considered the flagship of a community of ostensibly private but government-funded or subsidized organizations that provides the soft compliment to American hard military power. The various governmental, quasi-governmental, and nongovernmental components of this network – sometimes called the “Demintern” in analogy to the Comintern, an organization comparable in global ambition if differing in ideology and methods – are also coordinated internationally at the official level through the less-well-known “Community of Democracies.” It is often difficult to know where the “official” entities (CIA, NATO, the State Department, Pentagon, USAID) divide from ostensibly nongovernmental but tax dollar-supported groups (NED, Freedom House, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) and privately funded organizations that cooperate with them towards common goals (especially the Open Society organizations funded by billionaire George Soros). Among the specialties of this network are often successful “color revolutions” targeting leaders and governments disfavored by Washington for regime change – a far cry from the pathetic Russian operation alleged in the indictment.
  • “Mitt Romney was right.” Already many of Trump’s supporters are not only crowing with satisfaction that the indictment proves there was no collusion but refocusing their gaze from the domestic culprits within the FBI, DOJ, etc., to a bogus foreign threat. “This whole saga just brings back the 2012 election, and the fact that Mitt Romney was right” for “suggesting that Russia is our greatest geopolitical foe,” is the new GOP meme. To the extent that Russiagate was less about Trump than ensuring that enmity with Russia will be permanent and will continue to deepen, this latest Mueller indictment is a smashing success already.

The Mueller indictment against the Russians is a well-timed effort to distract Americans’ attention from the real collusion rotting the core of our public life by shifting attention to a foreign enemy. Many of the people behind it are the very officials who are themselves complicit in the rot. But the sad fact is that it will probably work.

February 18, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sideshows & Distractions While the Zombie Media Cheer & US Start Killing Russians in Syria

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | February 15, 2018

Whether “mercenries” or “special forces”, whether “only four” or “hundreds”, it’s incredibly dangerous that the illegal US Syria occupation force is killing Russians

It’s a story that isn’t getting as much coverage as it should, but American soldiers have allegedly killed “dozens” of Russian “mercenaries” in an attack on pro-Government forces in eastern Syria.

The numbers vary according to source. Some put them in single figures, some say “hundreds”. Some say they were special forces. Some say “mercenaries.” The Kremlin is vague and non-commital, so are the Pentagon & State Department. But no one is denying that Russians have been killed by the US Army.

Couple that with the second attack on a “Syrian tank” yesterday, and the “new cold war” that people keep talking about just got a bit hotter.

This really happened. It is an unavoidable reality. The time has come for people to truly wake up, because American fantasies are in danger of destroying the real world.

But the western media who are bothering to cover this seem entirely unaware of its meaning or even its historical significance. Alec Luhn in the Telegraph describes the incident as the “deadliest” confrontation between the two nations “since the Cold War”, as if he believes the 1950s-80s were seeing the Soviet Union & NATO taking pot shots at each other on a regular basis. He simply does not understand that rigid rules of engagement once existed specifically to avoid this kind of thing. Because back then the US military & State Department was run by people who understood what MAD (“mutually assured destruction”) actually meant. That neither they, nor journos such as Luhn have any comprehension of this any more is the most dangerous thing in this dangerous situation.

Luhn and other western journalists seem to believe a potential nuclear holocaust is a relic from the past, a thing that can no longer happen, or that if it does it will be “somewhere else”. Growing up with years of phoney “wars” with countries barely able to defend themselves has lulled these people into a sense of absolute safety and invulnerability. They believe war is a video game they can watch from the security and comfort of their living room and comment about in smug soundbites on Twitter.

By the time they realise their mistake it will probably be too late.

But let’s have a quick reality check.

These things didn’t  happen

The Russian’s did not hack the American election.
That did not happen, the entire machinery of American bureaucracy has been working overtime to attempt to prove this story true. They have found nothing. If they had even the tiniest shred of evidence, it would be being pasted onto 20 foot tall billboards.

The hysterical social media-based screaming about Trump being “Putin’s man”, or the “Siberian” candidate, or any other ridiculous label needs to stop, because while people are talking about non-problems, the American deep state is causing REAL problems.

Do a results based analysis. If Trump had been put in power by the Kremlin… why would he promote increased NATO funding? Why would he be overhauling American nuclear weapons? Why would he be carrying out airstrikes in Syria, that kill Russian nationals? Trump has not made a single move to de-escalated the new conflict with Russia. The opposite. He has made the situation worse at every juncture, despite his campaign promises to work together. That fact alone disproves the “Russian interference” meme.

Assad did not gas his people.
There has never been any proof that either the attack on Ghouta or Idlib was carried out by the SAA, or under Assad’s orders. Quite the contrary, weapons experts have spoken out against those accusations, many times. Even the US Defense Sec. recently admitted:

We have other reports from the battlefield from people who claim it’s been used… We do not have evidence of it.”

In contrast, America’s own military admit that they have been using depleted uranium shells in Syria. The claimed moral authority of the US and NATO does not exist.

The White Helmets are not “non-partisan aid workers” or selfless heroes.
The White Helmets receive funding from US and UK governments, this is not disputed. They operate only within “rebel” held areas, and associate with globally recognised terrorist groups.

These things did  happen

Bashar Al-Assad won a Presidential election.
Far from being a dictator with no democratic mandate, Assad won an election in 2014. Assad is the legitimate president of Syria. All polls carried out over the years since the war started have shown a large majority support their President. One in 2012, 2013, and 2017. Some of the polls were carried out by NATO powers. There is no question that Assad has the support of most Syrians.

America has been planning regime change in Syria for years.
In a now famous 2007 interview, Gen. Wesley Clark of the US Army stated that he was given a list of countries that the US was planning to “hit”. Those 7 countries were Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Iran… and Syria. Of those 7 counties, only 2 are still standing in one piece, Iran and Syria…and Syria only just. It’s perfectly clear that Syria has been in America’s crosshairs for a long time.

ISIS et al are funded by the West and their allies.
ISIS are the excuse for all of America’s military personnel on the ground in Syria. They are the reason for “coalition” air strikes. But they are the creation of American intelligence. No one disputes that the CIA armed and trained the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, in order to undermine the USSR. No one disputes that the Contras in Nicaragua were armed and trained by the CIA also. Cuba and Chile likewise. Arming and training extremists (whether religious or political) to fight proxy wars has been the American MO for decades. Leaked e-mails show that ISIS, al-Nusra and their ilk are exactly the same, therefore any claims that America are in Syria to defeat ISIS are proven lies.

America (and Israel) are in breach of international law.
Syria is a sovereign state, it is illegal to perform military operations on the territory of a sovereign state without permission of the government of said state. This is the basic premise of all international law. War is a crime, to declare war on another state without approval of the UNSC is illegal under international law. To fund, train or arm mercenaries in order to fight a proxy war is also illegal under international law. You cannot shoot down Syrian jets over Syrian airspace. You cannot perform “defensive” air strikes against Syrian soldiers, in Syria, whilst being on their land illegally. Any such attacks are de facto war crimes.

Russia and Iran, on the other hand, are operating on Syrian soil at the express invitation of the legitimate Syrian government. In terms of international law, there is no question as to who is in the wrong.

It’s very important that this fact doesn’t get lost.

*

In 2013, as the world was priming for another (illegal) NATO war in the middle east, people prevented it. People stood up. The wounds of Iraq and Libya were still fresh. Ed Milliband was uncharacteristically principled. The Russians stepped in to mediate. War, for the moment was averted, because people were aware and spoke out.

This time, they’re not asking our permission, they’re not trying to persuade us or deceive us. They are distracting us. The Oscars and the Olympics and Brexit and Oxfam and ‘hate speech’ and #MeToo…none of it ultimately matters. Side shows, a three ring circus with an orange clown in the centre ring.

Behind these distractions, the deep state moves, declaring their intentions openly for anyone with eyes willing to see or ears to hear. The machine is moving toward war, a war far more dangerous than Iraq or Libya. Potentially global. Potentially devastating. Potentially final.

The above are the basic facts of the Syria conflict, they cannot be refuted. They must be repeated and spread. The fantasies need to be put aside and the realities understood. We can’t afford to keep our eyes shut, and stopper our ears, as we let a delusional American elite, and their zombified spokespeople in the MSM, push us toward a global war.

The only way to stop it is to be aware. Luhn and his fellow stenographer-journalists are clueless in the face of potential catastrophe. They are not going to be speaking truth to anyone. We have to do this ourselves.

February 15, 2018 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Kremlin Dismisses Allegations of Cyberattacks as Russophobic Campaign

Sputnik – February 15, 2018

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has commented on accusations of UK Foreign Office of Russia allegedly being behind a massive cyberattack, using the NotPetya virus.

“We categorically reject such accusations, we consider them unsubstantiated and groundless. This is nothing more than the continuation of the Russophobic campaign lacking any evidence,” Peskov told reporters, when asked to comment on allegations of Russia’s involvement in a massive hacker attack with the NotPetya malware.

Earlier, the UK Foreign Office accused Russia of implementing a massive cyberattack using the NotPetya virus in Ukraine in June 2017. A corresponding statement was made by the Deputy Foreign Minister of the United Kingdom, Tarik Ahmad.

NotPetya, also known as BadRabbit, is the virus that attacked a number of countries in October 2017. According to the Kaspersky Lab cybersecurity experts, Badrabbit has hit over 200 data centers across the world, with the majority of the targets in Russia.

UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has claimed that the Russian military appears to be behind the disruptive cyberattack. The Foreign Office’s accusations are the latest claims of Russian state involvement in cyberattacks in Europe that Moscow regards as groundless.

In the wake of claims alleging Russian interference in the US presidential election, media in several European states, including Britain, has been speculating about “Kremlin’s meddling” in their countries’ political processes. Commenting on the claims, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called them absolutely groundless and emphasized that Moscow didn’t meddle in any foreign state’s affairs.

READ MORE:

UK Blames Russia for NotPetya Ransomware Cyberattack

February 15, 2018 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Former UK ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, at Imperialism on Trial

Eva K Bartlett | February 6, 2018

Video from RT UK’s live coverage of recent panel in Ireland.

February 14, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Who are the “Butchers of Dresden”

By Vladislav B. SOTIROVIĆ – Oriental Review – 12/02/2018

In the history of world, there are many actors who deserved a title of “Butcher” but there are only two persons whom the Western historians, journalists or political analysts pasted this label as the official mark of their participation in world history – General Ratko Mladić (the “Butcher of Bosnia”) and Slobodan Milošević (the “Balkan Butcher”). In the following paragraphs more candidates for the title of “Butcher” will be presented as a small contribution to the proper interpretation and understanding of global history.

The Three Men of Slashing

This year is the 73rd anniversary of the end of the WWII – the bloodiest and most horrible war ever fought in human history. The war that caused creation of the UNO in 1945 in order to protect the world from similar events in the future – a pan-global political-security organization whose first issued legal act was a Charter of the UN which inspired the 1948 Geneva Conventions’ definition of genocide.

The Nüremberg and Tokyo Trials were organized as “The Last Battles” for justice as the first ever global trials for the war criminals and mass murderers including and the top-hierarchy statesmen and politicians. However, 73 years after WWII the crucial moral question still needs a satisfactory answer: Have all the WWII war criminals faced justice at the Nüremberg and Tokyo Trials? Or at least those who did not withdraw from public life after the war. Here we will present only one of those cases from WWII which has to be characterized as genocide followed by the personalities directly responsible for it: The 1945 Dresden Massacre.

At the Old Market in the east German city of Dresden, following allied bombings 13 February 1945 (Photo credit should read WALTER HAHN/AFP/Getty Images)

The 1945 Dresden Raid was surely one of the most destructive air-raids during WWII but in the world history of massive military destruction and war crimes against humanity too.[1] The main and most destructive air-raid was during the night of February 13th−14th, by the British Bomber Command when 805 bomber military crafts attacked the city of Dresden which up to that time was protected from similar attacks primarily for two reasons:

  1. The city was of an extreme pan-European cultural and historical importance as one of the most beautiful “open-air museum” places in Europe and probably the city with the most beautiful Baroque architectural inheritance in the world.[2]
  2. The lack of the city’s geostrategic, economic and military importance.

The main air raid was followed by three more similar raids in daylight but now by the U.S. 8th Air Force. The Allied (in fact, the U.K.−U.S.) Supreme Commander-In-Chief the U.S. a five-star General Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890−1969) was anxious to link the Allied forces with the very advancing Soviet Red Army in the South Germany. For that reason, Dresden suddenly came to be taken into consideration as a point of high strategic importance as a communication center, at least at the eyes of Eisenhower. However, at that time Dresden was known as a city that was overcrowded with up to 500,000 German refugees from the east. For the U.K.−U.S. Supreme Command Headquarters it was clear that any massive air-bombing of the city would cost many human lives and cause a human catastrophe. That was not primarily only on Eisenhower’s conscience to decide to launch massive airstrikes on Dresden or not as we have not to forget that Eisenhower was only a military commander (a strategy in Greek) but not a politician. Undoubtedly, the Dresden question in January−February 1945 was of a political and human nature not only of military one. Therefore, together with the Supreme Commander-In-Chief of the Allied Forces a direct moral and human responsibility for the 1945 Dresden Massacre was on the British PM Winston Churchill (1874−1965) and the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882−1945) also.

These three men, however, finally agreed that inevitably very high casualties in Dresden might in the end, nevertheless, help to shorten the war, that from a technical point of view was true. During one night and one day of the raids there were over 30,000 buildings destroyed and the numbers of those who were killed in the bombing and the ensuing firestorm are still in dispute among historians as the estimates go up to 140,000. Here it has to be noticed that if this highest estimate is going to be true it means that during the 1945 Dresden Massacre more people were killed than in the Hiroshima case from August 1945 (around 100,000 that was one third out of total Hiroshima’s pre-bombing population).

The “Bomber Harris” and the “Atomic Harry”

One person with direct responsibility for transforming Dresden into an open-air crematorium, as the city was bombed by forbidden flammable bombs for massive destruction (Saddam Hussein was attacked in 2003 by the NATO’s alliance under the alleged and finally false accusation to possess exactly such weapons – WMD) is “Bomber Harris” – a commander of the British Royal Air-Forces during the Dresden Raid. “Bomber Harris” was in fact Arthur Travers Harris (1892−1984), a Head of the British Bomber Command in 1942−1945. He was born in Cheltenham, joined the British Royal Flying Corps in 1915, before fighting as a soldier in the South-West Africa. He became a Commander of the Fifth Group from 1939 till 1942 when he became the Head of this Group (Bomber Command). The point is that it was exactly Arthur Travers Harris who stubbornly required and defended the massive aerial bombing of Germany under the idea that such practice will bring the total destruction of Germany (including and civil settlements) that would finally force Germany to surrender without involving of the Allied forces in a full-scale overland military invasion. The crucial point is that this “Bomber Harris” strategy received full support from British PM Winston Churchill who, therefore, became a politician who blessed and legitimized massive aerial massacres in the legal form of genocide as it was described in the post-WWII Charter of the UNO and other international documents on protection of human rights (for instance, the 1949 Geneva Conventions). Nevertheless, there were the “Bomber Harry”, Dwight Eisenhower, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill who transformed the bombing of selected targets as transport systems, industrial areas or oil refineries into the massive aerial destruction of the whole urban settlements, transforming them into the open-air crematoriums as was done for the first time in history with Dresden – a city with a rare historical heritage (today the pre-war Dresden would be on the UNESCO list of protected places of the world’s heritage) but flattened during one night and one day.[3]

Arthur Harris

This successful practice was very soon followed by the Allied forces in the cases of other German cities,[4] like Würtzburg – a tightly packed medieval housing city that exploded in a firestorm in March 1945 in one night with 90% of city-space which had no strategic importance destroyed.[5] However, a strategic bombing of the urban settlements in WWII reached its peak with the destruction of  Hiroshima and Nagasaki under the order of the U.S. President (Democrat) Harry Truman – “Atomic Harry” (1884−1972) who authorized the dropping of the atomic bombs over these two Japanese cities in order to end the war against Japan without further loss of U.S. military troops, insisting on unconditional surrender of Japan.[6]

“The Last Battle for Justice” and the “Butchers of Dresden”

Surely, one of the most obvious results of the WWII was “its unparalleled destructiveness. It was most visible in the devastated cities of Germany and Japan, where mass air bombing, one of the major innovations of the Second World War, proved much more costly to life and buildings than had been the bombing of Spanish cities in the Spanish civil war”.[7] For that and other reasons, we believe that many Allied military and civil top decision-making personalities from the WWII should have faced justice at the Nüremberg and Tokyo Trials together with Hitler, Eichmann, Pavelić and many others. However, it is an old truth that the winners are writing history and re-writing historiography. Therefore, instead of seeing Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), Harry Truman or Arthur Travers Harris at the Nüremberg and Tokyo Trials’ courtrooms as indicted on such charges as crimes against humanity and genocide as were the German Nazi defendants, who included the NSDAP’s officials and high-ranking military officers along with the German industrialists, lawmen and doctors, we are even 73 years after WWII reading and learning politically whitewashed and embellished biographies of those war criminals who destroyed Dresden, Hiroshima or Nagasaki as national heroes, freedom fighters and democracy protectors.[8] For instance, in any official biography of Winston Churchill it is not written that he is responsible for the ethnic cleansing of the German civilians in 1945 but we know that the British PM clearly promised to the Poles to get after the war ethnically cleansed territory from the Germans.[9]

If the Nüremberg Trial, 1945−1949 was “The Last Battle” for justice,[10] then it was incomplete. Moreover, two the most ardent killers of Dresden – Churchill and Eisenhower were granted after the war by the second premiership and double-term presidency, respectively, in their countries.

There were many (Western) butchers in world history but only small fish (from the Balkans) are officially marked by such label.

Notes:

[1] On this issue, see more in [L. B. Kennett, A History of Strategic Bombing: From the First Hot-AirBaloons to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Scribner, 1982].

[2] On Dresden’s history and architecture, see [W. Hädecke, Dresden: Eine Geschichte von Glanz, Katastrophe und Aufbruch, Carl Hanser Verlag, München−Vien, 2006; J. Vetter (ed.), Beautiful Dresden, Ljubljana: MKT Print, 2007].

[3] On the case of firebombing of Dresden, see more in [P. Addison, J. A. Crang (eds.), Firestorm. The Bombing of Dresden, 1945, Ivan R. Dee, 2006; M. D. Bruhl, Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden, New York: Random House, 2006; D. Irving, Apocalypse 1945: The Destruction of Dresden, Focal Point Publications, 2007; F. Taylor, Dresden. Tuesday, February 13, 1945, HarpenCollins e-books, 2009; Charler River Editors, The Firebombing of Dresden: The History and Legacy of the Allies’ Most Controversial Attack on Germany, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014].

[4] On this issue, see more in [J. Friedrich, The Bombing of Germany 1940−1945, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006; R. S. Hansen, Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany, 1942−1945, New York: Penguin Group/New American Library, 2009].

[5] On Würtzburg’s case, see [H. Knell, To Destroy a City: Strategic Bombing and its Human Consequences in World War II, Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press/Pireus Books Group, 2003].

[6] On this issue, see more in [C. C. Crane, Bombs, Cities, & Civilians: American Airpower Strategy in World War II, Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1993; A. C. Grayling, Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan, New York: Walker & Company, 2007].

[7] J. M. Roberts, The New Penguin History of the World, Fourth Edition, London: Allien Lane an imprint of the Penguin Press, 2002, p. 965.

[8] See, for instance [R. Dallek, Harry S. Truman, New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2008; J. E. Smith, FDR, New York: Random House, 2008; S. E. Ambrose, The Supreme Commander: The War Years of Dwight D. Eisenhover, New York: Anchor Books A Division of Random House, Inc., 2012; A. D. Donald, Citizen Soldier: A Life of Harry S. Truman, New York: Basic Books, 2012; W. Manchester, P. Reid, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940−1965, New York: Penguin Random House Company, 2013; B. Johnson, The Churchil Factor: How One Man Made History, London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2014; B. Harper, Roosevelt, New York City, Inc., 2014; P. Johnson, Eisenhower: A Life, New York: Viking/Penguin Group, 2014].

[9] T. Snyder, Kruvinos Žemės. Europa tarp Hitlerio ir Stalino, Vilnius: Tyto alba, 2011, p. 348 (original title: T. Snyder, Bloodlands. Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, New York: Basic Books, 2010).

[10] D. Irving, Nuremberg: The Last Battle, World War II Books, 1996.

February 14, 2018 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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