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Russia: US plans new Syria strike with false flag attack

Press TV – August 25, 2018

The Russian Defense Ministry says the US, Britain and France are preparing to conduct a fresh aerial assault against Syria under the pretext of the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Damascus government.

The ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said on Saturday that a group of militants, who were trained by a private British military company to work with poisonous materials, had already arrived in Syria’s northwestern Idlib Province.

“To carry out the alleged ‘chemical attack’ in the city of Jisr al-Shughur in the province of Idlib, militants from the Tahrir al-Sham group had delivered 8 tankers with chlorine… to a village a few kilometers from Jisr al-Shughur,” Konashenkov said.

The Russian general further warned that a possible militant gas attack on Syria would be followed by a Western strike against the Arab country.

“This provocation with the active participation of the British special services will serve as another pretext for the US, UK and France to conduct a missile strike on the Syrian government and economic facilities,” he said.

The official further noted that the American destroyer USS The Sullivans armed with 56 cruise missiles had also arrived in the Persian Gulf and a US В-1В bomber carrying 24 air-to-surface AGM-158 JASSM cruise missiles had been deployed at Al Udeid airbase in Qatar.

“Western countries’ actions in spite of their public statements are aimed at another sharp deterioration of the situation in the Middle East region and the disruption of the peace process on the territory of Syria.”

The warning comes as the Syrian army is now preparing for an operation to liberate Idlib Province, the last major militant stronghold.

Bolton’s warning

On Saturday, Bloomberg reported that US National Security Adviser John Bolton had warned his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, that Washington was prepared to take strong military action against Syria if it used chemical weapons in Idlib.

Bolton issued the warning during his Thursday’s talks with Patrushev, the report quoted four people familiar with the discussions as saying.

On April 14, the US, Britain and France launched a coordinated missile attack against sites and research facilities near Damascus and Homs with the purported goal of paralyzing the Syrian government’s capability to produce chemicals.

The strike came one week after an alleged gas attack on the Damascus suburb town of Douma.

Both Damascus and Moscow accused the White Helmets volunteer group of having staged the suspected chemical weapons attack in Douma.

Turkey pushing against Syria’s upcoming Idlib campaign

As countdown begins for the Idlib counter-terrorism campaign, Turkey tries to avert the push, claiming that it will lead to a humanitarian crisis.

Speaking at a press conference with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow on Friday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that the two countries could cooperate on separating Idlib “terrorists” from opposition groups.

“A military solution there (in Idlib) will cause catastrophe,” he said. “Not only for the Idlib region but for the future of Syria, it will cause catastrophe and the clashes may last a long time.”

Lavrov, for his part, acknowledged that the situation in Idlib is “complex” and called for the separation of militants from opposition outfits.

He also said that when Turkey, Iran and Russia held talks on Syria’s ceasefire zones, Moscow did not expect militants to be “using it as a human shield” from which they could attack the government.

August 25, 2018 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Anti-Conspiracy Theorists in the JFK Assassination

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | August 24, 2018

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Kennedy assassination has been “anti-conspiracy theorists,” especially within the mainstream press. People are so scared of being labeled a “conspiracy theorist” that they will do everything they can to avoid making a careful examination of the circumstantial evidence pointing toward a national-security regime-change operation in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Consider, for example, Saundra Spencer, who I discuss both in my book The Kennedy Autopsy and in my current, ongoing video-podcast series on the JFK assassination.

Spencer was a U.S. Navy petty officer who was serving in the U.S. Navy’s photography lab in Washington D.C., in November 1963. She had a top-secret security clearance. Her job included the development of classified photographs. She worked closely with the White House. It would be virtually impossible to find a more credible and competent witness than Saundra Spencer. No one has ever questioned her veracity, integrity, and competence.

As most everyone knows, when someone in the military acquires what is known as “classified information,” he is required to keep it secret for the rest of his life, even if he leaves the military. Every member of the U.S. military — indeed, every employee of the U.S. national-security establishment — knows that if he ever breaches the secrecy principle, he is subject to severe punishment.

In the 1990s, Spencer was summoned to testify before the Assassination Records Review Board, the commission charged with enforcing the JFK Records Act, which forced the U.S. national-security establishment to disclose its records relating to the JFK assassination to the public.

Spencer related an astounding story, one that she had kept secret for some 30 years owing to its classified nature. After the ARRB released her from her obligation of secrecy, Spencer stated that on the weekend of the assassination, she had been asked to develop, on a top-secret basis, the photographs of the autopsy that the U.S. military had performed on President Kennedy’s body on the evening of the assassination.

The ARRB’s general counsel showed Spencer the official autopsy photographs, which she carefully examined. She stated directly, firmly, and unequivocally that those autopsy photographs were not the autopsy photographs that she developed on the weekend of the assassination. The ones she developed, she said, showed a large, exit-sized wound in the back of President Kennedy’s head. The official autopsy photographs showed the back of Kennedy’s head to be intact, that is, without a large exit-sized wound.

What are we to make of this? Well, according to anti-conspiracy theorists, nothing. We are not supposed to go down that road. We are not supposed to ask any questions, for to do so would mean that we have entered the dreaded realm of “conspiracy theory.”

Even the fact that the treating physicians at Dallas’s Parkland Hospital, who described the large, exit-sized wound in the lower back of the president’s head, from which, they said, was leaking cerebellum, which is the lower back part of the brain, is not supposed to cause us to wonder what is going on here. That could lead down the dangerous road to being called a “conspiracy theorist.”

As shown in Dallas businessman Abraham Zupruder’s famous film of the assassination, immediately after the president was shot Secret Service agent Clint Hill grabbed onto the back of the presidential limousine, pushed Jacqueline Kennedy back into her seat, and put his body on that of President Kennedy, in an attempt to shield the president from any more shots. For the 6-8 minutes that it took to get to Parkland Hospital, Hill said he was staring at the large, exit-sized wound in the back of the president’s head.

But we can’t go there either. That might make us a “conspiracy theorist.”

Parkland nurse Diana Bowrun was one of the hospital personnel helping to get the president out of the car and into the hospital. When she put her hand behind the president’s head, she felt the large, exit-sized wound in the back of Kennedy’s head.

Nurse Audrey Bell was helping the treating physicians inside the hospital. She later emphasized the large, exit-sized wound in the back of JFK’s head.

Don’t even think about what Bowrun and Bell said. It could make you a “conspiracy theorist.”

Charles Brehm was a bystander who was situated to the left rear of the presidential limousine when the president was shot. He saw (for lack of a better term) exit debris from the wound in the back of President Kennedy’s head landing in the grass near him. A woman named Marilyn Willis, who was also behind the limousine said that she saw exit debris coming out of the back of Kennedy’s head. Her daughter said she saw the back side of the president’s head blow out. A motorcycle cop named Jimmy Hargis, who was situated to the left rear of the vehicle, got splattered with exit debris.

Don’t go down that road! Remember: Conspiracy theory!

FBI agents Francis O’Neil and James Sibert were at the autopsy that the U.S. military conducted on President Kennedy’s body. When the ARRB showed them the official autopsy photographs, they said that the autopsy photographs were incorrect because they failed to show the massive damage on the back of the president’s head. One of them used the term “doctored” to describe the photographs.

Just forget their testimony. It could lead you to being considered a “conspiracy theorist.”

In 1966, the official autopsy photographer, John Stringer, was summoned to a meeting to confirm an inventory of the official autopsy photographs, which were still being kept secret from the American people. After reviewing the inventory, Stringer said that it wasn’t accurate because it did not include all of the autopsy photographs he had taken. He was ordered to sign it anyway, which he did. When the ARRB asked him in the 1990s why he had signed the inventory knowing that it was false, he said he did so because he was ordered to do so. When the ARRB general counsel pointed out that some people in the military say no to such things, Stringer responded that such people don’t last long in the military.

But you’re not supposed to wonder about all this. You’re not supposed to question it. After all, why take the risk of being called a “conspiracy theorist”? Isn’t it much safer to just remain an “anti-conspiracy theorist,” even if that necessarily means that you believe that all of those people must have gotten together to concoct, for some unknown reason, the wound in the back of President Kennedy’s head?

August 24, 2018 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

US Uses Facebook to Spread Fake News About Cuba

By Rosa Miriam Elizalde | Cuba News | August 22, 2018

While the United States is making a scandal about the supposed Russian intervention in social networks to influence the 2016 elections won by Donald Trump, today evidence has been uncovered that the U.S. government is using Facebook to spread fake news about Cuba and clandestinely foment dissidence on the island.

The Florida weekly Miami New Times revealed Wednesday that it has had access to documents from the government’s Office of Broadcasting to Cuba (OCB), run by Radio and TV Martí. It reveals that the Trump administration has been using Facebook accounts for two years that appear “native” (from real people on the island) to spread propaganda without informing Cuban Facebook users that it is government advertising.

According to the report obtained by the weekly, due to the failure of Radio and TV Martí,

the OCB’s strategy has focused on an offensive through social networks, based on metrics that place YouTube, Google and Facebook among the most visited sites in Cuba. With the use of AVRA (Audio and Video for Radio) technology, Radio Martí’s programs began to be broadcast through Facebook Live along with TV Marti’s programming. This provides OCB with additional efficient and cost-effective distribution output for both its radio (now visual radio) and TV content.

In fiscal year 2018, OCB has been establishing itself with digital island equipment (read “dissidents” paid for by the US) that creates native and “unbranded” Facebook accounts to disseminate information. Native” pages increase the chances of appearing in the news for Cuban Facebook users. The same strategy will be replicated in other preferred social networks.

Miami New Times says that the documents do not explain what federal agents mean by “unbranded” or “native” Facebook pages, but it is clear that they must resemble the pages of regular social network users to persuade Cubans to read propaganda from Radio and TV Martí.

According to the weekly, both government broadcasters have spent more than $800 million from the U.S. taxpayer over the years in their unsuccessful effort to influence Cuban public opinion.

This plan fits into a long history of attempting to use technology to fit propaganda against Cuba, says University of Pennsylvania professor John S. Nichols.

“There are certainly warning signs here,” says Nichols, co-author of Clandestine Radio Broadcasting: A Study of Revolutionary and Counterrevolutionary Electronic Communication (1987), about OCB’s efforts. “It is the latest plan in a long list of efforts by Radio and TV Martí and their predecessors to try to overcome the laws of physics…. Every time they fail to get their message to Cuba, they say there has to be some technological solution.

Instead, he adds, Congress “seems to fail to recognize that both stations are a colossal failure. It’s sad because they’re spending taxpayers’ money. But what’s really being wasted is our credibility as a great nation doing this kind of thing, dumb and stupid.

Prominent figures from both sides of the U.S. political spectrum, including Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, have described these OCB programs as counter-productive and a waste of money. Democratic representative Betty McCollum liquidated the AeroMartí platform in 2015 (to transmit to from an airplane to Cuba the broadcasts of Radio and TV Martí) and said that the OCB was an “unnecessary” office.

“Radio and television Martí are old-fashioned Cold War artifacts,” McCollum said in a statement in 2015. “Our taxpayers shouldn’t be funding propaganda broadcasts.”

But the programs continue to exist thanks to a handful of anti-Cuban lawmakers, including Miami representative Mario Diaz-Balart, a longtime promoter of Radio and TV Martí, says the Miami New Times.

Earlier this year, Senator Marco Rubio helped install Tomás Regalado, an old friend, as head of the Radio and TV Martí programs. Since then, Regalado has made great promises about how both stations have new plans to reach “5 million” Cuban citizens in the coming years. Regalado appeared last week on the Spanish-speaking MegaTV network to brag about the use of mysterious new technologies that the Cuban government supposedly cannot block. He said that 200 Cubans had received receivers that would help in this new attempt.

“It’s a technology that didn’t exist, and since the government doesn’t know about it, it will be almost impossible to block it,” Regalado told the cameras.

Nichols argued to the Florida weekly that this type of social media propaganda is damaging the U.S. position in the world.

“Third countries see what we are doing and say,’Here comes America again doing this nonsense,” and he adds,’It’s low, petty and not worthy of great power. Other countries will say,’If the U.S. is willing to violate international law, why should we obey our contractual obligations? And given what Radio Martí and TV Martí might be doing right now, we have a hard time complaining about what other countries might be doing against us.

The report that Miami New Times had access to is OCB’s budget request for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. It does not reveal the identities of fake “native” and “unbranded” accounts created on the social network, but Facebook administrators do know what they are. By these extravagant quirks in life, this information coincides with the decision of the social network founded by Marc Zuckerberg to eliminate hundreds of alleged false accounts of Russians and Iranians allegedly involved in several disinformation campaigns.

Will Facebook also eliminate the false accounts created by the U.S. government for regime change in Cuba and will the U.S. Attorney’s Office appoint Robert Mueller or another of his ilk to investigate these abuses, as it has done to determine alleged Russian interference through Facebook in the 2016 elections?

Failed saga of Radio and TV Martí

1985: Radio Martí began broadcasting, and five years later, the television aggression began when a television transmitter was put into service on board a captive aerostat at an altitude of 3,000 meters in one of the keys in the south of the state of Florida.

2005: Hurricane Dennis disappeared the captive balloon located at 10,000 feet above sea level in Cudjoe Key, from where Television Martí was broadcast. The OCB replaced it with the AeroMartí platform.

2014: OCB created the unwanted text messaging service Pyramid, which failed. Then it tried to smuggle small satellite devices into the island, but the project was aborted because in addition to being expensive, the “dissidents” used the terminals to view pornography.

2015: Deactivation of “AeroMartí”.

2018: President Trump created the Internet Task Force for Cuba, which according to the State Department “will examine the technological challenges and opportunities for expanding access to the Internet and independent media in Cuba. Clearly, this Task Force has encouraged OCB’s digital fantasy.

Several investigations by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) have acknowledged that there is strong evidence that Radio and Television Martí is not heard or seen in Cuba. According to the Miami New Times, this saga has cost the American taxpayer more than $800 million.

Rosa Miriam Elizalde, Cuban journalist, First Vice-President of UPEC and Vice-President of FELAP. She is a Doctor in Communication Sciences and author or co-author of the books “Antes de que se me olvide”, “Jineteros en La Habana”, “Clic Internet” and “Chávez Nuestro”, among others. She has been awarded the “Juan Gualberto Gómez” National Journalism Prize on several occasions. Founder of Cubadebate and its Editor-in-Chief until January 2017.

On twitter: @elizalderosa

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

August 24, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Cyber-Gangster Israel

If Americans Knew | August 24, 2018

Israel advocate Samantha Ravich addresses the annual luncheon of the Israel Bonds Cleveland Women’s Division on June 21, 2017. At the luncheon it was announced that $1.49 million in Israel bonds sales had already been sold in Cleveland, with six months remaining in its 2017 campaign. Ravich is now Deputy Chair of the Intelligence Advisory Board, which helps shape U.S. intelligence policy.

Ravich has a long history of working for Israel in the U.S. She is a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an influential hawkish pro-Israel think tank; a senior adviser to the Chertoff Group (founded by Michael Chertoff, a Homeland Security secretary in the George W. Bush administration); and has worked with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an AIPAC spinoff. She was former deputy national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.

August 24, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Russophobia digest part 6: Evidence is optional as alleged anti-vaxx Russian bots go phishing

RT | August 24, 2018

Alleged Russian bots have been at the forefront of another week of Russophobia, with a new but familiar pattern emerging. Scare stories and accusations are made, before a later admission that no actual evidence is available.

RT takes a look at the last seven days or so of Russophobia.

Democrats’ security chief missed the memo

One of the real values of Russophobia is that it means thought and proof are rarely, if ever, needed anymore. Why find out what really happened when there is a decent conclusion to jump to?

For example, this week Bob Lord, the Democratic National Committee’s chief security officer, claimed that the organization’s US voter database had been hacked. Only, he later had to admit it was actually a ‘phishing test.’

Yep, nobody told the security chief about the security test, and he didn’t bother asking either, because it’s much easier to simply insinuate that Russians did it. To be fair to Lord, he didn’t appear to overtly use the ‘R’ word, but almost every media report on the non-incident seasoned its coverage liberally with accusations against Russia.

Microsoft’s marketing dept jumps on Russophobia bandwagon

Staying in the murky world of unsubstantiated cyber-claims, Microsoft said it has also thwarted phishing attacks on political targets by a group “widely associated” with Russia (Fancy Bear, in case you’re interested). It backed up its claims in the now-time-honored fashion of admitting there is “no evidence” that the dodgy domains detected were used in any successful attacks — and there’s no evidence “to indicate the identity of the ultimate targets.”

So, why is Microsoft getting involved? Because it’s got a brand new product maybe? Bill Gates’ boys have come up with anti-hacking software ‘AccountGuard’ as part of its ‘Defending Democracy Program.’

It provides “state-of-the-art cybersecurity protection at no extra cost to all candidates and campaign offices at the federal, state and local level, as well as think tanks and political organizations we now believe are under attack.”

And they claim the Russians are dangerous!?

Pro-pox bots

Those busy little alleged Russian bots are also driving the online anti-vaccine debate in the US, apparently, according to research in the US. No surprise there really, Russian bots real or imagined are accused of driving every online debate these days.

David Broniatowski from the George Washington School of Engineering and Applied Science said: “… many anti-vaccine tweets come from accounts whose provenance is unclear. These might be bots, human users or ‘cyborgs’ – hacked accounts that are sometimes taken over by bots. Although it’s impossible to know exactly how many tweets were generated by bots and trolls …”

“Impossible to know,” “provenance unclear.” So again, no real evidence, so it must be the Russians, mustn’t it?

Someone better check whether Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey are Russian bots too, because they’re not too keen on vaccinations either. Apparently neither is Donald Trump, but you can hardly accuse him of… Oh.

Manafort: Conviction without collusion

Russophobes were jumping for joy at the conviction of Trump’s former election chief Paul Manafort this week. He was sent down for tax fraud, and bank fraud, and hiding bank accounts. What he definitely wasn’t sent down for was colluding with Russia, which is really a little strange considering the man responsible for sending him to court was Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was only appointed to investigate exactly that. As we’ve seen, though, evidence is optional when Russians are the target.

In the wise words of America’s commander-in-chief: “This has nothing to do with Russian collusion. This started as Russian collusion. This has absolutely nothing to do [with it].” Say what you want about Donald Trump…

Read more:

Proof that Manafort & Cohen are criminals adds no weight to Mueller’s Russia collusion probe

Russian hackers not found… again: DNC retracts claim voter database targeted by cyber-attack

‘No evidence’, but Russian Fancy Bears are doing it again (p.s. here’s our new product) – Microsoft

August 24, 2018 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Incorrect’ US account of Khan-Pompeo talks upsets Pakistan

Press TV – August 24, 2018

Pakistan has called on the US to immediately correct a newly released statement about a phone conversation between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and new Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.

US State Department said in a statement on Thursday that Pompeo has called on Khan to take “decisive action” against “terrorists” during a phone call he made to wish him success after he was sworn into office.

Pompeo “raised the importance of Pakistan taking decisive action against all terrorists operating in Pakistan and its vital role in promoting the Afghan peace process,” said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office, however, rejected the statement, saying there was no such mention of “terrorists operating in Pakistan,” during the conversation.

“Pakistan takes exception to the factually incorrect statement issued by US State Department on the phone call between Prime Minister Khan and Secretary Pompeo,” said foreign office spokesman Mohammad Faisal, calling on the states department to “immediately correct” the statement.

Nauert indicated there would be no correction in response to Pakistan’s complaint. “I can only say we stand by our readout,” Nauert told a news conference.

Washington has for years accused Islamabad of allowing militants and terrorist groups to operate relatively freely in Pakistan’s porous border regions to carry out operations in neighboring Afghanistan, an allegation Pakistan denies.

US President Donald Trump said in his first tweet of 2018 that Washington had “foolishly given Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years.” He threatened to cut off foreign aid to Pakistan, once again accusing Islamabad of harboring violent extremists.

Pakistani officials have frequently said the US government is making Pakistan a scapegoat to cover Washington’s failure in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has been gripped by insecurity since the United States and its allies invaded the country to topple Taliban as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror in 2001. Many parts of the country remain plagued by militancy despite the presence of foreign troops.

August 24, 2018 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Senate wants to know about Cohen’s ‘Trump evidence’ as his lawyer denies ‘mixed up’ Russia claims

RT | August 24, 2018

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said his committee is interested in Michael Cohen’s alleged evidence on President Trump. However, recent comments by Cohen’s lawyer have cast doubt over such ‘evidence.’

Michael Cohen, Trump’s one-time ‘fixer’ and attorney was convicted on eight counts of campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud in a plea deal with prosecutors reached earlier this week. One of these claims involves ‘hush money’ paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, who Trump allegedly had an affair with in 2006.

Cohen, who once said that he would take a bullet for Trump, has now flipped and claims that Trump directed him to “commit a crime” by ordering the payment. Trump denies ordering Cohen to break the law and says that the money came from his own fortune, not the campaign account. Trump accused Cohen of “making up stories” to get a better plea deal.

Regardless, Senator Grassley is interested in following Cohen’s claim up and has reached out to Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis. “We have reached out to Lanny Davis but we have not heard back,” the Iowa senator told Bloomberg.

Grassley’s committee had been trying to reach Cohen since May, which was canceled due to Cohen’s ongoing criminal proceedings. Senator Lindsey Graham – (R-South Carolina), another Judiciary Committee member – is still reluctant to investigate Cohen’s claims, as Cohen has yet to be sentenced.

“I’ve been very consistent about this, I don’t want to cross paths with ongoing criminal investigations,” Graham said.

Cohen also revealed through Davis on Wednesday that he has information that might be of interest to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, charged with investigating alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the runup to the 2016 election.

However, a series of television appearances by Davis on Wednesday have raised doubts as to the reliability of any evidence Cohen might have. Speaking to CNN, Davis directly denied Cohen’s earlier claims to the network that Trump had advance notice of a meeting between his son, Donald Jr., and a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in 2016.

“So Michael Cohen does not have information that President Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians beforehand or even after?” host Anderson Cooper asked Davis.

“No, he does not,” Davis replied, adding that the earlier CNN report had gotten “mixed up.”

When the CNN story broke late June, Trump rubbished it, and like this week, accused Cohen of “trying to make up stories,” again to get out of his own legal troubles, a tax evasion case involving a former business partner in the New York taxi business.

After denying Cohen’s Trump Tower ‘bombshell’, Davis threw water on another smoking gun touted by some Democrats as evidence of collusion: the Steele Dossier. Compiled by opposition research firm Fusion GPS at the behest of the Democratic National Committee, the dossier was a poorly sourced and unverified collection of allegations against Trump and his campaign team.

Among other things, the Dossier claimed that Trump hired two prostitutes to urinate on him in a Moscow hotel room, when then-businessman Trump visited the Russian capital in 2013. Davis told Bloomberg that in this dubious dossier, at least 13 allegations against Cohen alone were false, including one claim that Cohen traveled to Prague in 2016 to meet with Russians and facilitate a “clandestine” conspiracy between Trump and Russia.

“Thirteen references to Mr. Cohen are false in the dossier, but he has never been to Prague in his life,” Davis told Bloomberg.

One thing that Davis was equally certain about is that Cohen needs money. After teasing the possibility that Cohen might have some juicy details for Mueller, Davis asked viewers to reach into their pockets and help the disgraced fixer “continue to tell the truth” about Trump by contributing to a crowdfunding campaign. Of course, this money would also go towards helping Cohen “pay his legal fees.”

Read more:

Trump on Cohen flip: ‘One can make up something bad about me and go from 10yrs to national hero’

August 24, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Be Careful What You Ask For: Wasting Time with Manafort, Cohen, and Russiagate

By Jim Kavanagh | The Polemicist | August 23, 2018

So, Paul Manafort, described by the New York Times as “a longtime lobbyist and political consultant who worked for multiple Republican candidates and presidents,” was convicted of bank fraud, tax fraud and failure to report a foreign bank account. And Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, pled guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud (making false statements to obtain loans), and breaking campaign finance laws by paying off two women who claimed to have had sexual affairs with Trump. Because Cohen says those payoffs were made at Trump’s direction, that is the one charge that directly implicates Trump.

On the basis of the these results, the NYT editorial board insists: “Only a complete fantasist … could continue to claim that this investigation of foreign subversion of an American election, which has already yielded dozens of other indictments and several guilty pleas, is a ‘hoax’ or ‘scam’ or ‘rigged witch hunt.’” Democrats concur, saying the results “put the lie to Mr. Trump’s argument that Mr. Mueller was engaged in a political investigation.”

But these crimes are tax fraud, money laundering, and credit app padding that have nothing to do with Donald Trump, and campaign-finance violations related to what a critic of Trump aptly describes as “a classic B-team type of bumbling screw-up of covering up mistresses.” I question the level of word play, if not fantasizing, necessary to claim that these crimes validate “this investigation of foreign subversion.” None of them has anything to do with that. The perils of this, that, these, and those.

Do these results disprove that the Mueller probe is “a political investigation”? I think they imply quite the opposite, and quite obviously so.

Why? Because these convictions would not have occurred if Hillary Clinton had been elected president. There would be no convictions because there would have been no investigation.

If Hillary had been elected, all the crimes of Manafort and Cohen—certainly those that took place over many years before the election, but even, I think, those having to do with campaign contributions and mistress cover-ups—would never have been investigated, because all would have been considered right with the political world.

The Manafort and Cohen crimes would have been ignored as the standard tactics of the elite financial grifting—as well as of parasitism on, and payoffs by, political campaigns—that they are. Indeed, there would have been no emergency, save-our-democracy-from-Russian-collaboration, Special Counsel investigation, from which these irrelevant charges were spun off, at all.

The kinds of antics Manafort and Cohen have been prosecuted for went unnoticed when Donald Trump was a donor to the Democratic and Republican parties, and if he had stayed in his Tower doling out campaign contributions, they still would be. It’s only because he foolishly won the Presidency against the wishes of the dominant sectors of the ruling class that those antics became the target of prosecutorial investigation. Lesson to Donald: Be careful what you wish for.

If Trump weren’t such an idiot, he probably would have realized that this is what happens when you run for president without prior authorization from the ruling classes, and win. #ManafortTrial #MichaelCohen #Trump pic.twitter.com/tyrpuLHRNT

— Consent Factory (@consent_factory) August 21, 2018

What the NYT calls “a culture of graft as well as corruption” that “suffused” the Trump campaign is part and parcel of a culture of politico-capitalist corruption that suffuses American electoral politics in general. Manafort, who has indeed been “a longtime lobbyist and political consultant,” is only one in a long, bipartisan line that “enrich [themselves] by working for some of the world’s most notorious thugs and autocrats.”

Have you heard of the Podestas? The Clinton Foundation? Besides, the economic purpose of American electoral politics is to funnel millions to consultants and the media. Campaign finance law violations? We’ll see how the lawsuit over $84 million worth of funds allegedly transferred illegally from state party contributions to the Clinton campaign works out. Does the media report, does anybody know or care, about it? Will anybody ever go to prison over it?

The Republicans and Democrats would just as soon leave this entire culture of graft and corruption undisturbed by the prosecutorial apparatus of the state. That kind of thing can get out of hand. Only because the election of Donald Trump was a mistake from the establishment point of view has that apparatus been sicced on him. The frantic search, anywhere and everywhere, for some legal charges that can stick to Trump is driven by a burning desire to get something on Donald Trump that will fatally wound him politically, and serve as “objective” grounds for impeachment or resignation.

So, it’s my contention that, without the political opposition to Donald Trump as president, none of this legal prosecution would be taking place. The convictions of Manafort and Cohen don’t put a lie to the idea that the Mueller investigation is political; they are an effect of the fact that it is.

At any rate, there can be no doubt that the Manafort and Cohen convictions have upped the political ante for everybody. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal (second wealthiest Senator; net worth ~ $80 million) has now invoked the dreaded word, from which it’s hard to retreat: “We’re in a Watergate moment.”

Yup, the anti-Trump establishment, led by the Democrats, has now succeeded, via a legal ground game, in moving the ball into the political red zone where impeachment talk is unavoidable. But going forward from here, the plays and paths available are very dangerous to the establishment and the Democrats themselves, and the whole game is getting to the point where it can—indeed, almost inevitably will—seriously disrupt the system they want to protect.

First of all, the Democrats will now face increasing demands for impeachment from the impassioned members of their base whom they have riled up to see Trump as the epitome of the Putin-Nazi evil that threatens “our democracy.” If the Democrats insist these convictions are not just matters of financial hijinx, irrelevant to Mueller’s “Russia collusion” investigation, and irrelevant in fact to anything of political substance; if they assert that the payoffs to Stormy and Karen (the only acts directly involving Trump) disqualify Trump for the presidency, then they will have no excuse but to call for Trump’s impeachment, and act to make it happen. Their base will demand that Democratic candidates run on that promise, and if the Democrats re-take the House, that they begin impeachment proceedings immediately.

So, if, after all the “only a complete fantasist” talk, the Democrats don’t act to impeach Trump, they will further alienate their base, and drive more liberals and progressives to withhold their votes, if not abandon the party altogether. And evil Putin-Nazi Trump will be strengthened.

If they try to impeach and fail (which is likely), well, then, as happened to the Republicans with Clinton, they will just look stupid, and will be punished for having wasted the nation’s political time and energy foolishly. And Trump will be strengthened.

If they were to impeach, convict, and remove Trump (even by forcing a resignation), a large swath of the population would conclude, correctly, that a ginned-up litigation had been used to overturn the result of the 2016 election, that the Democrats had gotten away with what the Republicans couldn’t in 1998-9. That swath of the population would likely withdraw completely from electoral politics, leaving all their problems and resentments intact—hidden for a while, but sure to erupt in some other ways. It would deeply undermine any notion that the political system holds the confidence of the people, and intensify division, disruption, and the sense of incipient civil war in the country more than any number of Russian Facebook posts.

Furthermore, if the Democrats were successful in removing Trump, their own base would be confronted with the terrible beauty of the Pence presidency to which they had given birth. After such a fight, Pence, who is a much more serious, organized, and ideologically-coherent religious proto-fascist than Trump, will benefit from the inevitable propensity of Democrats to calm things down and protect the stability of the system. Progressive Democrats will find, again, that the two-party system has produced no good result. In other words, the result of a successful impeachment effort might very well be more disaffection from “our democracy” by Democrats.

In short, through a process of litigation and prosecution, the Democrats are getting what they asked for: The field of political discourse and action will now increasingly center on the possibility of removing or impeaching the president. Given their construction of the Manafort-Cohen verdicts, they must move forward on that, or they will be perceived as weak and back-pedaling, and Trump will be strengthened. But if they do move forward, that will initiate a political battle that will tear the country apart and end up either with their defeat or the victory of Mike Pence.

Of course, the Democratic leadership knows all this. Which is why they have always said they do not want to push for impeachment or removal, and probably will not. They also know—and they know that Trump’s supporters know—that a campaign-law violation has no more political substance than Bill Clinton’s perjury. They know that they are not likely to win that fight in the Senate. They know the can of worms they are opening with charges that could be levied against most rich politicians. And, most importantly, they know the fight they will have to wage will be intensely divisive and will deeply undermine confidence in the political system, however it ends up.

The Democrats much prefer to have Trump in office to kick around politically. The most likely scenario is that they will make a cloakroom agreement with Republicans not to go too far, while they continue to whip up Trump-Putin “Russiagate” fever among their constituency. They will continue to stoke anticipation of a smoking “collusion” gun from Mueller, which will probably never come. The Democrats are not really after impeaching Trump; they are after stringing along their progressive voters.

In the meantime, the delightful Trump-effect—his constant embarrassment of American political self-righteousness and discomfiting of both political parties—will continue apace.

By the way, for those who think that Manafort’s conviction portends a smoking gun, based on his work for “pro-Kremlin Viktor Yanukovych,” as the NYT and other liberals persistently call him, I would suggest looking at this Twitter thread by Aaron Maté. It’s a brilliant shredding of Rachel Maddow’s (and, to a lesser extent, Chris Hayes’s) version of the deceptive implication—presented as an indisputable fact—that Manafort’s work for Yanukovych is proof that he (and by extension, Trump) was working for Putin. As Maté shows, that is actually indisputably false. Manafort was working hard to turn Yanukovych away from Russia to the EU and the West, and the evidence of that is abundant and easily available. It was given in the trial, though you’d never know that from reading the NYT or listening to MSNBC. As a former Ukraine Foreign Ministry spokesman said: “If it weren’t for Paul, Ukraine would have gone under Russia much earlier. He was the one dragging Yanukovich to the West.” And the Democrats know this.

And if you think Cohen is harboring secret knowledge of Trump-Russia collusion that he’s going to turn over to Mueller, take look at Maté’s thread on that.

We are now entering a new period of intense political maneuvering that’s the latest turning point in the bizarre and flimsy “Russiagate” narrative. I’ve been asked to comment on that a number of times over the past two years, and each time I or one of my fellow commentators would say, “Why are we still talking about this?” It was originally conjured up as a Clinton campaign attack on Trump, but, to my and many others’ surprise and chagrin, it somehow morphed into the central theme of political opposition to Trump’s presidency.

Donald Trump is a horrid political specimen. I witnessed his flourishing into apex narcissism and corruption over decades in New York City, as chronicled by the dogged reporter, Wayne Barrett, and I would be surprised if there weren’t financial crimes in his closet that any competent prosecutor could ferret out. Anyone who knows his history knows that this is the kind of dirt the Mueller investigation was most likely to find on Donald Trump; anyone who’s honest knows that this is the kind of dirt it was meant to find. Russiagate was a pretext to dig around everywhere in his closet. Trump was clueless about the trap he was setting for himself, and has been relentlessly foolish in dealing with it. It is a witch hunt, and he’s riding around on his broom, skywriting self-incriminating tweets.

There are a thousand reasons to criticize Donald Trump—his racism, his stupidity, his infantile narcissism, his full embrace of Zionist colonialism with its demand to attack Iran, his enactment of Republican social and economic policies that are destroying working-class lives, etc. That he is a Kremlin agent is not one of them. His election was a symptom of deep pathologies of American political culture that we must address, including the failure of the “liberal” party and of the two-party system itself. That Donald Trump is a Russian agent is not one of them. There are a number of very good justifications for seeking his impeachment, starting with the clear constitutional crime of launching a military attack on another country without congressional authorization. That he is a Kremlin agent is not one of them.

Unfortunately, the Democratic Party and its allied media do not want to center the fight on these substantive political issues. Instead, they are centering on this barrage of Russiagate litigation—none of which yet proves, or even charges, Russian “collusion”—which they are using as a substitute for politics. And, in place of opposition, they’re substituting uncritical loyalty to the heroes of the military-intelligence complex and “our democracy” that only a complete fantasist could stomach. I mean, when you get to the point that you’re suspecting John Bolton’s “ties to Russia”….

Now, with the Manafort and Cohen convictions, the Russiagate discourse is moving to a new stage, and it’s unlikely that we will ever stop talking about it, as long as Trump is president. Nothing good can come of it.

Our country is in, and on the verge of, multiple crises that threaten to destroy it. That Donald Trump is a Russian agent is not one of them. Political time is precious.

What a waste.

August 23, 2018 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , , , , | Leave a comment

UNRWA head: ‘One cannot simply wish away 5m people’

MEMO | August 23, 2018

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has spoken out against efforts underway to see the organisation dismantled, stating: “One cannot simply wish away five million people”.

Pierre Krahenbuhl, Commissioner General for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), made the remarks in an interview with Foreign Policy.

Krahenbuhl also spoke to the impact US funding cuts have already had on URNWA’s operations, noting that in the Gaza Strip, the agency “had to announce cuts to some of our emergency services like community mental health, job creation” and “there was even a risk for our food distribution”.

According to the Swiss diplomat, the protests in response to job cuts led to UNRWA losing control of its compound in Gaza for “about 20 days”.

Asked by Foreign Policy about the claim made by Israel and the Trump administration that “Palestinians are the only people in the world who are allowed to pass their refugee status down through generations,” Krahenbuhl said this was “clearly a misrepresentation”.

“UNRWA, in ways that are no different from the UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees], considers children and descendants of refugees as refugees,” he said, before citing Afghanistan, Angola, Burma, Burundi and Sudan as cases of protracted refugee situations where “the children and grandchildren of the original refugee[s]” are also considered refugees.

“It rests on the notion that family unity, the principle of family unity, is keeping families united and together as one of the key parameters of managing refugee crises,” he added.

Pressed as to what life would be like for refugees were UNRWA to be dismantled – a key demand of many Israeli and US politicians – Krahenbuhl replied:

“If UNRWA didn’t exist tomorrow, and even if UNHCR didn’t exist, the world would still have to tackle the reality of protracted, long-term refugee situations that are impacting the well-being of people, but also the security and stability of states in many parts of the world. One cannot simply wish away five million people”.

Read also:

Politicising UNRWA

The plan to end UNRWA will not take away Palestinians’ right of return

August 23, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What the Brennan Affair Really Reveals

By Stephen F. Cohen | The Nation | August 22, 2018

Valorizing an ex-CIA director and bashing Trump obscures what is truly ominous.

Ever since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, every American president has held one or more summit meetings with the Kremlin leader, first and foremost in order to prevent miscalculations that could result in war between the two nuclear superpowers. Generally, they received bipartisan support for doing so. In July, President Trump continued that tradition by meeting with Russian President Putin in Helsinki, for which, unlike previous presidents, he was scathingly criticized by much of the US political media establishment.

John Brennan, CIA director under President Obama, however, went much further, characterizing Trump’s press conference with Putin as “nothing short of treasonous.” Presumably in reaction, Trump revoked Brennan’s security clearance, the continuing access to classified information usually accorded to former security officials. In the political media furor that followed, Brennan was mostly heroized as an avatar of civil liberties and free speech, and Trump traduced as their enemy.

Leaving aside the missed occasion to discuss the “revolving door” involving former US security officials using their permanent clearances to enhance their lucrative positions outside government, Stephen Cohen thinks the subsequent political media furor obscures what is truly important and perhaps ominous:

Brennan’s allegation was unprecedented. No such high-level intelligence official had ever before accused a sitting president of treason, still more in collusion with the Kremlin. (Impeachment discussions of Presidents Nixon and Clinton, to take recent examples, did not include allegations involving Russia.) Brennan clarified his charge: “Treasonous, which is to betray one’s trust and to aid and abet the enemy.” Coming from Brennan, a man presumed to be in possession of related dark secrets, as he strongly hinted, the charge was fraught with alarming implications. Brennan made clear he hoped for Trump’s impeachment, but in another time, and in many other countries, his charge would suggest that Trump should be removed from the presidency urgently by any means, even a coup. No one, it seems, has even noted this extraordinary implication with its tacit threat to American democracy. (Perhaps because the disloyalty allegation against Trump has been customary ever since mid-2016, even before he became president, when an array of influential publications and writers – among them a former acting CIA director -began branding him Putin’s “puppet,” “agent,” “client,” and “Manchurian candidate.” The Los Angeles Times even saw fit to print an article suggesting that the military might have to remove Trump if he were to be elected, thereby having the very dubious distinction of predating Brennan.)

Why did Brennan, a calculating man, risk leveling such a charge, which might reasonably be characterized as sedition? The most plausible explanation is that he sought to deflect growing attention to his role as the “Godfather” of the entire Russiagate narrative, as Cohen argued back in February. If so, we need to know Brennan’s unvarnished views on Russia.

They are set out with astonishing (perhaps unknowing) candor in a New York Times op-ed of August 17. They are those of Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover in their prime. Western “politicians, political parties, media outlets, think tanks and influencers are readily manipulated, wittingly and unwittingly, or even bought outright, by Russian operatives . . . not only to collect sensitive information but also to distribute propaganda and disinformation. . . . I was well aware of Russia’s ability to work surreptitiously within the United States, cultivating relationships with individuals who wield actual or potential power. . . . These Russian agents are well trained in the art of deception. They troll political, business and cultural waters in search of gullible or unprincipled individuals who become pliant in the hands of their Russian puppet masters. Too often, those puppets are found.”

All this, Brennan assures readers, is based on his “deep insight.” All the rest of us, it seems, are constantly susceptible to “Russian puppet masters” under our beds, at work, on our computers. Clearly, there must be no “cooperation” with the Kremlin’s grand “Puppet Master,” as Trump said he wanted early on. (People who wonder what and when Obama knew about the unfolding Russiagate saga need to ask why he would keep such a person so close for so long.)

And yet, scores of former intelligence and military officials rallied around this unvarnished John Brennan, even though, they said, they did not entirely share his opinions. This too is revealing. They did so, it seems clear enough, out of their professional corporate identity, which Brennan represented and Trump was degrading by challenging the intelligences agencies’ (implicitly including his own) Russiagate allegations against him. It’s a misnomer to term these people representatives of a hidden “deep state.” In recent years, they have been amply visible on television and newspaper op-ed pages. Instead, they see and present themselves as members of a fully empowered and essential fourth branch of government. This too has gone largely undiscussed while nightingales of the Fourth Branch – such as David Ignatius and Joe Scarborough in the pages of the Washington Post – have been in full voice.

The result is, of course – and no less ominous – to criminalize any advocacy of “cooperating with Russia,” or détente, as Trump sought to do in Helsinki with Putin. Still more, a full-fledged Russophobic hysteria is sweeping through the American political-media establishment, from Brennan and – pending actual evidence against her – those who engineered the arrest of Maria Butina (imagine how this endangers young Americans networking in Russia) to the senators now preparing new “crippling sanctions” against Moscow and the editors and producers at the Times, Post, CNN, and MSNBC. (However powerful, how representative are these elites when surveys indicate that a majority of the American people still prefer good relations with Moscow?) As the dangers grow of actual war with Russia – again, from Ukraine and the Baltic region to Syria – the capacity of US policymakers, above all the president, are increasingly diminished. To be fair, Brennan may only be a symptom of this profound American crisis, some say the worst since the Civil War.

Finally, there was a time when many Democrats, certainly liberal Democrats, could be counted on to resist this kind of hysteria and, yes, spreading neo-McCarthyism. (Brennan’s defenders accuse Trump of McCarthyism, but Brennan’s charge of treason without presenting any actual evidence was quintessential McCarthy.) After all, civil liberties, including freedom of speech, are directly involved – and not only Brennan’s and Trump’s. But Democratic members of Congress and pro-Democratic media outlets are in the forefront of the new anti-Russian hysteria, with only a few exceptions. Thus a generally liberal historian tells CNN viewers that “Brennan is an American hero. His tenure at the CIA was impeccable. We owe him so much.” Elsewhere the same historian assures readers, “There has always been a bipartisan spirit of support since the CIA was created in the Cold War.” In the same vein, two Post reporters write of the FBI’s “once venerated reputation.”

Is this liberal historical amnesia? Is it professional incompetence? A quick Google search would reveal Brennan’s less than “impeccable” record, FBI misdeeds under and after Hoover, as well as the Senate’s 1975 Church Committee’s investigation of the CIA and other intelligence agencies’ very serious abuses of their power. Or have liberals’ hatred of Trump nullified their own principles? The critical-minded Russian adage would say, “All three explanations are worst.”

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at TheNation.com.)

Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University and a contributing editor of The Nation.

August 23, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Russian hackers not found… again: DNC retracts claim voter database targeted by cyber-attack

RT | August 23, 2018

The latest alarming news on a sophisticated cyber-attack on the Democratic National Committee’s voter database may have cemented one’s worst fears over Russia hacking into the US elections… except it was really a “phishing test.”

Bob Lord, the committee’s chief security officer, raised the alarm on Wednesday after detecting a fake login page that mimicked the access page for Votebuilder, a program used by Democratic Party officials across that country that hosts the party’s voter database.

“This attempt is further proof that there are constant threats as we head into midterm elections and we must remain vigilant in order to prevent future attacks,” Lord said in a statement. However, within a few hours it became clear that blaming Moscow, no matter how tempting, would not be an option.

In a follow-up statement, Lord clarified that the fake login page was “built by a third party as part of a simulated phishing test.” He claimed that the security test was not authorized by the DNC.

“While we are extremely relieved that this wasn’t an attempted intrusion by a foreign adversary, this incident is further proof that we need to continue to be vigilant in light of potential attacks,” Lord’s anticlimactic clarification said.

It’s not uncommon for corporations or organizations to hire consultants to test for security weaknesses in their computer systems – although it’s unusual for it to be done without any knowledge of the organization, as Lord has insisted.

Still, even when reporting that the scary DNC hack was a false alarm, CNN made sure to remind its readers that Microsoft recently announced (citing no concrete evidence) that it had thwarted an attempt by hackers working for Russian military intelligence to target the US Senate and conservative think tanks that advocated for tougher policies against Moscow.

August 23, 2018 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

The Three Musketeers, Poison Gas, and Dead Schoolkids

By Michael Howard | American Herald Tribune | August 23, 2018

Winking and nodding to the “freedom fighters” hunkered down in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, the world’s schoolmarm (formally known as The West) has issued a stern warning to President Bashar al-Assad: don’t use chemical weapons “again,” or else. Said warning came via a joint statement from the US, UK and France (henceforth known as The Three Musketeers), as the Syrian government prepares its offensive to retake the country’s last remaining “rebel” stronghold. The three great and benevolent powers are “gravely concerned,” they said, about the upcoming military campaign, explaining:

We also underline our concern at the potential for further—and illegal—use of chemical weapons. We remain resolved to act if the Assad regime uses chemical weapons again. As we have demonstrated, we will respond appropriately to any further use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime, which has had such devastating humanitarian consequences for the Syrian population.

Read it again, and take note of the crafty way in which the statement messes around with language to manipulate its target audience (us). The use of chemical weapons is accurately, and superfluously, described, and emphasized with em dashes, as “illegal,” as though there was a soul on this earth to whom this is news. Then, alluding to their coordinated missile strikes against Syria this past April, which were unleashed to much pomp and circumstance, The Three Musketeers pledge to “respond appropriately” to any such illegal action on the part of the Syrian government.

Since they insist on begging questions, we must insist on demanding answers. For instance, how “appropriate” was the aforesaid missile attack? Assuming that, in this context, a direct link exists between appropriate and legal (and only an outlaw could reject that assumption), there was certainly nothing “appropriate” about The Three Musketeers’ unilateral decision to use military force against a sovereign country last April. Quite the reverse.

The missile strike, like the one a year before, was carried out in flagrant violation of the law. There are a total of two circumstances in which the use of military force is legally justified: when greenlit by a UN Security Council resolution, or when done in self-defense, that is to say in response to a direct military attack. Neither condition was met when The Three Musketeers rocketed Syria. On the other hand, Syria is accorded the legal right under international law to strike back at its attackers, and moreover to form a coalition for that purpose. As Chapter VII Article 51 of the UN Charter states:

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.

Mildly ironic, then—is it not?—that, in “appropriately” bombing the Syrian government, we granted it the legal right to bomb us back? It’s a crying shame: if only Assad and his allies were sufficiently nihilistic … we could’ve had another exhilarating World War on our hands—the third and last. To borrow a quote from of Trump’s favorite general: “Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God help me, I do love it so.” On that note, I think it’s high time we substitute “War” for “God” in our Republic’s official motto. Who besides Rand Paul would vote against the proposal?

All of which is to say nothing of the fact that the alleged chemical attack in Douma, which served as the pretext for The Three Musketeers’ “appropriate” bombing raid, almost certainly didn’t happen. The first chink in the armor came in the form of Robert Fisk’s report, from the actual site of the alleged attack, that quotes a local doctor as saying:

There was a lot of shelling [by government forces] and aircraft were always over Douma at night—but on this night, there was wind and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived. People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss. Then someone at the door, a “White Helmet”, shouted “Gas!” and a panic began. People started throwing water over each other. Yes, the video was filmed here, it is genuine, but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia—not gas poisoning.

By his own count, Fisk interviewed more than twenty Douma residents; he was unable to find a single person “who showed the slightest interest in Douma’s role in bringing about the Western air attacks. Two actually told me they didn’t know about the connection.” Moreover, many of those he spoke with told him they “never believed in” the chemical weapons narratives promulgated by Western media.

Despite the fact that it squared with the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights’ (the West’s go-to authority on the Syrian conflict) assessment of the event, Fisk’s journalism was easy enough for Western ideologues to ignore or deride. He’s only one person, they countered, and he only spoke to a handful of residents and a single doctor, all of whom probably have a pro-Assad agenda. Therefore, his report is worthless and so is he.

This position grew a little less tenable when, a week after Fisk’s story was published, Russia presented to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which was holding a conference in the Hague, seventeen eyewitnesses, a mix of residents and doctors, all of whom testified that there had been no chemical attack in Douma. As Jonathan Cook explained (yes, one had to visit his personal blog or some equally marginal source to read about this), “the US, UK and France boycotted the meeting, denouncing Russia for producing the witnesses and calling the event an ‘obscene masquerade’ and ‘theatre’”—not a very surprising reaction from a self-righteous party whose fabricated narrative is coming apart at the seams.

Then came the coup de grâce. On July 6, the OPCW published the conclusion of its fact-finding mission in Douma. Before quoting from it, I’ll jog your memory a bit. According to the Western version of events, Assad used both sarin and chlorine (or perhaps a physical mixture of the two, a nonsensical theory), in his attack on Douma—which, incidentally, had already effectively “fallen,” raising questions as to why Assad would feel compelled to use chemical weapons at all, apart from the sheer sadistic fun of it. Regardless, sarin and chlorine, said the West. Not so, said the OPCW:

OPCW designated labs conducted analysis of prioritized samples. The results show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties [my emphasis]. Along with explosive residues, various chlorinated organic chemicals were found in samples from two sites, for which there is full chain of custody. Work by the team to establish the significance of these results is on-going. The FFM team will continue its work to draw final conclusions.

Not a trace of sarin, in other words. Attempting to ascertain why “various chlorinated organic chemicals” were found at the site is a pointless exercise for someone, like myself, who knows nothing of chlorinated organic compounds. The most perfunctory research indicates that such chemicals are used for a variety of non-murderous applications, for example as solvents, and that they stick around for a long time after they’ve been introduced to an environment. The basic point, which hordes of media fixers promptly got to work obscuring, is that the Western narrative was false. The US government, in concert with its unctuous allies, lied. Go figure.

Of course, this isn’t the first time a supposed chemical attack in Syria has been called into question. Those curious about whether Assad used sarin to murder hundreds of civilians in the suburb of Ghouta in 2013, as was, and is, claimed by The West, would do well to read two essays by Seymour Hersh—“The Red Line and the Rat Line” and “Whose Sarin”—both published in the London Review of Books, both available online. Hersh also examined the chemical incident that took place in Khan Sheikhoun in April 2017—also used as a pretext for illegal US military action. This time, however, his reporting was too heretical even for the London Review of Books (not to mention the New Yorker), and so had to be published in Die Welt, which no one in the US has ever heard of, let alone read. That Hersh, the preeminent investigative journalist of his time, has been pushed into no man’s land speaks to how narrow the spectrum of permissible discourse has become in this, our great Republic. The schoolmarm is cracking her whip. At this rate Hersh will soon be relegated to the personal blog.

For other dissident views re: chemical weapons in Syria, do yourself a favor and consult the work of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and MIT professor and munitions expert Theodore Postol, as well as the late journalist Robert Parry of Consortium News, all of whom have written extensively, and cogently, on the subject. Or you can keep reading the Washington Post. You’re free to decide.

But what exactly did The Three Musketeers have in mind when they broadcast their latest threat? It’s a fair question to ask. On its face, the statement appears to reflect a genuine aversion to poison gas, and a genuine hope that the Syrian government will refrain from using any in Idlib. Fair enough. Having said that, how averse could they really be, given that gas attacks provide for them the only remotely plausible excuse to lob more cruise missiles out of the Mediterranean—an activity from which they, and their media sidekicks, derive the utmost pleasure? They are, after all, incorrigible hawks. It must cut them to the bone to have to stand by and watch from the sidelines as a perfectly good war winds down, handcuffed, helpless to effect the desired outcome. How pitiable the plight of the poor impotent imperialist! Flaming warmongers need love too.

Anyway, call me schizophrenic, but when I read the words of The Three Musketeers, I couldn’t help but pick up the faint sound of a dog whistle—aimed straight at the “moderate rebels” holding down the fort in Idlib. Read between the lines, the statement is an assurance to one party dressed up as a warning to another. If there’s a “chemical incident,” we will attack: you have our word. That’s the message sent to, and received by, al-Qaeda (I don’t know what they’re calling themselves these days, and I care less) and its various affiliates. Make no mistake: The Three Musketeers have just invited, oh-so-subtly, bin-Laden’s foot soldiers to stage a chemical atrocity in Idlib (God knows how many “various chlorinated organic chemicals” they’ve got on hand there), the resulting pictures of which will duly splash across every television screen in America so as to whip up … well, you’ve heard this song before.

So here’s a new one: a bunch of kids walk onto a school bus in Yemen. As the bus steers through a crowded marketplace, Saudi Arabia drops a bomb on it, killing forty small children and injuring scores more. The bomb is later identified as a “laser-guided” precision missile (precision being the operative word), manufactured by our very own Lockheed Martin, while the mangled school bus is described by Col. Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, as a “legitimate target.” Meanwhile, back in illustrious Washington, Pentagon bureaucrat Rebecca Rebarich is asked to comment on the “legitimate” massacre of forty schoolkids.

“The US has worked with the Saudi-led coalition to help them improve procedures and oversight mechanisms to reduce civilian casualties,” she says. “While we do not independently verify claims of civilian casualties in which we are not directly involved, we call on all sides to reduce such casualties, including those caused via ballistic missile attacks on civilian population centers in Saudi Arabia.”

Translated from vapid officialese: “I don’t really give a shit.”

On the bright side, we’re “gravely concerned” about the coming battle for Idlib, where the babies are beautiful and, most importantly, the bombs that kill them are un-American.

August 23, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

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