The US appears to be aiming at dividing Syria, as US troops still linger in the country even after its promise to end the mission after driving out Islamic State fighters, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
“It’s very likely that the Americans have taken a course of dividing the country. They just gave up their assurances, given to us, that the only goal of their presence in Syria – without an invitation of the legitimate government – was to defeat Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and the terrorists,” Lavrov said.
Regarding pledges to keep a limited military contingent in the war-town state, Lavrov says the US is not being open about their true objectives.
“Now [the Americans] are saying that they will keep their presence till they make sure a steady process of a political settlement in Syria starts, which will result in regime change,” the minister said during a conference in Sochi.
The foreign minister claimed there are “plans of virtual division of Syria.”
“We know of [them] and we will ask our American colleagues, how they are seeing [Syria’s division].”
The US has nearly 2,000 servicemen currently stationed in Syria. In December, the Pentagon announced the troops will remain on the ground for as long as needed “to support our partners and prevent the return of terrorist groups.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson later reiterated the plan.
Although the Syrian government regards the deployment of US troops on its sovereign territory as “illegal,” Washington justifies its presence under the pretext of fighting IS militants.
Moscow, which operates in the country on the Syrian government’s request, insists that the US has no grounds to have a military presence in the country without the permission of the Syrian government.
Washington has also been arming and funding various groups under the banners of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
“The US, flirting with various segments of Syrian society that oppose the government with arms in their hands, may lead to very dangerous consequences,” Lavrov warned.
The Turkish-backed FSA is currently engaged in fighting with parts of the SDF forces, namely the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), in Afrin. These issues have caused serious tensions between Ankara and Washington.
Meanwhile, FSA is trying to persuade the US to revive the defunct CIA program which provided cash, weapons and instructors to “moderate” rebels, a high-ranking rebel official told Reuters.
Last July, the Trump administration reportedly ended the respective program launched back in 2013 during Barack Obama’s presidency.
Moscow has consistently warned against arming the so-called moderate rebel factions in Syria, pointing out that weapons supplied to them often fall into the hands of jihadist groups.
Rights groups allege that some rebel factions might have committed war crimes against civilians. In May 2016, Amnesty International said armed groups surrounding the Sheikh Maqsoud district near Aleppo “have repeatedly carried out indiscriminate attacks that have struck civilian homes, streets, markets and mosques, killing and injuring civilians and displaying a shameful disregard for human life.”
After the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a rebrand of Jabhat al-Nusra, which is the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate, claimed responsibility for the dramatic downing of a Russian Su-25 fighter jet over Idlib in northwest Syria on Saturday – the first Russian plane downed in Syria since 2015 – a number of analysts have published articles asking the obvious million dollar question: where did al-Qaeda get the portable anti-aircraft missile system used in the attack?
Once such article in Al Monitorspeculates on the following: “The three immediate questions that arose from the attack were how the downing was made possible, how the militants acquired the arms and whether there was a bigger-level player behind the attack.”
MANPADS are heat seeking shoulder fired missiles capable of hitting targets flying at anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 feet.
And Al Monitor seems to answer its own question in the following when listing the array of allied groups now operating under the leadership of al-Qaeda (HTS) – among them groups previously “vetted” and approved to receive advanced weaponry by the CIA (specifically the TOW anti-tank missile):
Dozens of miles of Idlib province are contested among an array of groups, including the terrorist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a rebrand of Jabhat al-Nusra, which was affiliated with al-Qaeda; the Free Syrian Army; and its affiliate Jaish al-Nasr, which is considered a “moderate opposition group” that received weapons from the United States. Minutes after the downing of the Su-25, Alaa al-Hamwi, the military commander of Jaish al-Nasr’s aid defense battalion, claimed responsibility for the attack. Alaa argued that Jaish al-Nasr’s command supplied weapons to protect against the Russian air assault.
Later, however, HTS claimed responsibility for downing the plane.
Though US intelligence and defense officials have long denied that so-called “vetted” groups in Syria were recipients of anti-aircraft systems, rumors to the contrary have been persistent for years. The latest denial came immediately on the heels of Saturday’s Russian jet shoot down, which resulted in the death of the pilot on the ground as he came under fire by jihadists. Pentagon spokesman Maj. Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway told Russia’s TASS: “The United States have not provided any of its allied forces in Syria with anti-aircraft weapons.”
The Pentagon spokesman further said, according to RT, that the US-led coalition is currently not engaged in any operations in the area where the jet was downed Saturday, indicating the coalition’s combat efforts are “geographically orientated on the current fight with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS, ISIL) in eastern Syria.” Yet the statement clearly avoided any reference to past US programs to arm so-called “moderates” – whether through the secretive CIA program or DoD program. And this is to say nothing of allies like Saudi Arabia who worked closely with US intelligence for years in supplying weapons to anti-Assad militants.
Washington’s Arab allies, disappointed with Syria peace talks, have agreed to provide rebels there with more sophisticated weaponry, including shoulder-fired missiles that can take down jets, according to Western and Arab diplomats and opposition figures.
Saudi Arabia has offered to give the opposition for the first time Chinese man-portable air defense systems, or Manpads, and antitank guided missiles from Russia, according to an Arab diplomat and several opposition figures with knowledge of the efforts. Saudi officials couldn’t be reached to comment.
The U.S. has long opposed arming rebels with antiaircraft missiles for fear they could fall into the hands of extremists who might use them against the West or commercial airlines. The Saudis have held off supplying them in the past because of U.S. opposition.
Saudi Arabia reportedly is offering to provide Syrian rebels more sophisticated weapons, including shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles that can take down fighter planes and helicopter gunships. They could be a game changer in the Syrian civil war. Known as MANPADS or man-portable air defense systems, the shoulder-fired missiles are a highly-effective weapon.
Now, Saudi Arabia is offering to supply moderate rebels with these weapons. That could tip the balance on the battlefield.
… President Barack Obama is said to be rethinking U.S. strategy toward Syria. No doubt arming the Syrian rebels will be on the agenda when Obama travels to Saudi Arabia in late March.
Meanwhile, in February 2018 there’s this to consider…
Al-Qaeda controls a strip of land (Idlib province) not far from the Mediterranean coast, and has now clearly demonstrated the capability of shooting down aircraft.
In 2014 a historical first was reached: al-Qaeda established a foothold on the Mediterranean coast after it took the Syrian town of Kessab, but has since been pushed back into Idlib.
However, al-Qaeda still remains a very short drive to the Mediterranean coast, with Syrian government territory in between.
MANPADS (“man-portable air-defense system”) have appeared on the Syrian battlefield in recent years in the hands armed opposition groups supported by the West and Gulf states, including various FSA and Islamist factions – some of which, as Al Monitor confirms, operate today in Idlib.
These groups have at various times filmed and demonstrated themselves to be in possession of these externally supplied MANPADS long before last weekend’s Russian jet downing. The portable systems are believed by analysts to have entered Syria in multiple waves via different routes and external sponsors, including old Soviet models shipped out of Libya, Chinese FN-6’s provided by Qatar, and through NATO member Turkey’s porous border with Syria. Some supplies were also likely gained through opposition takeovers of Syrian government storehouses as well as ISIS seizures of Iraqi government bases and equipment.
Most likely, United States intelligence operatives simply allowed its close allies like the Saudis and Turks to introduce MANPADS early on in the conflict to the Syrian battlefield. In this way the US could maintain “plausible deniability” as it is likely doing now after last weekend’s attack.
But a detail which has gone largely unnoticed since the Russian fighter downing is that Congress had already quietly laid the legal framework for US transfer of MANPADS to groups in Syria over a year ago as part of the Fiscal Year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (the NDAA passed the House and Senate in the opening weeks of December 2016). The leading military news site SOFREP reported the authorization at the end of 2016, and described at the time that “Congress for the first time authorized the Department of Defense to provide vetted-Syrian rebels with anti-aircraft missiles.”
Concerning procedural rules, the NDAA requires that the Secretaries of Defense and State submit a formal request to Congress requesting the transfer of the anti-aircraft missiles systems to Syria, which must include the following according to the SOFREP report:
A detailed description of each element of the vetted Syrian opposition receiving MANPADS
The justification for providing those elements with MANPADS
The number and type of MANPADS provided
The logistics plan for resupplying approved elements with MANPADS
The duration of support
And SOFREP included the following observation:
The inclusion of the provision represents a departure from previous versions of the NDAA. The original House bill specifically prohibited the transfer of MANPADS to “any entity” in Syria, while the Senate bill did not address it.
Though there was an attempt in March 2017 to roll back the authorization, nothing appears to have changed regarding MANPADS and Syria in the 2018 NDAA, which was signed into law by President Trump.
However, long before this formal NDAA legal framework was put into effect, it appears anti-aircraft systems were already being handed out among Syrian militant groups – again, likely through the Saudis or a third party US ally. In May 2016 we featured the following commentary:
Dr. Christina Lin, a leading scholar on jihadist groups, opens her April 8th commentary at Asia Times: “In a blunder reeking of the fallout caused by supplying Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to 1980s mujahideen in Afghanistan, civilian airline passengers are now under threat from Syrian jihadists armed with portable surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS).
Reports say some American-backed jihadi groups are being equipped with US-made MANPADS. Indications are they’re obtaining these advanced weapons either directly or indirectly from the US or its Mideast allies in connection with a recent escalation in the fighting in Syria.”
And further:
Dr. Lin quotes a Saudi official as saying (in Germany’s Spiegel), “We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground… just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there.” He was referring there to this in 1979, where Obama’s friend Zbigniew Brzezinski explained why the Americans and the Saudis were supplying SAMs to the mujahideen who became al-Qaeda, and he was also referring to this in 1998, where Brzezinski, when asked whether he thought that arming those fundamentalist Sunnis had been a mistake, said that it certainly was not.
And an unpleasant reminder which bears repeating…
The threat of MANPADS taking out civilian passenger jets is very real, as history proves. The US Department of State counted that 40 civilian aircraft have been hit by MANPADS since the 1970s, which includes the complete downing of 28 civilian airliners resulting in over 800 fatalities. The State Department’s official report on MANPADS and civilian aircraft provides the following partial list of attacks on civilian aviation:
March 12, 1975: A Douglas C-54D-5-DC passenger airliner, operated by Air Vietnam, crashed into Vietnamese territory after being hit by a MANPADS. All six crew members and 20 passengers were killed in the crash.
September 3, 1978: An Air Rhodesia Vickers 782D Viscount passenger airliner crash landed after being hit by a MANPADS fired by forces from the Zimbabwe Peoples Revolution Army. Four crew members and 34 of the 56 passengers were killed in the crash.
December 19, 1988: Two Douglas DC-7 spray aircraft en route from Senegal to Morocco, chartered by the U.S. Agency for International Development to eradicate locusts, were struck by MANPADS fired by POLISARIO militants in the Western Sahara. One DC-7 crashed killing all 5 crew members. The other DC-7 landed safely in Morocco.
September 22, 1993: A Tupolev 154B aircraft operated by Transair Georgia was shot down by Abkhazian separatist forces, crashed onto the runway and caught fire, killing 108.
April 6, 1994: A Dassault Mystère-Falcon 50 executive jet carrying the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi and its French flight crew was shot down over Kigali, killing all aboard and sparking massive ethnic violence and regional conflict.
October 10, 1998: A Boeing 727-30 Lignes Aeriennes Congolaises airliner was downed over the Democratic Republic of the Congo jungle by Tutsi militia, killing 41.
December 26, 1998: A United Nations-chartered Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport was shot down over Angola by UNITA forces, killing 14.
January 2, 1999: A United Nations Lockheed L-100-30 Hercules transport was shot down by UNITA forces in Angola, killing 9.
November 28, 2002: Terrorists fired two MANPADS at an Arkia Airlines Boeing 757-3E7 with 271 passengers and crew as it took off from Mombasa, Kenya. Both missiles missed.
November 22, 2003: A DHL Airbus A300B4-203F cargo jet transporting mail in Iraq was struck and damaged by a MANPADS. Though hit in the left fuel tank, the plane was able to return to the Baghdad airport and land safely.
March 23, 2007: A Transaviaexport Ilyushin 76TD cargo plane was shot down over Mogadishu, Somalia, killing the entire crew of 11.
Dennis Kucinich, who recently launched his campaign for Governor of Ohio, has never been afraid to go against the grain and speak out with an unpopular opinion and an unpopular time. This was the case when he was mayor of Cleveland and throughout his tenure as a Congressman. It was also the case when, after the election of Donald Trump, Kucinich spoke out against an obvious attempt by the Deep State to control and steer the new Trump administration in a direction of their own using internal leaks, scandals, and other forms of pressure against the President.
Unfortunately for Kucinich, in Democratic party circles as well as in the mainstream media, it’s become a law that, before you can speak a word, you must first condemn Donald Trump. Anything short of disagreement on every aspect of Trump’s administration and raving attacks on his every move is considered treason.
Still, as the CIA leak controversy was at its height, Kucinich appeared on FOX News and stated:
You have to look at the institution of the Presidency. This isn’t just about one President. It’s about the Presidency which belongs to the American people. And when you look at the leaks, the anonymous sources, coming from intelligence agencies like the CIA and the FBI, they’re aimed at upending the Presidency, not just the President, and it’s a form of a coup. This is very dangerous for our country. We’re all Americans. We have to stand for our country. We cannot let faceless, anonymous people try to upend our government, it’s a totally un-American approach that is occurring.
. . . . .
I don’t want to characterize a particular agency. I can give you an example. You can look at October, 2016, when President Obama and Secretary Kerry essentially negotiated an agreement with Russia to set the stage for a ceasefire in Syria, the CIA and the Pentagon objected and wouldn’t you know it, after the deal was made, it was upended by a missile attack on a Syrian army base. Now, this was done with the knowledge of the CIA. And so you have to ask, “Who died and put them in charge of America?” We’ve got to protect the Presidency and we’ve got to stop these agencies who are trying to upend it with rumors and innuendo. It’s totally un-American the approach that’s being taken what’s happening and Americans of every political party need to resist it, to stand up and speak out against it and say “Stop it! Stop this attack!”
. . . . .
There was no accountability and you just have to understand that, when these agencies become politicized, it is deadly for our country. It destroys the very nature of a republic. It deprives people of their choice in an election. It sets the stage for something that’s profoundly anti-Democratic. So that’s why I’m speaking out. Look, I’ve been around politics a long time. I don’t have any problems getting in debates and challenging the President for a stand on healthcare and immigration and a whole range of things. But this goes way beyond politics. This is trying to sabotage the very nature of our government. And we’ve got to see this. We’ve got to put a stop to it.
Personally, I think there’s got to be a cleaning out from top to bottom of these agencies. I wouldn’t tolerate it for a second. I wouldn’t let anybody be involved in the leaks. I’d call them all in to a room and say, “Look, someone in here is leaking and I want to know who it is by the end of the day or you’re all gone.” The President of the United States was elected to lead the country. We may not like the direction he’s taking the country but whether we do or not, he’s the President. We didn’t elect people in the agencies to run the country. They’re not elected and they’re not accountable either.
What was happening at the time was clearly an act of Deep State sabotage against the Trump administration. However, Kucinich ran afoul of the one-party rule book and, ever since he has launched his campaign for governor, this (and other interviews he gave on the same topic) have been used to smear him as a “conspiracy theorist” and, of course, a Trump supporter (which is tantamount to being called a witch in 1690s Salem).
As is always the case, anyone who steps even slightly away from the narrative peddled by intelligence agencies and mainstream media is labeled a conspiracy theorist, even when the evidence for their claim is in plain sight. But, as is also typical, Dennis Kucinich has refused to back down on his claims, even inviting a debate on the issue.
In fact, when confronted with a question about his “theory” and “support” of Donald Trump during his campaign announcement, Kucinich exposed an incident in which the same intelligence agencies surveilled and wiretapped him. During his tenure as Congressman from Ohio, he was heavily involved with trying to stop the American war in Libya. Kucinich even sponsored a resolution in the House that would have stopped the war. As a result, Saif al-Islam Ghaddafi called him to discuss the resolution. Later, Kucinich was asked about the conversation and was not only shown a transcript but was played the tape of the conversation with Ghaddafi by a staff member of the Washington Times who had obtained the tape via a leak which appears to have been from the office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“I had a resolution in the House to try to stop the war and [Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, a high-ranking official in Libya’s government and son of President Moammar Gadhafi] called me to talk about it,” Kucinich said.
“I cleared the discussion with House attorneys, and a member of Congress is not supposed to be listened to by the executive branch,” he continued. “The director of national intelligence under President Obama was tracking my resolution, and I didn’t find out until two years after I had left Congress.”
. . . . .
Kucinich revealed in a Friday FoxNews.com column that investigative reporters from the Washington Times contacted him after obtaining the tape to verify his voice on the recording.
“When I met them at a Chinese restaurant in Washington, they played back audio of a call I had taken in my D.C. congressional office four years earlier,” he told O’Reilly.
Kucinich said because of that experience, he doesn’t dismiss Trump’s claim that he was bugged.
“I heard a lot of people laughing about it, but I had something happen to me. If a member of Congress can have his phone tapped, this can happen to anybody.”
Naturally, the mainstream media both in the United States and the state of Ohio, refer to his claims as “conspiracy theories” and suggest that he “believes” he was surveilled and monitored, despite his having undeniable proof that he was indeed, wiretapped.
One such interaction took place shortly after he announced his gubernatorial run, when a reporter asked him, “You went on Sean Hannity’s show last year on FOX News where you’re a paid contributor . . . . and you said government leaks, government employees’ leaks, to the press were part of a Deep State conspiracy to bring down President Trump. How is this going to stop the free flow of information in a free society? And how is saying this in this form particularly going to play among the democratic electorate?
Kucinich responded,
Well, there are two questions you asked there. First thing you need to remember is I spent sixteen years in Congress. I’m not a rookie about this stuff. I’ve seen us go into wars based on lies. Yes, actually. People in Washington have lied to take us into wars. I put forth articles of impeachment against the President and the Vice President for lying to take us into war. There’s no question that intelligence agencies are used to be able to promote war. Period. This isn’t like, you know, I didn’t fall off a Christmas tree here. You have to realize
[Interrupted by reporter] You said it was a conspiracy to bring down President Trump.
Kucinich: Let me continue. The Pentagon, the State Department, and the Central Intelligence Agency have people making policy. You don’t know who they are. Very often none of us know who they are. But they want to run the government and usurp whoever is in office. I’ll give you an example. It wasn’t just about President Trump. President Obama, during his Presidency, there was an attempt – not an attempt there was an attack that was launched by U.S. military assets that actually went against his policies. Presidents don’t always have control. And that’s the point I was making. And no one, particularly in the media, should get the vapors about this kind of a statement. I was stating a fact. Now, my interest is in the United States of America. Whoever the President is, the President will change from time to time. But I defend the Constitution of the United States which says that elected officials and those that take the oath of office are supposed to be making the decisions, not backroom, anonymous, faceless bureaucrats in the CIA, in the State Department, and in the Pentagon.
Kucinich is likely to face more questions about his refusal to irrationally oppose Trump for the sake of collective politics, but it’s an issue, along with his reputation in the Congress, that Kucinich welcomes discussing. “There’s no democrat in the country who has that record in defending the interests of the American people,” Kucinich said. “So I’m happy, you know, if someone wants to discuss that in this race, they came to the right place. Because I actually know more about it than anybody.”
Given the persuasion of the mainstream media and the democratic political machine, we expect that Kucinich will be discussing it quite a lot over the next several months.
US invaded Iraq in 2003 because Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction”. Except Iraq didn’t have them. Once the lie had served its purpose the US admitted as much, but dodged responsibility by redacting the story: Iraq had been pretending it had WMDs! No way was the US smearing and invading the country based on that smear actually America’s fault.
Well neither is falsely accusing Russia of getting its Manchurian candidate into the White House. Because while KGB doesn’t actually have tons of blackmail material on him Russia pretended it did. Take it over Wall Street Journal :
There is a third possibility, namely that the dossier was part of a Russian espionage disinformation plot targeting both parties and America’s political process. This is what seems most likely to me, having spent much of my 30-year government career, including with the CIA, observing Soviet and then Russian intelligence operations. If there is one thing I have learned, it’s that Vladimir Putin continues in the Soviet tradition of using disinformation and espionage as foreign-policy tools.
…
The pattern of such Russian operations is to sprinkle false information, designed to degrade the enemy’s social and political infrastructure, among true statements that enhance the veracity of the overall report.
Oh those Russkies! While they actually did not do the things the Hillary dossier says, they wanted Americans to believe they did, so of course insane Russiagaters can not be blamed for advancing the lie Russia was actually secretly controlling their President.
So we’ve gone from Russia being responsible for Russiagate to Russia being responsible for Americans falsely believing Russia was responsible for Russiagate.
Also it’s now Russia’s fault Democrats needlessly polarized American society by advancing feeble-minded smears from the Clinton dossier.
Oh well, whatever keeps you from having to take responsibility I guess.
Nice round-about way of admitting the Steele Dossier was idiotic and that advancing it hurt Democrats, however.
Countering Russia has become a lucrative industry in Washington. In recent years, the think tank business has exploded. But who funds these organizations, who works for them and what are the real agendas at play?
From the start, let’s be clear, the term ‘think tank’ essentially amounts to a more polite way of saying ‘lobby group.’ Bar a few exceptions, they exist to serve – and promote – the agendas of their funders.
However, particularly in the United States, the field has become increasingly shady and disingenuous, with lobbyists being given faux academic titles like ‘Senior Non-Resident Fellow’ and ‘Junior Adjunct Fellow’ and the like. And this smokescreen usually serves to cloud the real goals of these operations.
Think tanks actually originate from the Europe of the Dark Ages. That’s 9th-century France, to be precise. But the modern American movement is modeled on British organizations from around a millennium later, many of which, such as ‘RUSI (1831)’, still exist today. The concept was possibly brought to America by the Scottish-born Andrew Carnegie. And his ‘Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’ (1910) is still going strong.
Yet, the real boom in the ‘think tank’ industry came with the era of globalization. With a 200-percent rise in numbers since 1970. And in recent years, they’ve become more transnational, with foreign states and individuals sponsoring them in order to gain curry favor in Washington.
One country that largely hasn’t bothered playing this game is Russia. Instead, mostly in the foreign policy and defense sectors, Moscow frequently serves as Enemy Number One for many advocacy groups. Here are some prominent outfits in the think tank racket, which focus on hyping up threats from Russia.
The Atlantic Council
Founded: 1961
What is it? Essentially the academic wing of NATO. The Atlantic Council serves to link people useful to the organization’s agenda across Europe and North America. However, in recent years, its recruitment has increasingly focused on employees who directly attack Russia, especially on social media. Presumably, this is to give them a guaranteed income so they can continue their activities, without needing to worry about paying the bills.
What does it do? Promotes the idea of Russia being an existential threat to Europe and the US, in order to justify NATO’s reason for being.
Who are its people? The Atlantic Council’s list of lobbyists (sorry, ‘Fellows’!) reads like a telephone directory of the Russia bashing world. For instance, Dmitri Alperovitch (of Crowdstrike, which conveniently alleges how Russia hacked the Democratic National Congress) is joined by the perennially- wrong Anders Aslund, who has predicted Russia’s impending collapse on a number of occasions and has, obviously, been off the mark. Then there’s Joe Biden’s “Russia hand,” Michael Carpenter and their recent co-authored Foreign Affairs piece suggests he actually knows very little about the country). Meanwhile, Evelyn Farkas, a fanatical Russophobe who served in Barack Obama’s administration has also found a home here. Another interesting Atlantic Council lobbyist is Eliot Higgins, a “geolocation expert” who has made a career out of spinning tales from the Ukraine and Syrian wars but is, naturally, mostly disinterested in covering Iraq and Yemen, where the US and its allies are involved, but Russia has no particular stake. Lastly, we can’t forget CNN’s Michael Weiss, the self-declared “Russia analyst” who, by all accounts, has never been to Russia and can’t speak Russian.
Who pays for it? The Atlantic Council has quite an eclectic bunch of patrons to serve. NATO itself is a big backer, along with military contractors Saab, Lockheed Martin and the Raytheon Company, all of which naturally benefit from increased tensions with Moscow. The UK Foreign Office also splashes the cash and is joined by the Ukrainian World Congress and the US Department of State. Other sugar daddies include the US military (via separate contributions from the Air Force, Navy, Army and Marine Corps), Northrop Grumman and Boeing.
The Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA)
Founded: 2005
What is it? Despite the name, CEPA is based in Washington, not the ‘old continent’, but it does have an outpost in Warsaw. This club specifically focusses on Central and Eastern Europe and promoting the US Army and foreign policy establishment’s agenda there. Or, in its own words, creating a “Central and Eastern Europe with close and enduring ties to the United States.”
screenshot from cepa.org
What does it do? CEPA amounts to a home for media figures who devote their careers to opposing Russia. It whips up tensions, even when they don’t really exist, presumably in order to drum up business for its sponsors, who are heavily drawn from the military industry. For example, it spent last year hyping up the ‘threat’ from Russia’s and Belarus’ joint ‘Zapad’ exercises, even running a sinister-looking countdown clock before the long-planned training commenced.
CEPA grossly overestimated the size of the event, saying it “could be the largest military exercise since the end of the Cold War” and dismissing basically all Moscow’s statements on its actual nature as “disinformation.”
Who are its people?Times of London columnist Edward Lucas has been part of CEPA for years.
Poland chooses Raytheon. Even if the missiles don’t work, America will defend its customers http://t.co/QwqrkCiosD
The dedicated ‘Cold Warrior’ doesn’t appear to have spent much time in Russia for a long while and still seems to view the country through a prism which is very much rooted in the past. Thus, he’s more-or-less an out-of-touch dinosaur when it comes to Russia expertise. He will soon be joined by Brian Whitmore, who comes on board from RFE/RL and appears to be even more ill-informed than Lucas. His broadcasts for the US state broadcaster led to him being described as the “Lord Haw Haw of Prague,” where has been based for some years. CEPA is a pretty fluid organization and, until recently, Anne Applebaum and Peter Pomerantsev were also on its list of lobbyists. The former is a Polish-American Washington Post columnist who obsessively denigrates Russia and the latter has previously worked with the Atlantic Council’s Michael Weiss, which shows you how small and incestuous the Russia-bashing world is.
Who pays for it? While other think tanks at least try to make their funding look semi-organic, CEPA looks to have zero hang-ups about its role as a mouthpiece for defence contractors. Which is, at least, honest. FireEye, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Bell Helicopters and BAE systems pump funds in and they are joined by the US State Department and the Department of Defence. Another notable paymaster is the National Endowment for Democracy – ‘regime change’ experts who are surely interested in CEPA’s remit to also cover Belarus. The US Mission to NATO and NATO’s own Public Diplomacy Division also provide cash.
German Marshall Fund of the United States
Founded: 1972
What is it? Don’t be fooled by the name, the German Marshall Fund (GMF) is a very American body these days with little input from Berlin. It was founded by a donation from Willy Brandt’s Bonn-government to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. Ironically, Brandt is today best remembered as the father of ‘Ostpolitik’, which sought a rapprochement between Germany and Russia.
What does it do? After the fall of the Soviet Union, the GMF transformed into a vehicle promoting US influence in Eastern Europe, with outreaches in Warsaw, Belgrade and Bucharest. However, in the past 12 months, it’s taken a very strange turn. Following the election of US President Donald Trump (ironically a German-American), the lobby group launched the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) project. Its centerpiece is the ‘Hamilton 68 Dashboard’, which seems to classify social media users which reject the US liberal elite’s consensus as “Russian trolls.” The reaction has been highly critical, with even the secretly-funded Russian opposition website Meduza asking “how do you identify ‘pro-Russian amplifiers’ if… themes dovetail with alternative American political views?”
Who are its people? The GMF, especially through its new ASD plaything, has a high-profile bunch of lobbyists. They include Toomas Ilves, an American-raised son of Estonian emigrants who once headed the Estonian desk at erstwhile CIA cut-out Radio Free Europe and eventually became president of Estonia. Also on board is Bill Kristol, known as the ‘architect of the Iraq War’ and former CIA Director Michael Morrell. Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who recently announced he was partially abandoning his Russian scholarship and has “lost interest in maintaining my (sic) ability to speak/write Russian” is another team member.
And sorry that I am not responding in Russian. After being on the travel ban list to your country for 3 years, I have lost interest in maintaining my ability to speak/write Russian. You government seems to really fear me these days. странно и жалько https://t.co/8SRdSEvg5r
After serving on Obama’s team, McFaul has re-invented himself as a network TV personality since 2016 with 280,000 Twitter followers, 106,000 of which are fake, according to Twitter audit.
Who pays for it? USAID are big backers, throwing in a seven-figure annual sum. This, of course, raises some questions about US taxpayers essentially funding the Hamilton 68 dashboard, which may be smearing Americans who don’t agree with their government’s policies as Russian agents. The State Department also ponies up capital, as does NATO and Latvia’s Defense Ministry. Other interesting paymasters are George Soros, Airbus and Google. While Boeing and the ubiquitous Raytheon are also involved.
Institute for the Study of War
Founded: 2007
What is it? This lobby group could as easily be titled ‘The Institute for the Promotion of War’. Unlike the others, it doesn’t consider Russia its primary target, instead preferring to push for more conflict in the Middle East. However, Moscow’s increased influence in that region has brought the Kremlin into its crosshairs.
What does it do? The IFTSOW agitates for more and more American aggression. It supported the Iraq ‘surge’ and has encouraged more involvement in Afghanistan. IFTSOW also focuses on Syria, Libya and Iran. Just last week, one of its lobbyists, Jennifer Cafarella, called for the US military to take Damascus, which would bring Washington into direct conflict with Russia and Iran.
US occupation of Damascus – @TheStudyofWar seems to be calling for the US military to take Damascus and rebuild Syria. This seems the only “realistic” policy that could produce its demand to rid Syria of Assad’s government as well as Iranian and Russian influence. pic.twitter.com/nmSTkSzb5G
Who are its people? Kimberly Kagan is the brains behind this operation. She’s married to Frederick Kagan, who was involved in the neocon ‘Project for the New American Century’ group along with his brother, Robert Kagan. Which makes Kimberly the sister-in-law of Victoria “f**k the EU” Nuland.
Another lobbyist is Ukrainian Natalia Bugayova, who was involved in Kiev’s 2014 EuroMaidan coup. She previously worked for the Kiev Post, a resolutely anti-Russian newspaper which promotes US interests in Ukraine. However, IFTSOW’s most notorious lobbyist was Elizabeth O’Bagy, who emerged as a ‘Syria expert’ in 2013 and called for American political leaders to send heavy weaponry to Syrian insurgent groups. She claimed to have a PhD from Georgetown University in Washington, DC, but this was fictional and once the media twigged to it, she was dismissed by the IFTSOW. Two weeks later, she was rewarded for her deception by falling up to a job with fanatical Russophobe Senator John McCain. O’Bagy has also collaborated with the Atlantic Council’s Michael Weiss, which is further evidence of how tight-knit the world of US neoconservative advocacy really is.
Who pays for it? Predictably, Raytheon has opened its wallet. Meanwhile, other US military contractors like General Dynamics and DynCorp are also involved. L3, which provides services to the US Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and government intelligence agencies is another backer along with Vencore, CACI and Mantech.
Tehran has begun highlighting in loud decibel its hitherto-low key voice of disquiet that the United States is transferring the Islamic State* fighters from Syria and Iraq, where they have been defeated, to Afghanistan.
On January 30, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said: “The US goal of transferring the ISIL terrorists to Afghanistan is aimed at creating the justification for its continued deployment in the region and for buttressing the security of the Zionist regime.” Indeed, any statement at the level of the Supreme Leader invariably draws attention as signaling an authoritative policy directive based on careful decision taken in the light of relevant intelligence inputs.
The point is, three days before Khamenei spoke, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had an encounter with ISIS terrorists infiltrating Iran’s western province of Kermanshah from Iraq. By all accounts, it was a major encounter in which three IRGC personnel were killed, including an officer of the rank of major. According to the commander of the IRGC’s ground forces, Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, as many as sixteen ISIS terrorists were captured. Incidents of this nature are happening with increasing frequency along Iran’s borders and Iranian security agencies are busting large caches of explosives and arms smuggled across the border, but this is the first time such a big encounter took place.
Significantly, the senior foreign policy advisor to the parliament speaker, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, who is an influential voice in the Iranian diplomatic circuit, raised the issue of the US’ covert transfer of ISIS fighters to “northern Afghanistan” at a meeting with Jan Kubis, chairman of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq on January 28.
Kubis, a Slovak career diplomat, has previously served as UN special envoy to Tajikistan (during the transitional period following the civil war in the late 1990s), Secretary-General of the OSCE (1999-2005), EU’s special envoy to Central Asia (20015-2006) and, most recently, as UN Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (2011-2015). Abdollahian couldn’t have chosen better his interlocutor for making such a sensitive demarche. The message would have reached the intended quarters in no time.
Two days after that, Khamenei spoke. Given the above backdrop, it needs to be noted carefully that Iran has since listed the topic of US-ISIS nexus as a bilateral issue between Tehran and Kabul. On February 4, Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami made a phone call to his Afghan counterpart Tariq Shah Bahrami and warned that Washington is “implementing plots to transfer the ISIL terrorist group to Afghanistan.” General Hatami spoke on the lines of Khamenei’s remarks, and, importantly, warned against the US’ plans to increase its military deployment to Afghanistan. He underscored that security in Afghanistan is going to be possible only in harmony with the regional states and by pooling their resources to fight terrorism.
Gen. Hatami stopped just short of warning that Tehran may have to act to counter the perceived threat to its national security interests from Afghan soil. It is conceivable that his phone call to Kabul reflected the threat perceptions in Tehran following the interrogation of the 16 ISIS terrorists in the IRGC’s custody.
Iran has reason to feel perturbed that western Afghanistan is also witnessing a political vacuum lately similar to what has been happening in northern Afghanistan in the Amu Darya region during the past several weeks. The Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has destabilized the entire northern region bordering Central Asia by his abrupt dismissal of the governor of Balkh province, Atta Mohammad Noor in November. It is improbable that Ghani took such a precipitate step on his own volition. Atta is a powerful figure, popularly known as the ‘King of the North’. Noor, by the way, is also the head of the Jamiat-i-Islami and happens to be an aspirant to contest the presidential election in 2019.
No doubt, the US concurred with Noor’s removal – if not outright sought it. Curiously, the Trump administration has since voiced support for Ghani’s move. The US Vice-President Mike Pence made two phone calls to Ghani in January to express solidarity. On January 24, the White House took an extraordinary step to issue a statement that it “has been closely following the current dispute” and demanding a quick resolution to the Ghani-Noor standoff, virtually forewarning the latter to capitulate. But Noor hit back on February 3, naming the Kabul regime as puppets of the Americans and stoking the fires of Afghan nationalism.
Of course, the prolonged power vacuum in Balkh has created favorable conditions for the ISIS terrorists to establish presence in northern Afghanistan. Similarly, Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek strongman, who has been a bulwark against terrorist groups in the northern provinces, is on enforced exile in Turkey. The US, which controls Afghan air space, twice refused permission to his aircraft to land. (Interestingly, Turkish President Recep Erdogan since had a one-on-one with Dostum in Ankara.)
The heart of the matter is that a situation similar to Balkh is also on cards in the western province of Farah bordering Iran, where the provincial governor Mohammad Aref Shah Jahan abruptly “resigned” from the post ten days ago, citing as reasons “the worsening security situation in Farah” and “interference in my responsibilities from various individuals.” From all appearances, he decided to quit under duress. (In recent months, US made fresh deployments to Farah.)
What becomes an enigma wrapped in mystery is that Jahan, a Pashtun, and Noor (a Tajik) also happen to enjoy reputation as staunch Afghan nationalists. The conclusion becomes unavoidable that for reasons of its own, Washington desires ‘regime change’ in these two crucially important border provinces (Balkh and Farah), which border Central Asia and Iran respectively. Suffice to say, Tehran would wonder, “Who stands to gain?” Of course, it can only be the ISIS.
For a brief historical moment, Alexis Tsipras and his political party, Syriza, ignited hope that Greece could resurrect a long-dormant Leftist tide in Europe.
A new Greece was being born out of the pangs of pain of economic austerity, imposed by the European Union and its overpowering economic institutions – a troika so ruthless, it cared little while the Greek economy collapsed and millions of people experienced the bitterness of poverty, unemployment and despair.
The Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) came to power in January 2015 as a direct outcome of popular discontent with the EU. It was a time where ordinary people took a stance to fend for whatever semblance of sovereignty that was not wrestled away from them by politicians, bankers and powerful bureaucratic institutions.
The result, however, was quite disappointing. Tsipras, now a Prime Minister, transformed his political discourse, and gradually adopted one that that is more consistent with the very neoliberal policies that pushed his country to its knees in the first place.
Syriza sold out, not only politically and ideologically, but in an actual physical sense as well.
In exchange for bailout loans that Greece received from European banks within the period 2010 to 2015 (estimated at $262 billion), the country is being dismembered. Greece’s regional airports are now operated by German companies and the country’s main telecommunication firm has been privatized, with sizable shares of it owned by Deutsche Telekom.
“The only thing missing outside the office of Greece’s privatization agency is a sign that reads: ‘A Nation for Sale’,” wrote Greek political economist, C. J. Polychroniou.
Unsurprisingly, economic subservience is often a prelude to political bondage as well. Not only did Syriza betray the aspirations of the Greek people who voted against austerity and bailouts, it also betrayed the country’s long legacy of maintaining amicable relationships with its neighbours.
Since his arrival at the helm of Greek politics, Tsipras has moved his country further into the Israeli camp, forging unwise regional alliances aimed at exploiting new gas finds in the Mediterranean and participating in multiple Israeli-led military drills.
While Israel sees an opportunity to advance its political agenda in Greece’s economic woes, the Greek government is playing along without fully assessing the possible repercussions of engaging with a country that is regionally viewed as a pariah, while internationally becoming condemned for its military occupation and terrible human rights record.
Israel moved to pull Athens into its own camp in 2010, shortly after the Turkish-Israeli spat over the ‘Mavi Marmara’ attack ensued. Israeli commandos attacked the Turkish Gaza-bound boat, killing nine Turkish nationals and injuring many more.
Although Turkey and Israel have, since then, reached a diplomatic understanding, Tel Aviv has moved forward to create alternative allies among Balkan countries, exploiting historical conflicts between some of these countries and Turkey.
Bilateral agreements were signed, high diplomatic visits exchanged and military exercises conducted in the name of deterring ‘international Jihad’ and fighting terrorism.
Greece and Cyprus received greater Israeli attention since they, on the one hand, were seen as political counterweight to Turkey and, on the other, because of the great economic potential that they offered.
Just one month after the ‘Mavi Marmara’ attack, the then Greek Prime Minister, George Papandrous, visited Israel, followed by an official visit by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to Greece – the first of its kind. That was the start of a love-affair that is growing deeper.
The main motivation behind the closeness in relations is the Leviathan and Tamar gas fields, located in the territorial waters of several countries, including Lebanon. If Israel continues with its plans to extract gas from an energy source located off the coast of Lebanon, it will increase the chances of yet another regional war.
When Tsipras came to power on the shoulders of a populous political movement, Palestinians too hoped that he would be different.
It was not exactly wishful thinking, either. Syriza was openly critical of Israel and had “vowed to cut military ties with Israel upon coming to office,” wrote Patrick Strickland, reporting from Athens. Instead the “ties have, nonetheless, been deepened.”
Indeed, soon after taking power, the ‘radical left’-led Greek government signed a major military agreement with Israel, the ‘status of forces’ accord, followed by yet more military exercises.
All of this was reinforced by a propaganda campaign in Israel hailing the new alliance, coupled with a changing narrative in Greek media regarding Israel and Palestine.
One George N. Tzogopoulos has been particularity buoyant about the Israel-Greek friendship. Writing a series of articles in various media, including the rightwing Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, Tzogopoulos suggests that, unlike the older generation of Greeks who have sided with Palestinians in the past, the young generation is likely to be pro-Israel.
“This process (of converting Greeks to loving Israel) will take time, of course, because it is principally related to school education,” he wrote in Algemeiner. “But the change in coverage of Israel by Greek journalists is a good omen.”
That ‘change of coverage’ was also notable in the recent official visit by Israeli President, Reuven Rivlin, and his meeting with Tsipras and other Greek officials.
In the meetings, Rivlin complained of Palestinian obstinacy and refusal to return to the ‘peace process’, thus causing a ‘serious crisis.’
The ‘radical left’ leader said little to challenge Rivlin’s falsehoods.
Greece was not always this way, of course. Who could forget Andreas Papandreou, the late Greek leader who gave the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) diplomatic status in 1981, and stood by Palestinians despite American and Israeli threats?
It is that generation that Tzogopoulos and his likes would like to be gone forever, and replaced by morally-flexible leaders like Tsipras.
However, signing off to join an Israel-led economic and military alliance in an area replete with conflict, is a terribly irresponsible move, even for politically inexperienced and opportunistic politicians.
For Greece to be the “strong arm of imperialism in the region” – as described by the leader of the Socialist Workers Revolutionary Party in Greece – is “completely stupid” as it will, in the long run, bring “catastrophic results for (the) Greek people.”
But Tsipras seems incapable of looking that far ahead.
15 years ago today, Colin Powell delivered his infamous speech at the U.N., the speech which cemented the support of the U.S. political and media establishments for the invasion of Iraq, under the pretext of “weapons of mass destruction”. This blog came into existence in August, 2003, a few months later, as one of the very first (if not the first) radical left blogs on the internet (there were a few leftish progressive Democrat blogs at the time, that was about it). Here are some of the posts from that time (and later) which talk about Powell’s speech:
Here’s a letter to the editor I wrote, before the blog started, but after Powell’s speech. I had no special knowledge with which to analyze his speech, just the ability to listen, read, and analyze what was being said, rather than simply accept it at face value. That, unfortunately, was more than the editors of the New York Times, Washington Post, and almost all Democrats and Republicans were capable of.
Here’s an article I wrote many years later, when people started asking George Bush and other politicians, “If you knew then what you know now…”. That question was a distraction, an excuse, because, as I show in the article, there was plenty known then (more than I had known when I had written that letter to the editor), way more than enough to say that “WMD” was just an excuse to carry out yet another U.S. war of regime change.
And this article talks about a subject which I was practically the only one to ever write about — the fate of Iraqi General Amer al-Saadi, the Iraqi liaison to the weapons inspectors and the man who spoke the truth to Powell’s lies. “‘I have always told the truth about these old programs,’ Saddam Hussein’s top scientific adviser said in an interview with German TV last April [2003]. ‘The future will show it.'” As I wrote in that article, “History has proven that every word al-Saadi spoke was true, and every accusation made by Colin Powell (‘We know that Iraq has at least seven of these mobile biological agent factories…There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more… Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons.’) was false.” Remarkably, the fate of General al-Saadi, who was imprisoned after the war, remains unknown, while the fate of Colin Powell remains all too well-known.
That memo worked up in the Intel Committee of Chairman Devin Nunes may not have sunk the Mueller investigation, but from the sound of the secondary explosions, this torpedo was no dud.
The critical charge:
To persuade a FISA court to issue a warrant to spy on Trump aide Carter Page, the FBI relied on a dossier produced by a Trump-hating British spy, who was using old Kremlin contacts, while being paid to dig up dirt on Donald Trump by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Not only were the Clinton campaign and DNC paying the spy, Christopher Steele, for his dirt-diving, the FBI put Steele on its own payroll, until they caught him lying about leaking to the media.
In their requests for search warrants, the FBI never told the FISA court judge their primary source was a 35-page dossier delivered by Steele that their own Director James Comey described as “salacious and unverified.”
From the Nunes memo, there was, at the highest level of the FBI, a cabal determined to derail Trump and elect Clinton. Heading the cabal was Comey, who made the call to exonerate Hillary of criminal charges for imperiling national security secrets, even before his own FBI investigation was concluded.
Assisting Comey was Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whose wife, running for a Virginia state senate seat, received a windfall of $467,000 in contributions from Clinton bundler Terry McAuliffe.
Last week, McCabe was discharged from the FBI. Seems that in late September 2016, he learned from his New York field office that it was sitting on a trove of emails between Anthony Weiner and his wife, Clinton aide Huma Abedin, which potentially contained security secrets.
Not until late October did Comey inform Congress of what deputy McCabe had known a month earlier.
Other FBI plotters were Peter Strzok, chief investigator in both the Clinton email server scandal and Russiagate, and his FBI girlfriend, Lisa Page. Both were ousted from the Mueller investigation when their anti-Trump bias and behavior were exposed last summer.
Filling out the starting five was Bruce Ohr, associate deputy attorney general under Loretta Lynch. In 2016, Ohr’s wife was working for Fusion GPS, the oppo research arm of the Clinton campaign, and Bruce was in direct contact with Steele.
Now virtually all of this went down before Robert Mueller was named special counsel. But the poisoned roots of the Russiagate investigation and the bristling hostility of the investigators to Trump must cast a cloud of suspicion over whatever charges Mueller will bring.
Now another head may be about to fall, that of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
If Mueller has given up trying to prove Trump collusion with the Kremlin and moved on to obstruction of justice charges, Rosenstein moves into the crosshairs.
For the heart of any obstruction scenario is Trump’s firing of James Comey and his boasting about why he did it.
But not only did Rosenstein discuss with Trump the firing of Comey, he went back to Justice to produce the document to justify what the president had decided to do.
How can Rosenstein oversee Mueller’s investigation into the firing of James Comey when he was a witness to and a participant in the firing of James Comey?
The Roman poet Juvenal’s question comes to mind. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will watch the watchmen?
Consider where we are. Mueller is investigating alleged Trump collusion with Russia, and the White House is all lawyered up.
The House intel committee is investigating Clinton-FBI collusion to defeat Trump and break his presidency. FBI Inspector General Michael Horowitz is looking into whether the fix was in to give Hillary a pass in the probe of her email server.
Comey has been fired, his deputy McCabe removed, his chief investigator Strzok ousted by Mueller for bigoted anti-Trump behavior, alongside his FBI paramour, Page. Bruce Ohr has been demoted for colluding with Steele, who was caught lying to the FBI and fired, and for his wife’s role in Fusion GPS, which was being paid to dig up dirt on Trump for Clinton’s campaign.
If Americans are losing confidence in the FBI, whose fault is that? Is there not evidence that a hubristic cadre at the apex of the FBI — Comey, McCabe, Strzok foremost among them — decided the Republic must be saved from Trump and, should Hillary fail, they would step in and move to abort the Trump presidency at birth?
To the deep state, the higher interests of the American people almost always coincide with their own.
The release of the House Intelligence Committee’s memo on the FBI’s abuse of the FISA process set off a partisan firestorm. The Democrats warned us beforehand that declassifying the memo would be the end the world as we know it. It was reckless to allow Americans to see this classified material, they said. Agents in the field could be harmed, sources and methods would be compromised, they claimed.
Republicans who had seen the memo claimed that it was far worse than Watergate. They said that mass firings would begin immediately after it became public. They said that the criminality of US government agencies exposed by the memo would shock Americans.
Then it was released and the world did not end. FBI agents have thus far not been fired. Seeing “classified” material did not terrify us, but rather it demonstrated clearly that information is kept from us by claiming it is “classified.”
In the end, both sides got it wrong. Here’s what the memo really shows us:
First, the memo demonstrates that there is a “deep state” that does not want things like elections to threaten its existence. Candidate Trump’s repeated promises to get along with Russia and to re-assess NATO so many years after the end of the Cold War were threatening to a Washington that depends on creating enemies to sustain the fear needed to justify a trillion dollar yearly military budget.
Imagine if candidate Trump had kept his campaign promises when he became President. Without the “Russia threat” and without the “China threat” and without the need to dump billions into NATO, we might actually have reaped a “peace dividend” more than a quarter century after the end of the Cold War. That would have starved the war-promoting military-industrial complex and its network of pro-war “think tanks” that populate the Washington Beltway area.
Second, the memo shows us that neither Republicans nor Democrats really care that much about surveillance abuse when average Americans are the victims. It is clear that the FISA abuse detailed in the memo was well known to Republicans like House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes before the memo was actually released. It was likely also well known by Democrats in the House. But both parties suppressed this evidence of FBI abuse of the FISA process until after the FISA Amendments Act could be re-authorized. They didn’t want Americans to know how corrupt the surveillance system really is and how the US has become far too much like East Germany. That might cause more Americans to call up their Representatives and demand that the FISA mass surveillance amendment be allowed to sunset.
Ironically, Chairman Nunes was the biggest cheerleader for the extension of the FISA Amendments even as he knew how terribly the FISA process had been abused!
Finally, hawks on both sides of the aisle in Congress used “Russia-gate” as an excuse to build animosity toward Russia among average Americans. They knew from the classified information that there was no basis for their claims that the Trump Administration was put into office with Moscow’s assistance, but they played along because it served their real goal of keeping the US on war footing and keeping the gravy train rolling.
But don’t worry: the neocons in both parties will soon find another excuse to keep us terrified and ready to flush away a trillion dollars a year on military spending and continue our arguments and new “Cold War” with Russia.
In the meantime, be skeptical of both parties. With few exceptions they are not protecting liberty but promoting its opposite.
Mike Papantonio and Author Carey Gillam discuss her new book which reveals how Monsanto viciously worked to cover-up the fact that their weed-killer could cause cancer.
If the Russiagate conspiracy against Trump and American democracy goes unpunished, accountable government in the United States will cease to exist. US security agencies have long been involved in coups against foreign governments. Now they are involved in one against America. There is great danger that Republicans are so worshipful of “national security” and so determined to protect the reputation of the US government that they will give a pass to the high officials who participated in a conspiracy against the United States. As for President Trump, he lacks a government that he can count on and is threatened by the military/security complex. The conspiracy could easily be whitewashed as merely a case of the FBI and DOJ not following proper procedures, with the media’s participation in the conspiracy being dismissed with mea culpas of “sloppy reporting.” – PCR
Will The Conspiracy Against Trump and American Democracy Go Unpunished?
“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.” – Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
The American people do not realize the seriousness of the Russiagate conspiracy against them and President Trump. Polls indicate that a large majority of the public do not believe that Trump conspired with Putin to steal the presidential election, and are tired of hearing the media prostitutes repeat the absurd story day after day. On its face the story makes no sense whatsoever. Moreover, the leaked emails are real, not fabricated. The emails show exactly what Hillary and the DNC did. The public knows that these transgressions were pushed out of news sight by the false story of a Trump/Putin conspiracy. The fact that the entirety of the US print and TV media served in a highly partisan political way to bury a true and disturbing story with a fake news story—Russiagate—is one reason some polls show that only 6% of Americans trust the mainstream media. All polls show that large majorities of independents, Republicans, and youth distrust the mainstream media. In some polls about half of Democrats trust the media, and that is because the media is servant to Democratic Party interests.
Russiagate is a dagger aimed at the heart of American governmental institutions. A conspiracy involving top officials of the Obama Department of Justice, FBI, and other “security” agencies was formed together with Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, the purpose of which was to defeat Trump in the presidential election and, failing that, to remove Trump from office or to discredit him to the point that he would be reduced to a mere figurehead. This conspiracy has the full backing of the entirety of the mainstream media.
In other words, it was a coup not only against Donald Trump but also against American democracy and the outcome of a presidential election.
All of this information has been posted on my website for some time. If you have difficulty following my explanation, former US Attorney Joe DiGenova explains the felony actions by the FBI and Obama Justice (sic) Department here.
Briefly, the National Security Agency discovered that the FBI and DOJ were abusing the surveillance system. As a favor of one security agency to another, NSA Director Adm. Rogers permitted the FBI and DOJ to rush to the FISA Court and confess their transgressions before the NSA informed the Court. The FBI and DOJ pretended that their deception of the Court in order to obtain surveillance warrants for highly partisan political purposes was not due to their intent but to procedural mistakes. The FBI and DOJ told the Court that they were tightening up procedures so that this would not happen again. The FISA Court Memorandum and Order clearly states:
“On October 24, 2016, the government orally apprised the Court of significant non-compliance with the NSA’s minimization procedures involving queries of data acquired under Section 702 using U.S. person identifiers. The full scope of non-compliant querying practices had not been previously disclosed to the Court.”
The FISA Court Memorandum and Order is about resolving these deficiencies and returning the FBI and DOJ to legal practices. For example, the Court Memorandum and Order says:
“On January 3, 2017, the government made a further submission describing its efforts to ascertain the scope and causes of those compliance problems and discussing potential solutions to them. See January 3, 2017, Supplemental Notice of Compliance Incidents Regarding the Querying of Section 701-Acquired Data (“January 3, 2017 Notice”). The Court was not satisfied that the government had sufficiently ascertained the scope of the compliance problems or developed and implemented adequate solutions for them and communicated a number of questions and concerns to the government.”
In other words, the FBI and DOJ were attempting to make corrections to their “compliance problems” in ways that would allow them to continue to mislead the FISA Court, and the Court wasn’t letting them.
The FISA Court Memorandum and Order was released prior to the House Intelligence Committee report and has been completely ignored by the utterly corrupt press prostitutes. The FISA Court Memorandum and Order, relying on the confessions of the FBI and DOJ, verifies the House Intelligence Committee report that the FBI and DOJ illegally obtained spy warrants for partisan political purposes.
Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat who is a disgrace to the voters of his California district, to the Democratic Party, and to the House of Representatives, knows full well that the FBI and DOJ deceived the FISA Court. Schiff is so partisan that he lies to the hilt in the face of hard documented evidence from both the FISA Court and his own House committee. Schiff is so totally devoid of all honesty and integrity that he is the perfect leader for a shithole country, something that he and his ilk are turning the United States into.
The honest left—not the Identity Politics left, which is a collection of deranged idiots—does not believe a word of the concocted Russiagate conspiracy against Trump. They object to the Russiagate conspiracy not because they like Trump, which they most certainly do not, but because they understand that it is a lie directed against truth. They understand that the American mainstream media has deserted factual, truthful reporting and serves as a propaganda ministry for the war/police state that American is becoming.
Andre Damon writes on the World Socialist Web Site : “The Democratic Party was thrown into disarray Friday after the publication of a classified memo exposing as a factionally-motivated witch hunt the investigation by leading intelligence agencies into the Trump administration’s alleged collusion with Russia. . . . The release of the memo once again underscores the fact that the US intelligence agencies have massively intervened in US politics.” http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/03/nune-f03.html
The real left, as opposed to the fake left, understands that the people have no chance when the highest officials of the Department of Justice and the security agencies join in a conspiracy against a democratic outcome. When the justice and police authorities have no respect for the truth, as the Russiagate conspiracy proves, the people are doomed. If the FBI-DOJ-DNC-presstitute conspiracy goes unpunished, The Lie will have prevailed over The Truth and all of us will be endangered.
The important question before us is: will the treasonous criminals in the FBI, DOJ, and DNC be indicted and held responsible? Or do high government officials get a pass as do the police who rob and murder citizens and never face justice for their crimes?
From the sound of things, it looks like they will get a pass. Rep. Nunes felt compelled to say on TV how much he likes Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is a party to the deception of the FISA Court. President Trump says he will not fire the conspirator against him, Robert Mueller, even though both Trump and Mueller know that the Russiagate investigation headed by Mueller is a concocted conspiracy against American democracy and the President of the United States. It seems that high government officials, like state and local police and executives of “banks too big to fail,” are above the law.
What about the FISA Court, readers ask, why did the FISA Court let the FBI and DOJ get away with their illegal acquisition of spy warrants? Once the Court knew about it, the Court did not let them get away with it, as the Memorandum and Order makes clear. The FISA Court does not have prosecutorial power to indict and bring a case against the FBI and DOJ criminals. That has to be done by the DOJ, and the DOJ is not going to indict itself.
Former US Attorney Joe DiGenova believes that continuing investigations will result in high officials being indicted, convicted, and sent to prison. If the US is to have any future as a country in which government is accountable to law, it is essential that DiGenova be correct. However, I will believe it when I see it.
A new documentary, based on an interview with a self-confessed member of the Glennane Gang, gives some insights into allegations that British military intelligence was behind a shocking murder plot to cause the situation in Northern Ireland to “spiral out of control”.
In a documentary, Unquiet Graves: The Story of the Glennane Gang, John Weir, a former officer from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), alleges that British intelligence tried to persuade paramilitary group Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) to attack a Catholic primary school at Belleeks in County Armagh.
Weir claimed that the UVF was urged to kill children and teachers in retaliation for the 1976 Kingsmill massacre, in which gunmen stopped a minibus carrying twelve workmen and shot them; only one person survived despite having been shot 18 times.
“The plan that was decided on was to shoot up a school in Belleeks”, he said, adding that the British intelligence plot was to make the situation in Northern Ireland “spiral out of control”. … continue
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
Aletho News
