The Clinton Foundation contributed to the February coup in Ukraine, having longstanding ties to Ukrainian oligarchs who pushed the country to European integration.

Jeremy Corbyn has the Establishment on both sides of the Atlantic shaking in their boots. Representing a breath of fresh air, promising change and hope, the new leader of Britain’s Labour Party also represents a stand against austerity and a sensible economic policy which aims to stimulate the economy instead of stifling it.

The first act by Jeremy Corbyn after being elected on Saturday September 12 as Leader of Britain’s Labour Party (winning in the first round with almost 60 per cent of first-preference votes) was to send an e-mail to all Labour Party members and supporters promising to include them and their wishes in his policy-making process, asking them to forward questions to place to the Prime Minister, David Cameron, at Prime Minister’s Questions next Wednesday.

For Jeremy Corbyn, being Labour leader is about the opportunity to serve and to create viable public services. Indeed, his record presses all the right buttons for the socially leaning members of the public. And those who understand the first thing about economics.

Policy issues and some predictions

Let us take a look at the policies Jeremy Corbyn has supported and this will explain why he will cause concern and will be demonized by the media who will classify him as a dangerous radical who is unelectable and unstatesmanlike. The reason why, as we shall see, is that his policies go against the grain of government by proxy for the lobbies to which politicians today are connected and which place them in office or else close ranks around them when they are elected.

For a start, Jeremy Corbyn questions the pan-national weapons lobby called NATO, whose collective member states’ budget is a staggering one point two thousand billion USD each and every year – four times the amount it would cost to eradicate poverty, worldwide, forever. How Constitutional is it for any of the countries to have their foreign policy dictated by such a lobby? Predictably, the national security button will be pressed as enemies and dark forces are invented to justify NATO’s existence and new members are sought to bolster its budget and cater for the lobbies for which NATO is the cutting edge. Dictatorship of the Lobbies through the manipulation of fear.

Jeremy Corbyn opposed the war in Afghanistan (a foreign policy catastrophe in which the Taliban are paid not to attack), opposed the war in Iraq (another disaster which totally destabilized a sovereign state, murdered a million people and saw the creation of Islamic State), he opposed the war in Libya (another huge mistake) and opposes war in Syria. He is also Vice-Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a member of Amnesty International.

He was a campaigner against apartheid, worked to free the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six, people wrongly convicted as IRA bombers. Needless to say, the media will have a heyday over this but then again, what is wrong with working to free people who have been wrongly convicted?

Jeremy Corbyn understands that austerity shrinks the economy, destroying jobs, taking away workers’ rights gained over the last century and favors an approach which combats tax evasion, bringing more money into the treasury. In fact, his policies would bring in an extra 100 billion pounds in the short term. He plans a public investment scheme to create housing and plans to take rail franchises back into the public sector and supports renationalizing the energy sector. Strongly opposed to tuition fees, Jeremy Corbyn wants to create a National Education Service. A service, not a business.

On foreign policy, he rightly saw that the Ukraine crisis was caused by NATO’s attempt to expand eastwards. As regards Israel, he realizes that no progress is going to be made until talks are held between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah and he opposed sanctions against Iran.

Who is Jeremy Corbyn?

Born in 1949, he began his working career in the National Union of Public Employees, becoming an organizer for the Union. From here he went on to the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers, was a member of a District Health Authority and was elected to Harringay Council, which he represented from 1974 to 1983 and was Secretary of the Islington Borough Labour Group.

He was elected as a Member of Parliament for Islington North in 1983 and has since been re-elected seven times. The Member of Parliament who claims the least expenses, he has served on the London Regional Select Committee, the Social Security Select Committee and the Justice Select Committee; he is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Chagos Islands, on Mexico and Vice-Chair of the Group on Latin America and on Human Rights; he is member of the Groups on Bolivia, Britain-Palestine, Great Lakes and the International Parliamentary Union, among others. He is a vegetarian, an animal rights campaigner and supports the LGBT community.

For those who wish to see a health service run by a fascination with the bottom line, in which the haves get treated and the have-nots get second class treatment, for those who wish to see the education sector turned into a business in which you get a degree if you can pay and if you cannot, then you don’t get a chance, for those who wish to see train services cancelled, energy bills skyrocketing, for those who wish to be afraid to step outside the home after six o’clock, Jeremy Corbyn is a direct threat.

The question is, is Britain ready for Jeremy Corbyn?

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey has worked as a correspondent, journalist, deputy editor, editor, chief editor, director, project manager, executive director, partner and owner of printed and online daily, weekly, monthly and yearly publications, TV stations and media groups printed, aired and distributed in Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, Mozambique and São Tomé and Principe Isles; the Russian Foreign Ministry publication Dialog and the Cuban Foreign Ministry Official Publications. ([email protected])

On September 11, a publication called Russian Spring reported US unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attacks on Syrian military positions – “disguised as an airstrike on ISIS.”

Syrian journalists learned details of what’s happening. Numerous civilians were killed. According to Syrian military sources, covert US drone strikes against its forces and positions happened before, part of Washington’s phony war on ISIS.

On September 1, the Washington Post headlined “US launches secret drone campaign to hunt Islamic State leaders in Syria,” saying:

CIA and US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) operatives “are flying drones over Syria” – conducting targeted air strikes. WaPo lied claiming it’s against “senior Islamic State operatives,” citing official US sources.

Obama’s stepped up bombing complicit with Britain, France, Canada, Australia and Israel heads thing closer to full-scale naked aggression – to destroy Syrian sovereignty, eliminate an Israeli rival, and isolate Iran ahead of perhaps inventing a pretext to attack the Islamic Republic.

War plans were made years ago, updated as needed. The Iran nuclear deal did nothing to change longstanding US hostility toward Tehran.

Regime change remains official US policy – wanting Iranian sovereign independence destroyed like what’s ongoing in Syria. Maybe Washington has an Islamic State invasion in mind, perhaps aided by US air power.

America targets all independent government worldwide for regime change – wanting subservient US-controlled vassal states replacing them, a nightmarish scenario for endless conflicts, mass slaughter and destruction and possible nuclear war threatening everyone, everywhere if launched.

Previous articles explained Washington uses ISIS terrorists as US proxy foot soldiers. Obama’s Iraq and Syria bombing campaigns support them, targeting infrastructure, and apparently Syrian military positions.

In September 2014, Sergey Lavrov said if US and other Western forces bomb Syria, “(t)here are reasons to suspect (the campaign may attack) government troops…on the quiet to weaken the positions of Bashar Assad’s army.”

He commented shortly after Obama announced US plans to allegedly bomb ISIS in Syria – a ruse, part of Washington’s plan to oust Assad.

On September 13, on Russia’s Channel 1 Sunday Times program, Lavrov said “Russia has information that the US knows the position of the IS, but does not bomb them.”

Its actions don’t reflect its publicly stated objective. “Analyzing (them), one cannot but suspect…ulterior motives beyond the stated goal of fighting the Islamic State,” said Lavrov.

“Some our colleagues among the coalition members told us they sometimes knew where certain ISIL regiments were stationed but the coalition’s command – which is, obviously, the US – did not give them the permission for an airstrike.” Washington “conspired towards goals that were not declared ones.”

Its war on Syrian sovereignty continues despite Western nations saying “they clearly understand (ISIS) is the main threat in the Middle East and North Africa,” not Assad.

If everyone realizes that, but many whisper it, fearing to say it out loud, it is necessary to implement that in action.

Lavrov explained Russia will continue fulfilling its contractual obligations to Syria – supplying arms, munitions and training, as well as humanitarian aid. “These are no mysteries or secrets,” he explained. “Our military-technical cooperation seeks to” defeat ISIS.

Washington uses mercenary terrorists and its military might to advance its imperium – by crushing fundamental freedoms wherever they exist, including at home, complicit with rogue partners.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PMCentral time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

In Beijing, on September 3^rd 2015, and on the occasion of the great Chinese victory parade commemorating the defeat of the forces of Japanese fascism and imperialism in 1945, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech in which he stated some heartfelt truths learned in the crucible of that war.

To an audience that included leaders from all over the world except the NATO war alliance, and with Russian President Putin nearby, he stated,

The experience of war makes people value peace all the more. The aim of our commemoration of the 70^th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War is to bear history in mind, honour all those who laid down their lives, cherish peace and open up the future.

He continued,

War is like a mirror. Looking at it helps us better appreciate the value of peace. …. War is the Damocles sword that hangs over mankind. We must learn the lessons of history and dedicate ourselves to peace.

And,

All countries should jointly uphold the international order and system underpinned by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, build a new type of international relations featuring win-win cooperation and advance the noble cause of global peace and development.

In the interest of peace China will remain committed to peaceful development. We Chinese love peace. No matter how strong it may become, China will never seek hegemony or expansion. It will never inflict its past suffering on any other nation. The Chinese people are resolved to pursue friendly relations with all other countries.

And,

The People’s Liberation Army of China is the people’s army. All its officers and men and women must bear in mind their responsibility of serving the people whole-heartedly, faithfully fulfil their sacred duty of protecting the nation’s security and carry out the noble mission of upholding the world peace. Here, I announce that China will cut the number of its troops by 300,000.

He then joined his guests to review the military parade that showed the world that China was no one’s colony, not British, nor French, nor German nor Japanese and never would be again. The display of troops and military hardware was a declaration that China can well defend itself if attacked so that those who choose war over peace can bring only their own destruction. The announcement of a cut in the number of its troops by 13% was a declaration of confidence in its technical abilities, and at the same time a challenge to the NATO war alliance that calls continuously for the enlargement of its forces which have Russia and China as their primary strategic targets.

But the NATO governments, who in May insulted the Russians by refusing to attend the Moscow Victory Parade, also boycotted this one, aside from the Czech president who continues to show that he has not learned how to make his spine as flexible as the rest of that gang of mediocrities. Surprisingly, perhaps, even the president of South Korea attended though she faced pressure from the Americans not to but had the courage to ignore them.

The NATO leaders refused to attend because they regret and tremble at the resurgence of China, cry endless tears for their loss of control over it, cannot tolerate the success of the Communist Party in bringing the mass of the people of China to such a high level of development, independence and sovereignty and, ultimately, see it as an enemy.

As Chinese, Russian, Cuban, Belarusian, Serbian, Egyptian, Mexican, Pakistani and other military contingents marched in solidarity with the People’s Liberation Army to commemorate the victory over the fascists of World War II the NATO war alliance continued to encourage, support and arm its fascist allies and puppets in Ukraine. Xi Xinping described the Second World War as the World Anti-Fascist War, and, “a decisive battle between justice and evil, between light and darkness, and between progress and reaction.”

There were other contradictions to be noted. The Chinese call for support of the United Nations Charter was underlined by the attendance of Ban Ki Moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations, but simultaneously undermined by the insulting presence of Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroeder both of whom, as the leaders of Britain and Germany, ordered their national military forces to attack socialist Yugoslavia in 1999 in violation of international law and the United Nations Charter and ordered those forces to commit war crimes and so are themselves war criminals who should be in a criminal dock instead of in the audience of an anti-fascist military parade. But the modern world is made of such dark ironies.

The reactionary forces in the west immediately ignored the Chinese declaration of peace and twisted the parade into a threat of Chinese military power, as a China “flexing its muscles” and as an attempt to distract its people from economic problems and “rising social tensions” reasons never given for American displays of military power. The western news services made a point of mentioning the presence of Chinese ships in the Bering Sea, territorial disputes with Japan, and the size of the Chinese forces, all meant to portray China as an aggressor instead of a nation seeking to maintain the peace and trying to avoid the aggression of the imperialist powers from Japan in the 30’s and 40’s to the United States and its puppets since.

Meanwhile the largest naval drills ever conducted by NATO, code named Operation Sea Breeze, continued in the Black Sea, practicing air defence, anti-submarine, logistical and damage control tests along with landing craft exercises. These exercises began just after US airborne forces including the 82nd Airborne completed large scale airborne exercises in Operation Swift Response that were conducted in Germany, Italy, Romania and Bulgaria.

The exercises were claimed to be defensive in nature but the fact is that airborne troops are used only in offensive operations and surprise attacks. The two drills seen together would indicate that the fascist junta in Kiev and its NATO allies are planning a pincer operation involving a major land attack on the Donbas and Luhansk regions to try to reach the Russian border or cut the south of the region away from the rest to make it economically unviable. The airborne forces could be used for quick drops of large forces of men onto key positions behind the front lines and the naval units would land forces from the sea protected by the anti-submarine, anti-ship and antiaircraft ships they have been practicing with.

As the Chinese President calls for peace and as the Russian president calls for a return to international law and dialogue instead of the use of threats and force the United States prepares the ground of Europe for war and for a direct confrontation with Russia. Every one of the NATO governments and all the major political parties in their bankrupt political, social and economic system, which have absorbed the miasma of hypocrisy and amorality into their very lifeblood, support this conspiracy to commit aggression, and are complicit in creating the conditions that will produce a catastrophe.

But they only seem to care about their catastrophes when it damages their immediate interests as we see with the refugee crisis sweeping across southern and central Europe and the Mediterranean, a predicted result of their aggression against and destruction of Iraq, Libya and Syria, but a result they do not want nor know to respond to. They claimed to act for reasons of humanity or the greater good when they attacked those countries but all they did was to destroy everything that we can call civilization. Now the people they attacked seek desperate haven among those who wanted to destroy them, and who now express surprise that their victims beg them for deliverance.

I have no answer to these contradictions but President Xi Jinping said something that bears repeating. Some may think it naïve, since the leaders of NATO seem only to respect power and force, but I can’t see any other way forward. He said,

“In the interest of peace, we need to foster a keen sense of a global community of a shared future. Prejudice, discrimination, hatred and war can only cause disaster and suffering, while mutual respect, equality, peaceful development and common prosperity represent the right path to take.”

But let me conclude this with his final words since they can’t be bettered;

“Let us bear in mind the great truth of history:

“Justice will prevail!

“Peace will prevail!

“The people will prevail!”

To that I can only add a nod of the head, my raised fist and a

“Right on, brother.”

(Please read Part I before this article in order to acquire the proper background context as pertaining to the forums and summits)

The Southern Shift

This is the future economic phase which Russia is currently preparing for, and it’s essentially the full activation of the multipolar network-centric policy that’s been steadily advanced through the Eurasian Union supranational mechanism. The general idea is for Russia to shift its economic focus southwards after successfully balancing its Eastern and Western partnerships, and all told, this involves three specific economic spaces: the Mideast, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Real-sector economic connectivity with them necessitates the creation of three separate longitudinal trade corridors perpendicular to (and at key points, intersecting with) the Silk Road’s latitudinal routes. Russia’s initiatives don’t have the depth of historical legacy that China’s do, but nonetheless, they’re just as every bit strategically innovative and geopolitically impactful:

Levantine Line:

The Western-most of Russia’s three Southern-directed trade routes is anticipated to run along the length of the Eastern Mediterranean, specifically connecting to the Turkish, Syrian, and Egyptian economies. These three governments are all Russian partners, albeit to differing degrees and in varying spheres, with Syria representing the epitome of full-spectrum strategic relations. The backbone of this corridor lies in Russia’s Black Sea-based merchant trading fleet, which is expected to experience a patriotic revival after the Crimean reunification. Accordingly, they’ll serve as the key interconnectors facilitating real-sector trade with each of these three states, with the resultant economic spillover likely leading to enhanced economic relations with Lebanon and Israel as well.

Given the three Levantine states’ coastal positioning (Syria, Lebanon, Israel), they could also act as multidirectional economic gateways for trade into the Arabian interior, specifically with close-to-landlocked Jordan and Iraq. This aforementioned concept as regards the latter state was the key idea behind the Iran-Iraq-Syria Friendship Pipeline that was supposed to ship gas from the Persian Gulf to the EU marketplace, but was tragically upended by the jealous Gulf States and their American patrons through the ongoing War on Syria. Appertaining to the Arabian hegemon, Saudi Arabia, which Russia has been rapidly moving closer to, trade could be facilitated via the two Suez Canals in Egypt, thus making the North African state and its leader the literal middleman in Russian-Saudi relations.

North-South Corridor:

The aptly named North-South Corridor is a major transit pathway already under development between Russia, Iran, and India. The general idea is to link India’s port cities with Iran’s Bandar Abbas and thenceforth overland to the Caspian and on to Russia’s Astrakhan. While that’s the official route currently being spearheaded, there are two other alternatives that could be unveiled as well. One of them is the creation of a rail route through Azerbaijanand directly into Russia, which would eliminate the roundabout Caspian vector, thereby saving not only in terms of distance, but also in the time and resources that would have to be expended in onloading and offloading products before and after their Caspian voyage.

The second possibility is for Bandar Abbas-imported goods to link with the trans-Caspian railroadrecently inaugurated between Iran, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. This would in turn connect directly with Russia, although it, too, is somewhat of a roundabout way of sending Indian goods to Russia. However, all three of these proposals are mutually compatible and can exist independently of or alongside one another, meaning that in all likelihood, at least one of these three spokes will eventually be up and running, if not all of them with time. Also, the creation of Russian logistics networks through Iran could also open up the opportunity for trade with the Persian Gulf countries (the Saudi satellites). It must be underscored, however, that all of this is dependent on the continuation of political goodwill between Russia and Iran, which despite having much going for it, could also be drastically derailed as a result of American geopolitical intrigue.

Asian Sea Arc:

The final avenue of North-South trade that Russia is eager to initiate involves linking Vladivostok with the ASEAN trade bloc, leveraging Vietnam and the country’s free trade agreement with the Eurasian Union as its entry anchor to the region. This route earns its name because it arcs across the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea, and its viability is directly dependent on the success of Russia’s Pivot to Asia and the fulfillment of its Far East development plans. As was mentioned, Vietnam is the anchor country connecting Russia to ASEAN, but it is by no means the Eurasian state’s only partner in the region. Russia can utilize its relationship with Vietnam to enable accelerated trade and investment with Laos, keenly taking advantage of a legal economic loophole to gain de-facto free trade privileges with it until the signing of a formal agreement. This small but mineral-rich country is also important from a strategic standpoint, as it directly abuts all the other mainland ASEAN states and can thus act as a logistics hub for managing trade with all of them (and between Russian companies within them and China via the planned high-speed railroad through the country).

The India-Myanmar-Thailand (IMT) trilateral highway, which entails linking India to Myanmar and then further to Southeast Asia, has been taken up as priority by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Other than Vietnam, Russia also has another direct partner within the Asian Sea Arc that functions somewhat similarly to Vietnam, and this state is Thailand. Russia earlier indicated that it expects Thailand to apply for a free trade agreement with the Eurasian Union by year’s end, and if implemented, then this would give an added boost to Moscow’s Pivot to Asia and help lay the framework for a pan-ASEAN free trade agreement sometime in the future (or at least a precursor one with its mainland members). Concerning Thailand’s regional connectivity opportunities, the country is the end destination of India’s planned ASEAN highway that’s supposed to open up in November. Provided that Myanmar doesn’t degenerate back into all-out civil war, then this corridor would be instrumental in transporting its natural riches and cheap labor-produced goods to Thailand, where they could then be shipped straight to Vladivostok and onwards via the Trans-Siberian Railroad to the rest of Russia. The reader should be reminded ofjust how close Russia plans to become with Myanmar, since not only did the two sides sign an agreement on nuclear energy at SPIEF, but the Southeast Asian state’s vice-president was a keynote plenary speaker alongside President Putin himself at the event.

In terms of the larger picture, Russia is thus trying to accelerate its economic ties with the mainland members of ASEAN, hoping to then use them as a springboard for entering the much larger Indonesian market. Likewise, this policy is also applicable to the other insular states of Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines as well, where Russia barely has any economic ties. This could obviously change, however, if Russian companies based in Vietnam and Thailand, for example, take the initiative in conducting various forms of economic outreach with the aforementioned island states, which would then lay the foundation for a more robust relationship sometime in the future. In order to reach the institutional apex of Russian-ASEAN trade, a free trade agreement must be enacted between them, and the odds of this occurring greatly increase with the state-to-state free trade agreements that Russian signs (right now with Vietnam, and perhaps in the future with Thailand, Laos, and even Myanmar). One strategy could be to clinch such deals with all of the mainland members first, and then have them lobby their island counterparts so that the whole of them could enter into a free trade deal with the Eurasian Union a unified ASEAN banner.

Beyond Eurasia

Russia’s economic plans are indeed global, and they thus entail an African and Latin American component, although neither of these is obviously equal in priority or immediate potential like the southern Eurasian routes are. Nonetheless, they present some interesting possibilities to ponder over and provide some indication as to what observers can monitor in gauging future progress in these exciting directions.

Africa:

Russia presently has three opportunities for facilitating non-resource-related trade with Africa, with the first one being an expansion of the Levantine Line through the Suez Canals and directed towards the west coast of the Red Sea, namely Djibouti (and tangentially, Ethiopia). It is here where Russia holds the greatest potential to commence real-sector trading with the continent, as it’s not only geographically convenient, but in political terms, China’s close relations with both Djibouti andEthiopia (the latter a former Soviet ally and the third-fastest growing economy in the world) are also useful. Logistically speaking, it also helps that China has just built a railroad between the port of Djibouti and the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, meaning that Russia could obviously utilize this ‘African Silk Road’ to enhance its own economic relations with the region and add strategic depth to its non-Western economic diversification project.

The second possibility that exists for Russia is to capitalize off of its energy relationship (both conventional andnuclear) with Nigeria in order to penetrate the real-sector economy, and if successful, utilize the Atlantic-Mediterranean-Black Sea shipping route to transit goods back and forth. It would be much more efficient to send them over the Sahara and straight to the Mediterranean coast, however, and in three years’ time, the Trans-Saharan road that will do just that after it’s completed. Along the same train of thought, there’s also the possibility of an N’djamena (the Chadian capital)-Tripoli highway (part of the larger Tripoli-Windhoek highway), but two major impediments prevent Nigeria from utilizing this route – Boko Haram and the chaos in Libya. Similarly, the planned highway from N’djamena to Djibouti still has to be built, but even when completed, Boko Haram and a possible recurrence of the Darfur Secessionist War could render this route useless for Nigeria in the near future.

The third proposed route deals with connecting the West African economies in general to Russia via the Northern Sea Route, whereby it’s envisioned that East Asian-destined vessels could make stops along Russia’s Arctic coast to drop off goods. While this is certainly possible in theory, the route itself still has to get up and running, and afterwards, Russia needs to have the appropriate port facilities in the north and workable southern-destined logistic networks to accommodate such a plan. Thus, it’s for this economic reasoning and others that Russia has declared the development of the northern part of the country to be a priority focus akin to its efforts in the Far East. Therefore, it’s not a dependable trade route in the short-term, but it could certainly revolutionize Russian-West African economic relations in the future, provided that it’s adequately utilized by both parties and awareness of its existence and the will to conduct business is there.

Latin America:

The prospects for an acceleration of Russian-Latin American trade ties are very strong, but they’re dependent on the completion of grand infrastructure projects such as Nicaragua’s Trans-Oceanic Canal. This Chinese-financed project will open up a non-American-influenced route between the Caribbean and the Pacific, which would in turn more easily enable the flow of Latin American-Chinese and Latin American-Russian trade (to speak nothing of its military consequences vis-à-vis a regionalChinese and Russian presence). If Brazilian and other nations’ exports go along this route on their way to Russia, they’d obviously be calling port at Vladivostok, which once more emphasizes the geostrategic importance of this city and its development in Russian grand thinking.

Another opportunity exists as well, which would be for Russia to employ the South American Silk Road through Brazil and Peru to gain Pacific access to that continent’s largest market. This plan is only just beginning to materialize and will take some time to enter into effect, provided of course that it’s not offset by any of the scenarios discussed in the above-cited link. While Russia doesn’t have direct control over whether or not these two major projects are completed, it most certainly has a significant economic stake in their success, as not only would they give it a trans-hemispheric (and hence, global) economic presence, but they’d also complement the anticipated strategic function of Vladivostok in becoming one of Russia’s main non-Western trading hubs.

Concluding Thoughts

Russia’s economic reach is beginning to catch up with its political one, in that the country is rapidly returning to a pan-Eurasian approach with subsequent global (African and Latin American) ambitions. The basis for this was built over the past decade, but it became evident through the spree of summits and forums that the country just hosted – namely the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum, the BRICS Summit, the SCO Summit, and the Eastern Economic Forum – which offer concrete proof of Russia’s plans to integrate its economy alongside its North Eurasian counterparts (the EU, Central Asia, and East Asia). This is but the first half of its supercontinental strategy, however, which eventually envisions a forthcoming southern shift towards the Mideast, South Asian, and ASEAN economies.

The Eurasian Economic Union is the primary mechanism for actualizing this latter goal, and it would be greatly facilitated through the formalization of a wide array of free trade agreements with select states in these strategic regions. Finally, although not a priority focus at the moment, Russia does have the possibility of building strong economic partnerships with African and Latin American states, although the accomplishment of such would likely take place after the first two phases (North Eurasian integration and the southern shift) reach economic maturity. When one looks at the overall picture of the combined processes that are currently underway in Russia’s geo-economic strategy, it’s plain to see that the country is anything but isolated, and that it now has the best chances in its history to integrate with the rest of the world.

Andrew Korybko is the political analyst and journalist for Sputnik who currently lives and studies in Moscow, exclusively for ORIENTAL REVIEW.

This article first published by GR in the immediate wake of 9/11 describes US war preparations.  As we recall, the Bush Administration with the support of NATO had declared war on Afghanistan on September 11.

The operation in Afghanistan has the following objective: to make the region closer to the zone of USA’s vital interests. To begin with, the American army intends to gain control of the airports and other areas on Turkmenistan’s territory (including the former Soviet republic in Termez). It is interesting that America is interested in the former Soviet base Bagram, which is on the territory of Afghanistan. This base is currently under the control of the Northern Alliance. In addition, the USA is going to bring its influence back into the northern Alliance: the tragic and very “timely” Ahmad Shah Masood’s death (Afghan opposition leader, killed 2 days before 9/11).

The war on Afghanistan was launched on October 7.  2001

Complete 2001 article by Anatoli Baranov below

*      *      *

The world is waiting for the war. There are so many different messages appearing on this subject, it is hard to read them all. It is also hard to say how many people on the planet try to guess what will happen in the nearest future.

The sources in the Russian special services are not standing aside in this respect.

According to the estimations from a very respectable organization, the USA’s incursion into Afghanistan will be carried out taking into consideration the British and Russian experiences. Missiles and bombardment will be used under the old scenario and special military forces will be used as well – nothing new.

However, the ruling Republican Party is going to correct America’s domestic and foreign policies due to the grand terrorist attack. The Democrats’ remnants are going to be completely removed from the military and reconnaissance structures and the control over the private and public life of the American people is going to be toughened, including the business sphere. The U.S. will shift its emphasis from hi-tech constituents over to the raw materials companies – the ones which deal with oil and gas fuel first and foremost. The weight of the military and industrial complex in GNP will be raised and the national ABM program will certainly be launched. Bush and other figures of the American Republican administration are absolutely interested in this scenario – it is an open secret for everyone.

The USA will use those priority procedures when fortifying the armed forces in the Persian Gulf area, modernizing the bases there, and delivering additional arms and defense technology. The USA’s military presence in the region, which is of strategic importance for the whole of the West, will be raised to the limit when total control over events happening will be moved to Washington.

America will increase its military presence along the entire 40th parallel, which is what we can see now in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia; soon we will also see it in the republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenia, and Uzbekistan.

The Injirlik military base, which is deployed in Turkey, will surely be modernized, and this base will become one of the key points of the American presence. The establishment of reserve points on the territory of several countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States will be performed under different forms. However, the mid-Caspian area and Turkmenia’s deposits will be taken under the control of the United States. It should be mentioned that the authorities of Azerbaijan and Georgia republics are in willing contact with NATO and the United States. The republics of Middle Asia are more reserved in their aspiration to change their orientation from Russia to the USA, because these republics are situated far away from the American bases and Russia’s military presence is there.

The operation in Afghanistan has the following objective: to make the region closer to the zone of USA’s vital interests. To begin with, the American army intends to gain control of the airports and other areas on Turkmenistan’s territory (including the former Soviet republic in Termez). It is interesting that America is interested in the former Soviet base Bagram, which is on the territory of Afghanistan. This base is currently under the control of the Northern Alliance. In addition, the USA is going to bring its influence back into the northern Alliance: the tragic and very “timely” Ahmad Shah Masood’s death (Afghan opposition leader).

Therefore, Russia’s control over the region of Central Asia is going to fade away. The same thing will happen with its control over the Caucasus. The USA will make the republics of Middle Asia to reconsider the Collective Security Treaty of the CIS and Russian troops will be called back to Russian territory. The United States will gain total control over Central Asia, over the Indian ocean, and the country will be able to efficiently control the processes in Indo-China and Indonesia. This will actually bring about the total control of the United States of America over the Islamic world, since the moves of Iran, Pakistan, and Iraq will depend upon the military presence of the United States.

This scenario raises a lot of doubts regarding the versions of the acts of terrorism in New York and Washington, for there is only one country that is gaining absolute and long-term profit out of these acts. However there are doubts about the lack of information of the other members of the western intelligence community regarding the preparation for the terrorist attack. Most likely, such information was available, but all of the special services were blocking it for some reason. In this case, it is absolutely not important who gave the freedom of action to the suicidal terrorists.

Israel has an undeclared nuclear arsenal estimated by American scientists to contain up to 400 warheads. It is not in the EU nor subject to EU law, nor in NATO but it seeks to influence the foreign policy of the United States congress by means of a powerful lobby in Washington.

The Israeli government’s illegal settlement activity continues to cause anger with its land grabs in the West Bank and its building on Palestinian land in violation of international law. Notwithstanding this, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, made the inexplicable decision to increase to six the supply of AIP Dolphin Class submarines developed and constructed by Howaldtswerke­Deutsche Werft AG., to the Israeli Navy.

Israel has reportedly modified those war vessels already delivered, each now being armed with long­range, (SLCM) cruise missiles equipped with nuclear warheads, plus a maximum of 16 torpedoes: a naval task­force capable of destroying most of the Middle East and Europe. Crucially, it means that the Israelis have an offshore, second strike, nuclear capability.

Germany, itself, has no such offensive nuclear armament, neither has either France or Britain of such capability, for Israel is estimated to be now the most powerful nuclear weapons state outside of the US and Russia! The rationale for Merkel’s strategic error in altering the balance of power not only in the Middle East but also in Europe, with consequences yet to be determined, is unknown.

It is too late, of course, to reverse her extraordinary decision to deliver this fleet of nuclear­armed, undersea naval vessels to the government that controls the most contentious piece of land on earth. The damage has been done and the repercussions will ensure dangerous instability – or worse – for decades after Chancellor Merkel has left office.

It is a frightening fact that an undeclared, nuclear-armed Israel, outside the inspection of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, is a specific threat both to the region and to global peace, including that of the UK a threat that cannot be met by an outdated Trident nuclear deterrent.

Far from being armed to the teeth by America, Israel and its undeclared nuclear arsenal should be completely disarmed under pressure from the European Union, failing which, all bilateral trade should be discontinued.

In the meantime, Trident is outdated and ineffective against a submarine-launched, nuclear missile attack that could destroy Britain in an instant. Better, by far, to dismantle and neutralise Israel’s secret nuclear arsenal and prevail upon the United States to co­operate in the establishment of a Nuclear Free Middle East to include both Israel and Iran, in the interests of future global peace.

Jeremy Corbyn is not wrong. Replacing Trident would be a completely pointless waste of £100 billion over the next ten years.

Starting in 2007, the US was already in the process of engineering the overthrow and destruction of all prevailing political orders across the Middle East and North African (MENA) region.

It would be in Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s 2007 New Yorker article, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” that it was explicitly stated (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Hersh would also reveal that at the time, the US – then under the administration of President George Bush and through intermediaries including US-ally Saudi Arabia – had already begun channeling funding and support to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood who would in 2011 play a crucial role in the opening phases of the destructive war now raging across the Levant.

In 2008, from Libya to Syria and beyond, activists were drawn by the US State Department from across MENA to learn the finer points of Washington and Wall Street’s “color revolution” industry. They were being prepared for an unprecedented, coordinated US-engineered MENA-wide campaign of political destabilization that would in 2011 be called the “Arab Spring.”

Through the US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and US State Department’s Movements.org, agitators were literally flown on several occasions to both New York and Washington D.C. as well as other locations around the globe to receive training, equipment and funding before returning to their home countries and attempting to overthrow their respective governments.

In an April 2011 article published by the New York Times titled, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” it was admitted:

A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington.

The article would also add, regarding the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED):

The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department. 

It is clear that the political cover – the Arab Spring – and the premeditated support of terrorist groups including Al Qaeda brought in afterward, were planned years before the Arab Spring actually unfolded in 2011. The goal was admittedly the overthrow of governments obstructing Washington and Wall Street’s hegemonic ambitions and part of a much wider agenda of isolating, encircling, and containing Russia and China.

The destruction of the MENA region was intentional, premeditated, and continues on to this very day.

As the Wave of Regime Change Crashes 

Since 2011, each and every one of the West’s “color revolutions” has predictably devolved into armies of US-backed terrorists attempting to divide and destroy each nation. In Libya, this goal has already long-since been accomplished. In Egypt and Syria, with varying degrees of failure, this agenda has been stalled.

Egypt through sheer virtue of its size and the capabilities of its military, has prevented nationwide warfare. In Syria, facing invasion primarily from both Turkey and Jordan, violence has been far more dramatic and enduring.

But despite initial euphoria across the West that their insidious conspiracy had indeed upended the MENA region entirely, Syria’s ability to resist the West’s proxy forces, and now, more direct intervention, has entirely disrupted this wave of regime change.

US Senator John McCain (Republican – Arizona) who literally posed for pictures with terrorist leaders in both Libya and Syria, including the now head of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) in Libya, Abdul Hakim Belhaj, at the height of the Arab Spring prematurely taunted Moscow and Beijing with threats to bring similarly US-orchestrated chaos in their direction.  Suffice to say, Moscow and Beijing were not only ready for this destabilization, they were prepared to foil it before it so much as reached their borders.

And as momentum stalled, the US and its regional collaborators attempted to justify direct military intervention in Syria first as they did in Libya – by claiming they would be averting a humanitarian disaster and assisting “freedom fighters.”  However with the crimes the US and NATO perpetrated in Libya still fresh in the global public’s minds, this narrative was entirely untenable.

Staged chemical weapon attacks were perpetrated on the outskirts of Damascus, under the nose of UN inspectors in a bid to frame the government of Damascus and again justify direct US military intervention against Syria. Again, the global public, recalling similar fabrications peddled by the West ahead of its ten year invasion and occupation of Iraq along with expert diplomacy by Moscow, averted war.

And while it is increasingly obvious that Al Qaeda and ISIS’ presence in Syria and Iraq is the direct, premeditated result of US-NATO and their regional allies’ sponsorship of both groups, the West has attempted to use them as a pretext for direct military intervention not only in Syria, but again, against the government of Damascus itself.

Cue the Refugees

As this last attempt to justify a final push toward regime change in Syria falters, and as European powers begin deciding whether or not to intervene further in Syria alongside the US, a sudden and convenient deluge of refugees has flooded Europe, almost as if on cue. Scenes like that out of a movie showed hordes of tattered refugees herded along various borders as they apparently appeared out of what the Western media has portrayed as a puff of smoke at Europe’s gates.

In reality, they did not appear out of a puff of smoke. They appeared in Turkey, a NATO member since the 1950’s and one of America’s closest regional allies. Turkey is currently hosting the US military, including special forces and the CIA who have, together with Turkish military and intelligence agencies, been conducting a proxy war on neighboring Syria since 2011.

Turkey has suspiciously maintained a very enthusiastic “open door” policy for refugees, spending inexplicable sums of money and political capital in accommodating them. The Brookings Institution – one of the chief policy think tanks helping engineer the proxy war with Syria – reported in its July 2015 “Order out of Chaos” article, “What Turkey’s open-door policy means for Syrian refugees,” that:

Turkey is now the world’s largest recipient of refugees. Since October 2013, the number of Syrian refugees has increased more than threefold and now numbers almost two million registered refugees.

Brookings also reports that:

The cost has been high to Turkey. Government officials are quick to point out that they have spent over $6 billion on the refugees and complain about the lack of international support.

Brooking details the vast efforts Turkey is undertaking in coordination with Western NGOs to manage the refugees. There is little way that these refugees could suddenly “disappear” and end up in Europe without the Turkish government and more importantly, European governments either knowing about it or being directly involved.

Pawns of War  

Clearly Turkey lacks any altruistic motivation behind its refugee policy. Turkey is one of the chief facilitators of terrorists operating in Syria, and a primary collaborator in NATO’s proxy war against its neighbor. Turkey has allowed literally hundreds of supply trucks a day to cross its borders uninhibited and destined for ISIS territory. Turkey has also been tasked throughout various US policy papers with establishing a “buffer zone” or “safe haven” to move these refugees into, as well as for establishing a Syrian-based stronghold for NATO’s terrorist proxies to launch military operations from. Likely, the refugees were to serve as the initial population of whatever proxy state NATO planned to create with territory it seized and established no-fly-zones over in northern Syria.

Now it appears many of these refugees are instead being rerouted to Europe.
However, not all of the refugees flooding into Europe from Turkey are even from the Syrian conflict. Many are being trafficked first to Turkey from other theaters of NATO operations, including Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as Iraq. It appears that Turkey is serving as a central transit point, not just for terrorists it is feeding into the Syrian conflict, but also for collecting refugees from across MENA and Central Asia, before allowing them to proceed in vast numbers to Europe.

Some reports even indicate that the refugees are receiving direct assistance from the Turkish government itself. The International New York Times’ Greek Kathimerini paper, in an article titled, “Refugee flow linked to Turkish policy shift,” claims (emphasis added):

A sharp increase in the influx of migrants and refugees, mostly from Syria, into Greece is due in part to a shift in Turkey’s geopolitical tactics, according to diplomatic sources. These officials link the wave of migrants into the eastern Aegean to political pressures in neighboring Turkey, which is bracing for snap elections in November, and to a recent decision by Ankara to join the US in bombing Islamic State targets in Syria. The analyses of several officials indicate that the influx from neighboring Turkey is taking place as Turkish officials look the other way or actively promote the exodus.

Catastrophes that are meant to look “sudden” and “unexpected” as well as “unstoppable” but are in fact, allowed to unfold within an operational theater completely controlled by the US and NATO constitutes instead a conspiracy – pitting desperate and/or exploited refugees intentionally sent out of Turkey and into Europe, against a manipulated, fearful, and ill-informed Western public.

Also brought into sharp focus, are the string of staged attacks allowed to unfold across Europe – allegedly the work of “ISIS.” In every case without exception, the perpetrators had been well-known to Western intelligence agencies, including the shooters involved in the Paris “Charlie Hebo massacre.” In that incident, all members involved were tracked by French security agencies for nearly 10 years. At least one member was even imprisoned, had traveled afterward to collude with Al Qaeda abroad, and returned to Europe, all while under surveillance. “Coincidentally,” for the 6 months needed to plan and carry out their final act, French security agencies stopped monitoring the group, claiming a lack of resources to do so.

Those familiar with NATO’s Cold War Gladio program can see clearly that the attacks were staged to play into a strategy of tension used to produce fear domestically and build up support for wars abroad.

The recent refugee crisis is being used for precisely this same purpose. In fact, while a false debate is being managed by the Western media and Western political figures to either unconditionally accept the refugees or unconditionally reject them, the only singular narrative both sides are being made to agree on is that instability across MENA is to blame and more bombing is the answer.

Debates over increased, direct military intervention in Syria are now almost entirely predicated not on supporting “freedom fighters,” stopping “WMDs,” or fighting “ISIS,” but instead on how military intervention can help solve the “refugee crisis.”

The main narratives undulating media headlines dismiss both the West’s role in devastating the MENA region, as well as acknowledging the fact that the “refugee crisis” is emanating primarily from within NATO’s borders, not from beyond them. The refugees are pawns, intentionally moved across the game board to illicit a predictable reaction from their hopelessly unskilled opponents – the public. While the social engineers are engaged in a game of three-dimensional chess, the Western public appears to be infantilely eating their checkers.

Considering this unfortunate reality, whatever justifications the West is able to predicate upon the refugee crisis will have to be confronted again by Syria and its allies alone – with the Western public hopelessly defenseless against a conspiracy they have been made accomplices of.

Social Engineering vs. the Inevitable Rot of Empire 

A refugee crisis was inevitable, regardless of the timing and magnitude of any given deluge that may have been created or manipulated by the West. Destroying the planet in pursuit of empire, pillaging nations and hauling away the wealth of the world, inevitably leads to endless streams of victims following their stolen wealth back to the thieves’ den. As an empire expands and the list of its victims expands with it, the number of those an empire is able to fully assimilate versus those who will inevitable overwhelm it eventually tips the balance against the empire’s favor.

Such was the fate of the Roman Empire, which over the course of its decline, had its institutions overwhelmed by peoples it had conquered faster than it could assimilate them.

For the West, it has chosen confrontation rather than cooperation. It has closed economic ties with Russia, alienated China, and wages ceaseless war across the MENA region and Central Asia. It pursues a now exposed campaign of divide and conquer across Southeast Asia augmented with terrorism and political subversion all while neglecting every virtue that ever made it a respected global power to begin with.

How much of the most recent refugee crisis is social engineering versus simply the inevitable rot of empire is difficult to tell – though the fact that social engineers would be tempted to use a vast number of refugees created by their own foreign policy indicates that their ploy in and of itself is indicative of immense, irreversible geopolitical rot.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

The Day Greece ‘capitulated’ – Monday, 13 July 2015 – “Greece is finished”. 

In German, Montag, 13 Juli 2015 – Griechenland hängt am Galgen, Der Stern Magazine

The picture depicts the malicious joy of the power trio of the European Commission:

Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s Finance Minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Dutch Minister of Finance and President of the Eurogroup, and Sven Sester, Finance Minister of Estonia.

It is self-explanatory.

The Day Greece ‘capitulated’ – Monday, 13 July 2015 – “Greece is finished, hanging on the gallows”.  Der Stern 

The interview with Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s former Minister of Finance, is in German – For Stern Magazine, with German Journalist, Arno Luik. Here is the link to it

http://www.stern.de/politik/ausland/yanis-varoufakis-im-stern-interview–griechenlands-ex-finanzminister-ueber-wolfgang-schaeuble–schmutzige-tricks-und-das-ende-der-demokratie-6368972.html

It is a lengthy interview over three days, in the apartment of the Varoufakis, in restaurants and cafés, at different times of day and night, including past midnight, many times interrupted by urgent phone calls, doorbell rings on Mr. Varoufakis to run to emergency meetings, conferences or to Parliament. His Syriza colleagues asked him to comment on hastily drafted lengthy (hundreds of pages) legislation in English (no Greek translation) by the unelected preposterous Eurogroup (see also https://youtu.be/oiTvwZKyuoY) that the Greek Parliament was requested, not recommended but ordered, to approve within 24 hours. They were not given a choice.

The dialogue was interspersed by conversations between Arno Luik and Varoufakis’ wife, Danae Stratou, an artist. She told the reporter about the tranquil life they had in Texas, where her husband was teaching at the University of Austin, until returning in January this year to Greece, when Yanis became suddenly Minister of Finance – and life changed drastically. She was happy that her husband resigned, but also knows that he will stay in politics.

Arno Luik showed Varoufakis the photo (above) that was taken immediately “after Prime Minister Tsipras accepted the rescue package.” – Varoufakis exclaimed  – “This is not a rescue package! It is a dictate. Show me the photo. My God! That I haven’t seen before. I have to take a picture of it. It is unbelievable, how they are happy! – It is Monday, 13 July. Greece hangs on the gallows.”

With a series of provocative questions, even aggressive at times, reporter Luik essentially wanted to know what actually happened, why Tsipras didn’t respect the overwhelming OXI (NO) vote of the people on 5 July 2015, why there was no ‘Plan B’. Yanis Varoufakis had all kinds of explanations, the enormous pressure of the troika, the blackmailing, the European Central Bank (sic) would turn off the cash flow to Greek banks if Greece didn’t follow their dictate; they had an obligation to the poor pensioners to continue paying their pensions (30% reduced from previous austerity programs) – and this despite the repeated call finally also from the IMF for debt restructuring and even debt relief.
—
In the end, Varoufakis never gave a clear and plausible answer to the question; in none of the many interviews I have heard, seen or read by him. There would have been alternatives, and there still are. – Fear? – According to a knowledgeable Greek source, who wants to remain nameless, there may have been death threats. John Perkins’ “The Economic Hit Man” comes to mind.

New elections are just a week away. Without a drastic – and fearless – change in political and economic thinking, Greece and for that matter the rest of Europe may just have reached the end of the rope.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik News, TeleSur, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance

In the end it was a crushing victory, with Jeremy Corbyn scooping up almost 60% of the vote.

For all the months of talk about £3 ‘entryists’ stealing the election, Corbyn won massively among full members. And for all the apocalyptic warnings from Tony Blair, Corbyn achieved a bigger win than even he managed in 1994.

The scale of Corbyn’s victory was the final insult to the man whose repeated interventions in this race did more to secure Corbyn’s win than anything the man himself did in recent months.

And that scale should not be underestimated. It was the biggest win for the Labour left in its history. Even Ken Livingstone’s defeat of Frank Dobson in 2000 pales in comparison. And it was all done in the face of massive opposition from the Labour establishment and almost every newspaper in the country.

Image: It will be Jeremy Corbyn who now performs a ‘heart transplant’ on the Labour party

As a result the Labour party is now irrevocably changed. It is no exaggeration to describe today’s outcome as a revolution. The era of Blair and Brown and their followers is now well and truly over. New Labour is not just dead, but cremated and blown before the wind.

In the coming days, weeks and months, Corbyn will cement his power within the party, bringing in loyal allies both in front and behind the scenes. Party structures will be altered and policy-setting procedures changed in order to fundamentally reshape Labour in his vision. For all the talk of ‘bringing the party together’ this is unlikely to be a gradual change of heart. This will – to paraphrase Blair – be full-scale heart surgery.

There are many dangers to such radical change. Further resignations of shadow Cabinet members are certain and defections are also possible. The attacks on Corbyn and his party both from inside and outside the party are likely to be brutal and relentless. No former Labour leader will have ever faced a more difficult task than Corbyn faces now.

Is he up to it? We should find out very soon. Within just one week, he will have to form a new shadow Cabinet, carry his party through a number of difficult votes and face David Cameron at prime minister’s questions. Every slip-up he makes will be magnified and pored over. Every word he utters will be analysed and denounced.

Ed Miliband was often praised for his resilience as Labour leader during the general election campaign. His successor will need to be at least twice as resilient just to make it to polling day. There are lots of reasons to doubt that he can do it and perhaps just a few reasons to suspect that he might.

But whatever happens, Corbyn has fundamentally changed the Labour party, for good or for ill. The coming weeks and months are set to be among the most fascinating in British political history.

The late Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew was always adamant that his countrymen speak proper English. It was his formal training, and somewhat idiosyncratic readings of culture and race that suggested as such. To be successful, Singapore had to retain Asian values while speaking in Received Pronunciation. With Lee’s voice in the background, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong launched the Speak Good English Movement on April 29, 2000.

Such policing never worked when locals banded together and lapsed into the famous lingo of “Singlish”, a language perforated with expressive “lahs” and a singsong defiance of formal authority. As with any instruction manual that comes from above, from a ministry, or from the executive, defiance assumes form in language.

Ministries of Language have their work cut out in terms of policing the language of their brief. The French continue to fight a losing war against the little invasions mounted by English, the inroads made by that insidious form Max Rat in 1959 termed “franglais”. Being an affaire d’état, an otherwise organically, rebellious evolution is kept in cryogenic storage, only to thaw by state decree and a linguist’s judgment. Such efforts are impressively manic as they are old – the Académie française’s battle against the encroachments of Italian in 1635 still stand out.

A national crisis occasionally erupts on the subject, such as the cocky attempt in May 2013 of Libération to rile its readers with an entire front page in English. “Let’s do it,” went the banner headline. The subject, fittingly, was a new bill that would amend the 1994 Toubon law and allow some university courses in France to be taught in English. Hardly that stunning, unless it is an admission that the language policing isn’t going too well.

The paper editorialised that their compatriots should give up the shield of pure language and embrace the reality of change. Stop, went a striking line, “behaving like the last representatives of a besieged Gaulish village.”

Even more strikingly, the battle being waged is against the incursions of American English, rather than more neighbourly intrusions from across the Channel. As Andrew Gallix notes, “American expressions are often adopted with far more enthusiasm in France than across the Channel.”[1] The enemy continues to lodge within.

Which brings us to the latest round of language scuffling, this time in Denmark.

The headline getting Alex Ahrendtsen of the Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People’s Party) made it to the Washington Times with his speculations on the subject of “pizza-Dansk” or “pizza-Danish”.

The beef of his comments on the Danish broadcaster DR in August were immigrants in pizzerias who use a profusion of terms, some of them non-Danish, to communicate. This might be more appropriately termed speckled Danish, but Ahrendtsen is somewhat humourless on this subject. “It’s just because they can not figure out how to properly talk Danish.”

The Dansk Folkeparti has more anxieties than a hypochondriac, but rattled the establishment sufficiently in recent elections to make a more enduring mark on Danish politics. On the issue of language, it is fighting the unwinnable war. For Ahrendtsen, language is not merely identity, but possession. Like other possessions, it can be prized away, squirreled away into dark and undermining pizzerias. “Without the Danish language we are no longer Danes.”[2]

The Danish minister of culture, Bertel Haarder, has his eye on the subject, and rolling in the money to give teeth to the guard dogs of the Danish language. Being of the centre-right Venstre Party (yes, it is a political oxymoron), Haarder already made himself conspicuous in 2002 as Refugee, Immigration and Integration Minister. “Foreigners today represent a net burden on society. They cost more than they give back. This must be changed.”[3]

For Haarder, in writing an enthusiastic defence of the Christian nationalist Søren Krarup in 2001, it was, and is inconceivable that young Muslims in Danish political parties could ever actually be Danish, however disposed they were. Far better to rely on the solid “people of southern Jutland, who invested themselves so much in defending the homeland of the Danes.” (For many Danes, the Danish spoken in Jutland poses a formidable, anti-establishment challenge that would irritate any language Academy.)

The illusions thrown up around language can be touching. But they remain distinctly that. While some parliamentarians fear the ruthless ravishing being inflicted on the body of Danish by the pizza-Danes (or “New Danes), the language is undergoing its own transformation on the streets.

In Copenhagen’s Amager, hashish pipe smoking takes place a few doors down from the traditional Café 5-øren pub, filled with rosy-cheeked regulars and their Tuborg or Carlsberg companions. The Danish differs in its colloquialisms, depending on whether you are taking the pipe with the Syrians, or knocking back a few Tuborg Classics with the locals. Contrary to popular wisdom, one can become less fluent, rather than more, after a heavy session of either. Grammarians would cry.

If it was just kept to the issue of coffee-table chat about language forms, it might be a more civil affair. But linguistic anxiety can also translate into patriotic insensibility. Denmark is becoming a foot soldier of reaction in the refugee debate.  Even as refugees are streaming into Sweden, their seemingly inexorable flow is being stemmed in Denmark. Train lines are being closed. Dissuading statements are being issued. All the more reason to ease Danish out of the traditionalist’s study.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Notes

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/23/language-french-identity

[2] http://www.b.dk/nationalt/dansk-folkeparti-presser-paa-nu-maa-sprogets-vagthund-vise-taender

[3] https://migration.ucdavis.edu/mn/more.php?id=2561

Wednesday 2 September begun as an ordinary day in Latakia in the war-torn Syria. The city is located on the Mediterranean coast in the province with the same name. The past years conflict has passed the city with relative calm. The killings, the destruction and the terrorism have here in so far been absent.

The province Latakia has become a refuge for millions of Syrians who have been forced to leave their homes for the safety of the government controlled area.

But on mid-day 2 September the peace was shattered by a bloody attack. A car bomb detonated outside a school in the northern part of the city, leaving ten dead and forty injured, according to media reports. How many of the inhabitants of Latakia have since fled or how many have considered fleeing is not known.

Khaled Khoja, Syrian coalition’s president, admitted in April 2015 that his organization has a tactical alliance with Al Qaeda. The coalition’s former president, Ahmad Jarba, was Chairman of the Assistance Fund that received 40 million SEK. In April 1, 2014, he visited the “liberated” the town of Kassab, from where 2.000 Christians were displaced.

It is well established that the peace in Latakia is currently threatened by the alliance of armed rebel groups that control the neighbouring province of Idleb. The alliance includes Al Qaeda terrorists as well as so called ’moderate’ opposition groups that have received 40 million SEK in aid from the Swedish government.

That these forces collaborate in the on-going offensive in northwest Syria is no secret.

Bilder

Fakta och bakgrund

Where does the Swedish aid to Syria go?

• Sweden has during the conflict donated large sums in foreign aid. The government has vowed 350 million SEK during 2015.
  Most of the money goes to UN organisations such as UNHCR and Unicef, and other international aid organisations.
• But Sweden has also invested large sums that are said to promote democracy, the creation of a just rule, and to the defence of human rights. Behind the beautiful words, tens of millions SEK have gone to forces that have done the exact opposite.

Syrian Recovery Trust Fund

• One of the main commitments to strengthen the west supported Syrian coalition is the support to the political aid organisation SRTF. Sweden has donated 40 million SEK and shares a position in the board of the SRTF with the other nordic countries.
• The initiator to the fund was the Syrian opposition coalition together with USA, Germany and UAE. Turkey plays a central role as the basis of the trust’s operation is based in Gaziantep, Turkey, near the Syrian border.
• The SRTF is thus led by some of the forces that are most responsible for the devastating war through both weapons deliveries and monetary support to the rebels.

Unity from the conservatives to the left

• In the Swedish parliament there is a consensus regarding the Syria policy.
  In July 2013 foreign minister Carl Bildt (conservative) stated that he and the Left party’s representative Hans Linde agreed in the Syria question. Hans Linde said that the question of Syria was not a question for domestic bickering.

Terrorist groups according to the UN

• Jabhat Al-Nusra that fight along side opposition groups supported by Sweden, is according to the UN security council a terrorist group. Jabhat Al-Nusra has together with IS and other groups been pointed out in several UNSC resolutions as groups with connections to Al Qaeda.

Most refugees in Syria

• According to statistics from the UN refugee organisation UNHCR there is in Syria 7.6 million internal refugees, who in most cases have fled from areas of conflict into areas controlled by the Syrian government. A small fraction stay in tent camps, while most of the refugees stay with family, friends or have found new accommodation.
• Over 4 million refugees have fled the country, most to neighbouring countries.

This was confirmed at a press conference at the UN headquarter in New York on 29 April this year by the president of the Syrian opposition coalition, Khaled Khoja, who said that the armed branch of the opposition, ’The free Syrian Army’, had entered into a tactical alliance with Jabhat Al-Nusra, Al Qaeda’s official organisation in Syria.

The existence of the alliance is also confirmed by the Swedish ministry for Foreign Affairs special envoy for the crisis in Syria, the ambassador Niklas Kebbon, who we reach via phone:

– It is evident that the opposition coalition is in contact with Jabhat Al-Nusra.

Let us see what Sweden does for Syria:

The official line is that Sweden promotes a political solution to the conflict and invests large sums in humanitarian aid in Syria and its neighbouring countries.

But that is not the whole truth. There is a separate, less widely discussed Swedish support.

Sweden has for years backed Syrian opposition figures who have repeatedly called for more weapons to the opposition and more foreign intervention in Syria, while simultaneously collaborating with Al Qaeda-inspired extremists that have been complicit in mass murder, pillaging and mass expulsions.

This same opposition has most certainly contributed to the dire situation in todays Syria, and the mass exodus from the country that is its consequence.

Ahmad Jarba is one of those who in Sweden and other western countries have been given prominence as a leader of the future ’democratic’ Syria. Jarba was from July 2013 until July 2014 the president of the Syrian National Coalitions for the Forces of Revolution and the Resistance, a group that is often referred to as the Syrian Coalition, or the National Coalition. During his tenure he was welcomed at the UN head quarter as well as by several western heads of state.

On 1 April 2014, Jarba uploaded photographs of himself from the city of Kassab, then recently taken by the rebels. Kassab is a small city in northwestern Syria with a predominantly christian Armenian population, located by the border to Turkey.

The pictures of the Syrian opposition leader Jarba in Kassab was widely publicised by western media. His silence regarding the event that preceded the visit left many questions unanswered. The Swedish national broadcasting company (SVT) pointed out that the Syrian opposition president failed to mention that the invading rebels had forced the expulsion of the city’s 2000 inhabitants.

In fact, the situation was even worse than that.

– When Ahmad Jarba visited Kassab he literally stepped in the blood from the killed Armenians, says ’Sara’.

The Proletaren comes in contact with Sara through the Nobel peace prize laureate Mairead Maguire, who we have previously interviewed. Due to security concerns, Sara does not want us to print her real name.

Sara was born in a western country but has for the past 20 years resided in Latakia. Until the summer of 2014 she often visited Kassab, where her family owned a summer house. Today the house is demolished. Before the rebels were forced out of Kassab in June 2014, they pillaged and vandalised homes, official buildings and churches, Sara’s family’s house included.

Sara has met many of the inhabitants that were forced to leave Kassab. Many fled to Latakia and some of them stayed during the first few months in the Armenian church. Today many of Kassab’s former citizens have left Syrian and made their way to Europe, the United States and Armenia.

The stories from the witnesses of what happened on 21 March 2014 and the subsequent weeks are clear and consistent. The armed men, many of them not from Syria, came from the Turkish side of the border. Jabhat Al-Nusra and other extremist islamist groups fought along side their supposedly moderate rebel allies from the Syrian opposition coalition.

Most civilians managed to escape the onslaught, but not all. Thirteen were decapitated by the invading extremists. According to what has been gathered from witness reports, at least 80 people were killed. Around 20 senior citizens were at the same time kidnapped in Turkey and released first after three months of imprisonment.

This is the background to Ahmad Jarbas visit to the ’liberated’ city of Kabbas.

So what does this have to do with Swedish foreign aid?

The answer is that Sweden has supported the Syrian opposition coalition that Ahmad Jarba presided in several ways. The support was initiated by the conservative-liberal coalition government under foreign minister Carl Bildt, and has continued under the ministry of Margot Wallström and the labour-green party government coalition.

To get a picture of the support to the opposition, we have requested official documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Swedish aid organisation Sida. Some documents have been provided to us in full, others have been partly classified.

The single most important Swedish donation to the Syrian opposition took place two years ago.

The Swedish government under Prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt decided on 26 July 2013 to donate 40 million SEK to the Syrian Recovery Trust Fund (SRTF) with the purpose to act in so called liberated areas of Syria.

– It’s a political foundation. Part of its goals are to strengthen the Syrian opposition coalition as an alternative to more extreme groups by providing public services in areas outside government control, says the Swedish envoy to Syria Niklas Kebbon when we speak to him regarding the Swedish foreign aid to Syria.

The background to the founding of the SRTF is described in a report to the foreign affairs ministry written by Jan Thesleff, formerly the Swedish envoy to the Syrian opposition.

On 28 January 2013, representatives from 55 countries convened in Paris to discuss the future of Syria together with the Syrian opposition coalition. According to the Thesleff report, the French foreign affairs minister then remarked that the opposition is suffering from a ’problem of legitimacy’ on the ground in Syria. A central question of the Paris meeting was therefore to assess what the rest of the world could do to strengthen the support of the opposition in the ’liberated areas’.

The solution to this question took the form of the Syrian Recovery Trust Fund, with the purpose of offering public services in the name of the opposition and with the goal of increasing the coalitions popular support.

Sweden vowed to contribute to its funding, as did several other countries. The German development bank became the administrator of the fund, and Turkey its basis of operations.

They Syrian opposition was promoted to chair the board of SRTF. At the official inauguration of the fund on 2 September 2013, its contract was signed by the foremost spokesperson of the opposition, the war-criminal-to-be Ahmad Jarba. In October the same year, Sweden payed 40 million SEK to the fund, as promised.

Sweden is not the biggest villain in the Syrian conflict. Much worse are the countries that have pumped in money and weapons directly to the armed extremist groups, such as the NATO member Turkey, the royal dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and the USA that has played a leading role in creating the conflict.

But Sweden is complicit.

Swedish tax money has ever since Carl Bildt’s meeting with the Syrian opposition at the mansion of Hasselby slott, Stockholm, in August 2012 supported forces that are complicit in crimes at least as serious as those the Swedish government accuse the Syrian government of.

On 25 March 2014, at the same time as armed rebels invaded Kassab, Ahmad Jarba took part in the summit of the League of Arab States in Kuwait City. There Jarba denied the request of the UN negotiator Lakhdar Brahimi to stop the import of weapons to Syria, a suggestion proposed to aid the attempts to reach a political solution to the conflict.

The message from the by Sweden supported opposition leader was quite the opposite: we want more weapons and heavier weapons, he stated to the present media.

Not even the mass expulsion from Kassab made the world change its opinion of Jarba and the opposition coalition. Six weeks after walking on Kassab’s bloody streets, Jarba shook hands with Barack Obama in the White House.

How can Sweden support an opposition that commits crimes and is in alliance with Jabhat Al-Nusra, which according to the UN security council are terrorists in the same category as the Islamic State (Isil)?

We bring these questions up with the foreign affairs representative, the envoy to Syria Niklas Kebbon.

• The Syrian opposition coalition collaborates with forces that Sweden hardly wants any connections with. The coalition president Khaled Khoja admitted on 29 April this year that they and their armed forces FSA are in tactical alliance with the terrorists in Jabhat Al-Nusra. What are your discussions regarding this? 
– The premise of the fund is that obviously there should be no collaboration with groups that have been branded as terrorists by the UN Security council. Our position has been to work for a solution that in no way gives support to to Jabhat Al-Nusra, IS, or other suspicious organisations, says Niklas Kebbon.

– But there are more countries represented in the board of directors, and there are different opinions on how restrictive one should be. Our starting point has been that the purpose of the fund is to deliver public services to the population in these areas, but of course this should not be done in a way that benefits terrorist branded organisations.

• But is it possible to tell these groups apart? I have in mind when Ahmad Jarba entered Kassab during the spring of 2014 after ’moderate’ rebels together with Al Qaeda forced the expulsion of 2000 inhabitants. 
– Yes, you are pointing to an example where the opposition coalition had some sort of dealings with such organisations. The purpose of the fund is in part that the interim government of the coalition should become an alternative to the extremist organisations. We have all, no I mean, we don’t all have contact with Jabhat Al-Nusra, but the opposition coalition does. I don’t believe they have very close contact, but of course such contacts exist.

From Latakia Sara sends us an email saying that the Syrians that have fled to the city don’t want to leave Syria, don’t want to go the refugee camps in the neighbouring countries and don’t want to go the Europe or the USA.

But their safety concerns are mounting. And their worries don’t come from the Assad government or the Syrian army, but rather from the alliance of Al Qaeda extremists and the by Sweden supported opposition. The front is just an hour’s drive from Latakia.

– The city is facing the impending threat of a major attack. While the defence of the Syrian army is strong, the viability of defending Latakia depends on the number of terrorists attacking. We are in a terrible situation.

Longtime British Labour party MP since 1983, Corbyn was considered a 100 – 1 shot for its leadership after declaring his candidacy in June, on an anti-war, anti-austerity platform, saying:

“This decision to stand is in response to an overwhelming call by Labour party members who want to see a broader range of candidates and a thorough debate about the future of the party. I am standing to give Labour party members a voice in this debate.” 

He promised a “different economic strategy, particularly opposing austerity” – calling other Labour leadership candidates cardboard cutouts of each other – failing to offer “a clear enough alternative on the economic strategy and austerity, and our attitude to welfare expenditure.”

London’s Guardian called him one of Labour’s “most rebellious” MPs, defying its former leadership 238 times. According to the Financial Times, it was over 500 times.

As new Labour leader will he make a difference, or is he Britain’s Bernie Sanders and Greece’s Alexis Tsipras – a real or phony populist? Will he run ahead for prime minister on a progressive, anti-war platform?

Will he stand forthrightly and unequivocally against business as usual – or simply support cosmetic changes too insignificant to matter?

He’s a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, Amnesty International, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and chairs Britain’s Stop the War Coalition.

He calls himself a democratic socialist, advocating renationalizing Britain’s utilities and railways, making business pay its fair share in taxes, ending austerity, reversing public welfare cuts, abolishing higher education tuition fees, nuclear disarmament, and quantitative easing for ordinary people, vital infrastructure and renewable energy projects.

He said “(w)e need to strongly challenge NATO supremacy and oppose its exercise in Ukraine.” He opposes Britain’s membership in the US-dominated Alliance.

His web site jeremyforlabour.com says “(o)ur timeless task in the Labour Party is to stand up against injustice wherever we find it. That notion has driven me throughout my political life – and it’s what drove me to stand for Parliament in the first place.”

In mid-August, he said “(s)urely it is high time that we had a serious debate about Britain’s overall defense and foreign policy. More than 60 years of Nato membership has brought us enormous levels of military expenditure and by our close relationship with the US through NATO and the Mutual Defence Agreement involved us in countless conflicts.”

“In a world beset by conflict, often around the grab for natural resources and fueled by the greed of arms and defence manufacturers, surely it’s time to reassess our priorities for a foreign policy based on human values, peaceful development and not exacerbating military aggression.”

In late August, Britain’s Stop the War coalition discussed “10 reasons” UK neocons oppose Corbyn for Labour party leadership.

1. He opposed US/UK et al war on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. He wants individuals responsible for illegal wars held accountable.

2. He’s a “dangerous leftist” – supporting policies benefitting ordinary Brits for the first time since pre-Margaret Thatcher’s anti-populism.

3. He’s critical of US and Israeli policies – supports long denied justice for Palestinians.

4. He has undefined “extremist links.”

5. His policies make him “unelectable.”

6. He wants 1970s policies reinstituted – when the gap between Britain’s rich and poor was the lowest in UK history.

7. His anti-militarism agenda “would leave Britain defenseless and open to invasion.”

8. Earlier, he praised one of John Pilger’s articles – condemning the devastating human cost of US-led NATO’s rape of Yugoslavia.

9. He “opposes austerity.”

10. He enjoys increasing popularity. He says things people want to hear as well as voting on the right side of important issues.

It’s one thing supporting populist interests as a powerless backbencher, quite another as party leader. He’ll face enormous pressure to bend, perhaps too much to withstand, maybe enough to make a possible transformational leader into a largely business as usual compliant one.

As Labour leader, it’s up to him to stand forthright for principles he rhetorically supports and against Britain’s devastating domestic and foreign policy agenda – using his bully pulpit to rally Brits against an overwhelming right-wing parliament.

He won a smashing victory with around 60% support – compared to 19% for his nearest rival (Andy Burnham), 17% for Yvette Cooper, and 4% for Blairite Liz Kendall.

Newly elected deputy leader Tom Watson called for party unity, saying he “promised to back the new leader 100% and I plan to do exactly that.”

The Financial Times said he “filled (Labour) with division and dismay.” He’s “an unlikely figure to try impose discipline upon the ranks…”

The New York Times said he ‘promis(es) radical approaches to longstanding problems.” The Washington Post called him “a left-wing rebel…a grassroots phenomenon.”

The Wall Street Journal said his leadership “could herald a realignment of British politics. (His) anti-austerity, anti-war and egalitarian message has resonated with supporters…”

He faces a daunting task against majority right-wing pro-business, pro-war, anti-populist Labourites masquerading as democrats – besides sure to come enormous bipartisan business as usual pressure from Washington.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

Jeremy Corbyn has done it. The agitation of the Left in a deflated, and to a large extent ruined British Labour Party, raised Corbyn from the status of the rank outsider to that of leader with a mighty 59.5 percent of the vote.  The Times deemed him a “veteran backroom operative” who became prominent while working for “Red” Ken Livingstone over the course of 12 years, eight of which he did so as chief of staff.  

Shocked out of their nonchalance, various contenders, and former leader Ed Milliband, immediately made it clear that they would be reluctant to serve in a Corbyn ministry, shadow or otherwise.  Andy Burnham, who netted a mere 19 percent of the vote, had only one tweet of any interest: “Fuck.” Yvette Cooper, another deemed “front runner” limped over the line with 17 percent.

The campaign against Corbyn has been, in certain quarters, venal. The Mail on Sunday predicted crippling, spell binding catastrophe, with a “Prime Minister Corbyn” whose 1000 days would lay waste to Britain.  “£3 trillion debt.  National riots.  A UN airlift from No 10.”

The Tory tacticians were already gathering around the notion of Left wing “risk” and are eyeing the declining union base of the Labour Party.  Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, GCHQ’s finest errand boy and rank apologist, chose to congratulate Corbyn with a statement that “Labour are now a serious risk to our nation’s security, our economy’s security and your family’s security.”

The richest comment to stem from Fallon comes from what Corbyn will supposedly do to Britain’s working class.  Workers, he argues, will suffer under a Corbyn government, “racking up more debt and welfare or driving up the cost of living by printing money”.

Corbyn’s victory casts light on dramatic changes in party structure and policy. One involves the makeup of the Labour Party, which occasionally makes Corbyn sound like Podemos of Spain.  “I don’t think we can go on having policy made by the leader, shadow cabinet, or parliamentary Labour party. It’s got to go much wider. Party members need to be more enfranchised.”

The effect of Corbyn’s campaign has been dramatic at the town hall level. He has spoken to packed halls across the country.  Community activists have crammed in to listen in anticipation of a progressive coming.  Labour membership has boomed.  The so-called £3 registered voters have effectively become a new political feature of the party.

Corbyn has done something no British politician has managed in years, with the exception perhaps, of Nicola Sturgeon.  “Thanks to Corbynmania,” writes Ellie Mae O’Hagan, “we now know people up and down the country will give up their evenings and weekends for politics” (The Independent, Sep 12).

The other feature this Corbynmania drive is the policy shift it represents within a party long bruised and emptied by the Blair modernisation program.  Under Blair, the budget and the market became sacred trees in the grove.  Call it market realism, or, as it might better be termed, market irrationalism.

Such a philosophy invariably prided the third way sound bite and the evangelical worship of focus groups.  Blair the Witch (or Warlock) tended to linger malodorously, waiting for a Corbyn to fumigate it with conviction.

What Corbyn represents is the mainstreaming of opposition to public sector cuts. It is the reaffirmation that if a government collects taxes, it should spend it as part of its social undertaking to the electorate.

The Cameron government has been waging a remorseless battle against services in an effort to balance the books, and opposition at the public level has been noisy.  Labour under Ed Miliband exhibited no such opposition, accepting the Tory line that slashing budgets was the more acceptable of economic wisdoms.  A plethora of grassroots organisations took root in an effort to fill the void.

The Peoples’ Assembly and UK Uncut will have much to cheer, as will economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman who have long argued that scorched earth policies against public spending tends to be a suicidal way of reducing deficits.  Austerity, by its very nature, shrinks all before it.

While hope tends to often be a counterfeit currency, Corbyn’s victory has at least given Britain’s political establishment a jolt.  His tasks will be huge – regaining Labour’s lost foothold in Scotland, and beating off detractors in his own party who are forming an exodus of retreaters.  He also faces the diminishing influence of union membership in a party that always prided itself on those links.  Critics will be trying to make sure Corbynmania doesn’t assume the form of a reforming avalanche.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave  The Land of the Fleeced and the Home of the Slave

This post explains the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights – the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution – and provides a scorecard on the extent of the loss of each right.

First Amendment

The 1st Amendment protects speech, religion, assembly and the press:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Supreme Court has also interpreted the First Amendment as protecting freedom of association.

However, the government is arresting those speaking out … and violently crushing peaceful assemblies which attempt to petition the government for redress.

A federal judge found that the law allowing indefinite detention of Americans without due process has a“chilling effect” on free speech. And see this and this.

There are also enacted laws allowing the secret service to arrest anyone protesting near the president or other designated folks (that might explain incidents like this).

Mass spying by the NSA violates our freedom of association.

The threat of being labeled a terrorist for exercising our First Amendment rights certainly violates the First Amendment. The government is using laws to crush dissent, and it’s gotten so bad that even U.S. Supreme Court justices are saying that we are descending into tyranny. (And the U.S. is doing the same things that tyrannical governments have done for 5,000 years to crush dissent.)

For example, the following actions may get an American citizen living on U.S. soil labeled as a “suspected terrorist” today:

• Taking any steps to protect your privacy (and see this)

• Being a hippy

• Complaining about the taste of your tap water

• Being young (if you live near a battle zone, you are fair game; and see this)

• Acting like a kid

• Using social media

• Reporting or doing journalism (and here and here)

• Having “strange odors” or “bright colored stains on clothes” (what if you eat mustard or ketchup?)

• Speaking out against government policies

• Protesting anything (such as participating in the “Occupy” or “Tea Party” movements). For example,Department of Defense training manuals classify all protest as “low-level terrorism”. And see this,this, this and this

• Questioning war (even though war reduces our national security; and see this)

• Criticizing the government’s targeting of innocent civilians with drones (although killing innocent civilians with drones is one of the main things which increases terrorism. And see this)

• Asking questions about pollution (even at a public Congressional hearing?)

• Paying cash at an Internet cafe

• Asking questions about Wall Street shenanigans

• Holding gold

• Creating alternative currencies

• Stocking up on more than 7 days of food (even though all Mormons are taught to stockpile food, and most Hawaiians store up on extra food)

• Having bumper stickers saying things like “Know Your Rights Or Lose Them”

• Investigating factory farming

• Infringing a copyright

• Taking pictures or videos

• Talking to police officers

• Wearing a hoodie

• Driving a van

• Writing on a piece of paper

• (Not having a Facebook account may soon be added)

And holding the following beliefs may also be considered grounds for suspected terrorism:

• Being frustrated with “mainstream ideologies”

• Being a libertarian

• Liking the Founding Fathers

• Being a Christian

• Being anti-tax, anti-regulation or for the gold standard

• Being “reverent of individual liberty”

• Being “anti-nuclear”

• “Believe in conspiracy theories”

• “A belief that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack”

• “Impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”

• “Insert religion into the political sphere”

• “Those who seek to politicize religion”

• “Supported political movements for autonomy”

• Being “anti-abortion”

• Being “anti-Catholic”

• Being “anti-global”

• “Suspicious of centralized federal authority”

• “Fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”

• “A belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in … survivalism”

• Opposing genetically engineered food

• Opposing surveillance

And see this. (Of course, Muslims are more or less subject to a separate system of justice in America.)

And 1st Amendment rights are especially chilled when power has become so concentrated that the same agency which spies on all Americans also decides who should be assassinated.

Additionally:

Despite the clear protections found in the First Amendment, the freedoms described therein are under constant assault. Increasingly, Americans are being arrested and charged with bogus “contempt of cop” charges such as “disrupting the peace” or “resisting arrest” for daring to film police officers engaged in harassment or abusive practices. Journalists are being prosecuted for reporting on whistleblowers. States are passing legislation to muzzle reporting on cruel and abusive corporate practices. Religious ministries are being fined for attempting to feed and house the homeless. Protesters are being tear-gassed, beaten, arrested and forced into “free speech zones.” And under the guise of “government speech,” the courts have reasoned that the government can discriminate freely against any First Amendment activity that takes place within a government forum.

Second Amendment

The 2nd Amendment states:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Gun control and gun rights advocates obviously have very different views about whether guns are a force for violence or for good.

But even a top liberal Constitutional law expert reluctantly admits that the right to own a gun is as important a Constitutional right as freedom of speech or religion:

Like many academics, I was happy to blissfully ignore the Second Amendment. It did not fit neatly into my socially liberal agenda.

***

It is hard to read the Second Amendment and not honestly conclude that the Framers intended gun ownership to be an individual right. It is true that the amendment begins with a reference to militias: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Accordingly, it is argued, this amendment protects the right of the militia to bear arms, not the individual.

Yet, if true, the Second Amendment would be effectively declared a defunct provision. The National Guard is not a true militia in the sense of the Second Amendment and, since the District and others believe governments can ban guns entirely, the Second Amendment would be read out of existence.

***

More important, the mere reference to a purpose of the Second Amendment does not alter the fact that an individual right is created. The right of the people to keep and bear arms is stated in the same way as the right to free speech or free press. The statement of a purpose was intended to reaffirm the power of the states and the people against the central government. At the time, many feared the federal government and its national army. Gun ownership was viewed as a deterrent against abuse by the government, which would be less likely to mess with a well-armed populace.

Considering the Framers and their own traditions of hunting and self-defense, it is clear that they would have viewed such ownership as an individual right — consistent with the plain meaning of the amendment.

None of this is easy for someone raised to believe that the Second Amendment was the dividing line between the enlightenment and the dark ages of American culture. Yet, it is time to honestly reconsider this amendment and admit that … here’s the really hard part … the NRA may have been right. This does not mean that Charlton Heston is the new Rosa Parks or that no restrictions can be placed on gun ownership. But it does appear that gun ownership was made a protected right by the Framers and, while we might not celebrate it, it is time that we recognize it.

The gun control debate – including which weapons and magazines are banned – is still in flux …

However:

Americans remain powerless to defend themselves against SWAT team raids and government agents armed to the teeth with military weapons better suited for the battlefield than for a country founded on freedom. Police shootings of unarmed citizenscontinue to outrage communities, while little is really being done to demilitarize law enforcement agencies. Indeed, just recently, North Dakota became the first state to legalize law enforcement use of drones armed with weapons such as tear gas, rubber bullets, beanbags, pepper spray and Tasers.

Third Amendment

The 3rd Amendment prohibits the government forcing people to house soldiers:

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

A recent lawsuit by a Nevada family – covered by (Mother Jones, Fox News and Courthouse News – alleges violation of the Third Amendment.

Moreover, the military is arguably quartering “digital” troops within our homes.

Indeed:

With the police increasingly training like the military, acting like the military, and posing as military forces—complete with military weapons, assault vehicles, etc.—it is clear that we now have what the founders feared most—a standing army on American soil. Moreover, as a result of SWAT team raids (more than 80,000 a year) where police invade homes, often without warrants, and injure and even kill unarmed citizens, the barrier between public and private property has been done away with, leaving us with armed government agents who act as if they own our property.

Image: Painting by Anthony Freda: www.AnthonyFreda.com.

Fourth Amendment

The 4th Amendment prevents unlawful search and seizure:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

But the government is spying on everything we do … without any real benefit or justification.

Indeed, experts say that the type of spying being carried out by the NSA and other agencies is exactly the kind of thing which King George imposed on the American colonists … which led to the Revolutionary War.

And many Constitutional experts – such as Jonathan Turley – think that the police went too far in Boston with lockdowns and involuntary door-to-door searches.

In reality:

The Fourth Amendment has suffered the greatest damage in recent years and been all but eviscerated by an unwarranted expansion of police powers that include strip searches and even anal and vaginal searches of citizens, surveillance and intrusions justified in the name of fighting terrorism, as well as the outsourcing of otherwise illegal activities toprivate contractors. Case in point: Texas police forced a 21-year-old woman to undergo awarrantless vaginal search by the side of the road after she allegedly “rolled” through a stop sign.

The use of civil asset forfeiture schemes to swell the coffers of police forces has also continued to grow in popularity among cash-strapped states. The federal government continues to strong-arm corporations into providing it with access to Americans’ private affairs, from emails and online transactions to banking and web surfing. Coming in the wake of massive leaks about the inner workings of the NSA and the massive secretive surveillance state, it was revealed that the government threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 every day for failing to comply with the NSA’s mass data collection program known as PRISM. Meanwhile, AT&T has enjoyed a profitable and “extraordinary, decades-long” relationship with the NSA.

The technological future appears to pose even greater threats to what’s left of our Fourth Amendment rights, with advances in biometric identification and microchip implants on the horizon making it that much easier for the government to track not only our movements and cyber activities but our very cellular beings. Barclays has already begun using a finger-scanner as a form of two-step authentication to give select customers access to their accounts. Similarly, Motorola has been developing thin “digital tattoos” that will ensure that a phone’s owner is the only person who may unlock it. Not to be overlooked are the aerial spies—surveillance drones—about to take to the skies in coming years, as well as the Drive Smart programs that will spy on you (your speed, movements, passengers, etc.) while you travel the nation’s highways and byways.

Image: Paintings by Anthony Freda: www.AnthonyFreda.com.

Fifth Amendment

The 5th Amendment addresses due process of law, eminent domain, double jeopardy and grand jury:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

But the American government has shredded the 5th Amendment by subjecting us to indefinite detentionand taking away our due process rights.

The government claims the right to assassinate or indefinitely detain any American citizen on U.S. citizen without any due process. And see this.

For example, American citizens are being detained in Guantanamo-like conditions in Chicago … including:

• Brutality

• Being held in secret

• Not even telling a suspect’s lawyer whether his client is being held?

And see this, this and this.

As such, the government is certainly depriving people of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

There are additional corruptions of 5th Amendment rights – such as property being taken for privatepurposes. And the right to remain silent is gone.

The percentage of prosecutions in which a defendant is denied a grand jury is difficult to gauge, as there is so much secrecy surrounding many terrorism trials.

Image by William Banzai

Sixth Amendment

The 6th Amendment guarantees the right to a speedy ad public trial, by an impartial jury in the location where the crime allegedly occurred, to hear the criminal charges levied against us and to be able to confront the witnesses who have testified against us, as well as speedy criminal trials, and a public defender for those who cannot hire an attorney:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Subjecting people to indefinite detention or assassination obviously violates the 6th Amendment right to a speedy and public jury trial. In both cases, the defendants is “disposed of” without ever receiving anytrial at all … let alone a speedy or public one.    In neither case do they get a jury, a defense lawyer, or the right to call their own witnesses.  And they often never even hear the charges against them.

Indefinite detentions usually don’t occur where the alleged crime occurred, but at a black site.

More and more commonly, the government prosecutes cases based upon “secret evidence” that they don’t show to the defendant … or sometimes even the judge hearing the case.

The government uses “secret evidence” to spy on Americans, prosecute leaking or terrorism charges (even against U.S. soldiers) and even assassinate people. And see this and this.

Secret witnesses are being used in some cases. And sometimes lawyers are not even allowed to read their own briefs.

Indeed, even the laws themselves are now starting to be kept secret. And it’s about to get a lot worse.

Moreover, government is “laundering” information gained through mass surveillance through other agencies, with an agreement that the agencies will “recreate” the evidence in a “parallel construction” … so they don’t have to admit that the evidence came from unconstitutional spying. A former top NSA official says that this is the opposite of following the Fourth Amendment, but is a “totalitarian process” which shows that we’re in a “police state”.

And there are two systems of justice in America … one for the big banks and other fatcats, and one for everyone else. The government made it official policy not to prosecute fraud, even though fraud is themain business model adopted by Wall Street. Indeed, the biggest financial crime in world history, thelargest insider trading scandal of all time, illegal raiding of customer accounts and blatant financing of drug cartels and terrorists have all been committed recently without any real criminal prosecution or jail time.

On the other hand, government prosecutors are using the legal system to crush dissent and to silence whistleblowers.

And some of the nation’s most powerful judges have lost their independence … and are in bed with the powers-that-be.

Constitutional lawyer John Whitehead explains:

The Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment work in tandem. These amendments supposedly ensure that you are innocent until proven guilty, and government authorities cannot deprive you of your life, your liberty or your property without the right to an attorney and a fair trial before a civilian judge. However, in the new suspect society in which we live, where surveillance is the norm, these fundamental principles have been upended. Certainly, if the government can arbitrarily freeze, seize or lay claim to your property (money, land or possessions) under government asset forfeiture schemes, you have no true rights. That’s the crux of a case before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the government’s use of asset forfeiture to strip American citizens of the funds needed to hire a defense attorney of their choosing.

Seventh Amendment

The 7th Amendment guarantees trial by jury in federal court for civil cases:

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

But there are two systems of justice in America … one for the big banks and other fatcats, and one for everyone else. So good luck going after the powers-that-be.

And the World Justice Project – a bipartisan, independent group with honorary chairs including numerous current and former Supreme Court Justices – released a report saying that Americans have less access to justice than most wealthy countries … and many developing nations. The report finds that Americans have less access to justice than Botswanans, and that only the wealthy have the resources to protect rights using the court system:

For example, Germans sue equally whether they are rich or poor … but in America, only the wealthy have the resources to protect rights using the court system:

(And the austerity caused by the highest levels of inequality in world history – which are in turn is caused by socialist actions by our government, which have destroyed the Founding Fathers’ vision of prosperity – is causing severe budget cuts to the courts, resulting in the wheels of justice slowing down considerably.)

Federal judges have also recently decided that they can pre-judge cases before the plaintiff even has the chance to conduct discovery … and throw cases out if they don’t like plaintiff’s case.

And:

The populace has no idea of what’s in the Constitution—civic education has virtually disappeared from most school curriculums—that inevitably translates to an ignorant jury incapable of distinguishing justice and the law from their own preconceived notions and fears. However, as a growing number of citizens are coming to realize, the power of the jury to nullify the government’s actions—and thereby help balance the scales of justice—is not to be underestimated. Jury nullification reminds the government that it’s “we the people” who can and should be determining what laws are just, what activities are criminal and who can be jailed for what crimes.

Image: Painting by Anthony Freda: www.AnthonyFreda.com

Eighth Amendment

The 8th Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Indefinite detention and assassination are obviously cruel and unusual punishment.

The widespread system of torture carried out in the last 10 years – with the help of other countries –violates the 8th Amendment. Many want to bring it back … or at least justify its past use.

While Justice Scalia disingenuously argues that torture does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment because it is meant to produce information – not punish – he’s wrong. It’s not only cruel and unusual … it is technically a form of terrorism.

And government whistleblowers are being cruelly and unusually punished with unduly harsh sentences meant to intimidate anyone else from speaking out.

Moreover:

A California appeals court is being asked to consider “whether years of unpredictable delays from conviction to execution” constitute cruel and unusual punishment. For instance, although 900 individuals have been sentenced to death in California since 1978, only 13 have been executed. As CBS News reports, “More prisoners have died of natural causes on death row than have perished in the death chamber.”

Ninth Amendment

The 9th Amendment provides that people have other rights, even if they aren’t specifically listed in the Constitution:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

We can debate what our inherent rights as human beings are. I believe they include the right to a level playing field, and access to non-toxic food and water. You may disagree.

But everyone agrees that the government should not actively encourage fraud and manipulation. However, the government – through its malignant, symbiotic relation with big corporations – is interfering with our aspirations for economic freedom, safe food and water (instead of arsenic-laden, genetically engineered junk), freedom from undue health hazards such as irradiation due to government support of archaic nuclear power designs, and a level playing field (as opposed to our crony capitalist system in which the little guy has no shot due to redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the super-elite, and government support of white collar criminals).

By working hand-in-glove with giant corporations to defraud us into paying for a lower quality of life, the government is trampling our basic rights as human beings.

Tenth Amendment

The 10th Amendment provides that powers not specifically given to the Federal government are reserved to the states or individual:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Two of the central principles of America’s Founding Fathers are:

(1) The government is created and empowered with the consent of the people

and

(2) Separation of powers

Today, most Americans believe that the government is threatening – rather than protecting – freedom. We’ve become more afraid of our government than of terrorists, and believe that the government is no longer acting with the “consent of the governed“.

And the federal government is trampling the separation of powers by stepping on the toes of the states and the people. For example, former head S&L prosecutor Bill Black – now a professor of law and economics – notes:

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the resident examiners and regional staff of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency [both] competed to weaken federal regulation and aggressively used the preemption doctrine to try to prevent state investigations of and actions against fraudulent mortgage lenders.

Indeed, the federal government is doing everything it can to stick its nose into every aspect of our lives … and act like Big Brother.

Conclusion: While a few of the liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights still exist, the vast majority are under heavy assault.

Other Constitutional Provisions … and The Declaration of Independence

In addition to the trampling of the Bill of Rights, the government has also trashed the separation of powers enshrined in the main body of the Constitution.

The government is also engaging in activities which the Founding Fathers fought against, such as taxation without representation (here and here), cronyism, deference to central banks, etc.

As the preamble to the Declaration of Independence shows, the American government is still carrying out many of the acts the Founding Fathers found most offensive:

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. [Background here and here]

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. [Background here, here, here, here and here]

***

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: [Background]

***

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences [Background]

***

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. [Background]

***

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. [Background here, here and here]

Where did ISIS come from? How was it able to gain land, arms and money so quickly?

This book will answer those questions … and unmask ISIS.

Part 1 shows that the U.S. – through bad policies and stupid choices – is largely responsible for the rise of ISIS.

Part 2 reveals the strange history of the leaders of ISIS … Including one who never really existed, and another who – if you read mainstream media drivel – was killed … then arrested … and then killedagain.

Part 3 delves into the little-known, secret history of Iraq and Syria … and discusses the real motivations behind our current policies towards those countries.

And Part 4 reveals the shocking truth about who is really supporting  ISIS.

So grab a cup of coffee, and prepare to learn the real story.

PART 1: OOPS … WE CREATED A MONSTER

President Barack Obama noted in an interview in March 2015:

ISIL [also known as ISIS] is a direct outgrowth of Al-Qaeda in Iraq that grew out of our invasion. Which is an example of unintended consequences. Which is why we should generally aim before we shoot.

He’s correct.  After all:

• ISIS leaders themselves credit the Iraq war for their success

• The New Yorker reports:

ISIS is run by a council of former Iraqi generals …. Many are members of Saddam Hussein’s secular Baath Party who converted to radical Islam in American prisons.

• Torture of Iraqis by Americans led to the rise of ISIS … and America’s Guantanamo prison inspired ISIS atrocities

• Al Qaeda wasn’t even in Iraq until the U.S. invaded that country, as admitted by President George W. Bush to ABC News in 2008:

Bush: One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take …

ABC News Interviewer: But not until after the U.S. invaded.

Bush: Yeah, that’s right. So what?

• ISIS took over large swaths of Iraq using captured American weapons leftover from the Iraq war

In addition, the entire American policy of arming “moderate” Syrian rebels has backfired.

Lebanon’s Daily Star reports that so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels support ISIS terrorists:

We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front [another extremist and hard-line Islamic terrorist group] by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings in … Qalamoun,” said Bassel Idriss, the commander of an FSA-aligned rebel brigade.

***

A very large number of FSA members [in Arsal] have joined ISIS and Nusra,”Abu Fidaa [a retired Colonel in the Syrian army who is now the head of theRevolutionary Council in Qalamoun] said.

The so-called “moderate” Free Syrian Army has also signed a non-aggression pact with ISIS.

The New York Times writes:

President Obama’s determination to train Syrian rebels to serve as ground troops against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria leaves the United States dependent on a diverse group riven by infighting, with no shared leadership and with hard-line Islamists as its most effective fighters.

After more than three years of civil war, there are hundreds of militias fighting President Bashar al-Assad — and one another. Among them, even the more secular forces have turned to Islamists for support and weapons over the years, and the remaining moderate rebels often fight alongside extremists like the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.

***

Analysts who track the rebel movement say that the concept of the Free Syrian Army as a unified force with an effective command structure is a myth.

***

The Syrian rebels are a scattered archipelago of mostly local forces with ideologies that range from nationalist to jihadist. Their rank-and-file fighters are largely from the rural underclass, with few having clear political visions beyond a general interest ingreater rights or the dream of an Islamic state.

***

Some European allies remain skeptical about the efficacy of arming the Syrian rebels. Germany, for instance, has been arming and training Kurdish pesh merga forces in Iraq, but has resisted doing the same for any groups in Syria — partly out of fear that the weapons could end up in the hands of ISIS or other radical groups.

“We can’t really control the final destination of these arms,” said Peter Wittig, the German ambassador to the United States.

***

The fluidity of battlefield alliances in Syria means that even mainline rebels often end up fighting alongside the Nusra Front, whose suicide bombers are relied on by other groups to soften up government targets.

“Even the groups that the U.S. has trained tend to show up in the same trenches as the Nusra Front eventually, because they need them and they are fighting the same battles,” Mr. Lund said.

***

Current and former American officials acknowledge the government’s lack of deep knowledge about the rebels. “We need to do everything we can to figure out who the non-ISIS opposition is,” said Ryan C. Crocker, a former United States ambassador to Iraq and Syria. “Frankly, we don’t have a clue.”

And yet, as the Wall Street Journal,  PBS, CNN, New York Times, Medium, Pulitzer prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh and others note, the U.S. and its allies have poured huge amounts of weapons and support to the Syrian Islamic “rebels”. This is in spite of the CIA warning President Obama that arming rebels rarely works.

Washington wants regime change in Syria, so it’s making up a myth of the “moderate Syrian rebel” who hates Assad and ISIS.   But they “don’t have a clue” as to whether such a mythical unicorn actually exists (spoiler alert: it doesn’t).

The New York Times reported in 2013 that virtually all of the rebel fighters in Syria are hardline Islamic terrorists.  Things have gotten much worse since then … as the few remaining moderates have been lured away by ISIS’ arms, cash and influence.

Michael Shank – Adjunct Faculty and Board Member at George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, and director of foreign policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation – warned a year ago:

The Senate and House Intelligence committees’ about-face decision last week to arm the rebels in Syria is dangerous and disconcerting. The weapons will assuredly end up in the wrong hands and will only escalate the slaughter in Syria. Regardless of the vetting procedures in place, the sheer factionalized nature of the opposition guarantees that the arms will end up in some unsavory hands. The same militant fighters who have committed gross atrocities are among the best-positioned of the rebel groups to seize the weapons that the United States sends to Syria.

***

Arming one side of Syria’s multi-sided and bloody civil war will come back to haunt us. Past decisions by the U.S. to arm insurgencies in Libya, Angola, Central America and Afghanistan helped sustain brutal conflicts in those regions for decades. In the case of Afghanistan, arming the mujahideen in the 1980s created the instability that emboldened extreme militant groups and gave rise to the Taliban, which ultimately created an environment for al Qaeda to thrive.

***

Arming the enemies of our enemies hasn’t made the U.S. more friends; it has made the U.S. more enemies.

***

Some armed opposition factions, including powerful Islamist coalitions, reject negotiation altogether. Yet these are the same groups that will likely seize control of U.S.-supplied weapons, just as they’ve already seized control of the bulk of the rebels’ weaponry.

***

When you lift the curtain on the armed groups with the most formidable military presence on the ground in Syria, you find the Al Nusra Front and Al Farough Brigades. Both groups are closely aligned with Al Qaeda and have directly perpetrated barbaric atrocities. The Al Nusra Front has been charged with beheadings of civilians, while a commander from the Al Farough Brigades reportedly ate the heart of a pro-Assad soldier.

Shank’s warning was ignored, and his worst fears came to pass.  And since the Obama administration is doubling-down on the same moronic policy, it will happen again …

And it’s not as if we only started supporting the rebels after the Syrian civil war started. Rather, the U.S. started funding the Syrian opposition 5 years before the civil war started … and started arming them 4 years beforehand.

And a leaked 2006 U.S. State Department Cable from the U.S. Ambassador to Syria discussed plans to overthrow the Syrian government.

So it’s not as if our intervention in Syria is for humanitarian reasons.

We summarized the state of affairs in 2014:

The Syrian rebels are mainly Al Qaeda, and the U.S. has been supporting these terroristsfor years. Indeed, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, the National and other sources, Al Qaeda’s power within the Syrian rebel forces is only growing stronger.

Rank-and-file Syrian rebels have:

• Burned American flags

• Threatened to attack America

• Said: “When we finish with Assad, we will fight the U.S.!”

• Said: “We started our holy war here and won’t finish until this [Al Qaeda] banner will be raised on top of the White House. Keep funding them, you always do that, remember? Al Qaeda for instance.”

• A former Syrian Jihadi says the rebels have a “9/11 ideology”

• Indeed, they’re literally singing Bin Laden’s praises and celebrating the 9/11 attack

In fact, one of the heads of the Syrian rebels is also the global boss of Al Qaeda … and he is calling for fresh terrorist attacks on America. CBS News reports:

Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri called has called on Muslims to continue attacking Americans on their own soil in order to “bleed” the U.S. economy.

***

“To keep up the hemorrhage in America’s security and military spending, we need to keep the Unites States on a constant state of alert about where and when the next strike will blow,” Zawahiri said.

Let’s recap … Most of the Syrian “rebels” are Al Qaeda. The U.S. government hasdesignated these guys as terrorists.

Things are getting worse, not better: Al Qaeda is gaining more and more power among the rebels….

Indeed, we’ve long known that most of the weapons we’re shipping to Syria are ending up in the hands of Al Qaeda. And they apparently have chemical weapons.

Summary: We’re arming the same guys who are threatening to blow us up.

Indeed, ISIS has tripled the size of its territory in Syria and greatly expanded its territory in Iraq even after the U.S. started its bombing campaign against ISIS. (Update: ISIS now has captured even more of Syria.)

Is something deeper going on behind the scene?

PART 2: ISIS’ STRANGE LEADERSHIP

There is a question about whether the heads of ISIS are who we’ve been told.

For example, the New York Times reported in 2007:

For more than a year, the leader of one the most notorious insurgent groups in Iraq was said to be a mysterious Iraqi named Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi.

As the titular head of the Islamic State in Iraq, an organization publicly backed by Al Qaeda, Baghdadi issued a steady stream of incendiary pronouncements. Despite claims by Iraqi officials that he had been killed in May, Baghdadi appeared to have persevered unscathed.

On Wednesday, a senior American military spokesman provided a new explanation for Baghdadi’s ability to escape attack: He never existed.

Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, the chief American military spokesman, said the elusive Baghdadi was actually a fictional character whose audio-taped declarations were provided by an elderly actor named Abu Adullah al-Naima.

The ruse, Bergner said, was devised by Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was trying to mask the dominant role that foreigners play in that insurgent organization.

The ploy was to invent Baghdadi, a figure whose very name establishes his Iraqi pedigree, install him as the head of a front organization called the Islamic State of Iraq and then arrange for Masri to swear allegiance to him. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s deputy, sought to reinforce the deception by referring to Baghdadi in his video and Internet statements.

***

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official and a Middle East expert, said that experts had long wondered whether Baghdadi actually existed. “There has been a question mark about this,” he said.

***

American military spokesmen insist they have gotten to the truth on Baghdadi. Mashadani, they say, provided his account because he resented the role of foreign leaders in Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

The unmasking of the terror leader as being an actor’s fictitious persona came after al-Baghdadi was – according to mainstream media reports – arrested in 2007, killed in 2007, arrested again in 2009, and then killed again in 2010.

The story of ISIS’ previous leader – Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – was odd as well. He was declared dead in 2004. Then he was said to be arrested … several different times. Then he was supposedly killed again in 2006.

The Independent – in an article on “black propaganda” (i.e. intentional disinformation) by the U.S. government – cites the forging by the U.S. government of a letter which it pretended was written by al Zarqawi, which was then unquestioningly parroted by the media as an authentic by Zarqawi letter. The Washington Post reported:

One internal briefing, produced by the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq, said that Kimmitt [Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the U.S. military’s chief spokesman in 2004, and subsequently the senior planner on the staff of the Central Command that directs operations in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East] had concluded that, “The Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date.”

And CNN reported that ISIS’ current leader – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – was “respected” very much by the U.S. Army and allowed to communicate freely with other prisoners in the prison in which ISIS was hatched (see Part 1) and to travel without restriction at that prison:

PART 3: DEEPER BACKGROUND

To understand the deeper story behind ISIS, we have to go back more than half a century to look at U.S. history in the Middle East.

Target: Iraq

Between 1932 and 1948, the roots for the current wars in Iraq were planted.  As Wikipedia explains:

The Mosul–Haifa oil pipeline (also known as Mediterranean pipeline) was a crude oil pipeline from the oil fields in Kirkuk, located in north Iraq, through Jordan to Haifa (now on the territory of Israel). The pipeline was operational in 1935–1948. Its length was about 942 kilometres (585 mi), with a diameter of 12 inches (300 mm) (reducing to 10 and 8 inches (250 and 200 mm) in parts), and it took about 10 days for crude oil to travel the full length of the line. The oil arriving in Haifa was distilled in the Haifa refineries, stored in tanks, and then put in tankers for shipment to Europe.

The pipeline was built by the Iraq Petroleum Company between 1932 and 1935, during which period most of the area through which the pipeline passed was under a British mandate approved by the League of Nations. The pipeline was one of two pipelines carrying oil from the Kirkuk oilfield to the Mediterranean coast. The main pipeline split at Haditha with a second line carrying oil to Tripoli, Lebanon, which was then under a French mandate. This line was built primarily to satisfy the demands of the French partner in IPC, Compagnie Française des Pétroles, for a separate line to be built across French mandated territory.

The pipeline and the Haifa refineries were considered strategically important by the British Government, and indeed provided much of the fuel needs of the British and American forces in the Mediterranean during the Second World War.

The pipeline was a target of attacks by Arab gangs during the Great Arab Revolt, and as a result one of the main objectives of a joint British-Jewish Special Night Squads commanded by Captain Orde Wingate was to protect the pipeline against such attacks. Later on, the pipeline was the target of attacks by the Irgun. [Background.]

In 1948, with the outbreak of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the official operation of the pipeline ended when the Iraqi Government refused to pump any more oil through it.

Why is this relevant today?   Haaretz reported soon after the Iraq war started in 2003:

The United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem.

The Prime Minister’s Office, which views the pipeline to Haifa as a “bonus” the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq, had asked the Americans for the official telegram.

The new pipeline would take oil from the Kirkuk area, where some 40 percent of Iraqi oil is produced, and transport it via Mosul, and then across Jordan to Israel. The U.S. telegram included a request for a cost estimate for repairing the Mosul-Haifa pipeline that was in use prior to 1948.  During the War of Independence [what Jews call the 1948 war to form the state of Israel], the Iraqis stopped the flow of oil to Haifa and the pipeline fell into disrepair over the years.

***

National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky said yesterday that the port of Haifa is an attractive destination for Iraqi oil and that he plans to discuss this matter with the U.S. secretary of energy during his planned visit to Washington next month.

***

In response to rumors about the possible Kirkuk-Mosul-Haifa pipeline, Turkey has warned Israel that it would regard this development as a serious blow to Turkish-Israeli relations.

So the fighting over Iraq can be traced back to events occurring in 1948 and before.

But let’s fast-forward to subsequent little-known events in Iraq.

The CIA plotted to poison the Iraqi leader in 1960.

In 1963, the U.S. backed the coup which succeeded in killing the head of Iraq.

And everyone knows that the U.S. also toppled Saddam Hussein during the Iraq war.  But most don’t know that neoconservatives planned regime change in Iraq once again in 1991.

4-Star General Wesley Clark – former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO – said:

It came back to me … a 1991 meeting I had with Paul Wolfowitz.

***

In 1991, he was the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy – the number 3 position at the Pentagon. And I had gone to see him when I was a 1-Star General commanding the National Training Center.

***

And I said, “Mr. Secretary, you must be pretty happy with the performance of the troops in Desert Storm.” And he said: “Yeah, but not really, because the truth is we should have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein, and we didn’t … But one thing we did learn [from the Persian Gulf War] is that we can use our military in the region – in the Middle East – and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes – Syria, Iran, IRAQ – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”

And many people don’t know that the architects of the Iraq War themselves admitted the war was about oil. For example, former U.S. Secretary of Defense – and former 12-year Republican Senator – Chuck Hagel said of the Iraq war in 2007:

People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are. They talk about America’s national interest. What the hell do you think they’re talking about? We’re not there for figs.

4 Star General John Abizaid – the former commander of CENTCOM with responsibility for Iraq – said:

Of course it’s about oil, it’s very much about oil, and we can’t really deny that.

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said in 2007:

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil

President George W. Bush said in 2005 that keeping Iraqi oil away from the bad guys was a key motivefor the Iraq war:

‘If Zarqawi and [Osama] bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks,” Bush said. ”They’d seize oil fields to fund their ambitions.”

John McCain said in 2008:

My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will — that will then prevent us — that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.

Sarah Palin said in 2008:

Better to start that drilling [for oil within the U.S.] today than wait and continue relying on foreign sources of energy. We are a nation at war and in many [ways] the reasons for war are fights over energy sources, which is nonsensical when you consider that domestically we have the supplies ready to go.

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum – author of the infamous “Axis of Evil” claim in Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address – writes in Newsweek this week:

In 2002, Chalabi [the Iraqi politician and oil minister who the Bush Administration favored to lead Iraq after the war] joined the annual summer retreat of the American Enterprise Institute near Vail, Colorado. He and Cheney spent long hours together, contemplating the possibilities of a Western-oriented Iraq: an additional source of oil, an alternative to U.S. dependency on an unstable-looking Saudi Arabia.

Key war architect – and Under Secretary of State – John Bolton said:

The critical oil and natural gas producing region that we fought so many wars to try and protectour economy from the adverse impact of losing that supply or having it available only at very high prices.

General Wesley Clark said that the Iraq war – like all modern U.S. wars – were about oil:

A high-level National Security Council officer strongly implied that Cheney and the U.S. oil chiefs planned the Iraq war before 9/11 in order to get control of its oil.

The Sunday Herald reported:

It is a document that fundamentally questions the motives behind the Bush administration’s desire to take out Saddam Hussein and go to war with Iraq.

Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century describes how America is facing the biggest energy crisis in its history. It targets Saddam as a threat to American interests because of his control of Iraqi oilfields and recommends the use of ‘military intervention’ as a means to fix the US energy crisis.

The report is linked to a veritable who’s who of US hawks, oilmen and corporate bigwigs. It was commissioned by James Baker, the former US Secretary of State under George Bush Snr, and submitted to Vice-President Dick Cheney in April 2001 — a full five months before September 11. Yet it advocates a policy of using military force against an enemy such as Iraq to secure US access to, and control of, Middle Eastern oil fields.

One of the most telling passages in the document reads: ‘Iraq remains a destabilising influence to … the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export programme to manipulate oil markets.

‘This would display his personal power, enhance his image as a pan-Arab leader … and pressure others for a lifting of economic sanctions against his regime. The United States should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments.

***

‘Military intervention’ is supported …

***

The document also points out that ‘the United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma’, and that one of the ‘consequences’ of this is a ‘need for military intervention’.

At the heart of the decision to target Iraq over oil lies dire mismanagement of the US energy policy over decades by consecutive administrations. The report refers to the huge power cuts that have affected California in recent years and warns of ‘more Californias’ ahead.

It says the ‘central dilemma’ for the US administration is that ‘the American people continue to demand plentiful and cheap energy without sacrifice or inconvenience’. With the ‘energy sector in critical condition, a crisis could erupt at any time [which] could have potentially enormous impact on the US … and would affect US national security and foreign policy in dramatic ways.”

***

The response is to put oil at the heart of the administration — ‘a reassessment of the role of energy in American foreign policy’.

***

Iraq is described as the world’s ‘key swing producer … turning its taps on and off when it has felt such action was in its strategic interest”. The report also says there is a ‘possibility that Saddam may remove Iraqi oil from the market for an extended period of time’, creating a volatile market.

***

Halliburton is one of the firms thought by analysts to be in line to make a killing in any clean-up operation after another US-led war on Iraq.

All five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the UK, France, China, Russia and the US — have international oil companies that would benefit from huge windfalls in the event of regime change in Baghdad. The best chance for US firms to make billions would come if Bush installed a pro-US Iraqi opposition member as the head of a new government.

Representatives of foreign oil firms have already met with leaders of the Iraqi opposition. Ahmed Chalabi, the London-based leader of the Iraqi National Congress, said: ‘American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil.’

The Independent reported in 2011:

Plans to exploit Iraq’s oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world’s largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.

***

The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time.

***

Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: “Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis.”

The minister then promised to “report back to the companies before Christmas” on her lobbying efforts.

The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq “post regime change”. Its minutes state: “Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity.”

After another meeting, this one in October 2002, the Foreign Office’s Middle East director at the time, Edward Chaplin, noted: “Shell and BP could not afford not to have a stake in [Iraq] for the sake of their long-term future… We were determined to get a fair slice of the action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq.”

Whereas BP was insisting in public that it had “no strategic interest” in Iraq, in private it told the Foreign Office that Iraq was “more important than anything we’ve seen for a long time”.

BP was concerned that if Washington allowed TotalFinaElf’s existing contact with Saddam Hussein to stand after the invasion it would make the French conglomerate the world’s leading oil company. BP told the Government it was willing to take “big risks” to get a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world.

Over 1,000 documents were obtained under Freedom of Information over five years by the oil campaigner Greg Muttitt. They reveal that at least five meetings were held between civil servants, ministers and BP and Shell in late 2002.

The 20-year contracts signed in the wake of the invasion were the largest in the history of the oil industry. They covered half of Iraq’s reserves – 60 billion barrels of oil …

[Note:  The 1990 Gulf war – while not a regime change – was also about oil.   Specifically, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait caused oil prices to skyrocket. The U.S. invaded Iraq in order to calm oil markets. In its August 20, 1990 issue, Time Magazine quoted an anonymous U.S. Official as saying:

Even a dolt understands the principle.  We need the oil. It’s nice to talk about standing up for freedom, but Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are not exactly democracies, and if their principal export were oranges, a mid-level State Department official would have issued a statement and we would have closed Washington down for August.]

Target: Syria

The history of western intervention in Syria is similar to our meddling in Iraq.

The CIA backed a right-wing coup in Syria in 1949. Douglas Little, Professor, Department of Clark University History professor Douglas Little notes:

As early as 1949, this newly independent Arab republic was an important staging ground for the CIA’s earliest experiments in covert action. The CIA secretly encouraged a right-wing military coup in 1949.

The reason the U.S. initiated the coup?  Little explains:

In late 1945, the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) announced plans to construct the Trans-Arabian Pipe Line (TAPLINE) from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterra- nean. With U.S. help, ARAMCO secured rights-of-way from Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.  The Syrian right-of-way was stalled in parliament.

In other words, Syria was the sole holdout for the lucrative oil pipeline.

The BBC reports that –  in 1957 – the British and American leaders seriously considered attacking the Syrian government using Muslim extremists in Syria as a form of “false flag” attack:

In 1957 Harold Macmillan [then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom] and President Dwight Eisenhower approved a CIA-MI6 plan to stage fake border incidents as an excuse for an invasion by Syria’s pro-western neighbours, and then to “eliminate” the most influential triumvirate in Damascus…. More importantly, Syria also had control of one of the main oil arteries of the Middle East, the pipeline which connected pro-western Iraq’s oilfields to Turkey.

***

The report said that once the necessary degree of fear had been created, frontier incidents and border clashes would be staged to provide a pretext for Iraqi and Jordanian military intervention. Syria had to be “made to appear as the sponsor of plots, sabotage and violence directed against neighbouring governments,” the report says. “CIA and SIS should use their capabilities in both the psychological and action fields to augment tension.” That meant operations in Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon, taking the form of “sabotage, national conspiracies and various strong-arm activities” to be blamed on Damascus. The plan called for funding of a “Free Syria Committee” [hmmm … soundsvaguely familiar], and the arming of “political factions with paramilitary or other actionist capabilities” within Syria. The CIA and MI6 would instigate internal uprisings, for instance by the Druze [a Shia Muslim sect] in the south, help to free political prisoners held in the Mezze prison, and stir up the Muslim Brotherhood in Damascus.

Neoconservatives planned regime change in Syria once again in 1991 (as noted above in the quote from 4-Star General Wesley Clark).

And as the Guardian reported in 2013:

According to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas, Britain had planned covert action in Syria as early as 2009:

“I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business,” he told French television: “I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. This was in Britain not in America. Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria.”

***

Leaked emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, including notes from a meeting with Pentagon officials, confirmed that as of 2011, US and UK special forces training of Syrian opposition forces was well underway. The goal was to elicit the “collapse” of Assad’s regime “from within.”

***

In 2009 – the same year former French foreign minister Dumas alleges the British began planning operations in Syria – Assad refused to sign a proposed agreement with Qatar that would run a pipeline from the latter’s North field, contiguous with Iran’s South Pars field, through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and on to Turkey, with a view to supply European markets – albeit crucially bypassing Russia. Assad’s rationale was “to protect the interests of [his] Russian ally, which is Europe’s top supplier of natural gas.”

Instead, the following year, Assad pursued negotiations for an alternative $10 billion pipeline plan with Iran, across Iraq to Syria, that would also potentially allow Iran to supply gas to Europe from its South Pars field shared with Qatar. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the project was signed in July 2012 – just as Syria’s civil war was spreading to Damascus and Aleppo – and earlier this year Iraq signed a framework agreement for construction of the gas pipelines.

The Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline plan was a “direct slap in the face” to Qatar’s plans. No wonder Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, in a failed attempt to bribe Russia to switch sides, told President Vladmir Putin that “whatever regime comes after” Assad, it will be“completely” in Saudi Arabia’s hands and will “not sign any agreement allowing any Gulf country to transport its gas across Syria to Europe and compete with Russian gas exports”, according to diplomatic sources. When Putin refused, the Prince vowed military action.

It would seem that contradictory self-serving Saudi and Qatari oil interests are pulling the strings of an equally self-serving oil-focused US policy in Syria, if not the wider region. It is this – the problem of establishing a pliable opposition which the US and its oil allies feel confident will play ball, pipeline-style, in a post-Assad Syria – that will determine the nature of any prospective intervention: not concern for Syrian life.

[Footnote: The U.S. and its allies have toppled many other governments, as well.]

The war in Syria – like Iraq – is largely about oil and gas.   International Business Times noted in 2013:

[Syria] controls one of the largest conventional hydrocarbon resources in the eastern Mediterranean.

Syria possessed 2.5 billion barrels of crude oil as of January 2013, which makes it the largest proved reserve of crude oil in the eastern Mediterranean according to the Oil & Gas Journal estimate.

***

Syria also has oil shale resources with estimated reserves that range as high as 50 billion tons, according to a Syrian government source in 2010.

Moreover, Syria is a key chess piece in the pipeline wars.  Syria is an integral part of the proposed 1,200km Arab Gas Pipeline:

Here are some additional graphics courtesy of Adam Curry:

Syria’s central role in the Arab gas pipeline is also a key to why it is now being targeted.

Just as the Taliban was scheduled for removal after they demanded too much in return for the Unocal pipeline, Syria’s Assad is being targeted because he is not a reliable “player”.

Specifically, Turkey, Israel and their ally the U.S. want an assured flow of gas through Syria, and don’t want a Syrian regime which is not unquestionably loyal to those 3 countries to stand in the way of the pipeline … or which demands too big a cut of the profits.

A deal has also been inked to run a natural gas pipeline from Iran’s giant South Pars field through Iraq and Syria (with a possible extension to Lebanon). And a deal to run petroleum from Iraq’s Kirkuk oil field to the Syrian port of Banias has also been approved:

Turkey and Israel would be cut out of these competing pipelines.

Gail Tverberg- an expert on financial aspects of the oil industry – writes:

One of the limits in ramping up Iraqi oil extraction is the limited amount of infrastructure available for exporting oil from Iraq. If pipelines through Syria could be added, this might alleviate part of the problem in getting oil to international markets.

The Plan to Break Up Iraq and Syria?

In September 2015, Pentagon intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart said that he has “a tough time” seeing either Iraq or Syria really coming back together as sovereign nations.  This may sound like a reaction to ISIS and the civil war raging in Syria. But – in reality – the hawks in the U.S. and Israeldecided long ago to break up Iraq and Syria into small fragments.

The Guardian noted in 2003:

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt predicted devastating consequences for the Middle East if Iraq is attacked. “We fear a state of disorder and chaos may prevail in the region,” he said.

***

They are probably still splitting their sides with laughter in the Pentagon. But Mr Mubarak and the [Pentagon] hawks do agree on one thing: war with Iraq could spell disaster for several regimes in the Middle East. Mr Mubarak believes that would be bad.The hawks, though, believe it would be good.

For the hawks, disorder and chaos sweeping through the region would not be an unfortunate side-effect of war with Iraq, but a sign that everything is going according to plan.

***

The “skittles theory” of the Middle East – that one ball aimed at Iraq can knock down several regimes – has been around for some time on the wilder fringes of politics but has come to the fore in the United States on the back of the “war against terrorism”.

Its roots can be traced, at least in part, to a paper published in 1996 by an Israeli thinktank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. Entitled “A clean break: a new strategy for securing the realm”, it was intended as a political blueprint for the incoming government of Binyamin Netanyahu. As the title indicates, it advised the right-wing Mr Netanyahu to make a complete break with the past by adopting a strategy “based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism …”

***

The paper set out a plan by which Israel would “shape its strategic environment”, beginning with the removal of Saddam Hussein and the installation of a Hashemite monarchy in Baghdad.

With Saddam out of the way and Iraq thus brought under Jordanian Hashemite influence, Jordan and Turkey would form an axis along with Israel to weaken and “roll back” Syria. Jordan, it suggested, could also sort out Lebanon by “weaning” the Shia Muslim population away from Syria and Iran, and re-establishing their former ties with the Shia in the new Hashemite kingdom of Iraq. “Israel will not only contain its foes; it will transcend them”, the paper concluded.

***

The leader of the “prominent opinion makers” who wrote it was Richard Perle – now chairman of the Defence Policy Board at the Pentagon.

Also among the eight-person team was Douglas Feith, a neo-conservative lawyer, who now holds one of the top four posts at the Pentagon as under-secretary of policy.

***

Two other opinion-makers in the team were David Wurmser and his wife, Meyrav(see US thinktanks give lessons in foreign policy, August 19). Mrs Wurmser was co-founder of Memri, a Washington-based charity that distributes articles translated from Arabic newspapers portraying Arabs in a bad light. After working with Mr Perle at the American Enterprise Institute, David Wurmser is now at the State Department, as a special assistant to John Bolton, the under-secretary for arms control and international security.

A fifth member of the team was James Colbert, of the Washington-based Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa) – a bastion of neo-conservative hawkery whose advisory board was previously graced by Dick Cheney (now US vice-president), John Bolton and Douglas Feith.

***

With several of the “Clean Break” paper’s authors now holding key positions in Washington, the plan for Israel to “transcend” its foes by reshaping the Middle East looks a good deal more achievable today than it did in 1996. Americans may even be persuaded to give up their lives to achieve it.

(Before assuming prominent roles in the Bush administration, many of the same people – includingRichard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, John Bolton and others – advocated their imperial views during the Clinton administration via their American think tank, the “Project for a New American Century”.)

Thomas Harrington – professor of Iberian Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut – writes:

[While there are some good articles on the chaos in Iraq, none of them] consider whetherthe chaos now enveloping the region might, in fact, be the desired aim of policy planners in Washington and Tel Aviv.

***

One of the prime goals of every empire is to foment ongoing internecine conflict in the territories whose resources and/or strategic outposts they covet.

***

The most efficient way of sparking such open-ended internecine conflict is to brutally smash the target country’s social matrix and physical infrastructure.

***

Ongoing unrest has the additional perk of justifying the maintenance and expansion of the military machine that feeds the financial and political fortunes of the metropolitan elite.

In short … divide and rule is about as close as it gets to a universal recourse the imperial game and that it is, therefore, as important to bear it in mind today as it was in the times of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, the Spanish Conquistadors and the British Raj.

To those—and I suspect there are still many out there—for whom all this seems too neat or too conspiratorial, I would suggest a careful side-by side reading of:

a) the “Clean Break” manifesto generated by the Jerusalem-based Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS) in 1996

and

b) the “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” paper generated by The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in 2000, a US group with deep personal and institutional links to the aforementioned Israeli think tank, and with the ascension of  George Bush Junior to the White House, to the most exclusive  sanctums of the US foreign policy apparatus.

To read the cold-blooded imperial reasoning in both of these documents—which speak, in the first case, quite openly of the need to destabilize the region so as to reshape Israel’s “strategic environment” and, in the second of the need to dramatically increase the number of US “forward bases” in the region ….

To do so now, after the US’s systematic destruction of Iraq and Libya—two notably oil-rich countries whose delicate ethnic and religious balances were well known to anyone in or out of government with more than passing interest in history—, and after the its carefully calibrated efforts to generate and maintain murderous and civilization-destroying stalemates in Syria and Egypt (something that is easily substantiated despite our media’s deafening silence on the subject), is downright blood-curdling.

And yet, it seems that for even very well-informed analysts, it is beyond the pale to raise the possibility that foreign policy elites in the US and Israel, like all virtually all the ambitious hegemons before them on the world stage, might have quite coldly and consciously fomented open-ended chaos in order to achieve their overlapping strategic objectives in this part of the world.

Antiwar’s Justin Raimondo notes:

Iraq’s fate was sealed from the moment we invaded: it has no future as a unitary state. As I pointed out again and again in the early days of the conflict, Iraq is fated to split apart into at least three separate states: the Shi’ite areas around Baghdad and to the south, the Sunni regions to the northwest, and the Kurdish enclave which was itching for independence since well before the US invasion. This was the War Party’s real if unexpressed goal from the very beginning: the atomization of Iraq, and indeed the entire Middle East. Their goal, in short, was chaos – and that is precisely what we are seeing today.

***

As I put it years ago:

[T]he actual purpose was to blow the country to smithereens: to atomize it, and crush it, so that it would never rise again.

When we invaded and occupied Iraq, we didn’t just militarily defeat Iraq’s armed forces – we dismantled their army, and their police force, along with all the other institutions that held the country together. The educational system was destroyed, and not reconstituted. The infrastructure was pulverized, and never restored. Even the physical hallmarks of a civilized society – roads, bridges, electrical plants, water facilities, museums, schools – were bombed out of existence or else left to fall into disrepair. Along with that, the spiritual and psychological infrastructure that enables a society to function – the bonds of trust, allegiance, and custom – was dissolved, leaving Iraqis to fend for themselves in a war of all against all.

… What we are witnessing in post-Saddam Iraq is the erasure of an entire country. We can say, with confidence: We came, we saw, we atomized.

Why? This is the question that inevitably arises in the wake of such an analysis: why deliberately destroy an entire country whose people were civilized while our European ancestors were living in trees?

The people who planned, agitated for, and executed this war are the very same people who have advanced Israeli interests – at America’s expense – at every opportunity. In “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” a 1996 document prepared by a gaggle of neocons – Perle, Douglas Feith, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was urged to “break out” of Israel’s alleged stagnation and undertake a campaign of “regime change” across the Middle East, targeting Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Iraq, and eventually Iran. With the exception of Iran – and that one’s still cooking on the back burner – this is precisely what has occurred. In 2003, in the immediate wake of our Pyrrhic “victory” in Iraq, then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared to a visiting delegation of American members of Congress that these “rogue states” – Iran, Libya, and Syria – would have to be next on the War Party’s target list.

(Indeed.)

And Michel Chossudovsky points out:

The division of Iraq along sectarian-ethnic lines has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for more than 10 years.

What is envisaged by Washington is the outright suppression of the Baghdad regime and the institutions of the central government, leading to a process of political fracturing andthe elimination of Iraq as a country.

This process of political fracturing in Iraq along sectarian lines will inevitably have an impact on Syria, where the US-NATO sponsored terrorists have in large part been defeated.

Destabilization and political fragmentation in Syria is also contemplated: Washington’s intent is no longer to pursue the narrow objective of “regime change” in Damascus. What is contemplated is the break up of both Iraq and Syria along sectarian-ethnic lines.

The formation of the caliphate may be the first step towards a broader conflict in the Middle East, bearing in mind that Iran is supportive of the al-Maliki government and the US ploy may indeed be to encourage the intervention of Iran.

The proposed re-division of both Iraq and Syria is broadly modeled on that of the Federation of Yugoslavia which was split up into seven “independent states” (Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia (FYRM), Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo). According to Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, the re division of Iraq into three separate states is part of a broader process of redrawing the Map of the Middle East.

The above map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006).

Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO’s Defense College for senior military officers”. (See Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East” By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Research, November 2006)

Similarly, Neooconservatives in the U.S. and Israel have long advocated for the balkanization of Syria into smaller regions based on ethnicity and religion. The goal was to break up the country, and to do away with the sovereignty of Syria as a separate nation.

In 1982, a prominent Israeli journalist formerly attached to the Israeli Foreign Ministry allegedly wrotea book expressly calling for the break up of Syria:

All the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units …. Dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run.

In any event, it is well-documented that – in 1996 – U.S. and Israeli Neocons advocated:

Weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria ….

As Michel Chossudovsky points out:

Destabilization and political fragmentation in Syria is also contemplated: Washington’s intent is no longer to pursue the narrow objective of “regime change” in Damascus. What is contemplated is the break up of both Iraq and Syria along sectarian-ethnic lines.

Indeed, in May 2015, one of the key architects of the Iraq war – John Bolton – said:

The Arabs divided between Sunnis and Shias – I think the Sunni Arabs are never going to agree to be in a state where the Shia outnumber them 3-1. That’s what ISIS has been able to take advantage of.

I think our objective should be a new Sunni state out of the western part of Iraq, the eastern part of Syria run by moderates or at least authoritarians who are not radical Islamists. What’s left of the state of Iraq, as of right now, is simply a satellite of the ayatollahs in Tehran. It’s not anything we should try to aid.

U.S. and Allied Support for Extremists

There’s one more historical fact which is key background to understanding ISIS: U.S. and allied support for extremists.

Front row, from left: Major Gen. Hamid Gul, director general of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), Director of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Willian Webster; Deputy Director for Operations Clair George; an ISI colonel; and senior CIA official, Milt Bearden at a Mujahideen training camp in North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan in 1987. (source RAWA)

Ronald Reagan meets Afghan Mujahideen Commanders at the White House in 1985 (Reagan Archives)

Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted on CNN that the U.S. organized and supported Bin Laden and the other originators of “Al Qaeda” in the 1970s to fight the Soviets.We Created Al Qaeda to Fight the Soviets in Afghanistan

Brzezinski told Al Qaeda’s forefathers – the Mujahadin:

We know of their deep belief in god – that they’re confident that their struggle will succeed. That land over – there is yours – and you’ll go back to it some day, because your fight will prevail, and you’ll have your homes, your mosques, back again, because your cause is right, and god is on your side.

CIA director and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates confirmed in his memoir that the U.S. backed the Mujahadin in the 1970s.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agrees:

MSNBC reported in 1998:

As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow’s invasion in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar – the MAK – which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war.

What the CIA bio conveniently fails to specify (in its unclassified form, at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by Pakistan’s state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA’s primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow’s occupation.

***

The CIA, concerned about the factionalism of Afghanistan … found that Arab zealots who flocked to aid the Afghans were easier to “read” than the rivalry-ridden natives. While the Arab volunteers might well prove troublesome later, the agency reasoned, they at least were one-dimensionally anti-Soviet for now. So bin Laden, along with a small group of Islamic militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East, became the “reliable” partners of the CIA in its war against Moscow.

***

To this day, those involved in the decision to give the Afghan rebels access to a fortune in covert funding and top-level combat weaponry continue to defend that move in the context of the Cold War. Sen. Orrin Hatch, a senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee making those decisions, told my colleague Robert Windrem that he would make the same call again today even knowing what bin Laden would do subsequently. “It was worth it,” he said.

“Those were very important, pivotal matters that played an important role in the downfall of the Soviet Union,” he said.

Indeed, the U.S. started backing Al Qaeda’s forefathers even before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. As Brzezinski told Le Nouvel Observateur in a 1998 interview:

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [“From the Shadows”], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

***

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

The Washington Post reported in 2002:

The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings ….

The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books ….

The Council on Foreign Relations notes:

The 9/11 Commission report (PDF) released in 2004 said some of Pakistan’s religious schools or madrassas served as “incubators for violent extremism.” Since then, there has been much debate over madrassas and their connection to militancy.

***

New madrassas sprouted, funded and supported by Saudi Arabia and U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, where students were encouraged to join the Afghan resistance.

And see this. Veteran journalist Robert Dreyfuss writes:

For half a century the United States and many of its allies saw what I call the “Islamic right” as convenient partners in the Cold War.

***

In the decades before 9/11, hard-core activists and organizations among Muslim fundamentalists on the far right were often viewed as allies for two reasons, because they were seen a fierce anti-communists and because the opposed secular nationalists such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Iran’s Mohammed Mossadegh.

***

By the end of the 1950s, rather than allying itself with the secular forces of progress in the Middle East and the Arab world, the United States found itself in league with Saudi Arabia’s Islamist legions. Choosing Saudi Arabia over Nasser’s Egypt was probably the single biggest mistake the United States has ever made in the Middle East.

A second big mistake … occurred in the 1970s, when, at the height of the Cold War and the struggle for control of the Middle East, the United States either supported or acquiesced in the rapid growth of Islamic right in countries from Egypt to Afghanistan. In Egypt, Anwar Sadat brought the Muslim Brotherhood back to Egypt. In Syria, the United States, Israel, and Jordan supported the Muslim Brotherhood in a civil war against Syria. And … Israel quietly backed Ahmed Yassin and the Muslim Brotherhood in the West Bank and Gaza, leading to the establishment of Hamas.

Still another major mistake was the fantasy that Islam would penetrate the USSR and unravel the Soviet Union in Asia. It led to America’s support for the jihadists in Afghanistan. But … America’s alliance with the Afghan Islamists long predated the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and had its roots in CIA activity in Afghanistan in the 1960s and in the early and mid-1970s. The Afghan jihad spawned civil war in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, gave rise to the Taliban, and got Osama bin Laden started on building Al Qaeda.

Would the Islamic right have existed without U.S. support? Of course. This is not a book for the conspiracy-minded. But there is no question that the virulence of the movement that we now confront—and which confronts many of the countries in the region, too, from Algeria to India and beyond—would have been significantly less had the United States made other choices during the Cold War.

In other words, if the U.S. and our allies hadn’t backed the radical violent Muslims instead of more stable, peaceful groups in the Middle East, radical Islam wouldn’t have grown so large.

Pakistani nuclear scientist and peace activist Perez Hoodbhoy writes:

Every religion, including Islam, has its crazed fanatics. Few in numbers and small in strength, they can properly be assigned to the “loony” section. This was true for Islam as well until 1979, the year of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Indeed, there may well have been no 911 but for this game-changer.

***

Officials like Richard Perle, Assistant Secretary of Defense, immediately saw Afghanistan not as the locale of a harsh and dangerous conflict to be ended but as a place to teach the Russians a lesson. Such “bleeders” became the most influential people in Washington . *** The task of creating such solidarity fell upon Saudi Arabia, together with other conservative Arab monarchies. This duty was accepted readily and they quickly made the Afghan Jihad their central cause…. But still more importantly, to go heart and soul for jihad was crucial at a time when Saudi legitimacy as the guardians of Islam was under strong challenge by Iran, which pointed to the continued occupation of Palestine by America’s partner, Israel. An increasing number of Saudis were becoming disaffected by the House of Saud – its corruption, self-indulgence, repression, and closeness to the US. Therefore, the Jihad in Afghanistan provided an excellent outlet for the growing number of militant Sunni activists in Saudi Arabia, and a way to deal with the daily taunts of the Iranian clergy.

***

The bleeders soon organized and armed the Great Global Jihad, funded by Saudi Arabia, and executed by Pakistan. A powerful magnet for militant Sunni activists was created by the US. The most hardened and ideologically dedicated men were sought on the logic that they would be the best fighters. Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad.

American universities produced books for Afghan children that extolled the virtues of jihad and of killing communists. Readers browsing through book bazaars in Rawalpindi and Peshawar can, even today, sometimes find textbooks produced as part of the series underwritten by a USAID $50 million grant to the University of Nebraska in the 1980’s . These textbooks sought to counterbalance Marxism through creating enthusiasm in Islamic militancy. They exhorted Afghan children to “pluck out the eyes of the Soviet enemy and cut off his legs”. Years after the books were first printed they were approved by the Taliban for use in madrassas – a stamp of their ideological correctness and they are still widely available in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

At the international level, Radical Islam went into overdrive as its superpower ally, the United States, funneled support to the mujahideen. Ronald Reagan feted jihadist leaders on the White House lawn, and the U.S. press lionized them.

And the chief of the visa section at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (J. Michael Springmann, who is now an attorney in private practice) says that the CIA insisted that visas be issued to Afghanis so they could travel to the U.S. to be trained in terrorism in the United States, and then sent back to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.

1993 World Trade Center Bombing

New York District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau believed that the intelligence services could and should have stopped the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, but they were preoccupied with other issues cover.

As well-known investigative journalist Robert I. Friedman wrote in New York Magazine in 1995:

Shiekh Omar Abdel Rahman commands an almost deified adoration and respect in certain Islamic circles. It was his 1980 fatwa – religious decree – condemning Anwar Sadat for making peace with Israel that is widely believed to be responsible for Sadat’s assassination a year later. (Rahman was subsequently tried but acquitted.)

***

The CIA paid to send Abdel Rahman to Peshawar ‘to preach to the Afghans about the necessity of unity to overthrow the Kabul regime,’ according to Professor Rubin. By all accounts, Rahman was brilliant at inspiring the faithful.

As a reward for his services, the CIA gave the sheikh a one-year visa to the United States in May, 1990 – even though he was on a State Department terrorism watch list that should have barred him from the country.

After a public outcry in the wake of the World Trade Centre bombing, a State Department representative discovered that Rahman had, in fact, received four United States visas dating back to December 15, 1986. All were given to him by CIA agents acting as consular officers at American embassies in Khartoum and Cairo. The CIA officers claimed they didn’t know the sheikh was one of the most notorious political figures in the Middle East and a militant on the State Department’s list of undesirables. The agent in Khartoum said that when the sheikh walked in the computers were down and the Sudanese clerk didn’t bother to check the microfiche file.

Says one top New York investigator: ‘Left with the choice between pleading stupidity or else admitting deceit, the CIA went with stupidity.’

***

The sheikh arrived in Brooklyn at a fortuitous time for the CIA. In the wake of the Soviet Union’s retreat from Afghanistan, Congress had slashed the amount of covert aid going to the mujaheddin. The international network of Arab-financed support groups became even more vital to the CIA, including the string of jihad offices that had been set up across America with the help of Saudi and American intelligence. To drum up support, the agency paved the way for veterans of the Afghan conflict to visit the centres and tell their inspirational war stories; in return, the centres collected millions of dollars for the rebels at a time when they needed it most.

There were jihad offices in Jersey City, Atlanta and Dallas, but the most important was the one in Brooklyn, called Alkifah – Arabic for ‘the struggle.’ That storefront became the de facto headquarters of the sheikh.

***

On November 5, 1990, Rabbi Meir Kahane, an ultra-right-wing Zionist militant, was shot in the throat with a .357 magnum in a Manhattan hotel; El-Sayyid Nosair was gunned down by an off-duty postal inspector outside the hotel, and the murder weapon was found a few feet from his hand.

A subsequent search of Nosair’s Cliffside Park, New Jersey home turned up forty boxes of evidence – evidence that, had the D.A.’s office and the FBI looked at it more carefully, would have revealed an active terrorist conspiracy about to boil over in New York.

***

In addition to discovering thousands of rounds of ammunition and hit lists with the names of New York judges and prosecutors, investigators found amongst the Nosair evidence classified U.S. military-training manuals.

***

Also found amongst Nosair’s effects were several documents, letters and notebooks in Arabic, which when eventually translated would point to e terror conspiracy against the United States. The D.A.’s office shipped these, along with the other evidence, to the FBI’s office at 26 Federal Plaza. ‘We gave all this stuff to the bureau, thinking that they were well equipped,’ says one source close to the D.A.’s office. ‘After the World Trade Centre, we discovered they never translated the material.’

According to other sources familiar with the case, the FBI told District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau that Nosair was a lone gunman, not part of a broader conspiracy; the prosecution took this position at trial and lost, only convicting Nosair of gun charges. Morgenthau speculated the CIA may have encouraged the FBI not to pursue any other leads, these sources say. ‘The FBI lied to me,’ Morgenthau has told colleagues. ‘They’re supposed to untangle terrorist connections, but they can’t be trusted to do the job.’

Three years later, on the day the FBI arrested four Arabs for the World Trade Centre bombing, saying it had all of the suspects, Morgenthau’s ears pricked up. He didn’t believe the four were ‘self-starters,’ and speculated that there was probably a larger network as well as a foreign sponsor. He also had a hunch that the suspects would lead back to Sheikh Abdel Rahman. But he worried that the dots might not be connected because the U.S. government was protecting the sheikh for his help in Afghanistan.

***

Nevertheless, some in the D.A.’s office believe that until the Ryder van exploded underneath New York’s tallest building, the sheikh and his men were being protected by the CIA. Morgenthau reportedly believes the CIA brought the sheikh to Brooklyn in the first place….

As far as can be determined, no American agency is investigating leads suggesting foreign-government involvement in the New York terror conspiracy. For example, Saudi intelligence has contributed to Sheikh Rahman’s legal-defence fund, according to Mohammed al-Khilewi, the former first secretary to the Saudi mission at the U.N.

Friedman notes that intelligence agents had possession of notes which should have linked all of these terrorists, but failed to connect the dots prior to 1993.

CNN ran a special report in 1994 called “Terror Nation? U.S. Creation?“, which noted – as summarized by Congressman Peter Deutsch:

Some Afghan groups that have had close affiliation with Pakistani Intelligence are believed to have been involved in the [1993] New York World Trade Center bombings.

***

Pro-Western afghan officials … officially warned the U.S. government about Hekmatyar no fewer than four times. The last warning delivered just days before the [1993] Trade Center attack.” Speaking to former CIA Director Robert Gates, about Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Peter Arnett reports, “The Pakistanis showered Gulbuddin Hekmatyar with U.S. provided weapons and sang his praises to the CIA. They had close ties with Hakmatyar going back to the mid-1970’s.”

This is interesting because it is widely-acknowledged that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was enthusiastically backed by the U.S. For example, U.S. News and World Report says:

[He was] once among America’s most valued allies. In the 1980s, the CIA funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons and ammunition to help them battle the Soviet Army during its occupation of Afghanistan. Hekmatyar, then widely considered by Washington to be a reliable anti-Soviet rebel, was even flown to the United States by the CIA in 1985.

As the New York Times, CBS News and others reported, an FBI informant involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center begged the FBI to substitute fake bomb power for real explosives, but his FBI handler somehow let real explosives be used.

Bosnia

As professor of strategy at the Naval War College and former National Security Agency intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer John R. Schindler documents, the U.S. supported Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda terrorists in Bosnia.

Libya

We reported in 2012 that the U.S. supported Al Qaeda in Libya in its effort to topple Gadaffi:

The U.S. supported opposition which overthrew Libya’s Gadaffi was largely comprised of Al Qaeda terrorists. According to a 2007 report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center’s center, the Libyan city of Benghazi was one of Al Qaeda’s main headquarters – and bases for sending Al Qaeda fighters into Iraq – prior to the overthrow of Gaddafi:

The Hindustan Times reported last year:

“There is no question that al Qaeda’s Libyan franchise, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is a part of the opposition,” Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and a leading expert on terrorism, told Hindustan Times.

It has always been Qaddafi’s biggest enemy and its stronghold is Benghazi.

Al Qaeda is now largely in control of Libya.  Indeed, Al Qaeda flags were flown over the Benghazi courthouse once Gaddafi was toppled.

(Incidentally, Gaddafi was on the verge of invading Benghazi in 2011, 4 years after the West Point report cited Benghazi as a hotbed of Al Qaeda terrorists. Gaddafi claimed – rightly it turns out – that Benghazi was an Al Qaeda stronghold and a main source of the Libyan rebellion.  But NATO planes stopped him, and protected Benghazi.)

Former top military and CIA officers said that the U.S intentionally armed Al Qaeda in Libya. The Daily Mail reported in 2014:

A self-selected group of former top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers, declared Tuesday in Washington that a seven-month review of the deadly 2012 terrorist attack has determined that it could have been prevented – if the U.S. hadn’t beenhelping to arm al-Qaeda militias throughout Libya a year earlier.

‘The United States switched sides in the war on terror with what we did in Libya, knowingly facilitating the provision of weapons to known al-Qaeda militias and figures,’ Clare Lopez, a member of the commission and a former CIA officer, told MailOnline.

She blamed the Obama administration for failing to stop half of a $1 billion United Arab Emirates arms shipment from reaching al-Qaeda-linked militants.

‘Remember, these weapons that came into Benghazi were permitted to enter by our armed forces who were blockading the approaches from air and sea,’ Lopez claimed. ‘They were permitted to come in. … [They] knew these weapons were coming in, and that was allowed..

‘The intelligence community was part of that, the Department of State was part of that, and certainly that means that the top leadership of the United States, our national security leadership, and potentially Congress – if they were briefed on this – also knew about this.’

***

‘The White House and senior Congressional members,’ the group wrote in an interim report released Tuesday, ‘deliberately and knowingly pursued a policy that provided material support to terrorist organizations in order to topple a ruler [Muammar Gaddafi] who had been working closely with the West actively to suppress al-Qaeda.’

‘Some look at it as treason,’ said Wayne Simmons, a former CIA officer who participated in the commission’s research.

Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh – who broke the stories of the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam and the Iraq prison torture scandals, which rightfully disgraced the Nixon and Bush administrations’ war-fighting tactics – also reported in 2014:

A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn’t always know who was really employing them, were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David Petraeus, the CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair with his biographer. (A spokesperson for Petraeus denied the operation ever took place.)

The operation had not been disclosed at the time it was set up to the congressional intelligence committees and the congressional leadership, as required by law since the 1970s. The involvement of MI6 enabled the CIA to evade the law by classifying the mission as a liaison operation. The former intelligence official explained that for years there has been a recognised exception in the law that permits the CIA not to report liaison activity to Congress, which would otherwise be owed a finding. (All proposed CIA covert operations must be described in a written document, known as a ‘finding’, submitted to the senior leadership of Congress for approval.) Distribution of the annex was limited to the staff aides who wrote the report and to the eight ranking members of Congress – the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate, and the Democratic and Republicans leaders on the House and Senate intelligence committees. This hardly constituted a genuine attempt at oversight: the eight leaders are not known to gather together to raise questions or discuss the secret information they receive.

The annex didn’t tell the whole story of what happened in Benghazi before the attack, nor did it explain why the American consulate was attacked. ‘The consulate’s only mission was to provide cover for the moving of arms,’ the former intelligence official, who has read the annex, said. ‘It had no real political role.’

Secret intelligence reports from 2011, written before and during the illegal US-led attack on Libya and recently obtained by the Washington Times, state:

There is a close link between al Qaeda, Jihadi organizations, and the opposition in Libya…

Indeed, the Libyan rebel commander admitted at the time that his fighters had links to Al Qaeda.  Andsee this.

Iran

As noted by Seymour Hersh and others, the U.S. supports terrorists within Iran.

Widespread Support for Terror

The director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan – Lt. General William Odom said:

By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation.

(audio here).

The Washington Post reported in 2010:

The United States has long been an exporter of terrorism, according to a secret CIA analysis released Wednesday by the Web site WikiLeaks.

Wikipedia notes:

Chomsky and Herman observed that terror was concentrated in the U.S. sphere of influence in the Third World, and documented terror carried out by U.S. client states in Latin America. They observed that of ten Latin American countries that had death squads, all were U.S. client states.

***

They concluded that the global rise in state terror was a result of U.S. foreign policy.

***

In 1991, a book edited by Alexander L. George [the Graham H. Stuart Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Stanford University] also argued that other Western powers sponsored terror in Third World countries. It concluded that the U.S. and its allies were the main supporters of terrorism throughout the world.

Indeed, the U.S. has created death squads in Latin America, Iraq and Syria.

Some in the American military have intentionally tried to “out-terrorize the terrorists”. As Truthoutnotes:

Both [specialists Ethan McCord and Josh Stieber] say they saw their mission as a plan to “out-terrorize the terrorists,” in order to make the general populace more afraid of the Americans than they were of insurgent groups. In the interview with [Scott] Horton, Horton pressed Stieber:

“… a fellow veteran of yours from the same battalion has said that you guys had a standard operating procedure, SOP, that said – and I guess this is a reaction to some EFP attacks on y’all’s Humvees and stuff that killed some guys – that from now on if a roadside bomb goes off, IED goes off, everyone who survives the attack get out and fire in all directions at anybody who happens to be nearby … that this was actually an order from above. Is that correct? Can you, you know, verify that?

Stieber answered:

“Yeah, it was an order that came from Kauzlarich himself, and it had the philosophy that, you know, as Finkel does describe in the book, that we were under pretty constant threat, and what he leaves out is the response to that threat. But the philosophy was that if each time one of these roadside bombs went off where you don’t know who set it … the way we were told to respond was to open fire on anyone in the area, with the philosophy that that would intimidate them, to be proactive in stopping people from making these bombs …”

Terrorism is defined as:

The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

So McCord and Stieber are correct: this constitutes terrorism by American forces in Iraq.

False Flags

The U.S. and other “civilized” countries not only back terrorists, but sometimes carry out terrorist attacks themselves … and falsely blame them on others.

Specifically, governments from around the world admit they’ve used the bully’s trick … attack first, and then blame the victim:

• Japanese troops set off a small explosion on a train track in 1931, and falsely blamed it on China in order to justify an invasion of Manchuria. This is known as the “Mukden Incident” or the “Manchurian Incident”. The Tokyo International Military Tribunal found: “Several of the participators in the plan, including Hashimoto [a high-ranking Japanese army officer], have on various occasions admitted their part in the plot and have stated that the object of the ‘Incident’ was to afford an excuse for the occupation of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army ….” And see this

• A major with the Nazi SS admitted at the Nuremberg trials that – under orders from the chief of the Gestapo – he and some other Nazi operatives faked attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to justify the invasion of Poland. Nazi general Franz Halder also testified at the Nuremberg trials that Nazi leader Hermann Goering admitted to setting fire to the German parliament building in 1933, and then falsely blaming the communists for the arson

• Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev admitted in writing that the Soviet Union’s Red Army shelled the Russian village of Mainila in 1939 – while blaming the attack on Finland – as a basis for launching the “Winter War” against Finland. Russian president Boris Yeltsin agreed that Russia had been the aggressor in the Winter War

• The Russian Parliament admits that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered his secret police to execute 22,000 Polish army officers and civilians in 1940, and then blamed it on the Nazis.  Current Russian president Putin and former Soviet leader Gorbachev have also admitted that the Soviets were responsible for the massacre

• Israel admits that an Israeli terrorist cell operating in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including U.S. diplomatic facilities, then left behind “evidence” implicating the Arabs as the culprits (one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to identify the bombers, and several of the Israelis later confessed) (and see this and this)

• The CIA admits that it hired Iranians in the 1950′s to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected prime minister

• The Turkish Prime Minister admitted that the Turkish government carried out the 1955 bombing on a Turkish consulate in Greece – also damaging the nearby birthplace of the founder of modern Turkey – and blamed it on Greece, for the purpose of inciting and justifying anti-Greek violence

• The British Prime Minister admitted to his defense secretary that he and American president Dwight Eisenhower approved a plan in 1957 to carry out attacks in Syria and blame it on the Syrian government as a way to effect regime change

• The former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence admit that NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and other European countries in the 1950s and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism. As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: “You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security” (and see this)(Italy and other European countries subject to the terror campaign had joined NATO before the bombings occurred). And watch this BBC special. They also allegedly carried out terror attacks in France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, and other countries

• In 1960, American Senator George Smathers suggested that the U.S. launch “a false attack made on Guantanamo Bay which would give us the excuse of actually fomenting a fight which would then give us the excuse to go in and [overthrow Castro]“.

• Official State Department documents show that, in 1961, the head of the Joint Chiefs and other high-level officials discussed blowing up a consulate in the Dominican Republic in order to justify an invasion of that country. The plans were not carried out, but they were all discussed as serious proposals

• As admitted by the U.S. government, recently declassified documents show that in 1962, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. See the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

• In 1963, the U.S. Department of Defense wrote a paper promoting attacks on nations within the Organization of American States – such as Trinidad-Tobago or Jamaica – and then falsely blaming them on Cuba

• The U.S. Department of Defense even suggested covertly paying a person in the Castro government to attack the United States: “The only area remaining for consideration then would be to bribe one of Castro’s subordinate commanders to initiate an attack on Guantanamo.”

• The NSA admits that it lied about what really happened in the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 … manipulating data to make it look like North Vietnamese boats fired on a U.S. ship so as to create a false justification for the Vietnam war

• A U.S. Congressional committee admitted that – as part of its “Cointelpro” campaign – the FBI had used many provocateurs in the 1950s through 1970s to carry out violent acts and falsely blame them on political activists

• A top Turkish general admitted that Turkish forces burned down a mosque on Cyprus in the 1970s and blamed it on their enemy. He explained: “In Special War, certain acts of sabotage are staged and blamed on the enemy to increase public resistance. We did this on Cyprus; we even burnt down a mosque.” In response to the surprised correspondent’s incredulous look the general said, “I am giving an example”

• The German government admitted (and see this) that, in 1978, the German secret service detonated a bomb in the outer wall of a prison and planted “escape tools” on a prisoner – a member of the Red Army Faction – which the secret service wished to frame the bombing on

• A Mossad agent says that, in 1984, Mossad planted a radio transmitter in Gaddaffi’s compound in Tripoli, Libya which broadcast fake terrorist trasmissions recorded by Mossad, in order to frame Gaddaffi as a terrorist supporter. Ronald Reagan bombed Libya immediately thereafter

• The South African Truth and Reconciliation Council found that, in 1989, the Civil Cooperation Bureau (a covert branch of the South African Defense Force) approached an explosives expert and asked him “to participate in an operation aimed at discrediting the ANC [the African National Congress] by bombing the police vehicle of the investigating officer into the murder incident”, thus framing the ANC for the bombing

• An Algerian diplomat and several officers in the Algerian army admit that, in the 1990s, the Algerian army frequently massacred Algerian civilians and then blamed Islamic militants for the killings (and see this video; and Agence France-Presse, 9/27/2002, French Court Dismisses Algerian Defamation Suit Against Author)

• An Indonesian fact-finding team investigated violent riots which occurred in 1998, and determined that “elements of the military had been involved in the riots, some of which were deliberately provoked”.

• Senior Russian Senior military and intelligence officers admit that the KGB blew up Russian apartment buildings in 1999 and falsely blamed it on Chechens, in order to justify an invasion of Chechnya (and see this report and this discussion)

• According to the Washington Post, Indonesian police admit that the Indonesian military killed American teachers in Papua in 2002 and blamed the murders on a Papuan separatist group in order to get that group listed as a terrorist organization.

• The well-respected former Indonesian president also admits that the government probably had a role in the Bali bombings

• As reported by BBC, the New York Times, and Associated Press, Macedonian officials admit that the government murdered 7 innocent immigrants in cold blood and pretended that they were Al Qaeda soldiers attempting to assassinate Macedonian police, in order to join the “war on terror”

• Senior police officials in Genoa, Italy admitted that – in July 2001, at the G8 summit in Genoa – planted two Molotov cocktails and faked the stabbing of a police officer, in order to justify a violent crackdown against protesters

• Although the FBI now admits that the 2001 anthrax attacks were carried out by one or more U.S. government scientists, a senior FBI official says that the FBI was actually told to blame the Anthrax attacks on Al Qaeda by White House officials (remember what the anthrax letters looked like). Government officials also confirm that the white House tried to link the anthrax to Iraq as a justification for regime change in that country

• Similarly, the U.S. falsely blamed Iraq for playing a role in the 9/11 attacks – as shown by a memo from the defense secretary – as one of the main justifications for launching the Iraq war. Even after the 9/11 Commission admitted that there was no connection, Dick Cheney said that the evidence is “overwhelming” that al Qaeda had a relationship with Saddam Hussein’s regime, that Cheney “probably” had information unavailable to the Commission, and that the media was not ‘doing their homework’ in reporting such ties. Top U.S. government officials now admit that the Iraq war was really launched for oil … not 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction (despite previous “lone wolf” claims, many U.S. government officials now say that 9/11 was state-sponsored terror; but Iraq wasnot the state which backed the hijackers)

• Former Department of Justice lawyer John Yoo suggested in 2005 that the US should go on the offensive against al-Qaeda, having “our intelligence agencies create a false terrorist organization. It could have its own websites, recruitment centers, training camps, and fundraising operations. It could launch fake terrorist operations and claim credit for real terrorist strikes, helping to sow confusion within al-Qaeda’s ranks, causing operatives to doubt others’ identities and to question the validity of communications.”

• United Press International reported in June 2005:

U.S. intelligence officers are reporting that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 92 pistols, but the pistols seem to have had their serial numbers erased. The numbers do not appear to have been physically removed; the pistols seem to have come off a production line without any serial numbers. Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA. Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as U.S. authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance.

• Undercover Israeli soldiers admitted in 2005 to throwing stones at other Israeli soldiers so they could blame it on Palestinians, as an excuse to crack down on peaceful protests by the Palestinians

• Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest were actually undercover Quebec police officers (and see this)

• At the G20 protests in London in 2009, a British member of parliament saw plain clothes police officers attempting to incite the crowd to violence

• Egyptian politicians admitted (and see this) that government employees looted priceless museum artifacts in 2011 to try to discredit the protesters

• A Colombian army colonel has admitted that his unit murdered 57 civilians, then dressed them in uniforms and claimed they were rebels killed in combat

• U.S. soldiers have admitted that if they kill innocent Iraqis and Afghanis, they then “drop” automatic weapons near their body so they can pretend they were militants

• The highly-respected writer for the Telegraph Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says that the head of Saudi intelligence – Prince Bandar – recently admitted that the Saudi government controls “Chechen” terrorists

• High-level American sources admitted that the Turkish government – a fellow NATO country – carried out the chemical weapons attacks blamed on the Syrian government; and high-ranking Turkish government admitted on tape plans to carry out attacks and blame it on the Syrian government

• The former Ukrainian security chief admits that the sniper attacks which started the Ukrainian coup were carried out in order to frame others

• Britain’s spy agency has admitted (and see this) that it carries out “digital false flag” attacks on targets, framing people by writing offensive or unlawful material … and blaming it on the target

PART 4:WHAT’S THE REAL STORY?

With the historical background in Parts 2 and 3, we can now look at the deeper story behind ISIS.

America’s Closest Allies In the Mideast Support ISIS

America’s top military official – the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin E. Dempsey – and Senator Lindsey Graham admitted last September in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that America’s closest allies are supporting ISIS:

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA, MEMBER OF ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Do you know any major Arab ally that embraces ISIL?

GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: I know major Arab allies who fund them.

GRAHAM: Yeah, but do they embrace them? They fund them because the Free Syrian Army couldn’t fight Assad. They were trying to beat Assad. I think they realized the folly of their ways.

4-Star General Wesley Clark – who served as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO – agrees:

Vice President Joe Biden agreesf:

A German minister says that U.S. ally Qatar funds ISIS.

ABC News reports:

The Sunni rebels [inside Syria] are supported by the Islamist rulers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, as well as the U.S., France, Britain and others.

The Independent headlines “Iraq crisis: How Saudi Arabia helped Isis take over the north of the country”:

Some time before 9/11, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, once the powerful Saudi ambassador in Washington and head of Saudi intelligence until a few months ago, had a revealing and ominous conversation with the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove. Prince Bandar told him: “The time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will be literally ‘God help the Shia’. More than a billion Sunnis have simply had enough of them.”

***

There is no doubt about the accuracy of the quote by Prince Bandar, secretary-general of the Saudi National Security Council from 2005 and head of General Intelligence between 2012 and 2014, the crucial two years when al-Qa’ida-type jihadis took over the Sunni-armed opposition in Iraq and Syria. Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute last week, Dearlove, who headed MI6 from 1999 to 2004, emphasised the significance of Prince Bandar’s words, saying that they constituted “a chilling comment that I remember very well indeed”.

He does not doubt that substantial and sustained funding from private donors in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to which the authorities may have turned a blind eye, has played a central role in the Isis surge into Sunni areas of Iraq. He said: “Such things simply do not happen spontaneously.” This sounds realistic since the tribal and communal leadership in Sunni majority provinces is much beholden to Saudi and Gulf paymasters, and would be unlikely to cooperate with Isis without their consent.

***

Dearlove … sees Saudi strategic thinking as being shaped by two deep-seated beliefs or attitudes. First, they are convinced that there “can be no legitimate or admissible challenge to the Islamic purity of their Wahhabi credentials as guardians of Islam’s holiest shrines”. But, perhaps more significantly given the deepening Sunni-Shia confrontation, the Saudi belief that they possess a monopoly of Islamic truth leads them to be “deeply attracted towards any militancy which can effectively challenge Shia-dom”.

Western governments traditionally play down the connection between Saudi Arabia and its Wahhabist faith, on the one hand, and jihadism, whether of the variety espoused by Osama bin Laden and al-Qa’ida or by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Isis. There is nothing conspiratorial or secret about these links: 15 out of 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, as was Bin Laden and most of the private donors who funded the operation.

***

But there has always been a second theme to Saudi policy towards al-Qa’ida type jihadis, contradicting Prince Bandar’s approach and seeing jihadis as a mortal threat to the Kingdom. Dearlove illustrates this attitude by relating how, soon after 9/11, he visited the Saudi capital Riyadh with Tony Blair.

He remembers the then head of Saudi General Intelligence “literally shouting at me across his office: ‘9/11 is a mere pinprick on the West. In the medium term, it is nothing more than a series of personal tragedies. What these terrorists want is to destroy the House of Saud and remake the Middle East.’” In the event, Saudi Arabiaadopted both policies, encouraging the jihadis as a useful tool of Saudi anti-Shia influence abroad but suppressing them at home as a threat to the status quo. It is this dual policy that has fallen apart over the last year.

Saudi sympathy for anti-Shia “militancy” is identified in leaked US official documents. The then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in December 2009 in a cable released by Wikileaks that “Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, LeT [Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan] and other terrorist groups.”

***

Saudi Arabia and its allies are in practice playing into the hands of Isis which is swiftly gaining full control of the Sunni opposition in Syria and Iraq.

***

For all his gargantuan mistakes, Maliki’s failings are not the reason why the Iraqi state is disintegrating. What destabilised Iraq from 2011 on was the revolt of the Sunni in Syria and the takeover of that revolt by jihadis, who were often sponsored by donors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates. Again and again Iraqi politicians warned that by not seeking to close down the civil war in Syria, Western leaders were making it inevitable that the conflict in Iraq would restart. “I guess they just didn’t believe us and were fixated on getting rid of [President Bashar al-] Assad,” said an Iraqi leader in Baghdad last week. Of course, US and British politicians and diplomats would argue that they were in no position to bring an end to the Syrian conflict. But this is misleading. By insisting that peace negotiations must be about the departure of Assad from power, something that was never going to happen since Assad held most of the cities in the country and his troops were advancing, the US and Britain made sure the war would continue.

***

Saudi Arabia has created a Frankenstein’s monster over which it is rapidly losing control. The same is true of its allies such as Turkey which has been a vital back-base for Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra by keeping the 510-mile-long Turkish-Syrian border open.

The Daily Beast (a media company formerly owned by Newsweek) notes, in a story entitled “America’s Allies Are Funding ISIS”:

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now threatening Baghdad, was funded for years by wealthy donors in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, three U.S. allies that have dual agendas in the war on terror.

***

The extremist group that is threatening the existence of the Iraqi state was built and grown for years with the help of elite donors from American supposed allies in the Persian Gulf region.

***

A key component of ISIS’s support came from wealthy individuals in the Arab Gulf States of Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Sometimes the support came with the tacit nod of approval from those regimes ….

Gulf donors support ISIS, the Syrian branch of al Qaeda called the al Nusrah Front, and other Islamic groups fighting on the ground in Syria ….

Donors in Kuwait, the Sunni majority Kingdom on Iraq’s border, have taken advantage of Kuwait’s weak financial rules to channel hundreds of millions of dollars to a host of Syrian rebel brigades, according to a December 2013 report by The Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank that receives some funding from the Qatari government.

***

“The U.S. Treasury is aware of this activity and has expressed concern about this flow of private financing. But Western diplomats’ and officials’ general response has been a collective shrug,” the report states.

When confronted with the problem, Gulf leaders often justify allowing their Salafi constituents to fund Syrian extremist groups ….

That’s what Prince Bandar bin Sultan, head of Saudi intelligence since 2012 and former Saudi ambassador in Washington, reportedly told Secretary of State John Kerry when Kerry pressed him on Saudi financing of extremist groups earlier this year. Saudi Arabia has retaken a leadership role in past months guiding help to the Syrian armed rebels, displacing Qatar, which was seen as supporting some of the worst of the worst organizations on the ground.

Business Insider notes:

The Islamic State for Iraq and the Levant … is also receiving private donations from wealthy Sunnis in American-allied Gulf nations such as Kuwait, Qatar, and, possibly, Saudi Arabia.

***

As far back as March, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of openly funding ISIS as his troops were fighting them.

“I accuse them of inciting and encouraging the terrorist movements. I accuse them of supporting them politically and in the media, of supporting them with money and by buying weapons for them,” he told France 24 television.

In Kuwait, donors have taken advantage of weak terror financing control laws to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to various Syrian rebel groups, including ISIS, according to a December 2013 report by The Brookings Institution, which receives some funding from the government of Qatar.

Over the last two and a half years, Kuwait has emerged as a financing and organizational hub for charities and individuals supporting Syria’s myriad rebel groups,” the report said, adding that money from donors in other gulf nations is collected in Kuwait before traveling through Turkey or Jordan to reach the insurgents.

***

Ironically, Kuwait is a staging area for individuals funneling money to an ISIS organization that is aligned with whatever is left of the Baathist regime once led by Saddam Hussein. In 1990, the U.S. went to war with Iraq over Hussein’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait.

Turkey Supports ISIS

NATO member Turkey has long been directly supporting ISIS.

The Jerusalem Post reports that an ISIS fighter says that Turkey funds the terrorist group.

A German news program – with English subtitles captions – shows that Turkey is sending terrorists into Syria: Opposition Turkish lawmakers say that the government is protecting and cooperating with ISIS and Al Qaeda terrorists, and providing free medical care to their leaders.

According to a leading Turkish newspaper (Today’s Zaman), Turkish nurses are sick of providing freemedical treatment to ISIS terrorists in Turkish hospitals.

Now, Turkey is massively bombing the most effective on-the-ground fighters against ISIS. As Time Magazine pointed out in June 2015:

Ethnic Kurds—who on Tuesday scored their second and third significant victories over ISIS in the space of eight days—are by far the most effective force fighting ISIS in both Iraq and Syria.

And yet Turkey is trying to destroy the Kurds. Time writes:

Since [Turkey announced that it was joining the war against ISIS] it has arrested more than 1,000 people in Turkey and carried out waves of air raids in neighboring Syria and Iraq. But most of those arrests and air strikes, say Kurdish leaders, have hit Kurdish and left wing groups, not ISIS.

Turkey is also supporting ISIS by buying its oil … its main source of funding.  The Guardian reported:

US special forces raided the compound of an Islamic State leader in eastern Syria in May, they made sure not to tell the neighbours.

The target of that raid, the first of its kind since US jets returned to the skies over Iraq last August, was an Isis official responsible for oil smuggling, named Abu Sayyaf. He was almost unheard of outside the upper echelons of the terror group, but he was well known to Turkey. From mid-2013, the Tunisian fighter had been responsible for smuggling oil from Syria’s eastern fields, which the group had by then commandeered. Black market oil quickly became the main driver of Isis revenues – and Turkish buyers were its main clients.

As a result, the oil trade between the jihadis and the Turks was held up as evidence of an alliance between the two.

***

In the wake of the raid that killed Abu Sayyaf, suspicions of an undeclared alliance have hardened. One senior western official familiar with the intelligence gathered at the slain leader’s compound said that direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking Isis members was now “undeniable”.

“There are hundreds of flash drives and documents that were seized there,” the official told the Observer. “They are being analysed at the moment, but the links are already so clear that they could end up having profound policy implications for the relationship between us and Ankara.”

***

However, Turkey has openly supported other jihadi groups, such as Ahrar al-Sham, which espouses much of al-Qaida’s ideology, and Jabhat al-Nusra, which is proscribed as a terror organisation by much of the US and Europe. “The distinctions they draw [with other opposition groups] are thin indeed,” said the western official. “There is no doubt at all that they militarily cooperate with both.”

***

One Isis member says the organisation remains a long way from establishing a self-sustaining economy across the area of Syria and Iraq it controls. “They need the Turks. I know of a lot of cooperation and it scares me,” he said. “I don’t see how Turkey can attack the organisation too hard. There are shared interests.”

While the Guardian is one of Britain’s leading newspapers, many in the alternative press have longpointed out Turkey’s support for ISIS.

And experts, Kurds, and Vice President Joe Biden have accused Turkey of enabling ISIS.

Israel Supports ISIS

The Israeli air force has bombed near the Syrian capital of Damascus, and attacked agricultural facilities and warehouses (the Syrian government is the other main opponent of ISIS in Syria besides the Kurds).

The Israeli military recently admitted supporting Syrian jihadis. Specifically, the Times of Israel reportedin June 2015:

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday that Israel has been providing aid to Syrian rebels, thus keeping the Druze in Syria out of immediate danger. Israeli officials have previously balked at confirming on the record that the country has been helping forces that are fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad.

***

“We’ve assisted them under two conditions,” Ya’alon said of the Israeli medical aid to the Syrian rebels, some of whom are presumably fighting with al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad. “That they don’t get too close to the border, and that they don’t touch the Druze.”

(Al Nusra is Al Qaeda, and closely affiliated with ISIS.)

The Times of Israel reported in 2014:

A Free Syrian Army commander, arrested last month by the Islamist militia Al-Nusra Front, told his captors he collaborated with Israel in return for medical and military support, in a video released this week.

In a video uploaded to YouTube Monday … Sharif As-Safouri, the commander of the Free Syrian Army’s Al-Haramein Battalion, admitted to having entered Israel five times to meet with Israeli officers who later provided him with Soviet anti-tank weapons and light arms. Safouri was abducted by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front in the Quneitra area, near the Israeli border, on July 22.

“The [opposition] factions would receive support and send the injured in [to Israel] on condition that the Israeli fence area is secured. No person was allowed to come near the fence without prior coordination with Israel authorities,” Safouri said in the video.

***

In the edited confession video, in which Safouri seems physically unharmed, he says that at first he met with an Israeli officer named Ashraf at the border and was given an Israeli cellular phone. He later met with another officer named Younis and with the two men’s commander, Abu Daoud. In total, Safouri said he entered Israel five times for meetings that took place in Tiberias.

Following the meetings, Israel began providing Safouri and his men with “basic medical support and clothes” as well as weapons, which included 30 Russian [rifles], 10 RPG launchers with 47 rockets, and 48,000 5.56 millimeter bullets.

Haaretz reported the same year:

The Syrian opposition is willing to give up claims to the Golan Heights in return for cash and Israeli military aid against President Bashar Assad, a top opposition official told Al Arab newspaper, according to a report in Al Alam.

***

The Western-backed militant groups want Israel to enforce a no-fly zone over parts of southern Syria to protect rebel bases from air strikes by Assad’s forces, according to the report.

In a separate article, Haartez also noted:

According to reports, Israel has also been involved, and even provided active assistance in at least one attack by rebel troops four months ago, when its communications and intelligence base on Mount Hermon jammed the Syrian army’s communications system and the information relayed between its fighting forces and their headquarters.

Jacky Hugi  – an Arab affairs analyst for Israeli army radio – recently wrote:

The Israeli security establishment should gradually abandon its emerging alliancewith the Syrian rebels …

***

It is a dangerous, irresponsible gamble to choose Assad’s enemies and encourage his collapse — it would be playing with fire.

The U.S. Supports ISIS

Former CIA boss and 4-star general David Petraeus – who still (believe it or not) holds a lot of sway in Washington – suggests we should arm Al Qaeda. Quite a few mainstream Americans are also saying we should support Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria.

Influential New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman asks if we should arm ISIS itself, so as to counter Iranian influence. This isn’t just empty rhetoric.

A former Al Qaeda commander says that ISIS already works for the CIA.

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds – deemed credible by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, several senators (free subscription required), and a coalition of prominent conservative and liberal groups – says that the CIA and NATO started recruiting and training people at a NATO base in Turkey – right near the Syrian border – to stage terrorist attacks in Syria to overthrow the Syrian government … and that this was the birth of ISIS:

In 2011, months and months before Syria came in the headlines – anything about Syria was written on the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN – we broke a story [background here, here, here and here] based on my sources here in United States military but also in Turkey about the fact that special CIA/NATO forces in a NATO base in Turkey, which is in the southern portion of Turkey very close to the Syrian border, they were bringing in, in Turkey, the CIA/NATO Gladio unit, they were recruiting and bringing in people from northern Syria into these camps, part of the US air force base in southern Turkey. They were training them – military training –  they were arming them, and they were basically directing them towards create terror events inside Syria, not only against Assad, but also in various villages and regions against the people, against public.

***

That was the training and beginning of the ISIS brand. It started as ISIL and then turned to ISIS and now for short IS. This was completed by design, it was created and the people who are part of the so called ISIS they were carefully selected, brought into the U.S. NATO base in Turkey, they were trained they were funneled, and this is what they were told to do. They created a new brand and a new brand with purpose of replacing the old brand: Al Qaeda.

Sound like a conspiracy theory?

Unfortunately, an internal U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document produced recently shows that the U.S. knew that the actions of “the West, Gulf countries and Turkey” in Syria might create a terrorist group like ISIS and an Islamic caliphate.

By way of background, a non-profit organization called Judicial Watch has – for many years – obtained sensitive U.S. government documents through freedom of information requests and lawsuits. The government just produced documents to Judicial Watch in response to a freedom of information suit which show that the West has long supported ISIS.

The documents were written by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) on August 12, 2012 … yearsbefore ISIS burst onto the world stage. Here are screenshots from the documents (we have highlighted the relevant parts in yellow):Why is this important? It shows that extreme Muslim terrorists – salafists, Muslims Brotherhood, and AQI (i.e. Al Qaeda in Iraq) – have always been the “major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.”

This verifies what the alternative media has been saying for years: there aren’t any moderate rebels in Syria (and see this, this and this).

Moreover, the newly-declassified document continues:

Yes, you read that correctly:

… there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime ….

In other words, the powers supporting the Syrian opposition – the West, our Gulf allies, and Turkeywanted an Islamic caliphate in order to challenge Syrian president Assad.

This is a big deal. A former British Army and Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism intelligence officer and a former MI5 officer confirm that the newly-released documents are a smoking gun.

And the former head of the DIA – Lieutenant General Michael Flynn – confirmed its importance as well. By any measure, Flynn was a top-level American military commander. Flynn served as:

• The Director of the U.S. Intelligence Agency
• The Director of intelligence for Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the main military agency responsible for targeting Al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists
• The Commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance
• The Chair of the Military Intelligence Board
• Assistant director of national intelligence

Flynn confirmed the authenticity of the document in a new interview, and said:

[Interviewer] So the administration turned a blind eye to your analysis?

[Flynn] I don’t know that they turned a blind eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was a willful decision.

[Interviewer] A willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?

[Flynn] It was a willful decision to do what they’re doing.

NBC News, the Wall Street Journal, CNN and others report that the U.S. has committed to provide air power to support Muslim jihadis in Syria.

World Net Daily reports that the U.S. trained Islamic jihadis – who would later join ISIS – in Jordan.

Der Spiegel and the Guardian confirmed that the U.S., France and England trained hundreds if notthousands of Islamic fighters in Jordan.

POSTSCRIPT:

ISIS does not represent mainstream Islam.

For example, the Intercept points out that ISIS has “more in common with Mao’s Red Guards or the Khmer Rouge than it does with the Muslim empires of antiquity“.

Huffington Post reports:

Can you guess which books the wannabe jihadists Yusuf Sarwar and Mohammed Ahmed ordered online from Amazon before they set out from Birmingham to fight in Syria last May? A copy of Milestones by the Egyptian Islamist Sayyid Qutb? No. How aboutMessages to the World: the Statements of Osama Bin Laden? Guess again. Wait, The Anarchist Cookbook, right? Wrong.

Sarwar and Ahmed, both of whom pleaded guilty to terrorism offences last month, purchased Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies. You could not ask for better evidence to bolster the argument that the 1,400-year-old Islamic faith has little to do with the modern jihadist movement. The swivel-eyed young men who take sadistic pleasure in bombings and beheadings may try to justify their violence with recourse to religious rhetoric – think the killers of Lee Rigby screaming “Allahu Akbar” at their trial; think of Islamic State beheading the photojournalist James Foley as part of its “holy war” – but religious fervour isn’t what motivates most of them.

In 2008, a classified briefing note on radicalisation, prepared by MI5’s behavioural science unit, was leaked to the Guardian. It revealed that, “far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could . . . be regarded as religious novices.” The analysts concluded that “a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation“, the newspaper said. [Here’s the Guardian report.]

For more evidence, read the books of the forensic psychiatrist and former CIA officer Marc Sageman; the political scientist Robert Pape [Pape found that foreign occupation – and not religion – made certain Arabs into terrorists; the CIA’s top Bin Laden hunter agreed]; the international relations scholar Rik Coolsaet; the Islamism expert Olivier Roy; the anthropologist Scott Atran. They have all studied the lives and backgrounds of hundreds of gun-toting, bomb-throwing jihadists and they all agree that Islam isn’t to blame for the behaviour of such men (and, yes, they usually are men).

Instead they point to other drivers of radicalisation ….

When he lived in the Philippines in the 1990s, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, described as “the principal architect” of the 11 September attacks by the 9/11 Commission, once flew a helicopter past a girlfriend’s office building with a banner saying “I love you”. His nephew Ramzi Yousef, sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, also had a girlfriend and, like his uncle, was often spotted in Manila’s red-light district. The FBI agent who hunted Yousef said that he “hid behind a cloak of Islam”. Eyewitness accounts suggest the 9/11 hijackers were visiting bars and strip clubs in Florida and Las Vegas in the run-up to the attacks. The Spanish neighbours of Hamid Ahmidan, convicted for his role in the Madrid train bombings of 2004, remember him “zooming by on a motorcycle with his long-haired girlfriend, a Spanish woman with a taste for revealing outfits”, according to press reports.

No wonder Muslim leaders worldwide condemn ISIS.

Similarly, the 9/11 hijackers used cocaine and drank alcohol, slept with prostitutes and attended strip clubs … but they did not worship at any mosque. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

As such, Islamic terrorists do not necessarily represent Muslims as a whole.

Forget for one moment everything you’ve been told about September 11, 2001. 9/11 was a crime.

And as with any crime, there is one overriding imperative that detectives must follow to identify the perpetrators: follow the money. This is an investigation of the 9/11 money trail.

For those with limited bandwidth, CLICK HERE to download a smaller, lower file size version of this episode.

For those interested in audio quality, CLICK HERE for the highest-quality version of this episode (WARNING: very large download).

Transcript

Forget for one moment everything you’ve been told about September 11, 2001. Instead let’s ask ourselves one question: What was 9/11? A terrorist atrocity? An attack on America? The first salvo in a new war? “A day that changed everything”?

The question may seem simple, but how we answer it is of vital importance. It determines how we proceed with our investigation of that day. And once you strip away the emotional rhetoric and the fear-inducing imagery, we’re left with a simple truth: 9/11 was a crime. And as with any crime, there is one overriding imperative that detectives must follow to identify the perpetrators: follow the money.

This is an investigation of the 9/11 money trail.

The 9/11 Heist

In 1998, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to privatize the World Trade Center, the complex of office towers in Lower Manhattan that they had owned and operated since their construction in 1973. In April 2001 an agreement was reached with a consortium of investors led by Silverstein Properties and on July 24th, 2001 Larry Silverstein, who already owned World Trade Center Building 7, signed a 99 year lease for the Twin Towers and Buildings 4 and 5.

The lease was for $3.2 billion, and was financed by a bridge loan from GMAC, the commercial mortgage arm of General Motors, as well as $111 million from Lloyd Goldman and Joseph Cayre, individual real estate investors. Silverstein Properties only put down $14 million of its own money.

The deal was unusual in a variety of ways. Although the Port Authority carried only $1.5 billion of insurance coverage on the WTC complex, which earlier that year had been valued at $1.2 billion, Silverstein had insisted on doubling that amount, insuring the buildings for $3.55 billion. Silverstein’s insurance broker struggled to put that much coverage in place and ultimately had tosplit it among 25 dealers. The negotiations were so involved that only temporary contracts were in place for the insurance at the time the lease was signed and by September the contracts were still being finalized.

Silverstein’s group was also explicitly given the right to rebuild the structures if they were destroyed, and even to expand the amount of retail space on the site if rebuilding did take place.

Within hours of the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11th, Silverstein was on the phone to his lawyers, trying to determine if his insurance policies could “construe the attacks as two separate, insurable incidents rather than one.” Silverstein spent years in the courts attempting to win $7.1 billion from his $3.55 billion insurance policy and in 2007 walked away with $4.55 billion, the largest single insurance settlement ever. As soon as the deal was announced Silverstein sued United and American Airlines for a further $3.5 billion for their “negligence” in the 9/11 attacks, a claim that was struck down by the courts but is still on appeal.

Perhaps even more outrageously, in a secret deal in 2003, the Port Authority agreed to pay back 80% of their initial equity in the lease, but allowed the Silverstein group to maintain control of the site. The deal gave Silverstein, Goldman and Cayre $98 million of the $125 million they put down on the lease, and a further $130 million in insurance proceeds that were earmarked for the site’s rebuilding.

In the end, Silverstein profited from the 9/11 attacks to the tune of $4.55 billion and counting.

But that’s the 9/11 insurance heist you saw. There was a much deeper, more complex, and well-hidden heist that was taking place behind closed doors on September 11, 2001, deep in the heart of the World Trade Center itself.

Marsh & McLennan is a diversified risk, insurance and professional services firm with over $13 billion in annual revenue and 57,000 employees. In September of 2001, 2000 of those employees worked in Marsh’s offices in the World Trade Center. Marsh occupied floors 93 to 100 of the North Tower, the exact area of the impact and explosion.

In the year prior to 9/11, Marsh had contracted with SilverStream software to create an electronic connection between Marsh and its clients for the purpose of creating “paperless transactions.” SilverStream had already built internet-based transactional and trading platforms for Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Banker’s Trust, Alex Brown, Morgan Stanley and other financial services firms that were later involved in 9/11, but this new project was unlike anything that had been attempted before.

Richard Andrew Grove, the salesperson who handled the Marsh & McLennan project for SilverStream, explains.

RICHARD GROVE: In 2000 SilverStream was contracted by Marsh to provide a technological solution beyond what we had done for any of the above-named companies; insofar as it would be used to electronically connect Marsh to its major business partners via internet portals, for the purpose of creating “paperless transactions” and expediting revenue and renewal cycles, and built from the ground up at the client’s site.

SilverStream provided a specific type of connectivity that was used to link AIG and Marsh & McLennan–the first two commercial companies on the planet to employ this type of transaction–and in fact Marsh was presented with something called the ACORD Award in the summer of 2001 for being the first commercial corporation to do so… and what you should take away from that is this: it means that no other companies were doing this type of transaction,so the question in your mind should be- what then were Marsh and AIG doing, and why did they need to leverage technologies that no other commercial entity on the face of the earth needed to conduct business?

Once securing the contract, SilverStream then stationed approximately 30-40 developers at Marsh, andthis team was led by 2-3 managers, with whom I liaised to ensure delivery of the “solution” that was promised.The development team regularly worked late into the night if not all night, and sometimes worked 7 days a week in order to adhere to Marsh’s indicated pre-September 11th deadline.

(SOURCE: Project Constellation)

But it was not long before severe irregularities in the billing of the account for this project led Richard Grove into the heart of a deeper mystery about the software, and about the work he was engaged in.

RICHARD GROVE: I first noticed fiscal anomalies with respect to the Marsh.com project, when I was in a meeting on the98th floor in October of 2000 with a gentleman named Gary Lasko. Gary was Marsh’s North American Chief Information Officer, and that particular afternoon a colleague and I helped him identify about $10,000,000 in suspicious purchase orders-after I recognized that certain vendors were deceiving Marsh, and specifically appeared to be selling Marsh large quantities of hardware that were not necessary-as this was later confirmed by Gary.

I brought my concerns up to executives inside of SilverStream, and I was urged to keep quiet and mind my own business. I went to an executive at Marsh, and he advised me to do likewise… but THEN I mentioned it to a few executives at Marsh who I could trust–like Gary Lasko…and Kathryn Lee, Ken Rice, Richard Breuhardt, John Ueltzhoeffer–people who became likewise concerned that something untoward
was going on.

The concerned colleagues I just mentioned, were murdered on September 11th, and the executives who expressed dismay at my concerns, are alive and free today because of it.

I feel that it’s no coincidence, as the Marsh Executive who urged me to drop my line of inquiry made sure that his personnel, who I just mentioned, were in the office bright and early for a global conference call before the staff meeting upon which I was to intrude… a conference call which I was informed this executive in question conducted but attended from the safety of his Upper West Side apartment.

(SOURCE: Project Constellation)

The global conference call with Marsh’s IT staff on the morning of 9/11, a meeting that included the staff who were investigating the suspicious billing on the SilverStream deal, was confirmed in a 2006 interview with Marsh’s then-Chief Information Officer, Ellen Clarke.

Richard Grove had been asked to attend the meeting but was stuck in traffic on the way to the Towers when the attack began. His friends at Marsh were not so lucky. 294 Marsh employees, including all of the participants in the conference call in the North Tower, died that morning. Meanwhile the Marsh executive who had scheduled the meeting, the same one who had asked Grove to drop the issue of the billing anomalies, was safe in his apartment, attending the meeting via telephone.

So what was the Marsh.com project really about? Why was it so important for it to be finished before September 11th, and what kind of transactions did it enable? More importantly, what information was lost when the data center on the 95th floor of the North Tower suffered a direct hit on 9/11 and the buildings were demolished?

A partial answer comes from reports that emerged in late 2001 that a German firm, Convar, had been hired to reconstruct financial data from the hard disks recovered at Ground Zero. The firm talks about this work in its promotional videos.

September the 11th, 2001. The whole world is in shock following the attacks on the World Trade Center. Convar has some solutions to offer.

Data stored on countless hard drives retrieved from the collapsed towers was believed to have been lost, but Convar’s specialists can render irreplaceable information readable again at Europe’s only high-security data recovery center. Burnt, crushed or dirty storage media are ready to relinquish their secrets by the time we finish.

(SOURCE: CONVAR – Repair & Service Center)

More details on the work come from an IDG News Service story posted to CNN.com in December 2001. Under the headline “Computer disk drives from WTC could yield clues,” the article notes: “An unexplained surge in transactions was recorded prior to the attacks, leading to speculation that someone might have profited from previous knowledge of the terrorist plot by moving sums of money. But because the facilities of many financial companies processing the transactions were housed in New York’s World Trade Center, destroyed in the blasts, it has until now been impossible to verify that suspicion.”

A Reuters article from the same time, later posted to Convar’s website, offers revealing glimpses into the investigation’s early results. It quotes Peter Herschel, Convar’s director at the time.

“The suspicion is that inside information about the attack was used to send financial transaction commands and authorizations in the belief that amid all the chaos the criminals would have, at the very least, a good head start. Of course it is also possible that there were perfectly legitimate reasons for the unusual rise in business volume. It could turn out that Americans went on an absolute shopping binge on that Tuesday morning. But at this point there are many transactions that cannot be accounted for. Not only the volume but the size of the transactions was far higher than usual for a day like that. There is a suspicion that these were possibly planned to take advantage of the chaos.”

It also quotes Richard Wagner, one of the companies data retrieval experts. “There is a suspicion that some people had advance knowledge of the approximate time of the plane crashes in order to move out amounts exceeding $100 million. They thought that the records of their transactions could not be traced after the main frames were destroyed.”

Was the revolutionary electronic trading link between AIG and Marsh being used to funnel money through the World Trade Center at the time of the attack? Were the attack perpetrators hoping that the destruction of Marsh’s data center, on the 95th floor at the dead center of the North Tower explosion, would conceal their economic crime?

One piece of corroborating evidence for this idea comes from author and researcher Michael Ruppert, who reported in 2004 that immediately before the attacks began, computer systems in Deutsche Bank, one of SilverStream’s other e-link clients, had been taken over from an external location that no one in the office could identify.

MICHAEL RUPPERT: Within, I would guess — I’d have to go back and look at the book, but it was no more than a week of the attacks — I was being contacted by a lot of people, from inside official sources who were raising a lot of questions. This one particular person was extremely credible. They absolutely convinced me they had been an employee of Deutsche Bank in the Twin Towers, and they told me very clearly that in the moments right before the attacks and during the attack — there was a 40 minute window between the time the first plane struck the World Trade Center and the second plane — that Deutsche Bank’s computers in New York City had been “taken over.” Absolutely co-opted and run. There was a massive data purge, a massive data download, and all kinds of stuff was moving.

And what this person said very clearly was that no one in the Deutsche Bank offices in the towers at the time had the ability to prevent what was going on from any of their terminals.

(SOURCE: Terror Trading 9/11)

Sadly, no answer to the questions raised by these accounts is forthcoming from Convar. After the initial reporting on the investigation, which noted that the company was working with the FBI to recover and analyze the data, Convar now refuses to talk about the information they discovered.

DUTCH REPORTER: Is it true that large amounts of money were transferred illegally out of the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11, just before the attacks?

If you would look on the website, I would say “Yes.”

DUTCH REPORTER: Uh huh.

CONVAR SPOKESMAN: Because that was the information from a previous release.

DUTCH REPORTER: Uh huh.

CONVAR SPOKESMAN: If you were to ask me today I would need to tell you I could not give you any additional information about that. I’m really sorry about–

DUTCH REPORTER: What if I were to ask you one year ago? What would you have–

CONVAR SPOKESMAN: I would have said that what we have there is what we said before. Yes, exactly.

(SOURCE: Dutch tv show Zembla investigates 911 theories)

At the time of 9/11, Marsh’s chief of risk management was Paul Bremer, the former managing director of Kissinger and Associates who went on to oversee the US occupation of Iraq. On the morning of 9/11 he was not in his office at Marsh & MacLennan, but at NBC’s TV studio, where he was delivering the official story of the attack.

NBC4 ANCHOR: Can you talk to us a little bit about…about…who could…I mean, there are a limited number of groups who could be responsible for something of this magnitude, correct?

PAUL BREMER: Yes, this is a very well-planned, very well-coordinated attack, which suggests it is very well-organized centrally, and there are only three or four candidates in the world really who could have conducted this attack.

NBC4 ANCHOR: Bin Laden comes to mind right away, Mr. Bremer.

PAUL BREMER: Indeed, he certainly does. Bin Laden was involved in the first attack on the World Trade Center which had as its intention doing exactly what happened here, which was to collapse both towers. He certainly has to be a prime suspect. But there are others in the Middle East, and there are at least two states, Iran and Iraq, which should at least remain on the list of potential suspects.

NBC4 ANCHOR: I don’t recall anything like this. Pearl Harbor happened a month before I was born and I hear my parents talk about that as a seminal event in their lives all the time. I’m not aware of anything like this in the United States before. Americans are now — I think it’s fair to say — really scared. Should we be?

NBC4 ANCHOR: This is a day that will change our lives, isn’t it?

PAUL BREMER: It is a day that will change our lives, and it’s a day when the war that the terrorists declared on the United States — and after all, they did declare a war on us — has been brought home to the United States in a much more dramatic way than we’ve seen before, so it will change our lives.

(SOURCE: Paul Bremer interview, NBC)

9/11 Insider Trading

On September 12, 2001, before the dust had even settled on Ground Zero, the Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation into a chilling proposition: that an unknown group of traders with advance knowledge of the 9/11 plot had made millions betting against the companies involved in the attacks.

ANTONIO MORA: “What many Wall Street analysts believe is that the terrorists made bets that a number of stocks would see their prices fall. They did so by buying what they call ‘puts.’ If you bet right the rewards can be huge. The risks are also huge unless you know something bad is going to happen to the company you’re betting against.

DYLAN RATIGAN: This could very well be insider trading at the worst, most horrific, most evil use you’ve ever seen in your entire life.

ANTONIO MORA: One example, United Airlines. The Thursday before the attack more than two thousand contracts betting that the stock would go down were purchased. Ninety times more in one day than in three weeks. When the markets reopened, United’s stock dropped, the price of the contracts soared and someone may have made a lot of money, fast.

DYLAN RATIGAN: $180,000 turns into $2.4 million when that plane hits the World Trade Center.

ANTONIO MORA: It’s almost the same story with American Airlines.

DYLAN RATIGAN: That’s a five-fold increase in the value of what was a $337,000 trade on Monday (September 10, 2001).

ANTONIO MORA: All of a sudden becomes what?

DYLAN RATIGAN: $1.8 million.

ANTONIO MORA: And there’s much more, including an extraordinarily high number of bets against Morgan Stanley and Marsh & McLennan, two of the World Trade Center’s biggest tenants. Could this be a coincidence?

DYLAN RATIGAN: This would be one of the most extraordinary coincidences in the history of mankind if it was a coincidence.”

(SOURCE: 9/11 Wall Street Blames Put Option Inside Trading On Terrorists)

Although the put options on American and United Airlines are usually cited in reference to the 9/11 insider trading, these trades only represent a fraction of the suspicious trades leading up to the attack. Between August 20th and September 10th, abnormally large spikes in put option activity appeared in trades involving dozens of different companies whose stocks plunged after the attack including Boeing, Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Munich Re and the AXA Group.

Traders weren’t just betting against the companies whose stocks dove after 9/11, however. There was also a six-fold increase in call options on the stock of defence contractor Raytheon on the day before 9/11. The options allowed the traders to buy Raytheon stock at $25. Within a week of the attack, as the American military began deploying the Raytheon-supplied Tomohawk missiles they would eventually use in the invasion of Afghanistan, the company’s share price had shot up 37% to over $34.

The SEC weren’t the only ones interested in this particular 9/11 money trail, either. Investigations into potential insider trading before the attacks were opened by authorities around the globe, from Belgium to France to Germany to Switzerland to Japan. It wasn’t long before this global financial manhunt started yielding clues on the trail of the terror traders.

On September 17th Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Martino, addressing Italian Consob’s own investigation into potential 9/11 trading, said: “I think that there are terrorist states and organizations behind speculation on the international markets.”

By September 24th the Belgian Finance Minister, Didier Reynders, was confident enough topublicly announce Belgium’s “strong suspicions that British markets may have been used for transactions.”

The president of Germany’s central bank, Ernst Welteke, was the most adamant: “What we found makes us sure that people connected to the terrorists must have been trying to profit from this tragedy.”

These foreign leaders were not alone in their conviction that insider trading had taken place. University of Chicago finance professor George Constantinides, Columbia University law professor John Coffee, Duke University law professor James Cox and other academics as well as well-known options traders like Jon Najarian all expressed their belief that investors had traded on advance knowledge of the attacks.

The scale of the SEC investigation was unprecedented, examining over 9.5 million securities transactions, including stocks and options in 103 different companies trading in 7 markets, 32 exchange traded funds, and stock indices. The probe drew on the assistance of the legal and compliance staff of the 20 largest trading firms and the regulatory authorities in ten foreign governments. The Commission coordinated its investigation with the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the Department of the Treasury.

The result of this investigation?

“We have not developed any evidence suggesting that those who had advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks traded on the basis of that information.”

Although this sounds like the investigation did not find evidence of insider trading, a second look reveals the trick; they are not saying that there was no insider trading, only that there is no evidence that “those who had advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks” participated in such trading. But this begs the question: who had that advance knowledge, and how did the SEC determine this?

The 9/11 Commission Report begs the question even more blatantly in their treatment of the anomalous put option activity on United Airlines stock on September 6: 95% of the puts were placed by “a single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda.” Again, it is taken as a foregone conclusion that a lack of ties to “al Qaeda” means there could not have been advance knowledge of the attack, even if the evidence shows  insider trading took place.

To be sure, insider trading almost certainly did take place in the weeks before 9/11. Although some have used the commission report to conclude that the story was debunked, the intervening years have seen the release of not one, not two, but three separate scientific papers concluding with high probability that the anomalous trading was the result of advance knowledge.

In “Unusual Option Market Activity and the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001” University of Chicago professor Allen Poteshman concluded: “Examination of the option trading leading up to September 11 reveals that there was an unusually high level of put buying. This finding is consistent with informed investors having traded options in advance of the attacks.”

In “Detecting Abnormal Trading Activities in Option Markets” researchers at the University of Zurich used econometric methods to confirm unusual put option activity on the stocks of key airlines, banks and re-insurers in the weeks prior to 9/11.

And in “Was There Abnormal Trading in the S&P 500 Index Options Prior to the September 11 Attacks?” a team of researchers concluded that abnormal activity in the S&P index options market around the time of the attack “is consistent with insiders anticipating the 9-11 attacks.”

The only question, then, is who was profiting from these trades and why was no one ever indicted for their participation in them?

One lead is pursued by researcher and author Kevin Ryan. In “Evidence for Informed Trading on the Attacks of September 11” he examines an FBI briefing document from 2003 that was declassified in 2009. It describes the results of FBI investigations into two of the pre-9/11 trades that the Bureau had identified as suspicious, including the purchase of 56,000 shares of Stratesec in the days prior to 9/11. Stratesec provided security systems to airports (including, ironically, Dulles Airport, as well as the World Trade Center and United Airlines), and saw its share price almost double when the markets re-opened on September 17th, 2001.

The trades traced back to a couple whose names are redacted from the memo, but are easily identifiable from the unredacted information: Mr. and Mrs. Wirt D. Walker III, a distant relative of the Bush family and business partner of Marvin Bush, the president’s brother. The document notes that the pair were never even interviewed as part of the investigation because it had “revealed no ties to terrorism or other negative information.”

In addition to begging the question, this characterization is provably false. As Ryan noted in a conversation with financial journalist Lars Schall:

KEVIN RYAN: “Wirt Dexter Walker at Stratesec hired several people from a company called The Carlyle Group and The Carlyle Group had Bin-Laden family members as investors. Also Wirt Walkers fellow (inaudible) director James Abrahamson was a close business associate of a man named Mansoor Ijaz, a Pakistani businessman and Mansoor Ijaz claimed to be able to contact Osama Bin-Laden on mulitple occasions.

So there does seem to be some circumstantial evidence indicated that these people were connected to Al-Qaeda, at least to the point where we should investigate.

LARS SCHALL: And isn’t it also true that some members of the Bin-Laden family were actually in Washington at the gathering of The Carlyle Group on 9/11?

KEVIN RYAN: That’s true. The Carlyle Group had a meeting at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington on September 11th and present there were former President George H. W. Bush, James Baker and the brother of Osama Bin-Laden. I believe his name was Salem, I can’t recall his exact name. But they were there, investors from the Bin-Laden family meeting with Carlyle Group representatives in Washington on September 11th.”

(SOURCE: Terror Trading 9/11)

Was this why the FBI thought better of questioning him over his highly profitable purchase of Stratesec shares right before 9/11?

The CIA figures prominently in another line of investigation. One suspicious United Airlines put option purchase that was investigated by the FBI involved a 2,500 contract order for puts in the days before 9/11. Instead of processing the purchase through United Airlines’ home exchange, the Chicago Board of Options Exchange, the order was split into five 500 contract chunks and run through five different options exhchanges simultaneously. The unusual order was brokered by Deutsch Bank Alex. Brown, a firm that until 1998 was chaired by A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard, a former consultant to CIA director James Woolsey who at the time of 9/11 was himself the Executive Director of the CIA.

MICHAEL C. RUPPERT: “So right after the attacks of 9/11 the name Buzzy Krongard surfaced, it was instant research that revealed that Buzzy Krongard had been allegedly recruited by CIA Director George Tennant to be become the Executive Director at (the) CIA, which is the number 3 position, right before the attacks.

And Alex Brown was one of the many subsidiaries of Deutsche Bank (which was) one of the primary vehicles or instruments that handled all of these criminal trades by people who obviously knew that the attacks were going to take place where, how and involving specific airlines.”

(SOURCE: Terror Trading 9/11)

Perhaps the most frank admission of insider trading is notable for three things: it was recorded on video, it has never been investigated by any agency or law enforcement official, and it was made by former CIA agent and frequent foreign policy commentator Robert Baer, the real-life inspiration for the character portrayed by George Clooney in “Syriana.” Talking to citizen journalists after a speaking event in Los Angeles in 2008, Baer was recorded on video making a startling assertion about 9/11 insider trading:

JEREMY ROTHE-KUSHEL: “…the last thing I want to leave you with is the National Reconnaissance Office was running a drill of a plane crashing into their building and you know they’re staffed by DoD and CIA…”

ROBERT BAER: “I know the guy that went into his broker in San Diego and said ‘cash me out, it’s going down tomorrow.’

JEREMY ROTHE KUSHEL: Really?

ROBERT BAER: Yeah.

STEWART HOWE: That tells us something.

ROBERT BAER: What?

STEWART HOWE: That tells us something.

ROBERT BAER: Well his brother worked at the White House.”

(SOURCE: WeAreChangeLA debriefs CIA Case Officer Robert Baer about apparent Mossad and White House 9/11 foreknowledge)

This truly remarkable statement bears further scrutiny. If Baer is to be believed, a former CIA agent has first-hand knowledge that a White House insider had foreknowledge of the attacks, and to this day not only has Baer never revealed the identity of this person, but no one has questioned him about his statement or even attempted to pursue this lead.

So how is it possible that the SEC overlooked, ignored, or simply chose not to pursue such leads in their investigation? The only possible answer, of course, is that the investigation was deliberately steered away from such persons of interest and any connections that would lead back to foreknowledge by government agencies, federal agents, or their associates in the business world.

Unfortunately we will likely never see documentary evidence of that from the Commission itself. One researcher requesting access under the Freedom of Information Act to the documentary evidence that the 9/11 Commission used to conclude there had been no insider trading receiveda response that stated “that the potentially responsive records have been destroyed.”

Instead, we are left with sources that refuse to be identified saying that CBOE records of pre-9/11 options trading have been destroyed and second-hand accounts of traders who had heard talk of an event in advance of 9/11.

In a round-about way, perhaps the 9/11 Commission reveals more than it lets on when it tries to dismiss key insider trades with the pithy observation that the traders had no conceivable ties to Al Qaeda. If those with foreknowledge of the attacks weren’t connected to Al Qaeda, what does that say about the identity of the real 9/11 perpetrators?

ANTONIO MORA: “ABC News has now learned that the Chicago Board of Options Exchange launched their investigation into the unusual trading last week. That may have given them enough time to stop anyone from profiting from death here in the U.S. It may also give investigators, Peter, a ‘hot trail’ that might lead them to the terrorists.

PETER JENNINGS: Thanks very much. As a reminder of the complications here, the Secretary of the Treasury said here today of this investigation” ‘You’ve got to go through ten veils before you can get to the real source.’

ANTONIO MORA: Yeah.

PETER JENNINGS: Thanks Antonio.”

(SOURCE: 9/11 Wall Street Blames Put Option Inside Trading On Terrorists)

PTech and Vulgar Betrayal

PTech was a Quincy, Mass. based company specializing in “enterprise architecture software,” a type of powerful computer modeling program that allows large-scale organizations to map their systems and employees and to monitor them in real time. The person running this software has a “God’s-eye” view of  processes, personnel and transactions, and even the ability to use this data to foresee problems before they happen and to intervene to stop them from happening.

As a senior consultant working on risk management for JPMorgan at the time of 9/11, Indira Singh was looking for exactly this type of software to implement the bank’s next-generation risk-blueprint. In her search for the ultimate risk management software, PTech’s name was floated as the best candidate for the task.

INDIRA SINGH: “I had a good life. I did ‘risk’ at JP Morgan Chase, just to take a break from all the heavy stuff. What I’d do was to devise a way to monitor everything going on in a very large company to stop big problems from happening. There is that little cloud there and my very bizarre picture of how I think about this problem. I am a person who was merging two disciplines: Risk Management and something called ‘Enterprise Architecture’ which is fairly esoteric but at the end of the day, we seek to prevent large problems from happening anywhere in a large global enterprise.

At JP Morgan I was working on the next generation ‘risk blueprint’ which is all about how to prevent these things from happening. Bad business practice such as money laundering, rogue trading and massive computer failures, anything you could imagine (that) could go wrong.

I had a lot of leeway consulting as a ‘Senior Risk Architect’ to think out of the box and actually get my ideas implemented. I was funded out of a strategic fund, I reported to the directors and I was pretty happy. JP Morgan thought very highly of me and they were thinking of funding, in conjunction with my project in D.C., the next-generation risk software.

What I need to do (and) what I did was (find) a really smart piece of software. Really, really smart. It’s job would be to think about all of the information and this is where you may connect a dot. The job of this software would be to think about all of the information that represented what was going on in the enterprise at any given time as bank business was being transacted world-wide. For example, it would (act) as a surveillance software that looked for trading patterns that indicated that someone was up too no good and then do something about it: send a message somewhere, send transaction information somewhere, perhaps shut their system down, perhaps shut another system down, perhaps start something else up elsewhere. This type of capability is very, very essential in today’s world.

However this kind of software is not found in Microsoft or not even in IBM. A small group of very esoteric software companies make this kind of enterprise software and it is very pricey. So you can’t afford to pick wrong and I asked all my colleagues who were industry gurus; what would they recommend for this?

My buddies recommended PTech.”

(SOURCE: 9/11 Omission Hearings – Indira Singh Reads Sibel Edmonds’ Letter – 9/9/2004)

Indeed, it’s not difficult to see why PTech came so highly recommended. Given the nature of this sensitive risk-management work, only a company with experience delivering software to large-scale organizations with secrets to protect would fit the bill, and in this regard PTech did not disappoint. Their client roster included a veritable who’s who of top-level corporate andgovernmental clients: the FBI, the IRS, NATO, the Air Force, the Naval Air Command, the Departments of Energy and Education, the Postal Service, the US House of Representatives, the Department of Defense, the Secret Service, even the White House.

From the inner sanctum of the White House to the headquarters of the FBI, from the basement of the FAA to the boardroom of IBM, some of the best-secured organizations in the world running on some of the most protected servers housing the most sensitive data welcomed PTech into their midst. PTech was given the keys to the cyber kingdom to build detailed pictures of these organizations, their weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and to show how these problems could be exploited by those of ill intent. But like all such systems, it could be exploited by those of ill intent for their own purposes, too.

Given the nature of the information and secrets being kept by its clients, it should come as no surprise that many of PTech’s top investors and employees were men with backgrounds that should have been raising red flags at all levels of the government. And as it turns out, at least one of these men did raise red flags with a pair of diligent FBI field agents.

In the late 1990s, Robert Wright and John Vincent—FBI special agents in the Chicago field office—were running an investigation into terrorist financing called Vulgar Betrayal. From the very start, the investigation was hampered by higher-ups; they were not even given access to the computer equipment needed to carry out their work. Through Wright and Vincent’s foresight and perseverance, however, the investigation managed to score some victories, including seizing $1.4 million in terrorist funds. According to Wright, “these funds were linked directly to Saudi businessman Yasin al-Qadi.”

Yasin al-Qadi is a multi-millionaire businessman and philanthropist who, according to business associates, liked to boast of his relationship with former Vice President Dick Cheney. But in the late 1990s he was sanctioned by the UN Security Council for his suspected links to Al Qaeda, and after 9/11 he was put on a terrorist watch list by the US Treasury for his suspected ties to terrorist financing.

During the 1990s, as Vulgar Betrayal was being thwarted from opening a criminal investigation into his activities, the Qadi-backed investment firm Sarmany Ltd. became an “angel investor” to a software startup called PTech, providing $5 million of the initial $20 million of capital that got PTech off the ground.

At the time, PTech’s CEO denied that al-Qadi had any involvement with the company other than his initial investment, but the FBI now maintains he was lying and that in fact al-Qadi continued investing millions of dollars in the company through various fronts and investment vehicles. Company insiders told FBI officials that they were flown to Saudi Arabia to meet PTech’s investors in 1999 and that al-Qadi was introduced as one of the owners. It has also been reported that Hussein Ibrahim, PTech’s chief scientist, was al-Qadi’s representative at PTechand al-Qadi’s lawyers have admitted that al-Qadi’s representative may have continued to sit on PTech’s board even after 9/11.

Ibrahim himself was a former president of BMI, a New Jersey-based real estate investment firm that was also one of the initial investors in PTech and provided financing for PTech’s founding loan. PTech leased office space and computer equipment from BMI and BMI shared office space in New Jersey with Kadi International, owned and operated by none other than Yassin al-Qadi. In 2003, counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said: “BMI held itself out publicly as a financial services provider for Muslims in the United States, its investor list suggests the possibility this facade was just a cover to conceal terrorist support.”

Suheil Laheir was PTech’s chief architect. When he wasn’t writing the software that would provide PTech with detailed operational blueprints of the most sensitive agencies in the U.S. government, he was writing articles in praise of Islamic holy war. He was also fond of quoting Abdullah Azzam, Osama Bin Laden’s mentor and the head of Maktab al-Khidamat, which was the precursor to Al-Qaeda.

That such an unlikely cast of characters were given access to some of the most sensitive agencies in the U.S. federal government is startling enough. That they were operating software that allowed them to map, analyze and access every process and operation within these agencies for the purpose of finding systemic weak points is equally startling. Most disturbing of all, though, is the connection between PTech and the very agencies that so remarkably “failed” in their duty to protect the American public on September 11, 2001.

BONNIE FAULKNER: “Could you describe the relationship of PTech with the FAA? PTech worked with the FAA for several years, didn’t they?

INDIRA SINGH: Yes. It was a joint project between PTech and MITRE. It is interesting. They were looking at, basically, holes in the FAA’s interoperability with responding with other agencies – law enforcement – in the case of an emergency such as a hijacking.

They were looking for the escalation process – what people would do, how they would respond in case of an emergency – and find the holes and make recommendations to fix it. Now if anyone was in a position to understand where the holes were, PTech was, and that is exactly the point: if anybody was in a position to write software to take advantage of those holes, it would have been PTech.

BONNIE FAULKNER: Was there a reference to PTech having operated in the basement out of the FAA?

INDIRA SINGH: Yes. Typically, because the scope of such projects are so over-arching and wide-ranging, when you are doing an enterprise architecture project, you have access to how anything in the organization is being done, where it is being done, on what systems, what the information is. You have carte blanche.

If it is a major project that spends several years, the team that comes in has, literally, access to almost anything that they want because you are operating on a blueprint level, on a massive scale. So, yes, they were everywhere, and I was told that they were in places that required clearances. I was told that they had log-on access to FAA flight control computers. I was told that they had passwords to many computers that you may not, on the surface, think has anything to do with finding out holes in the system, but let’s say you isolated part of a notification process that was mediated by computer and you wanted to investigate it further, then you would typically get log-on access to that computer. From that, back upstream or downstream. So, who knows?

From my own experience I could have access to almost anything I wanted to in J.P. Morgan-Chase. And, did not, for the reason that if anything went wrong, I did not want to have the access. But if you were up to no good as an enterprise architect with such a mandate, you typically could have access to anything.”

(SOURCE: Guns n Butter Indira Singh , PTech and the 911 software)

So who was really behind PTech? Did Ziade, Ibrahim and the others somehow evade the due diligence of all of the government agencies and multinational corporations that PTech contracted with? Did PTech just happen to end up working on the interoperability of the FAA and the Pentagon systems on the morning of 9/11? Did al-Qadi’s friend Dick Cheney really know nothing of Qadi’s connections or activities? Was this all some devious Al Qaeda plot to infiltrate key systems and agencies of the US government?

Not according to the people who were really investigating the company.

INDIRA SINGH: “Who’s really behind PTech is the question. Correct. I asked that of many intelligence people who came to my aid as I was being blacklisted and I was told: ‘Indira, it is a CIA clandestine operation on the level of Iran-Contra. And I have reason to believe this because CARE International is a renamed version of Al Kifah which was the finding arm for WTC 93, prior to Al Kifah it was called Maktab al-Khidamat which was the funding arms for the Afghani mujahidin. It was how the moneys got to Osama Bin-Laden throught the Pakistani ISI.

I asked the FBI in Boston: ‘How come Mak was being run out of Ptech and 9/11?’ and that jived with a lot of what intel was telling me that ‘it’s a CIA front, shut up and go away.’ At that level I said ‘Well why doesn’t the FBI take advantage of their celebrated difference with the CIA’ and I was told ‘because at that level they work together’.”

(SOURCE: 9/11 Omission Hearings – Michael Ruppert & Indira Singh Q&A – 9/9/2004)

So what did the 9/11 Commission have to say about PTech? Absolutely nothing. The co-chair of the commission, Thomas Kean, had been involved in a $24 million real estate transaction with BMI, one of the PTech investors, but no mention was made of that at the time and the commission never looked into PTech or its activities on 9/11.

Meanwhile, Cheney’s friend al-Qadi has since been removed from the Swiss, European, UN Security Council and US Treasury terrorist sanctions lists.

And Robert Wright? After Vulgar Betrayal was shut down, the FBI did eventually raid PTech’s offices in December 2002…but not before the company was given advance warning of the “raid.” The very next day then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge declared that PTech “in no way jeopardizes the security of the country.”

Oussama Ziade is still wanted by the FBI for lying about al-Qadi’s involvement with the company, but the case is now cold.

ROBERT WRIGHT: “To the families and victims….of September 11th…on behalf of John Vincent, Barry Carnaby and myself…we’re sorry.”

(SOURCE: 9-11 FBI Whistleblower Robert Wright Testimony)

The Pentagon’s Missing Trillions

DONALD RUMSFELD: The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America. This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk.

(SOURCE: Defense Business Practices)

On September 10, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared a new war. Not a war on a shadowy terrorist organization in Afghanistan, or even a war on terror, but a war on the Pentagon itself.

DONALD RUMSFELD: The adversary is closer to home. It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy.

(SOURCE: Defense Business Practices)

Perhaps it is no surprise that Rumsfeld felt compelled to declare a war on the Pentagon’s bureaucracy. The issue of the Pentagon’s $2.3 trillion accounting nightmare had been dogging him since his confirmation hearings in January of 2001. Although Rumsfeld was interested in pushing forward a modernization of the military that was projected to cost an additional $50 billion in funding, that agenda was politically impossible in the face of the Department of Defense’s monumental budget problem.

SEN. BYRD: How can we seriously consider a $50 billion increase in the Defense Department budget when DoD’s own auditors — when DoD’s own auditors say the department cannot account for $2.3 trillion in transactions in one year alone

Now, my question to you is, Mr. Secretary, what do you plan to do about this?

DONALD RUMSFELD: Decline the nomination! (Laughs.) (Laughter.) Ah! Senator, I have heard —

SEN. BYRD: I don’t want to see you do that! (Laughter.)

SEN. LEVIN: (Sounds gavel.) We’ll stand adjourned, in that case! (Laughter.)

DONALD RUMSFELD: Senator, I have heard some of that and read some of that, that the department is not capable of auditing its books. It is — I was going to say “terrifying.”

(SOURCE: Defense Secretary Nomination Hearing Jan 11 2001)

“Terrifying” only begins to describe the problem.

The Department of Defense’s own Inspector General report for Fiscal Year 1999 noted that the the Defense Finance and Accounting Service had processed $7.6 trillion of department-level accounting entries in that year. Of that amount, only $3.5 trillion could be properly accounted for. $2.3 trillion in transactions were fudged to make entries balance, run through without proper documentation, or made up entirely. The Inspector General’s office did not even examine the other $1.8 trillion in transactions because they “did not have adequate time or staff to review” them.

In 2002 one DFAS accountant blew the whistle on the problem, and the cover up that was underway to stop investigators from finding out where the money went.

VINCE GONZALES: $2.3 trillion with a “T.” That’s 8000 dollars for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

JIM MINNERY: We know it’s gone, but we don’t know what they spent it on.

VINCE GONZALES: Jim Minnery, a former Marine turned whistleblower, is risking his job by speaking out for the first time about the millions he noticed were missing from one defense agency’s balance sheets. Minnery tried to follow the money trail, even criss-crossing the country looking for records.

JIM MINNERY: The director looked at me and said “Why do you care about this stuff?” That took me aback, you know. My supervisor asked me why I care about doing a good job.

VINCE GONZALES: He was reassigned, and says officials then covered up the problem by just writing it off.

JIM MINNERY: They’ve got to cover it up.

(SOURCE: 9-11 Pentagon missing $2.3 trillion)

As Comptroller of the Pentagon from 2001 to 2004, Dov Zakheim was the man tasked with solving this problem.

DONALD RUMSFELD: There are all kinds of long- standing rules and regulations about what you can do and what you can’t do. I know Dr. Zakheim’s been trying to hire CPAs because the financial systems of the department are so snarled up that we can’t account for some $2.6 trillion in transactions that exist, if that’s believable. And yet we’re told that we can’t hire CPAs to help untangle it in many respects

REP. LEWIS: Mr. Secretary, the first time and the last time that Dov Zackheim and I broke bread together, he told me he would have a handle on that 2.6 trillion by now. (Laughter.) But we’ll discuss that a little —

DONALD RUMSFELD: He’s got a handle; it’s just a little hot. (Laughter.)

(SOURCE: Testimony before the House Appropriations Committee: FY2002 Budget Request)

From 1987 to 2001 Zakheim headed SPC International, a subsidiary of System Planning Corporation, a defense contractor providing airwarfare, cybersecurity and advanced military electronics to the Department of Defense and DARPA. SPC’s “Radar Physics Laboratory” developed a remote control system for airborne vehicles that they were marketing to the Pentagon prior to 9/11.

Zakheim was also a participant in drafting “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” a document that called for a sweeping transformation of the US military, including the implementation of the $50 billion missile defense program and increased use of specialized military technologies. The paper even noted how “advanced forms of biological warfare that can target specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”

“Rebuilding America’s Defenses” was a white paper produced by the Project for the New American Century, a group founded in 1997 with the goal of projecting American global dominance into the 21st century. Joining Zakheim in the group were a host of other neocons who ended up populating the Bush administration, including Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Jeb Bush, and Donald Rumsfeld. In their September 2000 document, the group lamented that their plan for transforming the military was not likely unless a defining event took place, one that would galvanize public opinion: “the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”

DONALD RUMSFELD: We know that the thing that tends to register on people is fear, and we know that that tends to happen after there’s a Pearl Harbor, tends to happen after there’s a crisis. And that’s too late for us. We’ve got to be smarter than that. We’ve got to be wiser than that. We have to be more forward-looking

There’s a wonderful book on Pearl Harbor by Roberta Wohlstetter, and a forward by Dr. Schelling, that talks about this problem of seeing things happen and not integrating them in your mind and saying, “Yes, we need to be doing something about that now,” that I reread periodically because it’s so important.

(SOURCE: Defense Secretary Nomination Hearing Jan 11 2001)

And on 9/11/2001, America received its new Pearl Harbor.

The attack on the Pentagon struck Wedge One on the west side of the building. An office of the U.S. Army called Resource Services Washington had just moved back into Wedge One after renovations had taken place there. The office was staffed with 45 accountants, bookkeepers and budget analysts. 34 of them were killed in the attack.

A 2002 follow-up report from the DoD Inspector General on the missing trillions noted that a further $1.1 trillion in made up accounting entries were processed by the Pentagon in fiscal year 2000, but they did not even attempt to quantify the missing funds for 2001. The Secretary of the Army, Thomas White, later explained they were unable to produce a financial report for 2001 at all due to “”the loss of financial-management personnel sustained during the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.”

Before becoming Secretary of the Army, Thomas White was a senior executive at Enron. Enron was one of the largest energy companies in the world, posting a $111 billion profit in 2000 before being exposed as an elaborate corporate accounting fraud in 2001. The SEC, which investigated the Enron scandal, occupied the 11th to 13th floors in World Trade Center Building 7, and their offices were destroyed on 9/11, destroying 3000 to 4000 documents on active investigations in the process.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Rumsfeld’s War on the Pentagon’s Bureacracy did not yield the results he promised. By 2013, the unaccountable money in the Pentagon’s coffers had reach $8.5 trillion.

REPORTER: The latest scandal to hit Washington comes from a report revealing the Pentagon “misplaced” $8.5 trillion. Military leaders have also been found ordering subordinates to doctor books to hide the missing money. This is the conclusion of a special report by Reuters.

One former Pentagon employee, Linda Woodford, said she spent 15 years there falsifying financial records. Woodford had a job checking Navy accounting records against figures supplied by the Treasury Department. She said money was missing from the report every month.

(SOURCE: $8.5 Trillion Missing From Pentagon Budget)

GAYANE CHICHAKYAN: National security expert Steve Miles is here with me to help us crunch these numbers. $8.5 trillion unaccounted for?

STEPHEN MILES: That’s a lot of money. This is the kind of thing that you would think would bring Capitol Hill to a screeching halt. There’d be hearings almost every day. You’d have various committees looking into it. None of that. It just leads to massive waste and there can be all sorts of fraud that you don’t know about.

Just one example, when the Inspector General looked at Iraq — which was a lot of money, but in the grand scheme just a portion of the money the U.S. spent — what they found was about $50 billion of the money the U.S. spent there was wasted and about $6 billion was completely lost. They had no idea where it went, it was completely unaccounted for. Put that in perspective. That’s about the amount of money that other countries would spend on their defense, total. And that’s just the loose pocket change that we lost in the couch.

GAYANE CHICHAKYAN: One thing I found very interesting in this report is that the Pentagon apparently uses standard operating procedure to enter false numbers, or so-called “plugs” to cover lost or missing information in their accounting in order to submit a balanced budget to the Treasury. So they can write in everything.

STEPHEN MILES: This is probably the most shocking part of this. They get to the end of the day and they say, “Oh, there’s money missing, what do we do?” “Well we’ll just put a number in there that says it’s there and we’ll sort it out later.” Again this is the type of operating practice that if you did it in your own business — if you try to do it with your own taxes for the government, they’d haul you off to jail.

(SOURCE: Black Budget: US govt clueless about missing Pentagon $trillions)

But then, given that the trillions have never been accounted for, and given that American defense spending soared to record levels after the attack, perhaps Rumsfeld’s war on the Pentagon, the one he announced on September 10th, was successful after all. And perhaps September 11th was the key battle in that war.

DONALD RUMSFELD: Some might ask, how in the world could the Secretary of Defense attack the Pentagon in front of its people? To them I reply, I have no desire to attack the Pentagon; I want to liberate it.

(SOURCE: Defense Business Practices)

No Conclusion

Insurance scams and insider trading, electronic fraud and vulgar betrayal, missing money and evidence destroyed. There are at least 8.5 trillion reasons to investigate the money trail of 9/11.

Curious, then, that the US government’s final word on the attacks, the 9/11 Commission Report, concluded that the money trail was not worthy of investigation at all. In Chapter Five of the report, the commission noted: “To date, the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance.”

9/11 was a crime. And as every detective knows, the first rule of criminal investigation is to follow the money. So why did the 9/11 Commission specifically reject this rule?

The answers to 9/11 are not going to come from the suspects of the crime. Instead, it’s up to investigators to continue to unearth the true evidence on the 9/11 money trail.

Follow the money…

On September 6th, Ukraine’s Apostrophe news-site headlined, «Putin will try to return the Donbass to the Ukraine – Gerashchenko», and quoted a prominent member of Ukraine’s parliament who is also a member of the committee overseeing Ukraine’s national security, Anton Gerashchenko, as saying that for Ukraine to re-absorb the breakaway region, Donbass (its two districts Donetsk and Lugansk), back into Ukraine, would be politically disastrous, unless the residents there are eliminated: he said,

«Putin will do everything to return the Donbass to the Ukraine … in order to allow pro-Russian inhabitants of Donetsk and Lugansk regions to vote and change the configuration of power in our country».

He didn’t want them to be able to vote in Ukraine’s national elections.

This influential Ukrainian government official said:

Putin has thrown all his energy into splitting Ukraine from the inside. First of all, the split of the Verkhovna Rada [parliament] to conduct new parliamentary elections. As soon as he sees that these plans are real [i.e., that Donbass will again be voting in Ukrainian national elections], he is sure to try to return the Donbass to the Ukraine, the residents there will be able to participate in them [Ukraine’s elections]. Due to the fact that the voters of Crimea and Donbas did not participate in last year’s parliamentary [and Presidential] elections, the structure of government in Ukraine has changed dramatically. The majority in Parliament has been owned by pro-European forces [the U.S.-installed government]. But if voters in Donbass again have the opportunity to vote [in Ukraine], it is clear that they will support pro-Russian politicians. This can seriously change the balance of power in the country. Therefore, once again I repeat, if Putin really feels that Ukraine could split from the inside and hold early parliamentary elections, he will do everything he can in order to restore to us Donbass.

He’s not saying that Donbass does not need to be seized and restored to be again part of Ukraine’s land; he is saying that the residents of Donbass cannot be part of Ukraine; they cannot again be Ukrainians — they cannot be people who are allowed to vote in Ukrainian national elections. He is saying that those people must be eliminated if and when Donbass is restored to Ukraine.

A look at the electoral-voting map of Ukraine for the final Ukrainian election before the February 2014 coup, which is the last electoral map in which the entirety of Ukraine voted for President, is here, and it shows that the Donbass residents voted more than 90% for Yanukovych and less than 10% for Tymoshenko. Donbass residents are overwhelmingly the people who placed Yanukovych into the Presidency; they are overwhelmingly the reason why Yulia Tymoshenko, the person that U.S. President Obama had hoped would win the 25 May 2014, the first post-coup, election, wasn’t already elected as Ukraine’s President in 2010 (which would have made Obama’s coup unnecessary for him, because she already wanted Ukraine to be in NATO).

That map shows what Gerashchenko is talking about here: Donbass people were overwhelmingly the people who had prevented the far-right, pro-Western, pro-Gladio, rabidly anti-Russian, Tymoshenko, from being elected as Ukraine’s President in 2010. Although Obama didn’t get his #1 choice elected in the 2014 vote (because too much was known about her by then), Poroshenko was sufficiently far-right, and sufficiently compliant, for him; and what Gerashchenko is now saying is that no leader like that would stand a chance in any Ukrainian national election in which the residents of Donbass would vote.

On September 1st, the U.S.-installed Prime Minister of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk (Tymoshenko’s protégée, whom Obama’s agent Victoria Nuland selected originally to be only the interim Prime Minister until Tymoshenko would be elected as the new President, but who was kept on in office once Poroshenko won), delivered a speech in Odessa. That city had been the site of the government’s massacre (by Dmitriy Yarosh’s Right Sector) of pro-Russian (anti-coup) demonstrators on 2 May 2014, which massacre of coup-opponents had started Ukraine’s civil war; and he said there, to an audience which included the U.S. Ambassador and the Commander of the U.S. 6th Fleet, that they would all go to war together against Russia to «turn the Black Sea into a safe area and to make the Russian Federation, which illegally annexed Crimea, realize that any illegal actions will be curbed by our joint efforts».Yatsenyuk has often publicly endorsed a war by Ukraine against Russia, in order to restore both Donbass and Crimea.

However, since Donbass voted over 90% for the Ukrainian President that the Obama Administration overthrew in February 2014, and Crimea voted over 75% for that President (see that map), the residents in those two regions would need to be eliminated, if the land is restored to Ukraine, because otherwise the residents there would vote the U.S. regime out of office, just as Gerashchenko fears. Yatsenyuk obviously knows this, he knows what got him into power, and he wants the weapons and financial assistance to get rid of those people, who, as voters, would remove him from power.

The only solution for the United States plan for Ukraine is therefore to restore the land but to eliminate its residents, and this has been the plan. This solution has been recommended by propagandists for America’s aristocracy, on both the right and the left sides of that aristocracy; the U.S. government is united behind it. Here are some examples of such propagandists:

On the right side of America’s aristocracy, the Koch brothers established the Cato Institute, whose Andrei Illarionove has said that the residents in breakaway areas should be simply ignored, and that the land has been stolen by Russia and needs to be retaken by Ukraine. For example: «the crimes that have been committed or are being committed by the Kremlin — stealing Crimea», must end, and the land must be restored to «the owner of that territory, namely Ukraine. Only this subject [the Ukrainian central government], and no one else, has necessary legal rights to change this territory’s jurisdiction», regardless of what the residents there think — the residents don’t have that right; they should have no say-so over who rules them.

On the left side, George Soros was (along with the U.S. Government and the Netherlands Government) one of the three founders of Hromadske TV, which presented a commentator who said (and he was not contradicted or opposed there):

Donbass, in general, is not simply a region in a very depressed condition, it has got a whole number of problems, the biggest of which is that it is severely overpopulated with people nobody has any use for. Trust me, I know perfectly well what I am saying. If we take, for example, just the Donetsk oblast, there are approximately 4 million inhabitants, at least 1.5 million of which are superfluous. That’s what I mean: we don’t need to [try to] ‘understand’ Donbass, we need to understand Ukrainian national interests. Donbass must be exploited as a resource, which it is. I don’t claim to have a quick solution recipe, but the most important thing that must be done — no matter how cruel it may sound — is that there is a certain category of people that must be exterminated.

The Kochs are among the main fundraisers for America’s Republican Party, while George Soros is among the main fundraisers for America’s Democratic Party. There is near-100% support in the U.S. Congress, bipartisan support, for supplying weapons, military advisors, and everything short of the U.S. armed fighting forces, into Ukraine, in order to help the Ukrainian government kill the people in Donbass. These aristocrats just want the land, not the people. (That’s why Ukraine’s racists-fascist anti-Russians, Ukraine’s nazis, have been so essential to the coup, the massacre, the aftermath, and even to the pogrom of Korsun, against anti-coup Crimeans, during the coup. They want the land, not the people.)

On 20 September 2014, I headlined, «Russia’s Leader Putin Rejects Ukrainian Separatists’ Aim to Become Part of Russia», and reported that, contrary to Western news-reports which alleged that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin wanted Donbass to become part of Russia, Putin had firmly rejected the request by Donbass leaders for Russia to accept Donbass into Russia. Putin had already figured out that, in the interests of Russia’s own national security, it would be far better for Donbass’s voters to be voting in Ukraine, not in Russia. Putin had already arranged for the men in Donbass to be trained and armed to overcome the invasion by the Ukrainian government, so that some people would be able to survive there, but they’d need to stay in Donbass; they’d not be Russians. Virtually all of what the Western news-media were saying about the war in Ukraine (e.g., that Russia was trying to grab that land) misrepresented the truth. The truth was the exact opposite.

When Putin helped Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Francois Hollande to establish the Minsk II agreement suspending Obama’s war against the Donbassers, Putin managed to have inserted into the agreement its 11th paragrpaph, which requires Donbassers to stay in Ukraine but to be granted local autolonomy there, and to be able to vote in Ukraine’s national elections for President and parliament. Gerashchenko’s recent comments against that idea, are a reflection of the Ukrainian government’s refusal to adhere to this agreement, though Ukraine had signed it. (There were conflicts within the Obama Administration over whether or not Ukraine should comply with Minsk II, but Obama slammed down his Secretary of State John Kerry for having demanded compliance.)

The United States is pushing on with its efforts to restart the war, and to eliminate the Donbass residents. The U.S. had nothing to do with the Minsk II agreement; the Obama Administration shunned it and wants the war to resume. Obama has the support of Congress on this. Gerashchenko’s fear is also Washington’s fear: the Donbassers must be eliminated, in their view. But Putin, equally strongly, wants them to stay in Donbass, and to survive, as Ukrainians there. This is what Minsk II is basically about.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

While Europe takes the burden of the migrant crisis

While European countries are being lectured about their failure to take in enough refugees, Saudi Arabia – which has taken in precisely zero migrants – has 100,000 air conditioned tents that can house over 3 million people sitting empty.

The sprawling network of high quality tents are located in the city of Mina, spreading across a 20 square km valley, and are only used for 5 days of the year by Hajj pilgrims. As the website Amusing Planet reports, “For the rest of the year, Mina remains pretty much deserted.”

The tents, which measure 8 meters by 8 meters, were permanently constructed by the Saudi government in the 1990’s and were upgraded in 1997 to be fire proof. They are divided into camps which include kitchen and bathroom facilities.

The tents could provide shelter for almost all of the 4 million Syrian refugees that have been displaced by the country’s civil war, which was partly exacerbated by Saudi Arabia’s role in funding and arming jihadist groups.

However, as the Washington Post reports, wealthy Gulf Arab nations like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and others have taken in precisely zero Syrian refugees. Although Saudi Arabia claims it has taken in 500,000 Syrians since 2011, rights groups point out that these people are not allowed to register as migrants. Many of them are also legal immigrants who moved there for work. In comparison, Lebanon has accepted 1.3 million refugees – more than a quarter of its population.

While it refuses to take in any more refugees, Saudi Arabia has offered to build 200 mosques for the 500,000 migrants a year expected to pour into Germany.

Saudis argue that the tents in Mina are needed to host the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, but given that the Arabic concept of Ummah is supposed to offer protection to all Muslims under one brotherhood, surely an alternative location could be found so that Mina can be repurposed to house desperate families fleeing war and ISIS persecution?

While Europe is being burdened by potentially millions of people who don’t share the same culture or religion as the host population, Gulf Arab states refuse to pull their weight, resolving only to throw money at the problem.

The likelihood of the Saudis inviting Syrian refugees to stay in Mina is virtually zero, but the thousands of empty tents serve as a physical representation of the hypocrisy shared by wealthy Gulf Arab states when it comes to helping with the crisis.

If you’ve been following the markets for the last three weeks, you’ve probably figured out that something is wrong. The markets are no longer behaving the way they should, and that has people worried. Very worried. In the last 15 trading days, the Dow Jones has experienced an unprecedented 13 triple-digit days, which means that stocks have been sharply rising and falling without any rhyme or reason. The financial media has tried to explain-away the extreme volatility by pointing to slower growth in China, troubles in the Emerging Markets or various dismal data-points. But none of these adequately explain what’s going on.

What’s really going on is a tug-of-war between current high stock valuations–which are the product of Fed intervention–and much lower valuations, which are based on fundamentals. Some analysts think that the volatility indicates that the Fed’s zero rates policy has damaged the market’s price-setting mechanism, that six years of overmedication has spawned an unresponsive, drug-addled system that can no longer perform its primary function. This is a persuasive argument, but it’s wrong. In fact, stock valuations are not really inflated at all given the colossal amount of support they’ve gotten from QE and zirp. (Zero interest rate policy) Since 2009, the Fed has made it clear that it is committed to asset-price inflation as a way create the “wealth effect” which is supposed to stimulate growth. Naturally, investors followed the Fed’s lead and took on more credit risk, reached for more yield, and loaded up on stocks and bonds confident that the Fed had their back. And the Fed did have their back. The “Bernanke Put” is a term that reflects investors confidence that the Fed would prevent stocks from falling too fast or too sharply. And the Fed has honored that commitment. Stocks have more than doubled in a six year, Fed-fueled “monster” rally.

The point is, the Fed’s policy is the issue not the market. The market is not a sentient being. It merely responds to input, the buying and selling of paper and the reporting of prices. But the market DOES send signals, and the signal it’s sending now is that there is a vast disparity between stock prices with Fed support and stock prices without Fed support. You see, investors are still uncertain about the way this is all going to shake out. Is the Fed going launch a cycle of rate hikes or keep rates at zero? That’s what everyone wants to know.

One group of investors think the Fed will move ahead and start to “normalize” rates while the other thinks the Fed will stand pat. The group that anticipates a rate hike, thinks stocks are overpriced and will drop precipitously. Conversely, the group that thinks the Fed will stand pat, believes stocks are fairly priced and could go higher still. It’s the competing expectations of these two main groups that’s causing the extreme volatility. Each group thinks they know what stocks are worth, but they’ve based their calculations on ‘what they think the Fed will do’.

Does the Fed understand this? Does the Fed realize that investors have already repriced stocks according to their own assumptions about rate hikes? Does the Fed see the vast disparity between stock prices “with” a rate increase and stock prices “without” a rate increase? And is the Fed prepared to initiate a cycle of rate increases (in the name of “normalization”) that could send stocks plunging by 50 or 60 percent?

I don’t think so. The Fed is so blinded by fear, it doesn’t seem to know whether its coming or going. Sure, they talk about normalization, but are they really going to end the meddling and allow the markets to function according to normal supply-demand dynamics?

Not a chance. What the Fed wants is normalization on its own terms, that is, permanent high stock valuations and a free market where prices are determined by fundamentals. Unfortunately, the two are mutually exclusive, which is why the Fed is in such a quandary. There’s simply no way to undo the extreme accommodating policies that tripled the value of stocks and created the biggest bond bubble in history without reversing their impact on the market. The Fed isn’t prepared for that. No one is. So there’s not going to be any return to normal, not in the foreseeable future at least.

Yes, the Fed can (probably) safely raise rates by a .25 basis points without too much risk. But if the Fed indicates its determination to normalize rates via a cycle of rate increases, the stock market will crash before the increases ever go into effect. That much is certain.

The Fed is probably aware that its meddling has greatly effected the credibility of US markets, but it simply doesn’t have the guts to put things back in order. The pain would just be too much to bear.

That’s why the volatility will persist while more and more investors head for the exits.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at [email protected].

The intense firefights at the Abu Al-Dhuhour Military Airport have not dissipated in the last 48 hours, as the Syrian Al-Qaeda faction “Jabhat Al-Nusra” and their affiliate group “Jund Al-Aqsa” have taken control of the base. It was captured in the morning on September 9 after the Syrian Armed Forces withdrew to the outskirts.

The recent sandstorm that is engulfing the entire Syrian-Lebanese border has grounded the Syrian Arab Air Force due to poor visibility; and while this may seem like a reprieve for the Islamist rebel forces of Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and “Jabhat Al-Nusra”, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and Hezbollah had no plans to halt their advance inside Al-Zabadani.

Under the cover of red clouds formed from the sand debris, the SAA in coordination with Hezbollah, National Defense Forces (NDF), and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) – continued their advance inside the Al-Ghabiyah District, capturing the Al-Maas Neighborhood after intense clashes with the Islamist rebels of Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham and Jabhat Al-Nusra.

According to reports, the death toll in Al-Zabadani is as followed: over 400 Islamist rebels were killed; 189 of them surrendered to the Syrian Armed Forces and Hezbollah. 60 Hezbollah soldiers were killed-in-action. The firefights are likely to intensify in the coming hours, as the Syrian Armed Forces and Lebanese Resistance seek retribution for the Islamist assault on the Abu Al-Dhuhour Military Aiport in the Idlib Governorate.

On Tuesday morning, FSA militnts launched a fresh offensive in northwest Dara’a to recapture the territory they lost to the Syrian Arab Army in the Fall of 2014 after they had already taken control of this area during their summer offensive at the strategic town of Tal Al-Harrah.

The FSA offensive is aimed on the hilltops at Tal Qareen and Tal Al-Alaqiyah and the SAA positions at the town of Kafr Nissaj.

Renewed fighting between the Islamic State and Shamiya Front militants has left at least 47 people dead around the rebel-held town of Marea in the northern countryside of Aleppo, around 20km from the Turkish border. The area falls within the so-called “safe zone” that Turkey said it would set up in northern Syria last month.

On September 9, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said that Russian military experts were present in Syria, the first official confirmation that the Russian military is on the ground in Syria. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, stated the experts were assisting with Russian arms deliveries which aimed at combating terrorism.

Moscow is set to continue supporting Syria in its fight against Islamic State and provide Damascus with military supplies, Russia’s foreign minister said, stressing that the drills of the Russian Navy near Syrian shores fully comply with international law.

“We support the fight of the Syrian government against so-called Islamic State, which neither represents Islam, nor happens to be a state,” Sergey Lavrov said Friday.

Russia will not hesitate to continue maintaining Syria’s defensive capacity to counter the terrorist threat, Lavrov said.

“I can tell you once again, that our servicemen and military experts remain there [in Syria] for the maintenance of Russian [military] hardware and assisting the Syrian army in using this hardware, there’s training under way,” Lavrov said, stressing that military hardware supplies will continue. In fighting terrorism, Moscow has always supported “teamwork based on international legislation,” the foreign minister said. Germany has said it welcomes more Russian engagement in the fight against Islamic State. “I think we would welcome the Russian Federation and the Russian president … getting actively involved in the fight against ISIS, given the dangers arising from Islamist terrorism,” Reuters cited German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer as saying, speaking at a regular government news conference in Berlin on Friday.

Lavrov also reiterated that the anti-ISIS coalition should start cooperating with the Syrian government and army on the ground.

“The most effective and powerful ground force to fight Islamic State is the Syrian army,” Lavrov said, adding that coordination is necessary to avoid “unintended incidents.” 

LISTEN MORE:

Moscow has been calling on to the US-led anti-ISIS coalition to team up with the Syrian army from the very beginning of airstrikes against Islamic State one year ago.

“Better late than never,” Lavrov said.

“If battling terrorism is a priority, than all opportunistic considerations, like a regime change in Syria, should be put aside,” he added.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. © Maxim Shemetov / Reuters

Moscow fully supports the revival of contacts between the Russian and American military, Lavrov said.

“If Washington, like [US Secretary of State] John Kerry reiterated, is ready to unfreeze such contacts, than here’s our welcome,”Lavrov said, recalling that when the contacts, now suspended on the US initiative, were in place, they were extremely stable and trustful.

“We always back up professional dialogue of the militaries, they understand each other well,” Lavrov said. “It’s important to preclude undesired and non-deliberate incidents,” Lavrov said.

As for the naval drills conducted in the Mediterranean, Lavrov said he had no exact information about the schedule of the drills, but confirmed that they take place on a regular basis.

He also insisted that any training of the Russian Navy in international waters is conducted in full compliance with international law.

Russian authorities have warned that national naval training is taking place east of Cyprus and will last till September 17.

On Friday, Netanyahu left London and headed home. He met with Prime Minister David Cameron, British MPs and Jewish community leaders.

A petition to arrest him got over 110,000 signatures so far. His longstanding record of high crimes demands accountability. Instead he was treated like an honored guest – an appalling display of indifference to Palestinian suffering.

A US petition to arrest him began circulating – ahead of his scheduled UN General Assembly address in New York later this month. It aims for 100,000 signatures or more before his arrival – sending a message saying his genocidal crimes can’t be ignored.

Sign the petition. Take a stand for justice. Let We the People mean something. Demand Obama, Bush, Cheney and other past and current US war criminals be arrested, put in the dock, prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned longterm.

Obama and Netanyahu will address the 70th annual General Assembly meeting later this month. Vladimir Putin is coming for the first time since 2005, China’s Xi Jinping for his first visit along with scores of other world leaders.

On Thursday, General Assembly members overwhelmingly approved displaying the Palestinian flag at its New York headquarter by a vote of 119 to 8 with 45 abstentions.

America, Israel, Canada, Australia and four US-controlled Pacific islands voted “no.” Germany, Britain and most other EU nations abstained. France, Italy, Spain and Sweden among others voted “yes.” So did Russia and China.

PA UN representative Riyad Mansour called it “a symbolic thing, but another step to solidify the pillars of the state of Palestine in the international arena.”

Flying the Palestinian flag at New York headquarters in New York accomplishes nothing. Occupation harshness persists. Ruthless persecution remains official Israeli policy – with full Western and rogue state regional support.

Palestinian academic Azzam Tamimi called the gesture “meaningless. What the Palestinians need from the UN is an acknowledgement of its historic role in dispossessing the Palestinians.”

Our quest is not for another failing Arab state with a meaningless flag and useless institutions, but for a homeland that was stripped from us…We need the UN to atone for its sin(ful) (1947 Partition Plan) by recognizing the legitimacy of our struggle” and holding Israel accountable for decades of high crimes.

In 2012, instead of going for easily attainable full UN membership, Abbas betrayed his people by settling for meaningless non-member status – like being a club member deprived of most rights.

Non-member states have no say over anything. They can’t vote. Full de jure status alone matters – attainable by following simple procedures Abbas avoids doing, concerned more about Israeli interests and his own than Palestine’s.

In London, Netanyahu called the solution to Israel’s conflict with Palestine “a demilitarized (defenseless, subservient) Palestinian (puppet) state that recognizes a Jewish state, the nation state of the Jewish people” exclusively.

He rejects Palestinian self-determination. He deplores peace and stability. He lied saying “(p)eace is infinitely preferable, so the notion that the people of Israel, or I, prefer conflict to peace, or that we are not ready to take the steps for peace, are absurd.”

His notion of peace is unconditional Palestinian surrender, relinquishing their fundamental rights, remaining subservient to Israeli dominance, keeping 1.8 million Gazans imprisoned by blockade.

On Friday, he concluded his London visit and returned home, ahead of his upcoming UN address in New York featuring phony peace overtures and Iran bashing.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PMCentral time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

Honor the fallen by shining a light on the evidence. 

Firefighters, Architects and Engineers are exposing the 9/11 facts about the evidence for the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers and Building 7 falling at 5:20pm on 9/11.

“This is direct evidence of explosive controlled demolition”

“We have witnesses of sound of explosions”

Speaking out to inform Americans across the land.

Shine the light.

Despite the fact that the manufacturers of ideas have elevated economics to the (contradictory) levels of both a science and a religion, a market theodicy, mainstream economics does not explain much when it comes to an understanding of real world developments. Indeed, as a neatly stylized discipline, economics has evolved into a corrupt, obfuscating and useless—nay, harmful—field of study. Harmful, because instead of explaining and clarifying it tends to mystify and justify.

One of the many flaws of the discipline is its static or ahistorical character, that is, a grave absence of a historical perspective. Despite significant changes over time in the market structure, the discipline continues to cling to the abstract, idealized model of competitive industrial capitalism of times long past.

Not surprisingly, much of the current economic literature and most economic “experts” still try to explain the recent cycles of financial bubbles and bursts by the outdated traditional theories of economic/business cycles. Accordingly, policy makers at the head of central banks and treasury departments continue to issue monetary prescriptions that, instead of mitigating the frequency and severity of the cycles, tend to make them even more frequent and more gyrating.

This crucially important void of a dynamic, long-term or historic perspective explains why, for example, most mainstream economists fail to see that the financial meltdown of 2008 in the United States, its spread to many other countries around the world, and the consequent global economic stagnation represent more than just another recessionary cycle. More importantly, they represent a structural change, a new phase in the development of capitalism, the age of finance capital.

A number of salient features distinguish the age of finance capital from earlier stages of capitalism, that is, stages when finance capital grew and/or circulated in tandem with industrial capital.

One such distinctive feature of the age of finance capital is that, freed from regulatory constraints, finance capital at this stage can and often does grow independent of industrial or productive capital. Prior to the rise of big finance and the dismantlement of regulatory constraints, the role of finance was considered to be largely greasing the wheels of the economy. Commercial banks consolidated people’s savings as bank deposits and funneled them as credit to manufacturing and commercial enterprises. Under these circumstances, where regulatory standards stipulated the types and quantities of investments that commercial banks and other financial intermediaries could undertake, finance capital largely shadowed industrial capital; they grew or expanded more or less apace.

Not so in the age of finance capital where buying and selling of ownership titles, instead of producing real values, has become the primary field of investment, and asset price inflation constitutes the main source of profit making and (parasitic) expansion. Not only has this slowed down the traditional flow of national savings (through the banking system) into productive investment in the real sector of the economy, it has, indeed, reversed that flow of funds into productive investment. Today, there is a net outflow of funds from the real into the financial sector.

The financial sector, properly functioning, primarily recycles idle balances into additional capital formation. Years of financial deregulation fostered the creation of new instruments, ever more reliant on Ponzi-like methods of profit acquisition, by reversing this dynamic and sucking profits out of production to expand the financial sector at the expense of productive investment. . . . The relationship between the financial sector and the nonfinancial sector had effectively morphed from symbiotic to parasitic [1].

A clear indication of this ominous trend of capital flight from the real to the financial sector is reflected in the glaring divergence between corporate profitability and real investment. Prior to 1980s, the two moved in tandem—both about 9% of GDP. Since then whereas corporate profits have increased to about 12% of GDP, real investment has declined to about 4% of GDP [2].

This obviously means that as larger and larger portions of corporate earnings are funneled out of the real sector into the financial sector (mostly through stock buybacks, dubious mergers and predatory takeovers), real investment has been dwindling accordingly.

A closely related hallmark of the age of finance capital is that the draining mechanism of the real by the financial sector is facilitated by monetary policy, which is crafted by the financial aristocracy’s proxies at the head of central banks and treasury departments. Every sign of a market downturn is met with generous injections of cheap money into the banking and other financial institutions—ostensibly to stimulate production and employment by extending low-cost credit to real sector businesses/producers. In reality, however, the nearly interest-free funds thus bestowed upon the financial sector hardly leaks out to the real sector. Instead, it is invested in asset price inflation, or creation of market booms and busts. Each bust is “remedied,” once again, by injections of larger doses of public money and, thus, creation of a bigger bubble that, in turn, would entail higher social costs of bailing out the next bust—and so on.

Thus, when the so-called Third World debt bubble burst in the 1980s, big finance abandoned the debt-burdened nations in South–Central America and moved to new markets in Russia, Turkey, Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea and others in South-East Asia in search of fresh speculative ventures. After blowing a series of financial bubbles in these new markets, which were followed by bursts and economic crises in the second half of the 1990s, international financial speculators, once again, packed and hurriedly left the scene of their crimes, so to speak, in the hunt for newer fields of speculation. Technology sector was considered a favorable candidate for this purpose. Following the implosion of the tech- or dot-com bubble in the early 2000s, speculative finance moved to yet another market, the housing/real estate market, whose fantastically huge bubble burst in 2008, with disastrous consequences for the 99%.

It is therefore no exaggeration to argue that, in the age of finance capital, central banks have evolved as institutions designed to subsidize the powerful financial interests with public money. Win-win gambling is, of course, an oxymoronic expression. Yet, that’s exactly what Wall Street banks and other financial institutions are enjoying nowadays: they win as long as the financial bubbles they create continue expanding, but they also win when the bubbles burst; as they are then compensated for their losses with bail-out monies and all kinds of other shady rescue plans.

And who would ultimately pay for the blackmailing moneys thus bestowed upon the too-big-to-fail banks and other financial entities?

The answer is, of course, the people—through extensive measures of austerity cuts. Under liberal capitalism of the competitive industrial era, a long cycle of economic contraction would usually wipe out not only jobs and production, but also the debt burdens that were accumulated during the expansionary cycle that preceded the cycle of contraction. Although such massive debt destructions were often painful, especially to giant financial speculators, they also occasioned much larger salutary effects of unburdening the society/economy of unsustainable debts and, thus, bringing about a fresh start, or a clean slate.

By contrast, in the age of finance capital debt overhead is artificially propped up through its monetization, or socialization. Indeed, due to the influence of powerful financial interests, national debt burden is often exacerbated by governments’ generous bailout plans of the bankrupt financial giants and the transfer or conversion of private to public debt.

It follows that, in the age of finance capital, monetary policy has turned into an instrument of redistribution of income and/or wealth from the bottom up. This is, of course, diametrically opposed to conventional monetary (and fiscal) policies of the New Deal/Social Democratic era where such policies were designed to temper income/wealth inequality in favor of the grassroots. Not surprisingly, in all the core capitalist countries inequality became slightly less lopsided from the late 1940s to late 1970s but has become increasingly more uneven since the late 1970 and early 1980.

It also follows that, in general, financial capitalism is more conducive to inequality than the earlier stages of capitalism, or even the pre-capitalist socioeconomic formations. Under pre-capitalist modes of production as well as in the earlier stages capitalism, that is, under manufacturing or industrial capitalism, profit making required commodity/industrial production and, thus, employment of labor force. This meant that although labor was still exploited, it nonetheless benefitted from production—poverty or subsistence levels of wages notwithstanding.

In the age of finance capital, however, profit making is largely divorced from real production and employment, as it comes mostly from speculative investment, or through parasitic extraction from the rest of the economy. As such, it employs no or a very small percentage of labor force, which means that the financial sector generates income/profits without sharing it with the overwhelming majority of labor force and/or society.

Not surprisingly, chronic stagnation and chronically high rates of unemployment signify another hallmark of the age of finance capital. As the financial sector systematically appropriates the major bulk of a society’s economic surplus, it thereby undermines that society’ productive capacity. At the heart of the persistent stagnation, as mentioned earlier, is an acute decline in productive investment. By steadily absorbing a society’s economic surplus and engaging in financial manipulations to augment their own personal wealth at the expense of the public, the financial elites deprive the society of expanding its productive capacity and providing employment and income for its citizens. The result is protracted economic sluggishness, chronically high rates of unemployment, steadily declining standards of living, and growing poverty and inequality.

Ismael Hossein-zadeh is Professor Emeritus of Economics (Drake University). He is the author of Beyond Mainstream Explanations of the Financial Crisis (Routledge 2014), The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (Palgrave–Macmillan 2007), and the Soviet Non-capitalist Development: The Case of Nasser’s Egypt (Praeger Publishers 1989). He is also a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion.

References

[1]Barry Finger, “The Limits of State Intervention,” <http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/2927>.

[2] Robin Harding, “Corporate investment: A mysterious divergence,” Financial Times, <http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8177af34-eb21-11e2-bfdb-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2dN45MG7r>.

It was a done deal days earlier – though Republican machinations may delay its implementation. Obama got enough Senate Democrat support to block a Republican opposition resolution.

The procedural motion fell two votes short of the 60 supermajority needed to invoke cloture – the process to end debate and bring a measure to a vote.

Senate Republicans won’t quit. Majority whip John Cornyn (R. TX) said “(i)t will be all Iran next week. There are going to be more votes. There will be other opportunities for people to change their mind next week, hopefully after they hear from their constituents.”

House Republicans declined to vote on a disapproval resolution, intending new schemes to undermine a done deal, maintain sanctions on Iran and impose tougher ones.

They passed a measure declaring Obama out of compliance with the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) – giving Congress final say up or down on the deal, stating the 60-day clock on approval or rejected didn’t start because of alleged noncompliance with full disclosure of all deal documents, a thinly veiled stunt to obstruct and delay.

Anti-Iranian hostility continues. “This debate is far from over, and frankly, it’s just beginning,” said Speaker John Boehner. “We will use every tool at our disposal to stop, slow and delay this agreement from being fully implemented.”

Legal action is “an option that’s very possible. If you read (INARA) provisions, it’s pretty clear that the president has not complied” – despite no corroborating evidence.

After Thursday’s Senate vote, AIPAC issued a duplicitous statement, warning about “a dangerous moment for America and our allies.”

“Congress and the executive branch must now maintain constant vigilance concerning Iranian compliance with the deal and be ready to move quickly against any Iranian effort to advance its nuclear quest,” it claimed.

Its multi-million dollar anti-Iranian propaganda campaign fell short. It failed to get enough Senate support. Republican Jewish Coalition executive director Matt Brooks shamelessly said “(t)his vote shows that most Democrats (stood) with Obama over the American people and Israel.”

The sad reality is that a dividing line has opened showing that too many Democrats can no longer be counted on as stalwart defenders of Israel.

Republican hardliners may take legal action as Boehner suggested – a stunt with virtually no chance to succeed, claiming Obama violated INARA’s Section 2.

Within five days of reaching an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, it requires him to “transmit to Congress:

• the text of the agreement and all related materials and annexes;

• a related verification assessment report of the Secretary of State;

• a certification that the agreement includes the appropriate terms, conditions, and duration of the agreement’s requirements concerning Iran’s nuclear activities, and provisions describing any sanctions to be waived, suspended, or otherwise reduced by the United States and any other nation or entity, including the United Nations; and

• a certification that the agreement meets US non-proliferation objectives, does not jeopardize the common defense and security, provides a framework to ensure that Iran’s nuclear activities will not constitute an unreasonable defense and security risk, and ensures that Iran’s permitted nuclear activities will not be used to further any nuclear-related military or nuclear explosive purpose, including any related research.”

Republicans claim nonexistent Iran-IAEA side agreements weren’t disclosed to Congress. INARA stipulates the 60-day congressional review period doesn’t begin until all documents related to the Iran nuclear deal are transmitted to Congress.”

On Thursday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said “we’ve been clear that the documentation (sent to Congress) included all the documentation that was in the possession of the United States government.”

Deal or no deal, longstanding anti-Iranian hostility continues. Regime change is official US policy, Washington wanting puppet governance it controls replacing Tehran’s sovereign independence.

Its struggle for normalized Western relations continues. It justifiably wants all sanctions unconditionally removed, its legitimate rights respected, its full acceptance into the community of nations – an end to 36 years of unacceptable ostracism.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PMCentral time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

From Washington to the western media, everyone has been talking about reports of potential Russian ‘intervention’ in Syria. On the one hand, the proliferation of this meme is a case study in the western propaganda system, as one report is then repeated ad nauseam from thousands of sources, then built upon by subsequent reports, thereby manufacturing the irrefutable truth from the perspective of media pundits and western mouthpieces. On the other hand, the new reports also raise some interesting questions about the motives of both the US and Russia, as well as the other interested parties to the conflict in Syria.

In examining this new chapter of the ongoing war in Syria, two critical and interrelated points seem to rise above all others in importance: Why is the western media hyping this narrative of Russian intervention? And why is direct Russian involvement, limited though it may be, seen as such a threat by the US?

Dissecting the Propaganda

An Israeli publication reported that Russian air power would be increasing in Syria with “Russian jets in Syrian skies,” as the headline read. While all the information came from unnamed “western diplomatic sources,” and was accompanied by little more than assertions of fact without any tangible evidence, the media outcry began almost immediately, with literally hundreds of news outlets reporting the same information. Within 24 hours however, a Russian military source denied the allegations, saying, “There has been no redeployment of Russian combat aircraft to the Syrian Arab Republic…The Russian Air Force is at its permanent bases and carrying out normal troop training and combat duty.”

Almost as if on cue, the next day The Daily Beast published a story claiming that there were Russian boots on the ground in Syria, as well as large shipments of military materiel en route to Syria, including trucks and BTR infantry fighting vehicles. The article cited Turkish navy photos showing a Russian ship purportedly carrying the cargo, quite openly it must be said (more on this later).

Naturally, the conversation in Washington instantly became about Russian intervention and the danger of Russia “destabilizing” the situation in Syria, an assertion that would be laughable if it weren’t so deeply cynical and hypocritical considering four and a half years of US-NATO-GCC-Israel intervention in Syria.

Official denials of escalation from Moscow did nothing to calm tensions on the issue as US Secretary of State Kerry called Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov to voice concerns that Russian involvement could escalate the conflict. After the call, the State Department released a statement explaining that the US had:

...concerns about reports suggesting an imminent enhanced Russian buildup [in Syria]. The secretary made clear that if such reports were accurate, these actions could further escalate the conflict, lead to greater loss of innocent life, increase refugee flows and risk confrontation with the anti-ISIL coalition operating in Syria… The two agreed that discussions on the Syrian conflict would continue in New York later this month.

A careful reading of this short, but important, statement should raise one obvious question: what does the State Department mean by “reports”? Specifically, the initial Israeli report was allegedly based on intelligence from key Western (presumably US) sources that would obviously have access to classified information. Were that true, then surely the State Department would be alarmed by the intelligence, and not the reports.

In other words, the US military and government, with its vast surveillance and intelligence apparatus, knows perfectly well if a true Russian military buildup in Syria is really happening. Instead, the State Department focuses on the media reports, indicating that, rather than responding to intelligence, it is responding to a media story, one which is based entirely on information the US itself supplied.

So, the dramatic reaction to the reports is essentially a reaction to a story they themselves planted. Translation: Washington is hyping the story in order to further its political position, and to weaken Russia’s, by framing the debate as one of ‘Russian interventionism.’

And, in true western corporate propaganda fashion, the reports have been built upon since then. There are now allegations that Russia is building “a huge 1,000 personnel compound,” and even a report from the decidedly dubious DebkaFile– an outlet notoriously close to Israeli intelligence which has published as much disinformation as credible information – alleging that the Russians have deployed a submarine loaded with 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and 200 nuclear warheads to Syria. All of this is an attempt to further bolster the narrative that Russia is the aggressor, attempting to escalate the conflict in Syria for its own purposes.

Returning to the information on the trucks being supplied through the Bosphorous, as reported in international press, there is a painfully obvious question that must be asked; namely why Moscow would choose to initiate a covert military buildup but would transport the equipment openly, in plain sight of any naval intelligence or satellite imagery. Obviously, it is because Russia is not doing this covertly, but is merely continuing to supply the Syrian government as it has done since 2011.

And that is precisely the point that Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova made in a recent interview. She noted that, “We have always supplied equipment to them for their struggle against terrorists…We are supporting them, we were supporting them and we will be supporting them.” In other words, there is nothing secret about what Russia is providing to the Syrian government under its existing contracts.

This is also in keeping with comments from Russian President Putin whoconfirmed what all serious analysts following the conflict in Syria already knew, that Russian advisers have been providing training and logistical support to the Syrian military. Of course, based on the hype in western media, one could be forgiven for thinking that Russia’s military had moved in and taken command of the war effort in Syria. In reality, Russia’s participation from a logistical and advisory perspective has been rather limited.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Moscow is stepping up its aid and engagement in Syria, but it obviously has not fundamentally changed its policy. As one source confirmed to Reuters this week, “The Russians are no longer just advisors…The Russians have decided to join the war against terrorism.” Indeed, another of the sources noted that, “[The Russians] have started in small numbers, but the bigger force did not yet take part … Russians [are] taking part in Syria but they did not yet join the fight against terrorism strongly.”

These statements are particularly interesting if set against the media narrative being portrayed in the West, as well as the language employed by the State Department and White House which was quoted as saying “We would welcome constructive Russian contributions to the counter-ISIL effort, but we’ve been clear that it would be unconscionable for any party, including the Russians, to provide any support to the Assad regime.”

Analysts with knowledge of the situation seem convinced that Russian participation is geared towards helping the Syrian government in the fight against terror groups such as ISIS/ISIL and Al Qaeda’s al-Nusra Front, and that the increased presence is clear evidence of Moscow’s commitment to anti-terrorism. This presents a complex quandary for Washington which pays lip service to counter-terrorism while simultaneously describing as “unconscionable” any effective counter-terrorism aid in the war.

What is perhaps most interesting about the media coverage and comments from US officials about Russian moves being “destabilizing,” is the fact that since 2011 the western media has published literally thousands upon thousands of articles documenting openly the role of US military and intelligence, and its counterparts in NATO (including Turkey), Israel, and the Gulf monarchies, in arming and training fighters to wage war against the Syrian government (seehere, here, here, here, here, and here for just a tiny sample). Somehow these actions are not considered “meddling” or “destabilizing” to the conflict in Syria, while Russia’s alleged involvement is cause for international outcry.

The Real Agenda

The obvious conclusion is that Russia’s aid to Syria has been critical in stymieing Washington’s regime change agenda, thereby necessitating an active propaganda assault to demonize Moscow’s moves both in regard to supplying and aiding Damascus, and its calls to form a coalition against the Islamic State and international terrorism. In effect, the media is working to caricature Russia as an aggressor in Syria in order to deflect attention from the fact that US efforts in Syria have failed, and that the US has no intention of effectively fighting the terrorism it continues to promote.

The US-NATO-GCC-Israel axis seeks to continue the war on Syria using any means necessary, including continued support for terrorist factions such as the so called “Army of Conquest,” al Qaeda linked groups like al Nusra Front, and ISIS/ISIL. The ultimate goal is the collapse of the Syrian state and the breaking of the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance, which would mean the final and permanent ejection of Russian influence from the region.

Russia fully understands this strategic imperative for Washington, just as it knows that terrorism is the principal weapon being employed in the ongoing war. As such, Moscow has moved to bolster the Syrian government (Russia knows that the Syrian Arab Army is the most effective counter-terrorism fighting force) in order to provide it with the necessary aid to continue to destroy terrorist groups. Moreover, any additional Russian support in terms of advisers, increased shipments of materiel, and/or limited numbers of combat troops, provide Damascus with the physical resources necessary to wage the war.

At the largest level however, Moscow is moving to call Washington’s bluff regarding the fight against the Islamic State, and terrorism generally. Putin knows that the US does not want to destroy ISIS/ISIL, but rather to manage its development in an attempt to steer it toward US strategic objectives.

This strategy was outlined in the declassified 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document obtained by Judicial Watch, which revealed that the US has knowingly promoted the spread of the Islamic State since at least 2012 in order to use it as a weapon against the Assad government. The document noted that, “…there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria…and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).”

So, by proposing an international coalition to defeat ISIS/ISIL, Putin is essentially forcing the US either to admit that it is not serious about destroying the terrorist network, or that it will only do so under its own aegis, thereby exposing Washington’s motives as entirely self-serving, and rooted in the US hegemonic agenda for the region.

But Washington will not simply allow Putin to outmaneuver it in terms of public relations. Instead, it reverts to the tried and true, and still remarkably effective, meme of Russian aggression. By portraying Russia as the villain bent on arming the “brutal dictator,” the US hopes to transform the discourse on Syria, moving from its own ghastly record of arming terrorists and seeking the destruction of the state, to Russia “meddling” in the conflict.

Keen political observers shouldn’t be fooled by this sort of sleight of hand propaganda. But don’t tell the corporate media. They’re busy working overtime, parroting US-NATO talking points, rather than asking questions and seeking answers.

Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City, he is the founder of StopImperialism.org and OP-ed columnist for RT, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

O Comando Sul do exército dos Estados Unidos – [SOUTHCOM para a região sul do continente americano] – fechou um contrato com a companhia Airtec para a condução de aviões de inteligência e informação em áreas fronteiriças da Colômbia, trabalho esse estipuladas para até 2018. O jornalista venezuelano José Vicente Rangel disse que o tipo de avião usado para essa missão seria o avião de bombardeio DH C- 8/200, o qual possui instrumentos eletrônicos avançados que permitem um total controle das cidades fronteiriças na Venezuela.

Os serviços de inteligência dos Estados Unidos propuseram um maior empenho dado ao agravamento da situação nas tradicionias zonas de conflitos fronteiriços entre a Venezuela e a Colômbia. Certos círculos políticos e militares próximos do governo colombiano pronta, voluntária, ansiosa, e alegremente ofereceram-se para assistir Washington nas operações subversivas dos mesmos contra o que percebem como o maior adersário regional da Colômbia, ou seja, a Venezuela.

O presidente Juan Manuel Santos da Colômbia, o porta-voz de grandes famílias oligárquicas, já muitas vezes disse que ele é a favor de um aprofundamento das “relações especiais” com Washington, entre essas estando então as relações militar-estratégicas. A presença das sete (7) bases militares dos Estados Unidos na Colômbia são vistas por Santos, assim como por suas equipes e esquadrões, como etapas intermediárias numa fase de engajamento do exército colombiano nas atividades da OTAN. Washington por sua vez usa Bogotá para subverter o processo de integração dos países latinoamericanos e do Caribe, entre si. Esse é para os Estados Unidos um ponto essencial quanto a um restabelecimento da sua posição de domínio na região.

É impressionante a paciência do governo de Nicolás Maduro em relação as demonstrações hostís da Colômbia. A oposição interna na Venezuela tenta mostrar que o governo de Nicolás Maduro não consegue estabilizar a vida econômica do país, sendo até incapaz de manter ar prateleiras dos mercados bem providas para satisfazer os requisitos legais dos consumidores. Tem-se aqui então que uma sabotagem interna na Venezuela faz por onde esconder, ou até mesmo por onde fazer desaparecer produtos de primeira necessidade no país. Tudo é sustentado pela, ao mesmo tempo em que também sustenta, a sabotagem estrangeira, a qual faz com que os produtos e mercadorias desaparecidas na Venezuela, em uma boa parte, reapareçam na estrutura de contrabando no território da Colômbia.

Uma resolução do problema exigiria um esforço das duas partes, mas as autoridades colombianas minimizaram a guarda das fronteiras para possibilitar um espaço livre para as atividades de grupos criminosos, os quais em muitos casos são constituídos de grupos armados dos “destacamentos de autodefesa” da extrema direita (AUC na sigla estrangeira do original). Por dados dos serviços de inteligência da Venezuela os comandantes desses grupos colaboram com as forças de segurança da Colômbia.

Recentemente grupos armados dos “destacamentos de autodefesa” da Colômbia prepararam uma armadilha na qual cairam patrulheiros venezuelanos do contra-contrabando. Como consequência do tiroteiro levantado três militares venezuelanos ficaram gravemente feridos. O presidente Maduro anunciou estado de emergência na fronteira com a Colômbia, no estado de Tajira, assim como o fechamento dessa fronteira por um tempo indeterminado. Forças militares e policiais foram dirigidas para lá.

Iniciou-se um trabalho para identificação dos pontos fortes dos paramilitares contrabandistas. Procuraram-se os bunkers e depósitos onde se guardariam as mercadorias roubadas destinadas para a compra de elementos susceptíveis de alistamento, ou outros usos. Foram feitos emprisionamentos (até agora 35). Interrogatórios, assim como descobertas de aterramentos e dumpings secretos revelaram a escala dos crimes dos paramilitares contra a Venezuela. Maduro disse que a Venezuela estava descobrindo a terrível verdade quanto a ação criminosa dos grupos armados. Ele declarou também que era sobre ele, Nicolás Maduro, que caia a obrigação de livrar a Venezuela de tudo isso.

A severa posição de Maduro é totalmente justificada. Essa guerra econômica contra a Venezuela adquiriu uma tal amplitude que nas cidades fronteiriças tem-se um sumiço de produtos de primeira necessidade, assim como de higiene, de alimentação e medicamentos. Tudo foi retirado dessas cidades, indo de roupas a sapatos, peças de reposição para reparação de autos, pneus,e até mesmo máquinas de gasolina, de quando da demolição de um posto de gasolina.

Na Venezuela a gasolina é muito barata. Encher o tanke de um carro não deveria custar mais do que $2 (dois dólares). Tem-se aqui o porque do levar-se extremas quantidades de gasolina da Venezuela para a Colômbia, ao longo da fronteira conjunta. A cidade de San Cristóban na Colômbia, a pequena capital de Tajira, “exigiu” de acordo com a estatística oficial, muito mais gasolina do que a capital do país, Caracas. Chegou-se até ao ponto do contrabando de gasolina ter se tornado num negócio mais lucrativo para os paramilitares do que o tráfico de narcóticos.

O contrabando estimula uma grande diferença nos preços de bens de consumo de maior necessidade para o consumidor. Na Venezuela esse tipo de produto é subvencionado. Na fronteira tem-se também uma grande manipulação quanto ao curso da moeda venezuelana, o bolivar. O centro das operações econômico-financeiras subversivas é a cidade de Kukuta, na Colômbia. Nela encontram-se mais do que três mil (3.000) casas e locais de câmbio, trabalhando na desvalorização da moeda venezuelana, o que no total mostra-se no empobrecimento dos venezuelanos e num mal estar social no país.

Na fronteiriça Kukuta os seviços americanos da DIA e da CIA trabalham ativamente. DIA sendo a agência de defesa, e CIA, mais conhecida, a agência central de inteligência. Ambas instruem células radicais da oposição venezuelana. Lá também em estado permanente são mantidas consultações com os dirigentes de três especialmente construidas organizações de subversão contra a Venezuela: Centro de Pensamiento Primero Colombia, FTI Consulting e Fundación Internacionalismo Democratico.

Dirigindo a conspiração contra a Venezuela tem-se o ex-presidente da Colômbia Álvaro Uribe, recreutado pela CIA nos meados dos anos oitenta, em situações comprometedoras; Na lista de narcotraficantes feita pela DEA (direção da luta contra narcótica) ele recebeu o nr 82. Durante todos os seus oito anos no cargo de presidente da Colômbia Uribe fez seu trabalho subversivo contra Hugo Chávez, construindo as condições para um isolamento do regime bolivariano no Continente das Américas. Os serviços de contra-espionagem da Venezuela vêem Uribe como uma figura-chave usada pelos serviços secretos dos Estados Unidos para uma derrubada de Nicolás Maduro.

O atual governo de Santos na Colômbia usufrui da ajuda propagandística da mídia ocidental. Em primeiro plano entra aqui o “The New York Times” e o “Washington Post”. Na redação dos diversos artigos encontra-se sempre em ambos conteudo similar. Persistente, insistente e agressivamente apresentam-se sempre temas em que os problemas fronteiriços não passam de fabricações de Nicolás Maduro para com fins publicitários conseguir um necessário apoio nas eleições parlamentares.

Aqui não se vê nem uma palavra a respeito dos cinco milhões e meio de refugiados indo da Colômbia para a Venezuela por causa da guerra civil na Colômbia, das formações paramilitares, do tráfico de narcóticos e do contrabando na Colômbia. O Ministério do Interior da Venezuela claramente determinou o ponto de partida dos ataques da guerra de informação contra si:- “Isso é resultado dos meios de comunicação de massas dos Estados Unidos contra a Venezuela, e sua revolução bolivariana”.

O embaixador da Venezuela na OEA – Organização dos Estados Americanos, Roy Chalerton da Venezuela, comentando os acontecimentos nas fronteiras chamou a atenção para o tom hostil da mídia colombiana – no Jornal El Tiempo, na Rádio e TV RCN, e também na CNN em espanhol, entre outras, publicando material que divulgava ódio e racismo contra o povo venezuelano e seu país. Roy Chaderton disse que “essa campanha de ódio” poderá levar a uma guerra, caso os líderes venezuelanos não encontrarem uma mistura sensível e subtil nessa situação melindrosa. Ele disse então que recomendaria aos diplomatas na OEA – que tomassem tudo isso com um pouco de sal. A mídia colombiana está ainda, antes de mais nada, engajada numa guerra. Essa seria então uma guerra já de quarta geração.

O Departamento de Estado dos EUA numa declaração quanto ao fechamento da fronteira concentrou-se no problema humanitário e recomendou para a normalização da situação o recorrer-se a ajuda das organizações regionais. Foi também dito que a diplomacia dos EUA estaria pronta a participar na regularização do diálogo. Entretanto, diplomatas nem sempre vem da mesma forma, ou seja, eles apresentam peculiaridades específicas, ou em outras palavras, são diferentes uns dos outros. Por ex., Kevin Whitaker, ex-embaixador dos Estados Unidos na Colômbia, trabalhou em 2006 como residente da CIA na Venezuela. É muito duvidoso que esse tipo de diplomatas venham a “estabelecer” o pretendido.

A sua frente verão sempre coisas completamente diferentes do oficialmente pretendido.

Nil Nikandrov 

Tradução do original russo por Anna Malm  https://artigospoliticos.wordpress.com

REFERÊNCIAS E NOTAS.

Nil Nikandrov, ЗАГОВОР США И КОЛУМБИИ ПРОТИВ ВЕНЕСУЭЛЫ – НИЛ НИКАНДРОВ, 09.09.2015 – http://www.fondsk.ru/news/2015/09/09/zagovor-usa-i-kolumbii-protiv-venesuely-35259.html

SELECTED ARTICLES:

9/11: Eternal Pretext, Eternal War

This may be the most important article I ever post, because it reveals perfectly how the Establishment works and how the Red Tories and Blue Tories contrive to give a false impression of democracy. It is information I can only give you because of my experience as an insider.

It is a definitive proof of the validity of the Chomskian propaganda model. It needs a fair bit of detail to do this, but please try and read through it because it really is very, very important. After you have finished, if you agree with me about the significance, please repost, (you are free to copy), retweet, add to news aggregators (Reddit etc) and do anything you can to get other people to pay attention.

The government based its decision to execute by drone two British men in Syria on “Legal Opinion” from the Attorney-General for England and Wales, Jeremy Wright, a politician, MP and Cabinet Minister. But Wright’s legal knowledge comes from an undistinguished first degree from Exeter and a short career as a criminal defence barrister in Birmingham. His knowledge of public international law is virtually nil.

I pause briefly to note that there is no pretence of consulting the Scottish legal system. The only legal opinion is from the Attorney General for England and Wales who is also Honorary Advocate General for Northern Ireland.

So Jeremy Wright’s role is as a cypher. He performs a charade. The government employs in the FCO a dozen of the most distinguished public international lawyers in the world. When the Attorney-General’s office needs an Opinion on public international law, they ask the FCO to provide it for him to sign.

The only known occasion when this did not happen was the Iraq War. Then the FCO Legal Advisers – unanimously – advised the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, that to invade Iraq was illegal. Jack Straw asked the Attorney General to dismiss the FCO chief Legal Adviser, Sir Michael Wood (Goldsmith refused). Blair sent Goldsmith to Washington where the Opinion was written for him to sign by George Bush’s lawyers. [I know this sounds incredible, but it is absolutely true]. Sir Michael Wood’s deputy, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, resigned in protest.

In consequence Blair and Straw decided that, again for the first time ever, the FCO’s chief legal adviser had to be appointed not from within the FCO legal advisers, who had all declared the war on Iraq to be illegal, but from outside. They had to find a distinguished public international lawyer who was prepared to argue that the war on Iraq had been legal. That was a very small field. Blair and Straw thus turned to Benjamin Netanyahu’s favourite lawyer, Daniel Bethlehem.

Daniel Bethlehem had represented Israel before the Mitchell Inquiry into violence against the people of Gaza, arguing that it was all legitimate self-defence. He had also supplied the Government of Israel with a Legal Opinion that the vast Wall they were building in illegally occupied land, surrounding and isolating all the major Palestinian communities and turning them into large prisons, was also legal. Daniel Bethlehem is an extreme Zionist militarist of the most aggressive kind, and close to Mark Regev, Israel’s new Ambassador to the UK.

Daniel Bethlehem had developed, in his work for Israel, an extremist doctrine of the right of States to use pre-emptive self-defence – a doctrine which would not be accepted by the vast majority of public international lawyers. He clinched his appointment by Blair as the FCO chief legal adviser by presenting a memorandum to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in 2004 outlining this doctrine, and thus de facto defending the attack on Iraq and the Bush/Blair doctrine.

A key sentence of Daniel Bethlehem’s memorandum is this

It must be right that states are able to act in self-defence in circumstances where there is evidence of further imminent attacks by terrorist groups, even if there is no specific evidence of where such an attack will take place or of the precise nature of the attack.

There is a fundamental flaw in this argument. How can you be certain that an attack in “imminent”, if you are not certain where or what it is? Even if we can wildly imagine a scenario where the government know of an “imminent” attack, but not where or what it is, how could killing someone in Syria stop the attack in the UK? If a team were active, armed and in course of operation in the UK – which is needed for “imminent” – how would killing an individual in Syria prevent them from going through with it? It simply does not add up as a practical scenario.

Interestingly, Daniel Bethlehem does not pretend this is accepted international law, but specifically states that

The concept of what constitutes an “imminent” armed attack will develop to meet new circumstances and new threats

Bethlehem is attempting to develop the concept of “imminent” beyond any natural interpretation of the word “imminent”.

Daniel Bethlehem left the FCO in 2011. But he had firmly set the British government doctrine on this issue, while all FCO legal advisers know not to follow it gets you sacked. I can guarantee you that Wright’s Legal Opinion states precisely the same argument that David Bethlehem stated in his 2004 memorandum. Knowing how these things work, I am prepared to wager every penny I own that much of the language is identical.

It was New Labour, the Red Tories, who appointed Daniel Bethlehem, and they appointed him precisely in order to establish this doctrine. It is therefore a stunning illustration of how the system works, that the only response of the official “opposition” to these extrajudicial executions is to demand to see the Legal Opinion, when it comes from the man they themselves appointed. The Red Tories appointed him precisely because they knew what Legal Opinion would be given on this specific subject. They can read it in Hansard.

So it is all a charade.

Jeremy Wright pretends to give a Legal Opinion, actually from FCO legal advisers based on the “Bethlehem Doctrine”. The Labour Party pretends, very unconvincingly, to be an opposition. The Guardian, apparently the leading “opposition” intellectual paper, publishes articles by its staff neo-con propagandists Joshua Rozenberg (married to Melanie Phillips) and Rafael Behr strongly supporting the government’s new powers of extrajudicial execution. In summer 2012 Joshua Rozenberg presented a programme on BBC Radio 4 entitled “Secret courts, drones and international law” which consisted mostly of a fawning interview with … Daniel Bethlehem. The BBC and Sky News give us wall to wall justification of the killings.

So the state, with its neo-con “opposition” and media closely in step with its neo-con government, seamlessly adopts a new power to kill its own subjects based on secret intelligence and secret legal advice, and a very weird definition of “imminent” that even its author admits to be outside current legal understanding.

That is how the state works. I do hope you find that helpful.

This article has been updated to reflect the fact the Daniel Bethlehem is now retired from the FCO.

A reevaluation of the withdrawal of the United Nations (de)Stabilization Mission, MINUSTAH, from Haiti will be discussed at a September 16, 2015 meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC). This will be a working meeting of the 15-member UNSC with the ambassadors of the MINUSTAH troop contributors: Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Guatemala, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru, Nepal, South Korea, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Jordan, and Indonesia.

This meeting was announced on September 2 at the presentation of the UNSC September 2015 program by Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Mr. Vitaly Churkin, who had just assumed the rotating presidency of the UNSC.

Photograph by Alex Proimos

Haiti’s UN- and US-installed President, Michel Martelly, and his Ambassador to the UN, Denis Régis, have asked the UNSC to reassess its decision last October 2014 to withdraw, within a year, one half of the UN troops from the country. These troops have become superfluous since the UN and the US private military and security company (PMSC) DynCorp have already trained a local force of more than 14,000 paramilitary police; in addition, Ecuador has trained an army loyal only to Martelly. Nevertheless, the current regime is begging the UNSC to prolong MINUSTAH’s stay until after the installment of a new regime in February 2016; it warns that there will be an electoral crisis even as it incites one jointly with the UN Development Program (UNDP), which is financing the 2015 electoral debacle.

Photograph by United Nations Photo

Haiti, however, no longer appears to be the comfortable venue where MINUSTAH member countries could practice warfare, without risk, on an unsuspecting population. Indeed, the country seems to have become quite dangerous for high-level foreign police and military. A Vietnam war veteran and supposedly retired diaspora Boston police officer, Yves Dambreville, was shot dead in Port-au-Prince on August 23. One week later, the most recent MINUSTAH commander, the Brazilian Lieutenant General José Luiz Jaborandy Jr. died, presumably while he was on an airplane to Brazil.

Photograph by United Nations Photo

About 500 Argentinian soldiers left Haiti in spring 2015. The Argentinian withdrawal began, not only as its politicians’ rhetoric heated up against oil drilling in the Malvinas/Falklands but also after less than two weeks had passed since a MINUSTAH soldier, the Chilean Sergeant Rodrigo Sanhueza, was shot dead in a moving vehicle on April 13, 2015 by what appeared to be Haitian fighters. Haiti, which enjoyed the lowest crime rate in the Caribbean before MINUSTAH’s arrival in June 2004 to serve as a Praetorian Guard for US-installed regimes, is now full of weapons. The new Cacos evidently do not even have to buy their own. As an example, on August 4 in broad daylight, seven Haitians disarmed two members of an army post in El Embalse, Pedernales, of their M16 assault rifles.

Photograph by United Nations Photo

As Niccolo Machiavelli wrote in The Prince: “The fact is, [mercenaries] have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you. They are ready enough to be your soldiers whilst you do not make war, but if war comes they take themselves off or run from the foe….”

Dr. Dady Chery is a Haitian-born journalist, playwright, essayist, and poet. She is the author of “We Have Dared to Be Free: Haiti’s Struggle Against Occupation.” Her broad interests encompass science, culture, and human rights. She writes extensively about Haiti and world issues such as climate change and social justice. Her many contributions to Haitian news include the first proposal that Haiti’s cholera had been imported by the UN, and the first story describing Haiti’s mineral wealth.

“So that Operation Gladio turned into a different operation, the same Modus Operandi, of creating false flag events, synthetically created terror units, um as Islamic fanatic units, that would create these terror events, thus the chaos associated with it, thus the justification for NATO/CIA/US military intervention in Middle East today but with the goal of having more of these events taking us further in- into the previously Russian territories.” -Sibel Edmonds on Operation Gladio B (from this week’s interview.)

–

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Length (58:59)

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

 On the season debut of the Global Research News Hour, we spend the bulk of the hour with former FBI language specialist turned whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds.

Ms. Edmonds went to work for the FBI in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks. While under the employ of the State Agency she uncovered ongoing criminal operations implicating foreign nationals and high level US officials. When she tried to report on these revelations, she was told to shut up and eventually dispatched from the agency.

Edmonds has reported instances of FBI foreknowledge of 9/11. For example, a disclosure by a long-term FBI informant to two FBI agents and a translator, which indicated a terrorist attack in US cities involving airplanes to take place within a few months. After the disclosure was forwarded to the Special Agent in Charge of Counter-terrorism at the Washington Field Office, no action was taken, and following 9/11, the agents and translator in question were told to keep quiet about the issue. [1]

In this week’s interview, conducted by Global Research News Hour contributor Jonathan Wilson, Edmonds discusses how she became “the most classified woman in America,” as well as how sensitive information gets contained, the rise of Islamic Terror as “Gladio B” and her assessment of the trouble-spots likely to emerge in coming months.

Sibel Edmonds is the editor of the Boiling Frogs Post and Founder-Director of the US-based National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. She is the recipient of the 2006 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award, and the author of two books including her memoir Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story: A Memoir and a work of fiction: The Lone Gladio.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Length (58:59)

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

The  show can be heard on the Progressive Radio Network at prn.fm. Listen in every Monday at 3pm ET.

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

CFUV 101. 9 FM in Victoria. Airing Sundays from 7-8am PT.

CHLY 101.7 FM in Nanaimo, B.C – Thursdays at 1pm PT

Boston College Radio WZBC 90.3FM NEWTONS  during the Truth and Justice Radio Programming slot -Sundays at 7am ET.

Port Perry Radio in Port Perry, Ontario – Thursdays at 1pm ET

Burnaby Radio Station CJSF out of Simon Fraser University. 90.1FM to most of Greater Vancouver, from Langley to Point Grey and from the  North Shore to the US Border. It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia Canada. – Tune in every Saturday at 6am.  

Notes: 

1. http://www.antiwar.com/edmonds/?articleid=3230

Interview Transcript

Global Research: On the Global Research News Hour, it is Sibel Edmonds who is the editor and publisher of the Boiling Frogs Post, founder and president of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, and author of the acclaimed book, Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story, and The Lone Gladio: A Political Spy Thriller. Ms. Edmonds is a certified linguist fluent in four languages and has an M.A. in Public Policy from George Mason University and a B.A. In Criminal Justice and Psychology from George Washington University. She is the recipient of the 2006 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award. Thanks so much Sibel for coming on the program!

Sibel Edmonds: Sure! Many thanks for inviting me!

GR: Now first, uh…I wanted, there’s so much in your story to talk about, but I first wanted to hear just um, about your life and what led you to be employed as a translator in the days following the 9/11 attacks.

 SE: Sure, I’m originally from Turkey, and I moved to the United States in 1988. This is where I got my college degree, my master’s degree, and I never planned working for the government in any form. But in 1990s for my university related coursework, I wanted to have a summer internship in a division of the FBI that deals with crime against children. So at that point I had sent them a request, filled out the forms, and of course in the forms there was a section that asked information about any other talents or languages spoken etc.

Anyhow I filled out that form, I sent it to the FBI, I never heard from them. And years went by and September 11 happened and three days after September 11, I received a call from the FBI’s Washington Field Office, this is in Washington, D.C., asking me to come and help them work on some really urgent terrorism and counter-intelligence related cases. I was very surprised that at that point in my life I was not ready to go and work for the FBI, but they pressed the issue, they actually begged because they didn’t have enough language specialists with also geo-strategic information, political information which my background provided for all of that.

So they said we are even willing to have you as a contract worker and you can determine your own hours. And give us as much as you can, our country needs you Ms Edmonds, etc, etc. So how could I have said no? I saw it as an opportunity to do something for what is coined, has been coined as National Security, I’m laughing because that was a really an eye-opener experience.

I was naïve back then. I truly believed what majority of the people here in the United States believed, still believe today. And that is, you know, we don’t have a perfect system but we have this great thing called constitution and a system of checks and balances and separation of powers. That’s what I got my Master’s Degree on (laughter)! Um, but as often as it was the experience, the whistle-blowing it was an eye-opener. It was like waking up from this extreme sleep and seeing the reality of this nation unfortunately, and the illusion that is being sold to the public.

GR: It’s ironic that they begged you to work there, amd then, uh, and then you end up getting fired from your position because you’re speaking out against what you saw as a cover-up there. So, working there for six months, what led to your firing for people who don’t know the details of the story?

SE: Sure, I mean I have documented that in detail in my book Classified Woman. Which government fought and they said if I were to publish this book I would go to jail. They said every single word in this book is classified, etc. And maybe we will get into that a little bit later, and it’s really hard to give bullet points and summarize what took place during that short period.

The division I was working for – I worked for many divisions there. I worked with Counter-terrorism agents in various field offices in the country, the Chicago Field Office, FBI Chicago Field Office – Counter-terrorism, the New Jersey Field Office, etc, but my main work was with the Counter-intelligence Division, and this was the highly specialized unit in the Washington DC Field Office that dealt with Counter-intelligence-related operations, and it involved other types of criminal activities than jointly, I’m saying jointly, I’m emphasizing jointly by both US persons and also foreign individuals and because the FBI did not have any analyst with both the language capabilities of the region and this is Turkey and other Turkish speaking nations, you’re looking at countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus, I ended up serving as both analyst and language specialist for this special division within the FBI’s Washington DC Office.

And that’s where most of the explosive information was resided, not within the counter-terrorism division- most people would think it would be counter-terrorism that would have all these operations and activities under, but actually it was under counter-intelligence division, and these also involved high-level US individuals, from Congress, from the State Department from the Pentagon who were engaged in operations and activities that were illegal and also terrorism related in the United States and around the world. And the agents, the FBI Agents who were in charge of this unit, they all had good intentions and they were exasperated, they were trying to get these processed as current counter-terrorism operations and be investigated and dealt with as such, however they were being blocked by the State Department and CIA because those operations were sanctioned by- by those entities, by – by those agencies, mainly I would say the CIA and the State Department.

So, they didn’t go any further than just wasting exasperation, but after getting exposed to what that information was, and these files, some of them dated back to 1997, these were ongoing operations both from the surveillance part, from the FBI’s side, and also from these networks and individuals and organizations that carried out these operations, that were targets of the FBI’s counter-intelligence investigations.

So, I – I decided to really speak up, and I didn’t jump out there and go to some reporter or to a journalist. As I said, I started that work as a very naïve person. I believed in the system, and the system dictated that you take this to your superior. If it doesn’t work you take it to this department. So, from there I ended up with the FBI’s own OPR department, that’s the Office of Professional Responsibility. From there, it went up to – my case – all the way to the Director’s office, and that’s Director Mueller himself, and this was when I was asked to basically shut up, to hush and not to pursue this, and that forced me to go outside the FBI and again within the government . So I went to the Inspector- General’s Office for the Department of Justice, and I went to the appropriate committees in the Congress, both the Senate and the House, places like the Judiciary Committee, the Intelligence Committee, and from there I ended up with the 9/11 Commission.

“…actually it was under counter-intelligence division, and these also involved high-level US individuals, from Congress, from the State Department from the Pentagon who were engaged in operations and activities that were illegal and also terrorism related in the United States and around the world.”

So to make the long story short, for about a year and a half, and this includes after the time I was fired, I was working within the system, trying to get these extremely, extremely dangerous important issues addressed , made public via so-called appropriate channels. And then from there it went to the media, which was around mid to late 2002, and yes, I was fired after six-seven months and then the case became a court case. My case went all the way to the Supreme Court and during the entire process the government stepped in, not only the FBI but also the CIA and the State Department, and requested the courts, the judges, both for the Appellate Court, the Lower Courts, and later the Supreme Court, to shut down the case, and say everything about this woman, this lady, is classified. In fact, they succeeded in having the court rule for them by saying that even the languages I speak are all classified, where I was born is classified, where I went to school in the United States is classified, that everything about me basically was classified, and- and this is the other separate branch – we are talking about the courts in the United States, the Federal Courts. And then after that it was the media so that’s basically the very shallow, I guess, summary version of this case that is now almost 13 years old.

GR: Right and uh, the detail in your book, Classified Woman, you know fills in all those details , and like you’re saying all these things about you are classified. You’re referred to as the most gagged, most classified person in the United States, then you come out with this book and it was self-published right?

SE: Yes, I was forced to self-publish it because when I took the job with the FBI I was made, it was mandatory to sign hundreds and hundreds of pages of bureaucratic documents. Well one of the document forms that I signed at the time, before I took the contract job with the FBI was if in the future whether I was retired long even after if I was gone from the FBI if I were to publish a non-fiction book, I was obligated, because I have the highest level Security Clearance with the FBI, and as a result of holding that security clearance while you’re working with these agencies whether it’s the CIA or the FBI, you’re obligated to send the manuscript, before you send it to any publishers, to any agent, to any editor, etc, you have to send it to the FBI’s Department of Justice’s Special Division, and it is called the basically the pre-publication review.

And this division they take your manuscript and they go through it… to see whether or not you have either intentionally or unintentionally have put anything that is considered sensitive or classified in your book in your non-fiction, and if they find such information whether it’s a word or a sentence or a name, what they do is they black it out. They send you the manuscript, and they give you a chance to go and take out those sensitive information those words those sentences those names, and only after that when you have this FBI’s DOJ’s approval that yes, there’s nothing sensitive or classified in your manuscript, then you can go to the publishers etc and go with the publishing process – go forward with the publishing process.

Well, I sent mine and legally, by law, the Justice Department was required in thirty days …complete this process of sending my manuscript- send it back to me. Well, they sat on it for six months. I had to go and get a law firm, I had to go and get an attorney, and my attorney was started engaging with this dialogue saying where is this manuscript, you have thirty days, that’s the legal time allowance for you. After six months of back and forth and additional six months the FBI DOJ Division , they sent a letter official letter saying they considered everything in my book, every single word including the title classified and sensitive. So they basically sent back the entire thing blacked out, that includes the author’s name and the title of the book!

 GR: Wow, that’s a lot of …

SE: Could you imagine how ludicrous that would be? (chuckle)

GR: That’s a lot of ink, yeah.

 SE: Because this book also has some background information of my father, and where I was born, and little bit of my childhood.

GR: Right!

 SE: So, my attorney sent a letter saying that’s ludicrous, they went to the appeal process. They said no. She publish a single word and she’s going to go to jail! Because everything she has in here is classified. And we have all these letters in fact, people can go and find it via google all the letters that the FBI sent and my attorneys had a press release saying look at these letters. This has never happened in the history of this country that an entire book is being considered classified and blacked out. It’s against the First Amendment and it’s very Kafkaesque really. And they couldn’t care less.

“After six months of back and forth and additional six months the FBI DOJ Division , they sent a letter official letter saying they considered everything in my book, every single word including the title classified and sensitive. So they basically sent back the entire thing blacked out, that includes the author’s name and the title of the book!”

They said it is what it is. And at that point I said no, I’m going to challenge this because it is ludicrous, and see if they’re going to – how are they going to argue for this in any court – in any court of law? You know? And this is after the experience of seeing that the court, the federal courts of law in this country, they’re truly not independent.

So, I took it to some publishers, some of the main publishers , and they said under no circumstances would they publish it, it was a great book, but they didn’t want to get into any trouble with the FBI, and unless I – I brought them something that said Department of Justice or the FBI sanctions this , they’re not going to publish.

So at that point I hired my own editors and cover designers and proof-readers, I established my own little company and we spent months preparing and then later publishing this book, independently, which we did, and nothing happened. ..I guess it was all bluff by the government knowing very well that 99.9% of people, whistle-blowers, would back off and the wouldn’t dare going ahead and publish it. And, in a way it’s a vindication that people should not, I guess, back down and give up when they face such ludicrous, really fascistic, government’s response, or government ultimatum.

 GR: Right it’s like they don’t want you to say a single word, or print a single word, but uh, if they were to take any action it would draw so much attention to what you wrote also so they’re trying to, I guess, hope that no one sees it right?

SE: Exactly! Because look, we know the intimate incestuous relationship connection between the US mainstream media and the publishers and the government agencies especially the, such as the CIA and Pentagon. So they knew that they had those fronts under control, meaning this was not going to be widely distributed in the bookstores. They knew that none of the mainstream media outlets under any circumstances were going to provide any coverage.

So with the hope that it would die down and nobody would see it, they didn’t do anything in order not to draw more public attention. And I would say for a self-published book, independently published book, they did pretty good, it maybe sold over 20,000 copies. Interestingly I would say half of it were purchased and bought by people outside the United States. I would say places like United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, uh, they, all of them together, they account for, I would say, account for 50% of the book sales…I wouldn’t say it was a great success, the feedback has been incredible. And people can see it on amazon and the rating, and even its status, even after three plus years, still be ranked fairly high up there among non-fiction books, and also the reviews from hundreds and hundreds of people.

So, again I would say that alone was encouraging vindication of not backing off and saying you know the publishers are not touching it, mainstream media is not going to cover this, so I’m going to go away, I’m discouraged, I’m not going to do this. Saying, well today with the technology, we can do certain things that we couldn’t have done 15, 20 years ago , and challenge it, challenge it with every chance you get, I guess.

GR: Yeah, I followed your story since I heard about it in the mid-2000s and so when I saw that you were publishing this book I was, you know, I was intrigued because, because all this information had been withheld, and state secrets and so forth…I’ve read it and then passed it along to other people who’ve had their minds blown. So it’s getting out there, but it’s one of those things where as soon as soon as people read it or hear about it then they want to know but it’s hard to spread that information you know when mainstream channels have decided it’s a non-story or won’t touch it, right?

 SE: Absolutely! I mean, to give you an example for this, um, so-called whistle-blower case, the Valerie Plame case, um, CIA sanctioned the book and actually the publisher, they got the written consent from the CIA that it was okay to publish the book. And also they garnered political support from the Democratic Party. And for that book not only they received three million dollars, okay? But also, around the clock for three months coverage from the CNN, and CBS, Sixty Minutes, and all these mainstream outlets both print and TV news. And so, the difference there being this book was not sanctioned by the CIA or the State Department or the FBI or the Pentagon. It was a true whistle-blower, real life whistle-blower story.

But also, another characteristic of my book was the fact that it was so non-partisan because anyone who reads it, they realize there really is no difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party whatsoever, and the fact that it’s rotten at its core and basically you’re staring at the two sides of the same coin, and so when you are in that position your angle is not considered partisan, meaning you’re banging on one administration, I don’t care whether it’s the just the Obama Administration or Bush Administration, that you have this cheering crowd, the same establishment the same rotten people who are under the brand of Democratic Party, or Republican Party. And-and – so that alone becomes a major roadblock.

But I say in the long run, it is a historical document, it is going to stay hopefully around and anybody who reads it, and this has been the reaction so far, people have good gut feelings. They can smell… when they read something that is written with an agenda, or with partisanship and it’s something that is totally coloured. And that has been the case so far. And I don’t have any regrets. I wouldn’t have done it any other way. I would never do it any other way.

And I was also very cautious with not really including anything any information that was justifiably classified, because I think that would be nefarious. You know, Let’s say if there is an ongoing criminal investigation against a real target and it’s going to go to court and you end up putting that information there and thus damaging the case. I’m just giving an example. That would just be with a nefarious kind of detention. I did not give that.

And also, one of the things that I learned during the publication process, was that while I had to submit my manuscript for pre-review, publication and etc, pre-publication review, you as someone who held classified, top-secret, clarification and classification at work and experience etc, you don’t have to do such things. You are not under any obligation to do such a thing, if you’re writing a fiction. And that was when I decided as I was preparing Classified Woman for publication, to sit down and spend another two years and write a fiction book, fairly truthful fiction book, and let my readers, our readers know of a lot of things that I could not talk about in a non-fiction book. Uh, it would have given the excuse to the government to come after me and actually thrown me in jail. And they would have done so had they found anything that is in any way justifiably classified in Classified Woman.

“…another characteristic of my book was the fact that it was so non-partisan because anyone who reads it, they realize there really is no difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party whatsoever, and the fact that it’s rotten at its core and basically you’re staring at the two sides of the same coin.”

But I followed up with a book that would be a follow-up book to Classified Woman. It’s a fiction book that came out last September – it’s been exactly a year – it came out on September 11, 2014 – that is a fiction book. It’s Lone Gladio, and anybody who has read my Classified Woman book, reading the Lone Gladio they would understand what really this fiction is all about.

GR: Right! Yeah it’s “fiction” in quotation marks, and with the title “Lone Gladio,” sounds like, you know, a reference to “Operation Gladio” or “Gladio B.” Could you talk a little bit about what that means?

 SE: Well, it’s hard to summarize this, uh, because uh, sometimes uh, I’m afraid suh- oversimplifying things can-can leave it up to so many different kinds of interpretation…

GR: Sure.

SE: …but, Operation Gladio is not some kind of a…a conspiracy term or something that people come up with saying I believe there was such an operation. Operation Gladio, people can go and do a google search and they can find it, even from the CIA’s (chuckle) own division…

GR: Right, yeah.

 SE: …four year documents that in nineteen uh, late nineteen fifties after World War 2, after CIA was established, after NATO was established, uh, NATO together with the CIA they created this paramilitary units uh, covert paramilitary units uh around the world, mainly in Europe, uh some in the Middle East, um, to basically counter the Soviet Union and the spread of communism as an ideology.

So the role of these paramilitary units, funded, directed, managed, armed by the CIA and NATO was, during these years, in Europe and elsewhere, were to create terror events. You know, blow up bombs, um, gun down people, set, let’s say a shopping centre on fire, and then blame it on the communist net-communist networks. And they did hundreds of such operations. There are several good books from historians who have documented these false flag terror events, terror events that were created, implemented, brought about by the CIA/NATO’s paramilitary units within Eastern Europe, in Italy, and in Italy they were very big, but the biggest nation that they had the biggest units, we just had its own also office inside the Pentagon was in Turkey, and that’s where I’m from! (chuckle!) – the Turkish arm of the Gladio network.

So, they did all this and you’d think that once the Soviet Union dissolved in 1990-1991, the operation would have been basically shut down, because this was against communism so-called. That’s the uh basically the competition between the two superpowers, not per se the communism as ideology, it was the fight for the dominance – global dominance. But they didn’t shut it down.

They switched that and they changed the operation from – the original operation to Operation B, Gladio Operation B.

SE: Starting in 1995-1996, and these are paramilitary NATO and CIA units in central Asia, in Caucasus, in Middle East and in North Africa, utilizing these units, paramilitary units under fanatic Islam labels and title and terror organization names and have them basically create terror events in that part of the world. For example they have, and this is Gladio Operation B, they have Chechen networks, and they have had these units trained inside Turkey, and this is the mid-1990’s and it still continues today, and they arm them and they set up operational guidelines with targets to let’s say blow up a school or a movie theatre somewhere in Russia whether it is Moscow or St. Petersburg or elsewhere. Or let’s say somewhere in Georgia or Azerbaijan. Same thing with what you see in other parts of the Middle East.

So that is Operation Gladio turned into a different operation, the same modus operandi of creating false flag events synthetically created terror units as Islamic units that would create these terror events thus the chaos associated with it, thus the justification for NATO, CIA, US military intervention in the Middle East today, but with the goal of having more of these events taking us further into previously Russian territories. If you look at the ultimate nations that we will be seeing more and more it will be in places such as Georgia, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and basically closing further and further towards Russia because when they do create these events as consequences provides the pretext to interfere and go inside those nations, for example Azerbaijan is now becoming a NATO member, we have a large base in Azerbaijan, anyone can go and look at a map and see how close it is to Russia and Georgia is another candidate to become a NATO member.

 “…they have Chechen networks, and they have had these units trained inside Turkey, and this is the mid-1990’s and it still continues today, and they arm them and they set up operational guidelines with targets to let’s say blow up a school or a movie theatre somewhere in Russia whether it is Moscow or St. Petersburg or elsewhere.”

So, that is pretty much in a nutshell of what Operation Gladio is, and the fiction deals with that. And then I talked about my work with the FBI with this particular special unit under counter-intelligence, and I said the files dated back to 1997, well, these files specifically dealt with Operation Gladio B with both Turkish individuals and networks and organizations, as actors target actors, but also with, really brand names – US agencies and US individuals – prominent names within the State Department – US State Department – in late 1990s and early 2000s , and the CIA and also within Pentagon.

GR: When you say “synthetically created terrorist cells or groups” are these people funded by as you say brand name groups, or state department type groups, and then are the manipulated? How does that work?

SE: I can give you a recent example, in fact my website boilingfrogspost.com or for short bfpreport.com. In 2011, months and months before Syria came in the headlines – anything about Syria was written on the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN – we broke a story based on my sources here in United States military but also in Turkey about the fact that special CIA/NATO forces in a NATO base in Turkey, which is in the southern portion of Turkey very close to the Syrian border, they were bringing in, in Turkey, the CIA/NATO Gladio unit, they were recruiting and bringing in people from northern Syria into these camps, part of the US air force base in southern Turkey. They were training them – military training –  they were arming them, and they were basically directing them towards create terror events inside Syria, not only against Assad, but also in various villages and regions against the people, against public.

When we broke this story and decided all this, nobody from the mainstream media even looked at it, in fact several of my sources, before approaching me at Boiling Frogs Post, they had gone with evidence, with documents, aerial pictures to some of the top publications such as the New York Times, but they did not print any of this, not because of lack of supporting documents, because at that point they were not ready in the United States to make Syria the real case, they were still in the midst of training and taking these people down, funneling them back into Syria. These are really pourus borders between Syria and Turkey. Then seven, eight months later suddenly Syria started entering the news headlines in the United States.

” They were training them – military training –  they were arming them, and they were basically directing them towards create terror events inside Syria, not only against Assad, but also in various villages and regions against the people, against public.”

That was the training and beginning of the ISIS brand. It started as ISIL and then turned to ISIS and now for short IS. This was completed by design, it was created and the people who are part of the so called ISIS they were carefully selected, brought into the U.S. NATO base in Turkey, they were trained they were funnelled, and this is what they were told to do. They created a new brand and a new brand with purpose of replacing the old brand: Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda, after twelve years started to losing its oomph as a brand, this is no different than any kid of marketing strategy you would see from companies bringing in the same kind of product, but under a different brand and packaging to excite the buyers, purchasers, the consumers. This is the same kind of thing. With Al Qaeda weakening as a brand because after a while people get like, oh yeah it’s the same thing, Al Qaeda here, Al Qaeda there, they are inside the wells, they are in my backyard, they are in the outhouse. So they said this is the time to create another brand so they gave birth to this ISIS brand. Within two years this brand that never existed before, and if you go and look at the headlines you can Google ISIS and financial network, this ISIS brand became the richest terror organization on the planet with two plus billion dollars net worth.

Think about it, how does that happen? How can in two years some ferocious terror group get to form and they have all these guns all these bombs, and they have range rovers and they have jeeps, and they have all this sophisticated training, military and paramilitary training. They have two billion dollars plus. They have IT networks and they are the worlds scariest terror organization. That is the hallmark of Operation Gladio B. That is what they have been doing since the 1950’s and now with people getting likely to buy they types of brands and subscribe to these types of brands to them, they are being marketed to the consumers in the west. They are gobbling it up with the mainstream media about this ISIS. They even have uniform like looks with the special bandanas. They look like ninja turtles.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they got some help from Hollywood production consultants they have on their payroll and some really brilliant marketing experts to re-brand Al Qaeda come up with a brand new brand, replace the old brand, and in less than two, three years make it largest, the richest, the most ferocious, the most capable. As they did with Al Qaeda, today they are putting out this headline saying ISIS has access and capability in biological weapons, people can Google this. ISIS has ability and capability to utilize chemical weapons in attack. Now they are saying that they possibly have nuclear capabilities. Even if you look at the unbelievable organizations that fairly quickly became big, you would never see such marketing scheme that in two three years you could become that rich, two billion dollars plus net worth.

This all goes into the years and years, decades and decades, half a century of experience in creating these synthetically created terror brands, and give them the oomph to market it to the consumers here in the west.

GR: You really here a lot of how ISIS is like Al Qaeda, but worse. Their videos are pumped out constantly, their social media is working, constantly being shown as part of their group, so it’s in the technological age.

SE: Of course, it’s a souped-up version of Al Qaeda just re-branded with some new marketing factors entering into the equation. Of course, after having been 14 years since 9/11 it is much easier to sell it to people today, you can sell more. They are likely to buy. You have an entirely new generation that grew up since 9/11 and they have been reading everyday in the newspaper, if they read newspapers, or the social networks and the TV. Even the shows like 24 and dozens of others, you hear the words terror, terror, terrorist, Middle Eastern, Islamic terror. It has been a word that dates back all the way to the 1950’s, but since 9/11 it has become a major brand that has been sold to the public, that as a result justifies trillions and trillions of dollars that are being spent, that are being given to the military industrial complex and related organizations, intelligence complex and their contractors, and their subcontractors.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they got some help from Hollywood production consultants they have on their payroll and some really brilliant marketing experts to re-brand Al Qaeda come up with a brand new brand, replace the old brand, and in less than two, three years make it largest, the richest, the most ferocious, the most capable.”

So it’s a trillions and trillions of dollars economy created, it’s the regional geo-strategic dominance, because they can’t come and say, we are going to go take over Syria and divide it into three. Even with the apathy today, especially with people here in the United States, it would be a hard sell, maybe not impossible, but hard. But you create synthetically these events, and the terror groups. Then, you show it and you can say: because these people have nuclear and biological and chemical weapons and some of them have blue eyes, they can blend in and come here to the United States and blow up this elementary school in Iowa, they have that kind of a reach. They get public cheer and consent to go and send drones and bomb and take over nations.

That has become the pretext, that has become the justification. It was for Iraq immediately after 9/11 even though Iraq had nothing to do with any of these events. And then Afghanistan, and then Libya, and now Syria, there is Yemen. Anytime anyone in the U.S pauses and says, what the heck, why are we going and bombing Yemen? It is this poor nation out in the desert. We can turn around and say: look, they have the ISIS brand there, and that ISIS brand is going to come and get you in Iowa and then say say: oh no, please go bomb them, do whatever you must, because they really look scary.

GR: They are scaring people in the United States, but even in Canada here there was warning that said they were going to target the West Edmonton Mall specifically, and so the Conservative government here has been using that as an election platform “we are going to get ISIS,” and they passed Bill C-51, which is similar to the the Patriot Act. So it’s working on the western nations. There’s got to be a lot of people buying into these brands.

SE: Oh absolutely, I would say the majority, at least I can speak for the people here in the United States. First of all, for them it is easy to digest, and most of them have been systematically stripped of their critical thinking ability and they just want some soundbites from the mainstream media. It’s really blurry, the difference between fiction based sitcoms and what you see watch on the news, like what see on let’s say on CBS or NBC and they work hand in hand and they accept it.

We have to admit, they have created, especially since 9/11 an entire industry from the intelligence complex, the military industrial complex, like I said contractors and subcontractors. You are looking at domestically here in the United States trillions of dollars and if you start going outward and internationally, in terms of gaining dominance in the region, whether it is with Iraq and Syria and the Middle East, or what’s going to come, and it has been at work in Central Asia. Ukraine kind of quieted down, but we actually got what we wanted with that.

Next we are going to see, and that’s my prediction, we are going to see some unrest in Georgia because there are going to be some so-called terror events that are going to be blamed on some ferocious Chechen factions that may be collaborating with ISIS factions, and that is going to lead to Georgia officially being accepted into NATO as a member. We already has troops in Georgia, it’s already on its way, in terms of the base. So that’s what we are going to see in that region.

With Middle East, Iran has been placed on that back-burner. It is temporary. It is completely strategic. We created a president’s legacy that made peace with Iran. That is going to be coming back, and becoming an issue again, within the second or third year of the next coming president, until it is all done with Iran.

But most importantly, we have two regions that people here in the United States, I’m not sure about Canada, they don’t ever get to hear. One is Central Asia/Caucasus region, the backdoor of Russia. The other is the Turkestan; Uyghuristan. The Uyghur region of China, in China it’s called Xinjiang region. People don’t hear much about that region and what has been happening. We have been training and putting in place various terror units in that region with the goal, just like Taiwan, we have this separation with that region, because those are Muslim Uyghur people, and put our military base over there.

People may think this is far reaching, but if they go start and digging and today the technology we can research it, they will see why it is so important. In the past 10-15 years how we have been moving towards that objective, that has been an objective, but the implementation of the operations that are going to take us to the end game with that objective over there. That is going to be the subject of my coming book, hopefully next year at this time.

(end of interview)

On September 10, 2014, Obama lied claiming his intent “to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL” – adding “these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region, including to the United States.”

He willfully misled the US public saying he “ordered our military to take targeted action against ISIL to stop its advances…These strikes…helped save the lives of thousands of innocent men, women and children.”

Washington recruits, arms, funds, trains, and directs them the same way it used Mujahideen fighters in the 1980s against Soviet Russia in Afghanistan, as well as Al Qaeda and other likeminded takfiri groups today.

They serve US imperial interests, used against independent governments Washington wants toppled – replaced by subservient puppet regimes. Terror bombing Iraqi and Syrian targets has nothing to do with degrading and defeating them – everything to do with destroying vital infrastructure in both countries, balkanizing them for easier control and ousting Assad.

On the first anniversary of Obama’s declared phony war on IS, RT International headlined “1yr, 6,700 airstrikes & $4bn after Obama vowed to ‘destroy’ ISIS, jihadists still on offensive” – stronger than ever, controlling more territory, aided and abetted by US support.

Obama’s real war is polar opposite his phony “campaign of airstrikes…increase(d) support (for) forces fighting these terrorists,” preventing IS attacks elsewhere, and “provid(ing) humanitarian assistance to innocent civilians” displaced by devastating war.

According to the Pentagon, so-called “Operation Inherent Resolve” conducted 53,278 sorties in Iraq and Syria, including 6,700 airstrikes through September 8.

It lied claiming 10,000 IS “targets” were destroyed, including tanks, other heavy weapons and facilities. Washington supplies IS terrorists by airdrops and other means to wage its proxy wars – spending billions of dollars to advance its imperium, letting recruited terrorists do its fighting and dying.

RT explained “impressive-sounding (Pentagon) numbers” did nothing to change “reality on the ground where IS (terrorists) have only grown stronger.”

Propaganda about “a quick and easy victory” is belied by greater than ever IS strength and territorial control.

The most visible result of Obama’s wars is the human refugee flood they caused, numbers increasing exponentially as they rage – overwhelming European countries with desperate people undertaking hazardous journeys to find safe havens out of harm’s way, met with scorn and disdain most everywhere they arrive, treated horrifically under appalling conditions, victimized twice over, by Obama’s imperial wars and Western nations (especially America) unwilling to provide humane help.

World peace and security aren’t threatened by IS or other takfiri terrorists. America’s imperial agenda with complicit rogue allies bear full responsibility – waging endless wars of aggression, threatening humanity’s survival.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PMCentral time plus two prerecorded archived programs. 

This Monday, September 7, seven Syrian citizens go to court in Paris to pursue their civil suit against French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. The five men and two women all lost family members and close friends in massacres by armed rebels supported by Fabius in word and deed. They are asking for one euro of symbolic damages.

In the end the suit will almost surely be thrown out. The September 7 hearing is on an appeal against an earlier ruling that the courts cannot judge acts of the government in this case, even if the complaint is founded. And yet this futile lawsuit makes a crucial point that Western politicians and media would much prefer to ignore.

Western leaders share major responsibility for making much of the world unfit for normal human habitation. And so far, they are getting away with it. The massive refugee crisis swamping Europe is just the beginning of the troubles that these unscrupulous leaders have brought on their own countries.

Laurent Fabius can fairly be called a French neoconservative. His alignment with Israeli policies is seen in the fact that he was the most reluctant of the foreign ministers involved in the Iranian nuclear negotiations to agree to the final settlement.

He has been one of the most gung-ho advocates of regime change in Syria, a country long on the neocon hit list for its Arab nationalism and support for the Palestinian cause.

The Syrian plaintiffs note that:

* On May 29, 2012, Fabius declared that France would intervene against the Syrian regime.

* On August 17, 2012, Fabius declared that Syrian President Bashar el Assad “did not deserve to be alive on earth”.

* On December 14, 2012, speaking out against the Obama administration decision to designate the Al Nusra Front as a terrorist group, Fabius objected that the Al Nusra Front was “doing a good job on the ground”.

* On March 13, 2013, Fabius announced that France and Britain were going to deliver arms to the rebels.

As a group, the plaintiffs maintain that by his declarations, Foreign Minister Fabius stirred up civil war in Syria and encouraged armed rebel attacks against the existing government. Individually, each of the plaintiffs lost family members and close friends in armed attacks and massacres carried out by the al Nusra militia allied rebel groups.

Israel’s Ghastly Twin: the “Islamic State”

Under U.S. leadership and Israeli influence, French political leaders have championed “regime change” in Libya and Syria on the tacit assumption that civil war would be better for the people of those countries than living under a “dictatorship”. In practice, however, most people can get along better without a vote than without a roof over their heads. Or without their heads.

It is hardly surprising that the carefully filmed and diffused videos of “Islamic State” (IS) disciplinary methods have caused panic among people living in their path of conquest.

War causes people to become refugees. Western media pay close attention to refugees only when they like the “story”. Huge attention was paid to Kosovo Albanians fleeing temporarily from the 1999 NATO war against the Serbs, because those refugees could be described as victims of Serbian “ethnic cleansing” and thus as justification of the NATO war itself.

But no such media concern was aroused over the much greater number of refugees who fled from the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq and have never returned. Over a million Iraqi refugees fled into Syria, where they were well received.

The situation in the Middle East is critical. Armed by leftover U.S. military equipment in Iraq, enriched by illicit oil sales, its ranks swollen by young Jihadis from all over the world, the Islamic State threatens the people of Lebanon and Jordan, already struggling to take care of masses of refugees from Palestine, Iraq and now Syria. Fear of the decapitating Islamic fanatics is inciting more and more people to risk everything in order to get to safety in Europe.

The Islamic State is truly the horrible enemy caricature of the “Jewish State”, another political entity based on an exclusive religious identity. Like Israel it has no clearly defined borders, but with a vastly larger potential demographic base.

The only force that can stop the Islamic State from expanding its fanatic rule over all of Mesopotamia and beyond is the Syrian State led by Bashar al Assad. The choice is not between Assad and “Western democracy”. The choice is between Assad and the Islamic State. But Western leaders have still not fully dropped their demented cry: “Assad must go!”

Refugees, Migrants and Terrorists

The results of this madness are washing up on the shores of the Mediterranean. Images and sentiment have replaced thinking about causes and effects. One photo of a drowned toddler causes a media and political uproar. Are people surprised? Didn’t they know that toddlers were being torn to pieces by U.S. bombing of Iraq, by U.S. drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen? What about the toddlers obliterated by NATO’s war to “free Libya” from its “dictator”?

The current refugee crisis in Europe is the inevitable, foreseeable, predicted result of Western policy in the Middle East and North Africa. Gaddafi’s Libya was the wall that kept hundreds of thousands of Africans from migrating illegally to Europe, not only by police methods but even more effectively by offering them development at home and decently paid jobs in Libya. Now Libya is the source both of economic migrants and of refugees from Libya itself, as well as from other lands of desperation. In order to weaken Sudan, the United States (and Susan Rice in particular) championed creation of the new country of South Sudan, which is not a country at all but the scene of rival massacres driving more and more fugitives toward unwelcoming countries.

The famous photo of little Aylan drowned in the Mediterranean is used very largely to make Europeans feel guilty. The leaders should indeed feel guilty – and not least the rich egomaniac Bernard-Henri Lévy, who prides himself on having talked the French government of Nicolas Sarkozy into starting war against Libya, where, he claimed, there were no Islamic extremists, but only pro-Westerners yearning for democracy. Thanks to NATO, Islamic extremists have since run roughshod over the whole country.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has agreed to take in eight hundred thousand Syrian refugees. This is admirable on humanitarian grounds. Germany is economically strong and demographically weak; with its gradually shrinking population, middle class Syrians, many of them terrified Christians, may seem to be a welcome addition to the population. But it deepens political divisions within Germany and in Europe.

This is particularly the case in the new EU countries of Eastern Europe. Starting with Hungary, their leaders are making it clear that those countries are above all concerned with their ethnic identity, and don’t want to take in a lot of people who don’t speak their language. Unlike countries of Western Europe, the Eastern European tier of ethnic states have no tradition of taking in immigrants and no ideological attachment to the Western human rights ideology. In Eastern Europe, “human rights” sounded good to use against Russia and the Soviet Union, but stops there.

The Greek crisis already put heavy strains on the unity of the European Union. For the first time, many people are questioning the whole idea. The crisis showed that there is no real sense of solidarity between the peoples of Europe; when it comes to the crunch, Germans are Germans and Greeks are Greeks, and “European” is an abstraction. The refugee crisis is showing new cracks in “European unity”.

Most of Europe today is suffering from massive unemployment, especially the Southern countries where refugees first land: Greece, Italy, Spain. European Union economic policies, already strangling Greece, do not favor job creation for hundreds of thousands of newcomers. Even professionally qualified refugees will find it difficult or impossible to get around rules protecting their professions in host countries. Most jobs they manage to get will probably be low level and illegal, undercutting wages and working conditions in the host countries.

Moreover, it is impossible in the present mass movement of people to distinguish “refugees” from economic “migrants” – that is, from men simply seeking better work opportunities. The EU today has little to offer then, and resentment of this unsought immigration is certain to improve the political fortunes of the nationalist right.

There is another reason that many European citizens feel less than enthusiastic about welcoming hundreds of thousands of unknown foreigners into their communities. The Islamic State has openly boasted of sending terrorists into Europe among the refugees, with the clear intention of committing violent acts to destabilize the West. Of course, the threat of terrorism is being used cynically by governments to enforce police state measures, but that does not mean that the threat of terrorism is unreal. Unfortunately, it exists – thanks very largely to the policies of those very same Western governments.

The refugee crisis should be seen as the warning signal that the United States and its NATO allies – especially Britain and France – are bringing the world to a state of chaos that is going to keep spreading and that is approaching a point of no return.   It is quick and easy to break things. Putting them back together may be impossible. Civilization itself may be more fragile than it seems.

Does the U.S. government want the Islamic State and/or its fellow-travelers in Al Qaeda to take over Syria? As far as the State Department is concerned, that seems to be a risk worth taking as it moves to cut off Russia’s supply pipeline to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad — even as Sunni terrorist groups expand their grip on Syrian territory.

It appears that hardliners within the Obama administration have placed the neocon goal of “regime change” in Syria ahead of the extraordinary dangers that could come from the black flag of Sunni terrorism raised over the capital of Damascus. That would likely be accompanied by the Islamic State chopping off the heads of Christians, Alawites, Shiites and other “heretics” and/or Al Qaeda having a major Mideast capital from which to plot more attacks on the West.

And, as destabilizing as the current flow of Middle East refugees is to Europe, a victory by the Islamic State or Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front would open the flood gates, sending millions of desperate people pouring out of Syria and creating a political as well as humanitarian crisis. At that point, there also would be enormous pressure on President Barack Obama or his successor to mount a full-scale invasion of Syria and attempt a bloody occupation.

The human and financial costs of this nightmare scenario are almost beyond comprehension. The European Union – already strained by mass unemployment in its southern tier — could crack apart, shattering one of the premier achievements of the post-World War II era. The United States also could undergo a final transformation from a Republic into a permanent-warrior state.

Yet, Official Washington can’t seem to stop itself. Instead of working with Russia and Shiite-ruled Iran to help stabilize the political/military situation in Syria, the pundit class and the “tough-guy/gal” politicians are unleashing torrents of insults toward the two countries that would be the West’s natural allies in any effort to prevent a Sunni terrorist takeover.

Beyond words, there has been action. Over the past week, the State Department has pressured Bulgaria and Greece to bar Russian transport flights headed to Syria. The U.S. plan seems to be to blockade the Syrian government and starve it of outside supplies, whether humanitarian or military, all the better to force its collapse and open the Damascus city gates to the Islamic State and/or Al Qaeda.

In explaining its nearly inexplicable behavior, the State Department even has adopted the silly neocon talking point which blames Assad and now Russia for creating the Islamic State, though the bloodthirsty group actually originated as “Al Qaeda in Iraq” in reaction to President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Then, backed by money and weapons from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other U.S. “allies,” AQI moved into Syria with the goal of ousting Assad’s relatively secular government. AQI later took the name Islamic State (also known by the acronyms ISIS, ISIL or Daesh). Yet, the State Department’s official position is that the Islamic State is Assad’s and Russia’s fault.

“What we’ve said is that their [the Russians’] continued support to the Assad regime has actually fostered the growth of ISIL inside Syria and made the situation worse,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday. “If they want to be helpful against ISIL, the way to do it is to stop arming and assisting and supporting Bashar al-Assad.”

Yet, the reality is that Assad’s military has been the principal bulwark against both the Islamic State and the other dominant Sunni rebel force, Al Qaeda’s affiliate, the Nusra Front. So, by moving to shut down Assad’s supply line, the U.S. government is, in effect, clearing the way for an Islamic State/Al Qaeda victory since the U.S.-trained “moderate” rebels are largely a fiction, numbering in double digits, while the extremists have tens of thousands of committed fighters.

In other words, if the U.S. strategy succeeds in collapsing Assad’s defenses, there is really nothing to stop the Sunni terrorists from seizing Damascus and other major cities. Then, U.S. airstrikes on those population centers would surely kill many civilians and further radicalize the Sunnis. To oust the Islamic State and/or Al Qaeda would require a full-scale U.S. invasion, which might be inevitable but would almost certainly fail, much as Bush’s Iraq occupation did.

A Scary Fantasyland

As scary as these dangers are, there remains a huge gap between the real world of the Middle East and the fantasyland that is Official Washington’s perception of the region. In that land of make-believe, what matters is tough talk from ambitious politicians and opinion leaders, what I call the “er-er-er” growling approach to geopolitics.

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton joined in that growling on Wednesday at the Brookings Institution, which has become home to neocons such as Robert Kagan and a host of “liberal interventionists,” such as Michael O’Hanlon and Strobe Talbott.

Though she formally endorsed the nuclear agreement with Iran, former Secretary of State Clinton insulted both the Iranians and the Russians. Noting Russia’s support for the Syrian government, she urged increased punishment of Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin — aimed at forcing Russia to abandon the Assad regime.

“We need a concerted effort to up the costs on Russia and Putin; I am in the camp that we have not done enough,” Clinton declared. “I don’t think we can dance around it much longer,” she said, claiming that Russia is trying to “stymie and undermine American power whenever and wherever they can.”

Clinton appears to have learned nothing from her past support for “regime change” strategies in Iraq and Libya. In both countries, the U.S. military engineered the ouster and murder of the nations’ top leaders, but instead of the promised flourishing of some ideal democracies, the countries descended into anarchy with Sunni terrorists, linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, now controlling large swaths of territory and engaging in widespread atrocities.

Yet, for Clinton, the higher priority is to come across as super-tough, proving her value to Official Washington’s influential neocons and liberal hawks. Thus, a potential Clinton presidency suggests an even more warlike foreign policy than the one carried out by Obama, who recently boasted of ordering military strikes in seven different countries.

Clinton seems eager for more and more “regime changes,” targeting Syria and even Russia, despite the existential risks involved in such reckless strategies, especially the notion of destabilizing nuclear-armed Russia. The neocons and liberal hawks always assume that some malleable “moderate” will take power, but the real-life experience is that U.S. interventionism often makes matters worse, with even more extreme leaders filling the void.

Where’s Obama?

Now, with Official Washington lining up behind a blockade of Russian assistance to the Syrian government – even if that would mean an Islamic State/Al Qaeda victory – the great unknown is where President Obama stands.

A source familiar with the back channels between the White House and the Kremlin told me that Obama had encouraged Putin to step up Russian aid to the embattled Syrian government as part of the fight against the Islamic State and that the Russians are now bewildered as to why Obama’s State Department is trying to sabotage those efforts.

As odd as that might sound, it would not be the first time that Obama has favored a less confrontational approach to a foreign crisis behind the scenes only to have neocon/liberal-hawk operatives inside his own administration charge off in the opposite direction. For instance, in 2009, Obama bowed to demands for what turned out to be a useless “surge” in Afghanistan, and in 2014, he allowed neocon Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to start a new Cold War with Russia by helping to orchestrate a “regime change” in Ukraine.

As Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, Nuland would presumably be at the center of the recent arm-twisting in Bulgaria and Greece to get those countries to block Russian flights to Syria, which has been a longtime neocon target for “regime change,” a goal that the neocons now see as within their grasp.

Typically, when his underlings undercut him, Obama then falls in line behind them but often in a foot-dragging kind of way. Then, on occasion, he’ll break ranks and make a foray into genuine diplomacy, such as Syria’s 2013 agreement to surrender its chemical-weapons arsenal or Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal – both of which were achieved with significant help from Putin. But Obama has proved to be an unreliable foreign-policy partner, bending to the hawkish pressure from many of his subordinates and even joining in their rhetorical insults.

Today, Obama may feel that he has gone as far as he dares with the Iran nuclear deal and that any foreign policy cooperation with Iran or Russia before Congress decides on the agreement’s fate by Sept. 17 could cause defections among key Democrats.

Once the deadline for congressional review passes, Obama could get serious about collaborating with Iran and Russia to stabilize the situation in Syria. By strengthening the Syrian government’s military – which has protected Christians, Alawites, Shiites and other minorities – and incorporating reasonable Sunnis into a power-sharing arrangement, there would a chance to stabilize Syria and push for elections and constitutional reforms. But that would require dropping the slogan, “Assad must go!”

So, while President Obama is saying little about his Syrian plans, his State Department has moved off on its own aggressive course hoping to finally achieve the neocon/liberal-hawk dream of “regime change” in Syria – regardless of what nightmares might follow.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

“China is not the origin of global economic risks. Instead, it is a driving force for global economic growth. ” China’s Premier Li Keqiang said at the World Economic Forum in Dalian. In the face of the world leaders from the top multinational companies and people from media, he clearly expressed his confidence in China’s economy.

Answering the question of “What is the new driving force of China’s economic growth?” Li Keqiang said, “The world economy is still going down. China’s economy also bears downward pressure.” China’s economy could be described as “having a bright future in spite of fluctuations”, or the trend still points to a better position. That’s because China had 7% growth in the first half of the year, the best rates among the world’s major economies.

“I once said that as long as there are enough jobs, household income grows at the same pace as GDP growth, and the environment is constantly improving, such a growth rate is satisfactory. Urban unemployment rate in the first six months was 5.1%, and 7 million new urban jobs were created. This proves that China’s economy is growing within a reasonable range.” Premier Li Keqiang explained.

There were reports about China’s “deterioration of environment”for foreign investment. Li Keqiang permitted that China’s general policy of using FDI will not be changed, but specific policies are indeed evolving towards the direction of attracting more foreign investment and opening more fields to foreign companies. For instance, China broadened fields of foreign investment, and lifted restrictions on 50% of the items since this year. To better facilitate foreign investment, China has basically changed from the approval system to a record-keeping system. Now only less tan 5% of the items need to be approved.

Li said China is exploring a new regulation model with pre-entry national treatment and the negative list. China negotiates for a bilateral investment treaty with the United States and the EU. China is also involved in free-trade agreement talks with many countries.

Li Keqiang pointed out, “There will be more fields open to foreign investment in a more convenient way. China’s capacity to attract foreign investment has also been improved. In the first half of 2015, China’s FDI has increased by 7.7 %, while the FDI in the world was not good.”

After Q and A with Premier Li, one of representatives, the founder and CEO of the Abraaj Group from United Arab Emirates Arif Naqvi told People’s Daily, ” Premier Li Keqiang spent one hour on giving us a comprehensive account of the current situation of China’s economy. Now, I feel completely relieved that China welcomes the enterprises of foreign investment in China. What I want to say most to the media at this moment is that I will invest in China.”

“China is not the origin of global economic risks. Instead, it is a driving force for global economic growth. ” China’s Premier Li Keqiang said at the World Economic Forum in Dalian. In the face of the world leaders from the top multinational companies and people from media, he clearly expressed his confidence in China’s economy.

Answering the question of “What is the new driving force of China’s economic growth?” Li Keqiang said, “The world economy is still going down. China’s economy also bears downward pressure.” China’s economy could be described as “having a bright future in spite of fluctuations”, or the trend still points to a better position. That’s because China had 7% growth in the first half of the year, the best rates among the world’s major economies.

“I once said that as long as there are enough jobs, household income grows at the same pace as GDP growth, and the environment is constantly improving, such a growth rate is satisfactory. Urban unemployment rate in the first six months was 5.1%, and 7 million new urban jobs were created. This proves that China’s economy is growing within a reasonable range.” Premier Li Keqiang explained.

There were reports about China’s “deterioration of environment”for foreign investment. Li Keqiang permitted that China’s general policy of using FDI will not be changed, but specific policies are indeed evolving towards the direction of attracting more foreign investment and opening more fields to foreign companies. For instance, China broadened fields of foreign investment, and lifted restrictions on 50% of the items since this year. To better facilitate foreign investment, China has basically changed from the approval system to a record-keeping system. Now only less tan 5% of the items need to be approved.

Li said China is exploring a new regulation model with pre-entry national treatment and the negative list. China negotiates for a bilateral investment treaty with the United States and the EU. China is also involved in free-trade agreement talks with many countries.

Li Keqiang pointed out, “There will be more fields open to foreign investment in a more convenient way. China’s capacity to attract foreign investment has also been improved. In the first half of 2015, China’s FDI has increased by 7.7 %, while the FDI in the world was not good.”

After Q and A with Premier Li, one of representatives, the founder and CEO of the Abraaj Group from United Arab Emirates Arif Naqvi told People’s Daily, ” Premier Li Keqiang spent one hour on giving us a comprehensive account of the current situation of China’s economy. Now, I feel completely relieved that China welcomes the enterprises of foreign investment in China. What I want to say most to the media at this moment is that I will invest in China.”

An irresistible temptation!

For years the 9/11 Truth movement (9TM) has been vainly pleading with mainstream media – and the “alternative” 9/11-Truth-rejecting media (which we’ll include for our purposes as mainstream) to cover any of the endless, obvious problems with any of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory (OCT) tales we’ve been told. Now, all of a sudden, these same mainstream media, echoing prestigious players like former US Senator Bob Graham, are on the rampage about a “9/11 cover-up,” and are pushing for the release of 28 redacted pages from the 2002 Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee 9/11 Inquiry’s report! So…let’s all of us 9/11 Truthers jump aboard this fast moving train with both feet, right?

The 9TM has gradually been gaining a foothold with the public; a growing number of people countenance some kind of government role in 9/11 and/or its cover-up. Suspicion has likewise grown about the role played by Bush-administration neocons and their Zionist bedfellows. After 15 years of staunch media refusal to report the flagrantly obvious holes in the various OCT stories we’ve been fed, why is this particular issue suddenly headline news? Why at this particular juncture? And how does it just happen to be spearheaded byone of the major contributors to the initial coverup?

Let’s examine the question of why the Deep State might want this story heated up to a fever pitch:

Misdirection

It is now commonly assumed among the public that those 28 pages in some way implicate the Saudi government in the events of 9/11, probably by financing the OCT-alleged hijackers. But consider the not unlikely possibility that the real players in 9/11 were not the Saudis, but rather the Bush neocons and their Israeli partners in crime. If they were looking for a way to deflect increasing public doubt about the OTC, blaming the Saudis would be an excellent choice.

Professional magicians employ misdirection – irrelevant bodily motions and various props – to distract the audience’s attention from what they’re really up to. Some of us in the 9TM consider the 28 Pages campaign to be just such a classical misdirection, so that the Saudis can be pulled out of the hat as the new scapegoats for 9/11. The benefits of such minor modification of the OTC outweigh its risks:

Risks and benefits

Sure, there’s some risk involved. Releasing the 28 pages (if they say what it is widely believed they will say) would, after all, make it obvious to the public that the government has been involved in some kind of cover-up. Hardly a surprise to the 9TM, or to that majority of Americans who have lost confidence in the official narrative. But let’s remember that the government survived the Snowden/NSA disclosures virtually unscathed – Big Brother can now legally get all the info he wants, and polls have indicated that many Americans are absorbing this “new normal” by censoring themselves online. So another such embarrasment might be just as easily spun and exploited to the real perpetrators’ advantage.

On the other hand, the benefits of suchmisdirection would be huge:

1.   Everyone’s focus would now be on the Saudis, and off the Neocons and their Zionist bedfellows.

2.   The core OCT mythology would not only remain intact, but become solidified in the public mind (i.e., the catastrophic events of 9/11 were entirely the result of 19 hijackers’ actions, whose commandeered airliner crashes were the efficient cause of numerous fire-induced building collapses).

Why does this matter?

On the broadest level of geopolitics, the OCT myth is the basis for Western Islamophobia and the perpetual “Global War on Terror.” Blaming the Saudis only amplifies the assumption of “international Islamic terrorism,” still omitting all reference to Western players.

It is patently clear that the hijacker aspect of 9/11 is logically unsustainable (see below). Whether or not these men ever really existed, whether or not they behaved as devout Muslims, whether or not they were on the planes and whether or not they were financed by the Saudis, Pakistan’s ISI or anyone else – these may be useful questions for some purposes, but not for determining who was ultimately behind 9/11. Moving the public perception in the direction of blaming the Saudis for 9/11 because they supported the “hijackers” – the effect of 28 Pages campaign-support websites like hr14.org, — means abandoning the ever-widening trail of truth so relentlessly blazed by the 9TM, a trail leading close enough to their doors that the real culprits are beginning to feel some heat.

Yet 9TM veterans who should know better are falling all over each other to jump on the campaign bandwagon, and indeed, to be seen as leading the parade for “HR14,” the Congressional resolution demanding that the administration declassify those 28 pages! As 9TM activists, they are well aware that the whole OCT story is a fabrication, and that the Saudis could not possibly have masterminded 9/11. Here’s their rationalization in a nutshell: Because the mainstream media are suddenly embracing the topic, any wide public revelation of a “cover-up” will eventually lead to an unraveling of the real cover-up, and therefore represents 9TM’s first – and perhaps last – real opportunity to break into the wider realm of acceptable public opinion. But meanwhile, to “protect” the politicians (and the uninformed public?) whose support is needed for the passage of this bill, these websites, whilst making a pretense of advancing the cause of 9/11 Truth, implicitly embrace the long-debunked OCT (now twisted ever so slightly to incriminate the Saudis).

But consider the past fourteen years of consistent derogatory treatment by the corporate (and even many “alternative”) media of those who seriously question the basic OCT myth, and the media consolidation this represents – the control of these sources by corporate directors and the Deep State agents who write their playbook. These people are not fools – they don’t launch a propaganda ploy without Plans B, C, etc. in place for potential damage control. Based on the mainstream media’s track record of the past fourteen years, the chances of their running away with this story in a way that genuinely promotes 9/11 Truth seem vanishingly small. And the Achilles’ heel of such an overly optimistic hope is that the solid research and evidence gathered by the 9TM fall outside (and contradict) the Saudi-financed hijackers-dunnit scenario, so the media is unlikely to seriously reference any of it in its treatment of any forthcoming 28-pages “revelation.”

Looking ahead, where will this leave the 9TM? How is it going respond if the 28 pages say exactly what people are expecting them to say, and 9TM leaders are credited for their release? Will these same 9TM activists now tooting the horn for hr14 be able to credibly turn around and say “Wait, this information is misleading because ‘the real 9/11’ was something far beyond the abilities of the Saudis to manage!”? And will the media do an about-face with them, and obligingly lavish coverage on what it has complicitly covered up since 9/11?

About those “Hijackers”

Our position on the irrelevance of Saudi “financing” admittedly hinges on the question of the alleged “hijackers.” If these alleged 19 hijacked and flew the jetliners in question, Saudi involvement might be argued to have significance (albeit still not the key to 9/11 perpetration). But there are a host of reasons for rejecting the entire OCT hijack scenario:

*   The “hijackers’” publicly documented behavior was not that of devout Muslims [1]

*   There is no credible time-stamped video record of them boarding planes, much less arriving at the departing airports. [2]

*   The stories told about Muhammed Atta and whomever it was who allegedly accompanied him to Portland, Maine changed constantly. [3]

*   There is no original flight manifest showing Middle Eastern names. [4]

*   The FBI came up with a list of hijackers within just a few hours of the first 9/11 event, a number of whom they replaced with substitutes shortly afterwards. [5]

*   The transmission of cockpit comments of “hijackers” heard by the control towers could have been generated anywhere.

*   The simple button-press sequence (“squawk”) signaling a hijacking was not executed on any of the four planes. [6]

*   The initially-alleged cellphone calls that reported hijackings in progress were proven in most cases to have been technically impossible; most were later changed to on-board phone calls, some from planes that didn’t have on-board phones, and some calls (per the FBI) were never completed or didn’t exist – particularly the only one referencing “box cutters.” [7]

*   The conditions in the planes’ passenger cabins that would have existed under the alleged flight behavior of the planes at the time of the calls were completely inconsistent with the background sounds on the calls and the behavior of the alleged callers [8].

*   With one exception, the alleged “pilots” had never flown a jet-liner; one had flown a simulator of a different plane with a completely different cockpit layout; the one who allegedly made the almost-impossible maneuver over the Pentagon had been declared by his instructors to be unable to even fly a single-engine plane. [9]

*   The claims of finding a “hijacker” passport unscathed on the ground in NYC, and undamaged red bandanas (indicative of the wrong Muslim sect, in any case) in Pennsylvania, given the alleged physical reality of those crashes, are absurd on their face. [10]

*   With respect to the question of how 9/11 could have happened without human hijackers, it is vital to note that as of 2001, the technology for complete remote takeover, isolation and control (takeoff, flying, landing) of commercial jetliners was well advanced and had been fully tested in the types of aircraft involved in 9/11, and the air traffic auto-pilot navigation lanes in the sky were precise to within a few feet. [11]

The list goes on. . . As one considers each piece of evidence, the chance that “hijackings” took place approaches zero. The real role of the alleged hijackers is not yet known – those with documented flying lessons may very well have been unwitting patsies. In any case, the question of who might have been financing their stay in this country, Saudi or otherwise, is at best tangential to the larger picture of what really happened on 9/11. No matter what the motive, then, any attempt to persuade people that the final answer to the question of 9/11 perpetration lies in this direction can only be construed as dangerous misdirection. The real price already being paid by the 9TM is the subversion of unwitting 9TM activists who help promote such meretricious campaign propaganda, thereby betraying the 9TM’s hard-won, fact-based alternativeperspective.

The 28 Pages campaign: 9/11 Truth bonanza or limited hangout?

Our own concern about the 28 Pages campaign was triggered by the emergence of several websites supporting it, which hold out the promise that the 28 pages will answer the question of who was really behind 9/11 (and that this will turn out to be Saudi Arabia). Examples are 28pages.org  and most especially hr14.org. As the latter is controlled by a veteran 9/11 truther, we appealed to him as fellow activists – an ad hoc group of 9TM actvisists sent him a letter critiquing the website from the standpoint of 9/11 Truth, requesting specific revisions of its message. Because his reply failed to substantially address the issues we raised, we have now published it as an open letter.

We are hardly the first to find serious problems with the direction of the 28 Pages campaign. Perhaps the first notable critique came from the blog of Kevin Ryan; whilst this early criticism was on the milder side, its excoriation of the leadership of the 28 Pages campaign – Bob Graham and his “CIA protege” Porter Goss – is not to be missed! Years earlier, in fact, Ryan had opined  in Washington’s Blog: “Those redacted pages, and much of the 9/11 Commission report that followed, have always seemed to be a kind of ‘Get into Saudi Arabia free’ card for the powers that be.” Given the recent sea change in Saudi foreign policy – its nearer alignment with Russia and the BRICS bloc – such a prospect cannot be overlooked. What better way to incite public animosity towards the Saudis than by playing the tried and true 9/11 blame game?

Expanding on Ryan’s disquieting report, Professor Michel Chossudovsky, of Globalresearch.ca, wrote:

Calling for the official release and publication of the 28 page classified section of the joint inquiry report pertaining to Saudi Arabia is an obvious red-herring. The objective is to confuse matters, create divisions within the 9/11 Truth movement and ultimately dispel the fact that the 9/11 attacks were a carefully organized False Flag event which was used to declare war on Afghanistan as well as usher in sweeping anti-terrorist legislation.

Both the Congressional inquiry as well the 9/11 Commission report are flawed, their objective was to sustain the official narrative that America was under attack on September 11, 2001. And Graham’s role in liaison with the CIA, is “damage control” with a view to protecting those who were behind the demolition of the WTC towers as well [as] sustaining the Al Qaeda legend, which constitutes the cornerstone of US military doctrine under the so-called “Global War on Terrorism”.

As the 28 Pages campaign unfolds, such scathing criticism has proven remarkably prescient. We urge our fellow 9/11 Truth activists to take it to heart, and to approach the 28 Pages campaign juggernaut, if at all, with extreme caution, so long as it faithfully clings to the OTC . Caveat emptor!!

Dick Atlee is a member of the Maine 9/11 Truth group.

Ken Freeland is a member of Houston 9/11 Truth (http://houston911truth.net/) and is facilitator of the monthly 9/11 Truth and Other Deep State Crimes Teleconference (http://houston911truth.net/9-11TruthTeleconferenceArchives.html).

Cheryl Curtiss is a member of the Connecticut 9/11 Truth group and host of the radio show “9/11 Wake-Up Call” produced at the University of Hartford and archived at http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/4212.

Notes

1.   * Agents of terror leave their mark on Sin City / Las Vegas workers recall the men they can’t forget; Kevin Fagan, SFGate, 4 Oct 2001
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/10/04/MN102970.DTL
* Terrorists partied with hooker at Hub-area hotel; Dave Wedge, Boston Herald, 10 Oct 2001 (retrieved from Wayback Machine 11 Sep 2015)
http://web.archive.org/web/20011010224657/http://www.bostonherald.com/attack/investigation/ausprob10102001.htm
* Suspects’ actions don’t add up; Jody Benjamin, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 16 Sep 2001 (retrieved from Wayback Machine 11 Sep 2015)
http://web.archive.org/web/20010916150533/http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-warriors916.story
* Welcome To Terrorland; Daniel Hopsicker (Trine Day, 2004)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0970659164/

2.   * Point Video-2: Was the Airport Video of the Alleged AA 77 Hijackers Authentic?: Official 9/11 Videotaped Evidence; Consensus 911: The Best Evidence Panel
http://www.consensus911.org/point-video-2/
* Point Video-1: The Alleged Security Videos of Mohamed Atta during a Mysterious Trip to Portland, Maine, September 10-11, 2001; Consensus 911: The Best Evidence Panel
http://www.consensus911.org/point-video-1/

3.   9/11 Contradictions: Mohamed Atta’s Mitsubishi and His Luggage; David Ray Griffin, Global Research, 9 May 2008
http://www.globalresearch.ca/9-11-contradictions-mohamed-atta-s-mitsubishi-and-his-luggage/8937

4.   The FBI took control of the original flight manifests and still refuses to release them, while the airlines defer to the FBI. It has been said that the following versions had the hijackers removed to spare the feelings of the victims’ relatives. The reader must draw his/her own conclusions. The following from CNN on 17 Sep 2001 were retrieved from Wayback Machine 11 Sep 2015 )
* Flight 11: https://web.archive.org/web/20010917033844/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA11.victims.html
* Flight 175: https://web.archive.org/web/20010917034224/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/ua175.victims.html
* Flight 77: https://web.archive.org/web/20010917033858/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA77.victims.html
* Flight 93: https://web.archive.org/web/20010917033913/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/UA93.victims.html

5.   Not a shred of evidence that any 9/11 ‘hijackers’ boarded any planes; Craig McKee, Truth and Shadows
https://truthandshadows.wordpress.com/2015/03/19/hijackers-did-not-board-planes/

6.   Point Flt-1: A Claim Regarding Hijacked Passenger Jets; Consensus 911: The Best Evidence Panel
http://www.consensus911.org/point-flt-1/

7.   * Project Achilles Report Parts One, Two and Three; A.K. Dewdney, 23 Jan – 19 Apr 2003
http://physics911.net/projectachilles/
* Point PC-3: Cell Phone Calls From the Planes: The First Official Account; Consensus 911: The Best Evidence Panel
http://www.consensus911.org/point-pc-3/
* September 11 – The New Pearl Harbor, Part 1; Massimo Mazzucco, YouTube [at 1:38:35]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1GCeuSr3Mk&t=5915
* Point PC-4: Cell Phone Calls from the Planes: The Second Official Account; Consensus 911: The Best Evidence Panel
http://www.consensus911.org/point-pc-4/
* Methodical Illusion Series with Rebekah Roth, Part 2 [1:57:50]; Wake Up To the Truth (BlogTalk Radio); 19 Nov 2014
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/911falseflags/2014/11/19/methodical-illusion-series-w-rebekah-roth-part-2
* Ted Olson’s Report of Phone Calls from Barbara Olson on 9/11: Three Official Denials; David Ray Griffin, Global Research, 1 Apr 2008
http://www.globalresearch.ca/ted-olson-s-report-of-phone-calls-from-barbara-olson-on-9-11-three-official-denials/8514

8.   Methodical Illusion Series with Rebekah Roth; Wake Up To the Truth (BlogTalk Radio); 17 Nov 2014
* Part 4 [17:50-1:09:50]
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/911falseflags/2014/11/21/methodical-illusion-series-wrebekah-roth-part-4
* Part 3 [1:05:23-1:17:30, 1:28:00-1:31:15, 1:42:00-1:45:20]
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/911falseflags/2014/11/20/methodical-illusion-series-w-rebekah-roth-part-3
* Part 1 [35:35-55:35]
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/911falseflags/2014/11/18/methodical-illusion-series-wrebekah-roth-part-1

9.   * Hani Hanjour: 9/11 Pilot Extraordinaire; What ReallyHappened
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/hanjour.html
* September 11 – The New Pearl Harbor, Part 1; Massimo Mazzucco, YouTube [at 1:07:06]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1GCeuSr3Mk&t=4026

10. * FBI agent Dan Coleman explains how the passport of 9/11 hijacker Satam Al Suqami was “found”; 9/11 Blogger, 14 Nov 2011
http://911blogger.com/news/2011-11-14/fbi-agent-dan-coleman-explains-how-passport-911-hijacker-satam-al-suqami-was-found
* Jihadist bandana – the “in” fashion for fall; Pilots for 9/11 Truth, 8 Nov 2006
http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/lofiversion/index.php?t1383.html

11. Plausibility of 9/11 Aircraft Attacks Generated by GPS-Guided Aircraft Autopilot Systems; Aidan Monaghan (with extensive references), Oct 2008
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/AutopilotSystemsMonaghan.pdf

The show aired on September 5th, and interviewed their contracted expert: 

TRANSCRIPT, starting at 4:45pm:

4:45, Interviewer: The other place that nobody seems to want to go these days is Russia and China, and Russia and China are both the two countries that have really gotten behind Assad, and certainly try to prop him up and those kinds of things; and as we look at pictures from China’s military day parade [posted onscreen], how much of this is Russia and China trying to slough off these refugees on Europe and everybody else … to try to gain political and global capital?

McFARLAND: Well, in China I think less so, but Russia, certainly, because we’ve seen even in the last week that Russia has increased its military presence in Syria. Russia is trying to prop up the Assad government, like the Iranians are; and so Russia is sending military equipment; it’s sending it by sea, it’s sending it overland, it’s sending it by air, to try to prop up the Assad government to continue the fighting.

Q: To continue the refugee crisis?

MCFARLAND: Oh, sure, exactly.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4466018186001/european-union-leaders-struggle-to-deal-with-migrant-crisis/?#sp=show-clips

THE BACKSTORY:

Whereas back in 2002 and 2003, the U.S. aristocracy’s biggest push for “regime change” was to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq; and whereas in 2011 the biggest push for “regime change” was to remove Muammar Gaddaffi from power in Libya; and whereas next in 2011 the biggest push for “regime change” became to remove Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria; and whereas in 2013 the biggest push for “regime change” became to remove Viktor Yanukovych from power in Ukraine; the biggest push for “regime change” now is to remove Vladimir Putin from power in Russia.

Media-lies have been crucial to them all.

On 2 October 2003, the media-watch organization, worldpublicopinion.org, headlined “Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War: Study Finds Widespread Misperceptions on Iraq Highly Related to Support for War: Misperceptions Vary Widely Depending on News Source: Fox Viewers More Likely to Misperceive, PBS-NPR Less Likely.” In fact, the people who received their news primarily through NPR or PBS exhibited the lowest rate of misperceptions, and Fox News Channel viewers exhibited the highest misperceptions-rate: Whereas 77% of NPR/PBS listeners/viewers gave correct answers on all three factual news questions asked, only 20% of Fox News Channel viewers did; and whereas only 23% of the NPR/PBS audience got one or more of these three factual questions wrong, 80% of Fox viewers did.

So, the George W. Bush Administration forced NPR and PBS to adhere more fully to Bush’s (the U.S. aristocracy’s) line.

NPR’s David Folkenflik reported, on NPR’s “Morning Edition” 20 May 2005, that, the “culture gap became evident as long as two years ago. At one closed board meeting, according to two former CPB officials, Tomlinson suggested bringing in Fox News Channel anchor Brit Hume to talk to public broadcasting officials about how to create balanced news programs.”

This Bush gang had no objection whatsoever to moving toward fascism; after all, it’s where they had personally come from. Eric Boehlert headlined at salon.com on May 26th, “‘Fair and Balanced’ — the McCarthy Way,” and he reported:

“CPB head Kenneth Tomlinson, who is leading a jihad against ‘liberal bias’ in public broadcasting, and one of his two new ombudsmen both worked for the late Fulton Lewis, a reactionary radio personality associated with Sen. Joe McCarthy.”

Tomlinson, in fact, had “worked as an intern for Lewis,” and the new Tomlinson-appointed ombudsman, William Schulz, was an executive colleague of Tomlinson’s at Readers Digest, and before that, “was a writer for Lewis.” These two men had, in fact, first met nearly 60 years ago, as acolytes of this fascist radio commentator, who was comparable to today’s Rush Limbaugh. “In 1949, the New Republic noted that Lewis’ ‘wild charges were part of his campaign over many years to smear in every way possible the [FDR] New Deal, the [Truman] Fair Deal, and everybody not in accord with the most reactionary political beliefs.” Furthermore, “According to a flattering 1954 biography of the broadcaster, ‘Praised and Damned: The Story of Fulton Lewis, Jr.,’ Lewis was ‘as close to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy as any other man in the national scene.’ Look magazine agreed, calling Lewis one of McCarthy’s ‘masterminds.’”

That, of course, positioned Lewis — and, by extension, Tomlinson and one of the two PBS/NPR ombudsmen — far to the right of the then-mainstream Republicans, such as Dwight D. Eisenhower. Of course, George W. Bush himself represented this very same far-Right Republican Party contingent, which — thanks to decades of financial contributions from aristocrats like Scaife and Coors, building the fascist intellectual infrastructure — subsequently became today’s Republican mainstream.

Word was now out, among journalists throughout the world, that President Bush aimed to turn his country’s public broadcasting system into a domestic propaganda organ; and so, on May 30th, The New York Times headlined “Ombudsmen Rebuff Move by Public Broadcasting,” and reported — datelinedMay 27th from London — that: “An [international] association of news ombudsmen has rejected an attempt by two ombudsmen from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to join their organization as full-fledged members, questioning their independence. The Organization of News Ombudsmen, which represents nearly a hundred print and broadcast ombudsmen from around the world, more than half of them from the United States, voted at its annual conference here last week to change its bylaws to allow full membership only to those who work for news organizations,” which excluded representatives from CPB, because “it does not itself gather or produce news.” Observed one member, who happened to be the ombudsman from NPR, “We want members who are responsive to readers, not to governments or lobby groups.”

The Los Angeles Times media critic David Shaw took a broad historical view of this matter, headlining May 29th“There’s a ‘Nuclear Option’ for PBS’ Woes,” opining that no PBS at all would be better than a PBS that’s a propaganda organ for the White House, and reminding readers:

“The Bush administration is not the first to challenge the independence of PBS. Back in the 1970s, the Nixon administration was so estranged by PBS coverage of Watergate and the Vietnam War that it stacked the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with Nixon sympathizers. ‘There were tremendous fights, with the Nixon administration trying to prevent public television from doing any public affairs programming at all,’ Lawrence Grossman, the former president of PBS, subsequently told the New York Times. The Bush administration, which has already accomplished the heretofore seemingly impossible by becoming even more media-averse than the Nixon administration, seems determined to surpass the wizard of Whittier and Watergate in bringing the CPB to heel as well.”

Mr. Shaw, like other major-media commentators about the national media, had previously stood by in silence, during 2002 and 2003, while America’s major media cavalierly spread amongst the U.S. public, as virtually unchallenged, the false rumors coming from the Bush Administration, and from its allies such as the Bush-Administration-financed group of exiles, the Iraqi National Congress, saying that Iraq’s leader Saddam Hussein had been proven to be storing huge quantities of weapons of mass destruction and to be working in cahoots with Al Qaeda to threaten the United States. However, now, just a few years later, these very same “news” media were so frightened at the rising extent of this Administration’s control over their “news,” that these commentators were publicizing what those fascists were doing to force them, ‘journalists,’ into a military lock-step. This change in atmosphere was stunning; America’s press were now trying to extricate themselves from the prison they had only recently helped to construct for themselves. They didn’t think that they might get caught up in the prison that they had helped construct to contain the general public.

On 9 May 9 2005, Eric Alterman headlined in The Nation, “Bush’s War on the Press,” and he observed that, contrary to conservative cant, “Media insiders appear to like Bush a great deal more than the public does.” He was correct there (Bush’s public approval ratings were then around 45%), and likewise correct in concluding that, “The press may be the battleground, but the target is democracy itself.” Even if conservatives had hired the major media’s executives, there was a growing discordancy between the objectives of this government and of the press, and worries were thus rising within the press that things were now perhaps going too far.

On Friday June 10th, the New York Times headlined “Panel Would Cut Public Broadcasting Aid,” and reported:

“A House Appropriations panel on Thursday approved a spending bill that would cut the budget for public television and radio nearly in half. … The cuts in financing went significantly beyond those requested by the White House.”

Republicans said that this was necessary “at a time of growing deficits,” but Democrats “took a different view.” In any event, this move proved that the assault on public broadcasting wasn’t just a Bush initiative; it was a Republican Party Crusade, going even beyond the Republican President’s thrust. Democrats managed to reverse most of the cuts. However, the overtly conservative media cited this restoration as ‘proof’ that public broadcasting was in bed with the Democratic Party, just as Kenneth Tomlinson and the rest of the Bush team were claiming.

On June 25th, Sam Singer, of the overtly conservative Chicago Tribune, headlined “Battle Lines Are Forming Over Public TV, Radio,” and reported that

“the Corporation for Public Broadcasting” (which was, in a sense, misleading — the actual targets here were instead PBS and NPR) was “reeling from a House effort to cut its funding and a series of attacks over perceived political bias.”

Singer, slyly using there the passive tense, didn’t note that this supposedly “perceived” bias was being “perceived” by the Bush Administration. However, he did observe that “CPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson, an outspoken critic of PBS’ content, seems determined to force changes at PBS and NPR,” and that “Democrats and others are waging a battle … to curtail Tomlinson’s influence.” Singer’s article implicitly agreed with Tomlinson’s charge that this conflict was simply between “Democrats” versus “Republicans”; it wasn’t at all between democracy versus fascism. Karl Rove could have written this article: its implicit viewpoint was that public broadcasting ought to represent the party in power, and that this party used to be Democrats, but was now Republicans, and so Republicans were now simply claiming what was theirs, no different than Democrats had previously done. Perhaps this kind of fraudulent ‘reporting’ was what Kenneth Tomlinson meant by ‘balance’; but what the Republicans were now doing had actually no precedent whatsoever in anything that any Democratic presidential administration had ever done — such a view of ‘history’ was merely a lie, more conservative mythmaking.

The Chicago Tribune’s ‘reporter’ mentioned, in passing, that “Tomlinson also has come under questioning for naming Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, to head CPB. Democrats argue Tomlinson is guaranteeing it will have a partisan nature by bringing in a former GOP partisan.” The false idea here was that Harrison was merely “a former” partisan, and that there was nothing unprecedented about appointing such a partisan political hack as the head of CPB. These lies were all deception by implication, rather than by assertion; the technique is classic propaganda — very professional, but not as journalism, professional only as propaganda.

The Republican Party’s takeover of the CPB then faded from the news, for three months, until Paul Farhi headlined, but buried deep inside the Washington Post, on 27 September 2005, “CPB Taps Two GOP Conservatives for Top Posts,” and reported: “A leading Republican donor and fundraiser was elected chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting yesterday, tightening conservative control over the agency that … is supposed to act as a buffer against outside political influence. … The board also elected another conservative … as its vice chairman. … With the changes, conservatives with close ties to the Bush administration have assumed control of every important position at the agency. … ‘It’s mind-boggling,’ Ernest J. Wilson II, one of two Democrats on the eight-member board, said in an interview.”

On October 30th, three groups — Common Cause, The Free Press, and the Center for Digital Democracy — jointly issued a press release headlined “Cronyism and Secrecy Run Rampant at Corporation for Public Broadcasting: New president fills the CPB offices with partisan propagandists; Inspector General’s report on political meddling by ex-chairman [Kenneth Tomlinson] kept from the public.” The viewpoint expressed was: “The CPB is being governed more like a private, secret society than an agency supported by taxpayers.” For more than a year, there was a pause regarding the Republican war against PBS. Then, on 5 February 2007, tvweek.com bannered “Bush Proposes Steep Cut to PBS Funding,” and Ira Teinowitz reported that, “President Bush is reopening the fight over government support of public television, unveiling a 2007 government fiscal year budget that would cut federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by nearly 25 percent.” This cut would be 31% “when cuts in related programs are added.” Leaving PBS and NPR to depend more and more on support from the large corporations, which were controlled by executives who donated overwhelmingly to the Republican Party, would virtually compel those networks to become even more politically compliant than they already were. (And this is what happened.)

If anything, the Bush Administration’s war against public broadcasting was due to public broadcasting being not sufficiently biased, rather than to its being too biased. OnThursday November 10th, of 2005, the trade journal, Broadcasting & Cable, had headlined “Survey Says: Noncom[mercial] News Most Trusted,” and opened: “Some Republicans … have griped about the fairness and balance of public broadcasting’s news, but … A Harris telephone survey commissioned by the Public Relations Society of America and released Thursday found that 61% of the general public generally trusted news on PBS and NPR, while 56% trusted papers like the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or New York Times, and 53% trusted the commercial broadcast and cable news operations.” Bush’s war against public broadcasting reflected nothing but his desire to increase, even further, the ratio of propaganda to news. Despite PBS being slanted toward the Right, it was less so than was commercial broadcasting. (That’s no longer the case.)

Six days later, on November 16th of 2005, the Wall Street Journal headlined (also buried inside the paper) “Report Concludes Tomlinson Broke Law Involving PBS,” and reported: “The former head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting violated federal law and internal ethical guidelines by improperly interfering with programming to include more shows featuring conservatives and by using ‘political tests’ in hiring decisions, according to CPB’s inspector general.” Just the day before that, on the 15th — which was the very same day when the IG’s report was released — the media blogger Timothy Karr, at mediacitizen.blogspot, had headlined “CPB Report Tells Only Part of Story,” and he stated: “Missing from the report is email traffic between Tomlinson and White House political advisor Karl Rove, reportedly provided to Inspector General Kenneth Konz by investigators at the State Department. This evidence, which reveals the White House’s hand in manipulations of public broadcasting programming [and this involved the State Department; it was about international matters, which are the category of national affairs that an aristocracy is more concerned about than any other, because aristocrats control international corporations], is still under lock and key at the heavily partisan CPB.”

On 30 August 2006, the Washington Post bannered “Tomlinson Cited For Abuses at Broadcast Board: CPB Ex-Chief Put Friend on Payroll, State Dept. Says.” Paul Farhi reported that,

“A year-long State Department investigation has found the chairman of the agency that oversees Voice of America and other government broadcasting operations improperly used his office, putting a friend on the payroll and running a ‘horse-racing operation’ with government resources. … Although the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are unrelated entities, Tomlinson’s alleged violations overlapped both federal agencies. He conducted CPB work and ‘personal matters’ while working for the Broadcasting Board, and directed BBG employees to do the same. … The investigation also found that Tomlinson — a former Reader’s Digest editor and longtime Republican ally of White House political adviser Karl Rove — helped hire a friend as a BBG contractor without the knowledge of other board or staff members. … The most sensational complaint against Tomlinson might be that he used government resources to support his stable of thoroughbred racehorses, potentially violating federal embezzlement laws. … A White House spokeswoman, Emily Lawrimore, said Bush continues continues to support Tomlinson’s pending renomination as BBG chairman.”

America’s major commercial media were especially concerned about Bush’s attempt to enslave public broadcasting, because any success in that effort would mean that commercial “news” media would have even less freedom-of-action than they currently did — which already was not much.

On 4 October 2006, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting headlined “Study: Lack of Balance, Diversity, Public at PBS NewsHour,” and reported:

“The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS’s flagship news program, … fails to provide either balance or diversity of perspectives — or a true … alternative to its corporate competition.” For example, “Republians outnumbered Democrats by 2-to-1” among their guestlist. A news story from the AP on this study noted that it found that, “In stories about the Iraq war, people who advocate a U.S. withdrawal were outnumbered by more than five-to-one.”

The FAIR study covered the period between October 2005 and March 2006; throughout that period almost exactly half of respondents to the ongoing USAToday/Gallup Poll, when they were asked, “Do you think the U.S. should keep military troops in Iraq until the situation is stabilized, or do you think the U.S. should bring its troops home as soon as possible?” chose the latter. So, approximately half of the guests on PBS should have been advocating withdrawal, too. But obviously, Republican thuggery was having its intended effect upon PBS: a pronounced conservative slant. Perhaps this slant wasn’t as conservative as was that of the corporate media, but it was still conservative.

If fascism ever is, or becomes, the reality in the U.S., then the nation’s media won’t even call it “fascism”; it’ll be called merely “conservatism,” and its practitioners won’t be called “fascists,” but simply “Republicans” — the American public will never be informed, by their “news” media, what has actually happened to their country. (And they weren’t.)

This struggle between the press and this Administration was subterranean, and it occurred on many different fronts. The very ability of the “news” media to function as news media was now being eroded away, and so the presslords inevitably recognized that even they were now losing their freedom. They didn’t like this. On 24 April 2005, the Boston Globe headlined “In War’s Name, Public Loses Information,” and reported that, “Federal agencies under the Bush administration are sweeping vast amounts of public information behind a curtain of secrecy in the name of fighting terrorism, using 50 to 60 loosely defined security designations that can be imposed by officials as low-ranking as government clerks. … There is no system for tracking who stamped it, for what reason, and how long it should stay secret. There is no process for appealing a secrecy decision.” One of these classifications was “Not for Public Dissemination.” Another was “For Official Use Only.” The provisions of the Freedom of Information Act could now be ignored at will, merely by employing one of these 50 to 60 classifications.

On 21 June 2007, americanprogressaction.orgheadlined “Conservatives Dominate The Airwaves” and linked to a joint study by the Center for American Progress and the Free Press, titled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.” It documented that radio had a higher penetration than any other medium in the U.S., that talkradio was second only to country music as the dominant radio format, and that “91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive.” Furthermore, it documented that this fascism wasn’t due to talkradio audiences being overwhelmingly conservative (they were only slightly to the right of the general American public), but rather to the takeover of radio stations by huge chains of radio stations, which were far more conservative than the public: Salem, Cumulus, Citadel, and Clear Channel. Even the most liberal of the big chains, CBS, was 74% conservative and only 26% progressive in the programs it aired. Salem, Cumulus and Citadel were 100% conservative. The largest chain, Clear Channel, was 86% conservative. The fascist propaganda pouring out of America’s highly concentrated “news” media was a veritable ocean to drown any truth.

Nor was this President backing down from his bald program to use tax dollars to produce propaganda packaged and given away to “news” media as “news” stories. This program just expanded. On 18 July 2005, the New York Times headlined “Public Relations Campaign for Research Office at E.P.A. May Include Ghostwritten Articles,” and reported, “The Office of Research and Development at the Environmental Protection Agency is seeking outside public relations consultants, to be paid up to $5 million per year” to “ghost-write articles ‘for publication in scholarly journals and magazines.’ The strategy … includes writing and placing ‘good stories’ about the E.P.A.’s research office in consumer and trade publications.” The reporter, Felicity Baringer, asked the editor of Science magazine what he thought of this: “He found the idea of public relations firms ghostwriting for government scientists ‘appalling.’”

After Bush’s 2004 “electoral” win, the boom was finally coming down on American democracy. On 8 August 2005, Todd Shields, at mediaweek.com, headlined “FCC Hires Conservative Indecency Critic,” and opened, “The Federal Communications Commission has hired an anti-pornography activist and former lobbyist for groups that push for Christian precepts in public policy.” They had employed, “as a special advisor in the FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis,” Penny Nance, a board member of Beverly LaHaye’s Concerned Women for America. The group “describes its mission as ‘helping … to bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy.’”

Politically organized Christians had floated this “compassionate conservatism” into office upon a sea of aristocratic money, which wasn’t really compassionate at all, and the regime was now baring its theocratic/aristocratic fascist teeth, even over the presslords.

The result was sometimes unpredictable. For example, the Washington Post’s columnist David Broder had a long history of serving up pablum to his readers, as bland as can be. However, after the House restored $100 million to the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to support NPR and PBS, Broder headlined on 30 June 2005, “The Price Of Public TV’s Win,” and he boldly noted that Republicans had taken this money out of the hides of poor children. “As Ralph Regula, the Ohio Republican who heads the Appropriations subcommittee that drafted the bill, said, ‘That takes away from young people’s training opportunities’ … to gain … living-wage jobs.” Broder also noted that the Democrats had tried, but failed, to restore this $100 million via eliminating some of the recent tax-cuts for millionaires, and that “It was defeated on a party-line vote.” Broder was even so bold as to close by saying: “It’s one more instance of the prevailing political culture — controlled by a budgetary and tax system that puts the lowest value on the needs of those who are the most vulnerable.” The difference between that statement, and saying that the United States had become a fascist country, was merely terminological; he chose not to use the clear terminology.

The United States had entered historic new territory after nearly 50 years of aristocratic/theocratic mass-indoctrination of the American people, which had occurred with the full support and cooperation of the nation’s presslords. There was now doubt; the old arrangements finally started to become questioned. Things were no longer settled. This was a real change of mentality. Only recently, there had been a total passivity of the U.S. press: it propagandized for the President’s Medicaid prescription drug plan; it propagandized for his fabricated accusations against “Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction”; it served as an extension of the White House press office on many other of the President’s fraud-based programs. But this passivity was now finally replaced by a rising fear within the press, that the U.S. might be transforming into a fascist state, which could threaten the press itself. The presslords themselves were at last becoming disturbed.

However, this President was already near to his goal of a totalitarian lock-down. Consequently, what could the press do, at such a late date? They had already given him the rope to hang not just the public, but themselves. He took it. The American press that stenographically transmitted to the American public the U.S. government’s lies about “Saddam’s WMD” is continuing as if it hadn’t been sufficiently compliant. America’s great victories in overthrowing Gaddafi and Yanukovych are now supposed to be followed by Assad, and then Putin.

And European nations take this leadership as their own, instead of abandoning the U.S., abandoning NATO, and abandoning the U.S.-controlled EU; abandoning all the mega-corporate, U.S.-aristocracy-controlled, international-corporate fascist system — and now they willingly take in the millions of refugees from the bombs that the U.S. had dropped in Libya and Syria, and that the U.S.-installed rabidly anti-Russian government in Ukraine is dropping onto the areas of the former Ukraine that have rejected the U.S.-imposed (in February 2014) government in Kiev.

And the next target is Putin.

So: that’s the backstory behind the lie that Putin instead of Obama caused those millions of refugees pouring into Europe.

And, in German ‘news’ media, Bashar al-Assad and ISIS are being blamed for it, because practically no German is so media-deluded (like America’s conservatives are) as to think that Putin is to blame for it; and here is a German who states in very clear terms how rotten he thinks Germany’s ‘news’ media are (though America’s obviously are even worse).

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

David Cameron worries about “swarms” entering the UK. Swarms are clouds of insects. Cameron should know migrants from Syria, Iraq, and Libya are people. Yet solidarity is not fellow-feeling. It involves recognition. And recognition is not individual, or even social. It depends upon networks of beliefs and practises – social, economic, cultural and political.

It is significant that Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, wrote that liberation of the oppressed depends upon naming. He knew how difficult this is. So did Che Guevara. Guevara’s remarks about solidarity are relevant. Cameron’s uninteresting error deflects from the real challenge of the migrant crisis.

Guevara describes solidarity as readiness to die. His point is, in part, that solidarity involves sacrifice, even transformation. Solidarity, he warned, “has something of the bitter irony of the plebeians cheering on the gladiators in the Roman circus”. It is not enough “to wish the victim success”; instead, “one must share his or her fate. One must join the victim in victory or death”.[i]

Some won’t like mention of death. In North America, we practise “pathological upbeatness”[ii], believing in (our own) survival no matter what. Antonio Gramsci called such an attitude lazy. One allows one’s understanding of reality to be “burned at some sacred alter of enthusiasm”. Such optimism, he wrote, is “nothing but a way to defend one’s own laziness, irresponsibility and unwillingness” to see things as they are.

But seeing how things are depends also upon circumstances and conditions. It is not merely intellectual. Whether migrants are “swarms” or people is not, more interestingly, about language or philosophy. It is not mainly about human rights. Brazilian philosopher, Frei Betto, notes that “the mediation of philosophy doesn’t suffice for understanding the political and structural reason for the massive existence of the non- person”.

This was clear to Guevara. If one is “cheering on the gladiators”, one has little effect. Worse, though, without transforming relevant institutions, including ways of thinking, there may be no victims with whom to be in solidarity. Without challenging imperialism, including its unworkable vision of how to live, no people will be in the ring. They will not be identifiable as such. They are “non- persons”, who don’t count.

When Fidel Castro spoke to the United Nations in 1960, he invited the audience to imagine “that a person from outer space were to come to this assembly, someone who had read neither the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx nor UPI or AP dispatches or any other monopoly controlled publication. If he were to ask how the world was divided up and he saw on a map that the wealth was divided among the monopolies of four or five countries, he would say, ‘The world has been badly divided up’”.

The point is not that the world is badly divided up. The truth of that claim is obvious. But it is hard to give it importance. It is hard to see that it matters to how we think about the world and the people in it, including ourselves. The message to the UN is that a visitor from outer space— someone whose understanding arises from different circumstances and conditions — might see such empirical data as important, even urgent.

Or they may not. Italian journalist Gianni Minà notes that it is not surprising that the rich minority see no evil in a global system in which so many se nace para morir (are born to die). But he identifies a “grotesque logic” that makes it surprising that four- fifths of the world’s population, having lost their resources to the richest fifth, try to enter our borders for a chance at survival.

Solidarity is a tool for exposing such logic. Speaking to medical workers in 1960, Guevara advised:

“If we all use the new weapon of solidarity … then the only thing left for us is to know the daily stretch of the road and to take it. Nobody can point out that stretch … in the personal road of each individual; it is what he will do every day, what he will gain from his individual experience”.

“What he will do every day”. Guevara was a dialectical materialist, a naturalist, recognizing cause and effect. He saw human freedom as depending upon the “close dialectical unity” existing between people moving collaboratively in a definite direction. It is how we grow because it is how we know. It is a process of transformation, sometimes resulting in “el hombre nuevo” (the new person), who is able to understand better, from a more adequate perspective.

Contemporary feminists often agree. Intellectual understanding is limited by availability of concepts, including self-concepts. We cannot understand what we cannot name, at least not fully. Therefore, we must, occasionally, be moved by feelings, in the body, in order to know. Feelings can create interest, motivating discovery. Thus, for Guevara, true revolutionaries possess “great feelings of love”. They recognize human beings who are unnamed.

Guevara is criticized for urging armed struggle. (Although his daughter, Aleida, says that if her dad were alive, he’d be a techie, organizing on the internet, fascinated by computers.[iii]).But Guevara and Freire deliver a more threatening message. Freire argued that it is impossible that the direction toward “recovery of the people’s stolen humanity” not be detectable. Perhaps, possibilities for “authentic humanity … must simply be felt— sometimes not even that”. But they exist and are discoverable. They can be named through “unity, organization and struggle”.

The challenge is that if authentic humanity can be named, so also can the inauthentic. And it may be what we are living. Of course, we don’t believe in authentic humanity in North America, so we are saved. As Alan Ehrenhalt writes, we believe in choice, the more the better. Happiness is not authentic or inauthentic. It is whatever we choose it to be. Humanism, if it even exists, is known “from the inside”.

In contrast, Guevara, Freire, Simón Bolívar, José Martí, Frantz Fanon, and José Carlos Mariátequi knew “the tiger [of imperialism] waits behind every tree, crouches in every corner”.[iv] They had to ask how to know authentic humanity. And they knew living from the inside does not give the right answer. It does not include Latin Americans, already disqualified. Mariátequi, instead, insisted that indigenous traditions replace “Eurocentric thought”: “Life comes from the earth and returns to the earth”. Thus, it must be known “from the earth”, through engagement, not through self-absorption and introspection.

Guevara’s remarks on solidarity do not set him apart from other (mostly non-European) philosophers. The ancient Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu (fourth century BC) maintained that to lose one’s life is to save it and to seek to save it for one’s own sake is to lose it. Eastern philosophers in particular understood attachment to self, and obsession with security, to constitute the most radical form of alienation. One cannot know others that way, at least not most others. Even worse, one risks not knowing they are there to be known.

When BBC reporter Iain Bruce researched the Chávez revolution, he noted Venezuelans’ frequent use of the word surgir (to emerge, to spring forth). Venezuelans in the barrios described wanting to emerge. And indeed, a whole section of Venezuelan society, “millions of people who had been buried in silence, obscurity and neglect, have suddenly ‘emerged’ from the shadows and established themselves as actors, as protagonists both of their own individual stories and of the nation’s collective drama.”[v]

According to Bolivian president Evo Morales, “If we want to defend humanity, we must change the system, and this means overthrowing US imperialism.” But it is not just about the oppressed. At the first International Writers’ Congress for the Defense of Culture in 1935, Bertolt Brecht suggested that when someone falls down, other people faint, but if violence falls like rain, people turn away when others suffer. The issue was naming fascism. If violence is everywhere, falling like rain, it is not violence.

Springing forth, for Guevara at least, is what it means to be human, an implication of our real circumstances, within nature. We know the world, and the people in it, by changing the world, and being changed ourselves. Living from the inside, as we cheer the gladiators, we risk not knowing what we are cheering. We won’t see that violence is falling like rain.

There are better reasons to be upbeat than believing in ourselves. The “sacred alter of enthusiasm” could be better defined if we looked South. It is not just about seeing how the world divides up, and understanding the implications. It is also about authenticity in what Charles Taylor calls the “age of authenticity”, which may be false. Guevara’s remarks on solidarity are part of a bigger project; the human condition. It is not a radical view. And its merits can be known, by living. But the need for such a view must also be named. It may take “unity, organization and struggle”.

Nobel-prize-winning author, Gabriel García Márquez, noticed in Cuba “the near mystical conviction that the greatest achievement of the human being is the proper formation of conscience”. Guevara is part of the legacy. He saw moral, not material incentives driving the world forward, meaning by “moral” the broader, more interesting sense of experiencing humanness. This means that it is not virtuous to pursue solidarity but practical. At least, this is so if one acknowledges the “plain and practical scientific reality”[vi] of human interdependence.

The Second Declaration of Havana in 1962 states that “Cuba and Latin America are part of … the struggle of the subjugated people; the clash between the world that is dying and the world that is being born”. It is still the case. Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador have in recent years, as the Second Declaration describes, “pointed out the danger hovering over America and called it by its name: imperialism”. They have also named its consequences: a mistaken and damaging conception of human well-being. It hovers over all of us.

Susan Babbitt is associate professor of philosophy at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada and author of José Martí, Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Global Development Ethics: The Battle for Ideas (Palgrave MacMillan 2014).

Notes

[i] Guevara, Che.”Create two, three, many Vietnams”, David Deutschman (Ed.), The Che Guevara reader (New York: Ocean Press, 1997) 316

[ii] Terry Eagleton, Reason, faith and revolution (Yale University Press, 2009) 138

[iii] Speaking at Kingston Collegiate Vocational Institute, Kingston, Canada, Sept. 30, 2003.

[iv] Martí, José “Our America”. In Esther Allen (Ed. and Trans.), José Martí: Selected

writings (New York: Penguin Books, 2002) 293

[v] Bruce, Iain. The real Venezuela: Making socialism in the 21st century (London: Pluto Press, 2008) 22.

[vi] Martí, “Wandering teachers” In Deborah Shnookal & Mirta Muñez (Eds.), José Martí Reader: Writings on the Americas (New York: Ocean Books) 47.

The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a motion allowing the Palestinian flag to be flown in front of the UN headquarters. The motion was passed by 119 votes. France, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia being among the EU states that voted in favour.

By way of comparison, in 1947, UN GA Resolution No.181 to partition the then predominately Muslim Arab Palestine under British Mandate, to allow the establishment of an Israeli state was passed by just 33 votes to 13 (with 10 abstentions including Britain) in an assembly that represented only a minority of the global community of the time but was pushed through as a matter of political expediency by a lobby ­influenced, American congress.

‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’

Today, however, there is now dramatic change in the form of the emblematic symbol of the new State of Palestine that will proudly fly at the United Nations, demonstrating the power of moral authority over political machination and casino money.

There is now a global consensus that categorically denies the legitimacy of a Likud charter that hoped for a ‘Greater Israel’ encompassing the whole of former Palestine. That political aim is now ‘dead in the water’ as the flag of an independent State of Palestine is unfurled at the UN.

Now the flag of an independent Palestinian state must fly over the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza and there needs to be an international accord for permanent access roads, under UN supervision, to link the enclaved, constituent parts of the state together, with a rail link joining Rafah in the South through to Hebron, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Nablus and Janin in the North.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world­middle­east­34217186

Politicians and the media in both the US and Western Europe have cynically seized upon the plight of refugees fleeing violence in Syria as the pretext for intensifying the war for regime change in that country.

French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron, both of whom are feverishly working to keep all but a handful of refugees out of their respective countries, have announced bombing campaigns in Syria based on the apparent logic that the more high explosives are dropped over their heads, the more likely Syrians will decide to stay home.

Washington, meanwhile, has initiated a provocative confrontation with Russia over the latter’s longstanding military aid to the government of President Bashar al-Assad, with increasingly hysterical warnings of a Russian “buildup” in Syria.

These recent developments only underscore the ephemeral character of the pretexts used by the Western imperialist powers for their bloody intervention in Syria. First, it was defending “human rights” against the Assad regime, then a struggle against the terrorism of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Now it is a question of refugees and Russian “interference.”

The real forces driving Western intervention are naked geo-strategic interests in establishing hegemony over the world’s key sources of energy and pipeline routes linking them to the world market. Under conditions of deepening economic crisis, the ruling class—first and foremost, the US financial aristocracy—is planning an intensification of militarist violence.

These tendencies find direct expression in the media’s insistent drumbeat for an escalation of the Syrian war. Nowhere is this war propaganda more prevalent or more hypocritical than in the pages of the supposed liberal “newspaper of record,” the New York Times.

Leading the pack is Roger Cohen, the Times foreign affairs columnist whose piece entitled “Obama’s Syrian Nightmare” appeared Thursday.

Cohen’s thesis is that the plight of the Syrian people—a death toll of over 200,000, millions driven into exile or internally displaced and an entire society ravaged by civil war—is a product of “Western inaction.”

“American interventionism can have terrible consequences, as the Iraq war has demonstrated,” he writes.

“But American non-interventionism can be equally devastating, as Syria illustrates. Not doing something is no less of a decision than doing it. The pendulum swings endlessly between interventionism and retrenchment because the United States is hard-wired to the notion that it can make the world a better place.”

What reactionary lies and nonsense! Cohen, of course, does not share with his readers that he was a leading media advocate for the criminal war against Iraq. As for its “terrible consequences,” they never bothered him much. In 2009, long after it was clear that the war had claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and wrecked an entire society, Cohen wrote, “I still believe Iraq’s freedom outweighs its terrible price.”

After the US-NATO war for regime change succeeded in toppling and murdering Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Cohen wrote a triumphalist column entitled “Score One for Interventionism.” Nearly four years later, the country is the scene of bloody conflicts between rival militias and the epicenter of the wave of refugees, thousands of whom have died seeking to cross the Mediterranean.

Since the US-NATO war in Bosnia in 1995, Cohen has backed every US military intervention as well as destabilization operations from Iran to Ukraine, serving as the reliable journalistic servant of the US military and intelligence apparatus.

If he now finds fault with Obama’s Syria policy, it is to promote the positions of those within the US ruling establishment who want to initiate a full-scale war.

Cohen indicts the White House for backing away from its 2013 threat to bomb Syrian government forces based on the fabricated claim that they had used chemical weapons against civilians. Ample evidence has since emerged that it was the Western-backed “rebels” who staged the chemical attacks in a bid to provoke direct US military intervention.

He criticizes Obama for a lack of “will” and “belief in American power,” insisting that Syrian warplanes “could have been taken out” and that “arming the rebels early and massively might have changed the course of the war.”

All of this twists reality beyond recognition. Obama decided to hold off on bombing Syria in 2013 in no small measure because of overwhelming popular hostility to another war. The debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan have disabused millions of Cohen’s “hard-wired” notion that eruptions of American militarism “make the world a better place.” Since then, the White House and military have been maneuvering to revive their war plans and working out new pretexts for intervention.

As far as “massively” arming the so-called rebels, this in fact took place, with billions of dollars worth of weapons funneled to Islamist militias via Washington’s principal regional allies—Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar—and under the guiding hand of the CIA. If these arms failed to achieve Assad’s downfall, it is because masses of Syrians are hostile to the foreign-backed Islamist cutthroats.

The Syrian people are the victims, not of “Western inaction,” but of a series of criminal acts that stretch from the destruction of Iraq and Libya through to the fomenting of the sectarian civil war in Syria itself.

Cohen concludes by stating that, while Obama is “comfortable with pinpoint use of force,” i.e., drone strikes and assassinations, he is “uncomfortable with American military power.” The clear implication: get over it and launch another full-scale US war in the Middle East.

This perspective is echoed by Cohen’s fellow Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who led the propaganda charge for the war on Iraq. He argued in a column Wednesday that the only way to halt the flow of refugees was to either wall off the countries from which they are fleeing, or “occupy them with boots on the ground, crush the bad guys and build a new order based on real citizenship, a vast project that would take two generations.” In other words, a military recolonization of the entire Middle East.

The logic of the drive to escalate the Syrian war was further spelled out Wednesday in a Washington Post editorial. Pointing to the alleged Russian buildup in Syria, it states,

“Mr. Putin is acknowledging a truth that Mr. Obama has refused to accept: Any political agenda for Syria’s future is meaningless unless it is backed by power on the ground… If Mr. Obama wishes to see the US vision for Syria prevail over Russia’s, it will take more than phone calls.”

The warning could not be clearer or more chilling. Behind the backs of the American people, powerful elements within the American ruling class and the state apparatus, with the collaboration of their media hacks, are preparing a military intervention that poses direct confrontation between the US and Russia, the world’s two principal nuclear powers.

A new study has revealed that the Obama administration has carried out ten times more assassination drone strikes than the Bush administration which preceded it.

According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the George W. Bush administration ordered 50 drone attacks while the government of current US President Barack Obama has already launched around 500 such strikes.

Obama primarily ordered assassination strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan.

US President Barack Obama

The United States says the CIA-run drone strikes essentially kill militants, although casualty figures show that civilians are often the victims of the non-UN-sanctioned attacks.

According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, civilians and children are often mistakenly killed in the drone strikes.

Since 2001, the United States has been carrying out drone attacks in several countries, including Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia.

A US MQ-9 Reaper assassination drone<

The aerial attacks were initiated by Bush but have been escalated under Obama. The United Nations has called the US drone attacks targeted killings that flout international law.

Former US drone operator Brandon Bryant, who was involved in the killing of more than 1600 people, revealed earlier this year that aerial strikes are conducted with complete uncertainty.

Bryant, who worked for almost five years in America’s secret drone program bombing targets in Afghanistan and other countries, such as Pakistan and Iraq, said operators lacked visibility and were not sure about the identity of the people they were shooting at.

“We see silhouette, shadows of people, and we kill those shadows,” he said.

Who is a terrorist? Undoubtedly, what comes to mind is Daesh (ISIL), al-Qaeda, MKO, Boko Haram, etc. What is terrorism? The events of 9/11 and the gruesome beheadings carried out by Daesh shape our visual perception of terrorism. What is left unmentioned and unrecognized in our collective psyche is the kind of terrorism that has been deliberately obfuscated: sanctioned terrorism or terrorism with a license—sanctions.

The fact that scholars have identified over 100 definitions of the term terrorism demonstrates that there is no universally accepted definition. There is general consensus that terrorism is “viewed as a method of violence in which civilians are targeted with the objective of forcing a perceived enemy into submission by creating fear, demoralization, and political friction in the population under attack.”[i]

In 1937, the League of Nations Convention defined terrorism as: “All criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public.”

Article 1.2 of The Arab Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism signed in Cairo in 1998 describes terrorism as: “Any act or threat of violence, whatever its motives or purposes, that occurs for the advancement of an individual or collective criminal agenda, causing terror among people, causing fear by harming them, or placing their lives, liberty or security in danger, or aiming to cause damage to the environment or to public or private installations or property or to occupy or to seize them, or aiming to jeopardize a national resource”.

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1373, licensing the United States to wage war against terrorism without first defining terrorism. However, Section 1.B of 18 U.S. Code § 2331 on international terrorism includes the following:

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping. In spite of these clear definitions, sanctions—sanctioned terrorism is dubbed as “diplomacy”, “an alternate to war”, etc.

The reality of sanctioned terrorism is denied even by the UN from whence the most important definition terrorism was delivered in a seminal speech by Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations. Annan conveyed the findings of a high level UN panel “A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility”(2004)[ii] as having defined terrorism to be: “[A]ny action intended to kill or seriously harm civilians or non-combatants, with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling action by a government or international organization”.

Shamelessly, even after sanctioned terrorism took the life of one million Iraqis, the UNSC licensed terrorism against Iran—sanctions, without any remorse for the lost lives of one million Iraqi victims of sanctioned terrorism and untold numbers or other victims across the globe.

The terror inflicted by way of sanctions could not have been made more clear than what Kofi Annan reported of the 2004 UN panel’s findings stating that prevention was a vital part of any strategy to protect people against terrorism adding that “in today’s world, any threat to one is truly a threat to all” and that “any event or process that leads to deaths on a large scale or the lessening of life chances, and which undermines states as the basic unit of the international system, should be viewed as a threat to international peace and security. Such threats included “economic and social threats”.[iii]

“Security” in terms of international relations is understood to be human security. There are six sectors to security: physical, military, economic, ecological, societal and political. Any change from “secure” to “insecure” or a general deterioration in any one or more of these sectors, increases the potential for violence (Buzan 2009). In spite of it all, the UNSC licensed terrorism.

The overall failure to identify and deliberately obfuscate this act of terrorism has enabled this premeditated act of terrorism to continue with impunity. The success of this deception is owed to controlling the narrative with complicity from the media. This has been so effective that even the victims of sanctioned terrorism fail to grasp that they are being subjected to terrorism. As Walter Laquer famously wrote in his 1977 piece “Terrorism”: “The success of a terrorist operation depends almost entirely on the amount of publicity it receives.” Sanctioned terrorism has received no publicity.

Our present day understanding of terrorism was initially introduced by Hollywood that often borrows its story ideas from the U.S. foreign policy agenda and has at times reinforced these policies. Hollywood rarely touched the topic of terrorism in the late 1960s and 1970s when the phenomenon was not high on the U.S. foreign policy agenda, in news headlines or in the American public consciousness. In the 1980s, in the footsteps of the Reagan administration, the commercial film industry brought terrorist villains to the big screen, making terrorism a blockbuster film product in the 1990s, painting Arabs (and now Moslems) as terrorists.[iv] Thus the movie industry defined and projected terrorism to the world at large in a manner consistent with US foreign policy. The news media continues to play an even bigger role.

News media has consistently framed terrorism by presenting sudden, shocking scenes of carnage and blood in order to shock the viewer and drive home the narrative of what terrorism should entail—by implication, ruling out all other terrorist acts. So while the imagery creates fear and loathing, and a total rejection of terrorism as identified by the media, a parallel loathing of unidentified terrorism—of sanctioned terrorism has been deliberately precluded. This is propaganda at its finest.

It goes without saying that the aim of propaganda is to change people’s opinion and attempt to influence their future actions and decisions. What is common about propaganda is that it seldom shows the situation from different points of view and seldom gives the full picture. Images of sanctioned terrorism are sorely missing from the picture as the culprits make every effort to present sanctions as diplomacy, a tool of statecraft, and have even convinced the general public that it is a better alternative to war. In fact, sanctioned terrorism is the cowardly alternate to war for the victim is deprived of an unidentifiable enemy to fight. Sanctions, like other terrorists, don’t wear military uniforms.

It is incumbent upon every individual opposed to terrorism to take ownership of the falsely presented narrative about sanctions and refer to sanctions as sanctioned terrorism at all times. Terrorism, like pollution, does not recognize boundaries. Russia has learnt this the hard way. By Hillary Clinton’s own admission, the terrorists America is fighting today were created by the US. We cannot send our uniformed men and women to fight unidentified terrorism, sanctions. We must be the champions of this war on terror. Whether we want to speak for yesterday’s victims, or defend today’s victims of sanctioned terrorism, or whether we want to prevent future victims, we must fight sanctioned terrorism today.

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an independent researcher and writer with a focus on US foreign policy

Notes

George Szamuely.  Bombs for Peace: NATO’s Humanitarian War on Yugoslavia.  Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013 (Distributed in the U.S. and Canada by the University of Chicago Press).  Paper.  Pp. 611.

In Bombs for Peace, George Szamuely, a senior research fellow at the Global Policy Institute at London Metropolitan University, has produced a revealing and sharply argued analysis of Western intervention in the Balkan wars of the 1990s.  The primary focus of the book is on Western diplomatic and military interventions, which played a crucial role in the breakup of Yugoslavia and the plunge into conflict.  Continued intervention fueled deeper conflict, as the United States repeatedly smashed every prospect for peaceful settlement until it could impose its control over the region.

The author places these events in a wider policy context, exploring how Western leaders capitalized on conflict in the Balkans to reorient NATO into an offensive organization suited for out-of-area operations.  From participation in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan to the bombing of Libya, NATO’s aggressive role is firmly established.  Feeding the public with simple-minded morality tales, Western leaders distracted attention from their real goals.  “NATO,” Szamuely writes,

“under constant U.S. prodding, seized on the crisis in Yugoslavia to transform itself from a defensive alliance into a global superpower, a coalition of powers that would purport to use force to secure peace and stability, a protagonist in other people’s conflicts yet also a referee.  NATO could nonetheless not admit publicly that it had now become a war-making machine.  So it came up with an ingenious formula. . . .  Humanitarian war was to become its credo.”  Non-Westerners rightly perceived NATO’s humanitarian war doctrine “as a fraud, a smokescreen to confuse the public, a mélange of wild exaggerations and deceptions to justify intervention in the affairs of small, weak states or in complicated conflicts on behalf of certain protagonists and against others.”

In his opening chapter, “Yugoslavia: Destroying States for Fun and Profit,” Szamuely lays bare the myriad diplomatic maneuvers by U.S. and Western European officials that guaranteed the destruction of the state and made war inevitable.  Western intervention was consistently one-sided and heavy-handed, aimed at the demise of Yugoslavia, the last remaining socialist nation in Europe.

Having successfully backed the secession of Slovenia and Croatia, the West then threw its support behind the separation of Bosnia-Hercegovina.  After encouraging Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegović to renounce the Lisbon Agreement that he had just signed, an accord that would have prevented war from breaking out, the United States then sabotaged the London Conference.  Quoting an approving Western media report that applauded war and derided peace negotiations, Szamuely responds:

“Thus the perfect expression of that peculiar, yet fashionable, moral sentiment: continued war, more killings, more destruction of towns and villages, more displacement of populations, more detention camps, more refugees were preferable to an agreement that — perish the thought — ‘might silence the guns for a time.’  Heroism comes easily to those for whom it’s vicarious.”

As the war dragged on in Bosnia, the United States repeatedly derailed peace negotiations and blocked ceasefires.  Countless lives were lost to serve the dubious goal of imposing U.S. control over the region.

When Croatia launched Operation Storm against the Krajina region, it killed 2,500 and expelled 200,000 Serbs, dwarfing in size any single act of population removal that had taken place in Bosnia.  The Croatian forces that launched the operation were well armed with Western weaponry and had the backing of the United States, which had prepared them with military training.  U.S. warplanes provided support by bombing a Krajina Serb airfield and destroying radar installations, allowing Croatian planes free rein to bomb and strafe columns of fleeing civilians.  “U.S. officials were delighted,” Szamuely writes.  “Here was a massive humanitarian disaster that the humanitarian interventionists could celebrate.”  He goes on to quote approving statements made by several U.S. officials.

Bosnia marked NATO’s first military engagement.  In the largest of its bombing campaigns in that war, NATO launched widespread attacks against Bosnian Serb sites in support of Croatian cross-border and Bosnian Muslim offensives in 1995.  U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke met with Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, and urged him to extend his forces’ assault in neighboring Bosnia: “I would hope that you can take Prijedor, Sanski Most, and Bosanski Novi.”

The end of the war in Bosnia accomplished the Western goals of military occupation and political and economic control over the newly minted state that became a colony in all but name.  From the Western standpoint, there remained the problem that Yugoslavia, then comprised of Serbia and Montenegro, with its socialist-dominated economy was still in place.  A new pretext would have to be invented for war, and that was found in Western support for the secessionist Kosovo Liberation Army.  “For NATO, Kosovo was to be the test of its new post-Cold War strategy of offering military solutions to non-military problems,” Szamuely points out.

Szamuely details the maneuvers by U.S. diplomats at peace talks in Rambouillet, shortly before the NATO bombing campaign, in which they steered the outcome towards war.  The inescapable conclusion is that U.S. leaders wanted war.

The bombing of Yugoslavia provided a lesson for future interventions.  The absence of evidence to buttress wild and exaggerated propaganda claims is no impediment.

“Nothing succeeds like success.  And the measure of success is the lack of NATO casualties.  Small wonder, then, that in 2002 and 2003 U.S. and British officials and their media boosters disdainfully ignored the intelligence that raised serious doubts about Iraq’s WMDs.  The Kosovo experience had taught them that failure to find evidence to support the claims used to launch an armed attack would be quickly forgotten amid the scenes of public rejoicing and ecstatic military parades.”

That scenario was to be replayed in Libya, where Western accusations of an imagined impending massacre provided the self-justification for bombing.

 “Yet, as in Yugoslavia, the Western powers made no attempt to ascertain whether a crime had been committed or was about to be committed. . . .  The NATO powers were determined to start bombing as soon as the Security Council passed its resolution.  Any delay might have led to a peaceful resolution of the crisis, an outcome the powers were as anxious to avoid in 2011 as they were in 1999.”

Szamuely is devastating in his critique of U.S. diplomatic measures leading up to NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia.  These maneuvers are essentially unknown to the Western public, including those on the Left who continue to cleave to the notion of U.S. leaders’ veracity and good intentions in regard to attacking small nations.  Only through an act of willful blindness could such a belief be sustained in the face of the mountain of evidence that Szamuely marshals.

Laced with lacerating humor, Bombs for Peace is particularly effective in its deconstruction of Western rhetoric.  Time after time, Szamuely quotes Western leaders’ words and takes them apart and subjects them to scathing logical analysis.  With sweeping eloquence, Szamuely argues his points in a compelling and authoritative manner, exposing the mendacity of the proponents of war.

The official mythology is that NATO intervention stopped the wars in the Balkans.  “As usual,” Szamuely notes, “the media were more than happy to go along with this story.  Yet the only wars the NATO powers had brought to an end were those they themselves provoked and subsequently prolonged.”

The Western role in the Balkans is an object lesson that provides the template for many of the West’s subsequent interventions and wars, andBombs for Peace is essential for understanding the nature of that relationship.

 “The complacency and arrogance of NATO’s leaders was extraordinary,” observes Szamuely.  “To people who had been subjected to Western colonial rule — most of the non-Western world — NATO’s self-satisfied assumption of a new global mission sounded an awful lot like the old ‘white man’s burden.’  NATO was the old imperial club, back together again with a plan to ensure continuing rule over the world’s backward people.”

Prodigiously researched, Bombs for Peace is graced with the elegant prose style typical of the author, and with his long-held passion for justice.  It is so beautifully written that it is hard to put down, and constitutes a damning exposé of Western policy.

Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and the Advisory Board of the Korea Policy Institute.  He is a columnist for Voice of the People, and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language.

 China’s wealthiest classes have secured their recent fortunes through various means, both legal and illegal: These include (1) the privatization of public enterprises; (2) the savage exploitation of cheap labor after destroying workers rights , protections and social welfare legislation; (3) large-scale, long-term corruption of government officials; (4) the often violent state-sponsored land-grabs from towns, villages and farmers and the land transfer to private investors; (5) real estate speculation; (6) changes in state regulatory policies leading to oligopolistic control of markets; (7) large-scale tax evasion, money laundering and offshore transfers of profits and (8) state policies dictating low wage and salaries and repressing workers collective action.

The Communist leadership’s pursuit of an ‘export-oriented’ growth model, based on reducing labor costs to secure competitive advantages in world markets, coincided with the emergence of aggressive Chinese capitalists intent on increasing their profits and concentrating private wealth.

This model of capitalist accumulation required ‘capital-friendly’ labor policies to attract large-scale, long-term investment from US, Japanese and European multinational in association with China’s wealthiest capitalists.

China’s capitalist development was based on a triple alliance of national, foreign and state capitalists, all of whom depended on the widespread, massive corruption of state-party officials.

The Dynamics of Mature Capitalism

As the economy grew, national capital diversified from manufacturing to the FIRE economy, (finance, insurance and real estate). As the economy “liberalized”, overseas and local financial institutions proliferated. Speculative profits attracted major investors as well as millions of middle class ‘fortune seekers’.

China’s growth led to its rise as the primary market for raw materials and the primary producer of imported consumer goods in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Its rapid growth provoked the US to build-up its bases around China and launch a policy of military confrontation and encirclement as well as regional trade exclusion (the so-called ‘Pivot to Asia’)..

The long, deep recession in the European markets and the financial crisis in the US limited China’s high growth export model.

Meanwhile, second and third generations of skilled Chinese workers became more militant, demanding and winning double digit wage increases. At the same time rural communities staged mass demonstrations and took direct action against corrupt local officials linked to land-grabbing speculators and other attempts to drive them from their homes and farms on behalf of powerful real estate interests.

Wealthy Chinese investors, who diversified into the FIRE economy, created a speculative real estate bubble.

High-ranking party officials, who had enriched themselves through the corrupt takeovers of lucrative state monopolies, caused economic stagnation and deep political disenchantment among the mass of Chinese people.

Worldwide demand for China’s exports declined with the global economic crisis.

Crises and Rectification

Faced with a major loss of political legitimacy, the stagnation of its global export markets, a real estate bubble and stock market volatility, the Chinese government launched a wide-reaching rectification campaign which featured:

1. A massive anti-corruption campaign was launched to restore morality to the government and to win back public respect. Over 250,000 corrupt officials were identified, investigated and tried. Many were imprisoned or dismissed and some were executed.
2. Reform of wage and income policies was designed to reduce inequalities and encourage domestic consumption. As a result wages rose 10% annually.
3. The investigation and prosecution of speculators, including investors connected to foreign hedge funds and big oligarchs who had gained gaining billions by “defrauding” retail investors, was initiated by the judiciary.
4. The Chinese currency, the renminbi, was devalued to promote exports.
5. The government increased military spending in order to confront the US naval encirclement, including upgrading its of most sophisticated weapons systems, which were on display recently during China’s massive ‘Victory over Japan’ parade.
6. Two new international investment-financial organizations was set up to counter the US dominated IMF and World Bank and to encourage the participation of regional trade partners as a response to Washington’s Asia Pacific trade arrangements which specifically excluded China.
7. Greater emphasis is now placed on providing domestic government services, enforcing tax collection, broadening social welfare legislation and social accountability.
8. Measures are being implemented to prevent the flight of Chinese capital by oligarch families as they flee criminal prosecution for their illicit business activities.

The Response from China’s Wealthy Classes

China’s wealthy classes are resisting these government reforms designed to lessen some of the class imbalances and injustices and to deal with the multiple crises in the society and economy. They have been transferring hundreds of billions of dollars out of the country – essentially disinvesting and de-capitalizing the economy. They have expressed deep concern that the increase in workers’ wages will cut into their profits and that they will lose their lucrative contracts as well as access to compliant, corrupt government officials. They are anxious to hide their source of wealth for fear they will end up in the criminal docket with corrupt partners in the government.

China’s wealthy classes have gone on a buying spree of overseas real estate, fixed income securities, commercial properties, trust products, etc. in an attempt to safely stash their wealth.

Large-scale speculation, the massive flight of capital and cancelling of irregular state loans have all contributed to the current volatility in the Chinese economy. China’s wealthy classes create their own self-fulfilling prophecy: their capital flight and speculation creates the very volatile conditions that then serve as the pretext for even more capital flight.

Crisis, Rectification and the Struggle for Power

The source of the current Chinese crisis is found in the behavior and political alliances of the leading classes who benefited from the rapid growth Chinese capitalism.

Progressive capitalist reformers believe that to end the crises requires radical reforms. They advocate: (1) returning the financial market to its original role as an instrument of productive activity; (2)reversing the liberalization of the financial market, including ending speculation by Western hedge funds, re-introducing capital controls, going after tax evaders and punishing massive illegal transfers of profits to offshore havens; and (3) increasing domestic mass consumption and imposing restrictions on conspicuous elite consumption, via progressive income tax and welfare measures.

The process of rectification has encountered passive resistance from the comprador capitalists as they spirit their wealth out of China. Wealthy Chinese have adopted a post-colonial comprador mentalityborn out of their tight economic ties with Western capitalists. They absorbed the neo-liberal ideology; they prize Western education and culture and turn to the US imperial state to protect their wealth – in a dramatic shift of loyalties.

Their own children attend the most expensive private US universities where they are indoctrinated with US elite-centered political and economic dogma.

They stash their money in high end real estate as an investment and to house their families and children who attend elite US schools..

Conclusion

It is difficult for Chinese political and economic ‘reformers’ to solve the problem of the comprador capitalist, because the ‘reformers’ have engaged in similar behavior and practices over the years.

It is critical for the ‘reformers’ to expose the illicit wealth and go after the compradors with aggressive prosecution. This will be difficult because many reformers have family members among the comprador class, have benefited from the speculative ‘boom’ and have sent their own children abroad. Some may even have their own secret bank accounts overseas – the profits from deals made with big investors.

There is no deep fundamental or class division between compradors and reformers in China. However, the crisis and capital flight is intensifying class polarization and external events are forcing a deeper rethink of how China should confront US militarist policies.

The US military threat is causing problems for Chinese compradors and their economist-propagandists. It is difficult to ‘sell’ the idea of opening wide to Wall Street when the country is staring down the barrels of US guns.

In a strategic sense, this frenzy of Chinese capital flight legitimizes the rectification campaign and weakens compradors’ influence in the economy. Even some of China’s most ardent economic liberals are in flight!

Nevertheless, the reformers’ hesitant steps, their deep ‘faith in the market’ and the massive presence of foreign multi-nationals inside China indicates that real, deep, structural changes are not on the agenda. China’s reformers have started their new version of “The Long March” through many layers of corrupt, flawed and failing institutions …Bigger and more consequential changes await the awakening of the working class.

A year ago article called 9/11 the mother of all Big Lies – the grandest of grand deceptions, state-sponsored criminality, the most heinous ever false flag changing everything.

Each anniversary is a time to remind people of the evil intent behind the incident. What happened wasn’t a tragedy. It was criminality on steroids against peace – perpetrated by America against humanity, a duplicitous scheme to convince people to wage war on terrorism, targeting designated bad guys invented out of whole cloth because US officials say so.

Endless wars against nations threatening no others followed that fateful day – continuing with no end in sight, combined with homeland police state terror targeting Muslims, African Americans, Latino immigrants and organized labor.

Fundamental rule of law principles were discarded – considered quaint and out-of-date. Washington rules alone decide things.

America is more militarized than ever in history – despite having no enemies except ones it invents. US streets are battlegrounds. Thousands of political prisoners languish in its gulag – at home and abroad. Torture is official policy. So is state-sponsored mass murder.

Independent nations are targeted for regime change. Illegitimate fascists are installed to replace sitting governments. Media scoundrels regurgitate state propaganda. Misinformation and Big Lies substitute for hard truths. War is glorified in the name of peace.

Invasions and colonizations are called liberation. Plunder is called economic development. Raping nations is called democracy building. They’re destroyed to free them.

Might justifies right. Open, free and just societies aren’t tolerated. Human and civil rights are violated for our own good. Patriotism means going along with what harms us – sacrificing fundamental freedoms disappearing in plain sight.

Terrorism is what they do, not us. Global mass slaughter and destruction are small prices to pay. Whistleblowers are imprisoned for exposing government wrongdoing.

Monied interests alone benefit. Humanity’s survival is threatened but who cares. Endless wars for power and profit matter most – no matter the body count and cost in human misery.

No nation in history caused more harm to more people over a longer duration than America – on steroids post-9/11, launching 14 years of endless war on humanity, risking possible nuclear mass destruction able to end life on earth.

Bipartisan lunatics infest Washington. Obama wants congressional authorization for unlimited war. He has lots more death and destruction in mind – perhaps confronting Russia and/or China belligerently before leaving office, an act of madness if initiated.

America’s culture of violence glorifies wars in the name of peace – reckless imperialism Michael Parenti calls “theprocess whereby the dominant investor interests in one country bring to bear military and financial power upon another country in order to expropriate the land, labor, capital, natural resources, commerce, and markets of that other country.”

War is America’s longstanding strategy for dominance – duplicitously claiming exceptionalism and moral superiority, forcing its will on others globally, spreading the Big Lie about democracy building.

The business of America is war, endless aggression for wealth and power. Obama is the latest in a long line of US warrior presidents. His successor will continue endless wars.

Money controlled duopoly power runs America. Names and faces of key officials are interchangeable. The outcomes of next year’s presidential election and key congressional races are predetermined. Voting is a waste of time.

Business as usual always wins, post-9/11 more than ever before.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PMCentral time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

As 911 commemorations of the historic attacks take place alongside newer assaults on collective awareness by our mind managers, we need to understand that the menaces we are propagandized to see originating from evil outsiders are usually provoked and prolonged by western governments, most especially the USA and Israel. Unfortunately, the false picture of the world that we get doesn’t only come from major media but also from what we call social media as well.

When horrible photos of a dead Syrian baby went “viral” –meaning it was seen, by design, everywhere anyone could possibly see it – the motivation of decent people was to protect escaping refugees from the horrors suffered by that poor child and hordes of others seemingly being denied by Europeans not allowing them into their homelands. Rarely was anyone moved to think that we might stop the need for people to escape the horrors of wars in Syria and other nations by ending our support, direction, funding and participation in those wars. This thought needs to go “viral” but that will only happen when media becomes truly social and is out of the control of the anti-social forces presently manufacturing ignorance among its subjects, however sincerely well intentioned those subjects may be.

When news of a hunter slaughtering a lion in Zimbabwe went “viral” some weeks before, the same well meaning action of a manipulated audience produced outrage, demonstrations calling for the murderer’s execution and worse, just as the current refugee situation has judgmental people nearly shrieking about heartless Europeans, fascists and racists everywhere but here, where heartless leadership distracts by showing selected ugliness to masses of people with no explanation offered except that “they” – evil others – are responsible. In this case, a human baby rather than an animal – greatly feared by most Zimbabweans, however misguided many americans may be about its loving qualities – was the reason used to touch people’s hearts while removing from their minds any capacity to think. But the end result is the same, much desired by the manipulators and much to the loss of the public so lied to while being honestly moved: wrath or compassion directed at symbols with no historic, political or economic awareness of social problems greater than the electronic over dramatized moments of personal tragedy for some that misses national disasters for millions.

The middle east bloodbath which has at this point murdered hundreds of thousands, reduced millions to refugee status and destroyed places which were european created nations but at least had secular leaderships running materially developed political economies is overwhelmingly a creation of the USA, and its junior- senior partner, Israel.

First Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Libya, more recently Syria and Yemen and other nations in the middle east were all direct results, though of a much longer colonial history, of the 911 attack on America. And that much longer history looms large in the treatment of Iran as some form of menace to humanity, so dubbed for having served as a subject of western domination and having the unmitigated gall to desire its own rather than outside control of its national destiny by having a revolution and booting out its foreign overlords. How much longer can this situation go on without some of the worst fantasies and fabrications of the “terrorist” lobby in Usrael not forcing the horrid nightmares it creates to become physical reality? With an attack much larger than 911 taking place somewhere in the USA? Or Israel?

We have created far more enemies and hatred for us by our national destruction and human displacement policies which have reduced the geographic area from what used to be secular nations to territories controlled by groups driven by religious zealotry to drive out infidels and murder any unfortunates seen as patrons or followers of those infidel invaders. While the financing and backing of the various fundamentalists offers a field day for the western conspiracy cults who see no results of imperial backlash that are not attributable to the empire itself, some almost claiming they originate on the white house lawn, the more serious reality is that we have brought about a dreadful situation in the world and most americans are still led to believe it is all about nasty people who want to kill us for no reason or who won’t take in refugees with little thought about why there are refugees in the first place.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the continued depiction of Russian, or Putin, as a threat to global capital (or puppies or kittens or health spas, it gets almost that stupid) escalates with civil war in the Ukraine allegedly causing sleepless depression among sensitive USA leadership and its NATO lap dogs. That Russia might have some concern, given that the Ukraine not only is on its borders but was an invasion pathway during a war that killed millions of its people, and also numbers many Russians among its population, is hardly given a thought. After all, what does another nation or people matter when we contemplate the surface story with no background we are given about anything, except that we mean well and everyone else is monstrously evil?

Most of this foreign policy nightmare is reported to the American people as often infantile anecdotal trivia, with less meaning than exchanging restaurant menus or selfies on spacebook, but with far more dangerous implications than simple acts of personal vanity or carefree fun. Nations which are nuclear powers are being provoked by situations that all relate to struggles involving the continued desire of some to dominate others, and all because they think themselves a master race of self appointed chosen people who have been given the responsibility of running the planet by some universal power unknown to the rest of us but having something to do with markets, branding, private profits and public losses.

The problem is that more and more profits are accruing to less and less people, while more and more losses are building up for more and more people. Those suffering the horrors that we are made to see as bits of electronic information that often pass in an instant without any context and do no more than get an emotional reaction which does nothing to solve the greater problems from which they stem. These images become a perverted form of selfies, which go viral to keep us unconscious, and do so under the control of those who manipulate us to help them gather even more profits, at our loss.

When what is called social media is used to bring people together pursuing solutions to problems that truly help rather than cause more pain and suffering, they strengthen humanity and not just a few using a device to connect with a few others. But when the system is under the control of forces which use any and all devices to further their domination over us, they become anti-social media, and part of an anti-social political economic structure that must be changed in its entirety and not just in control of the devices we use to communicate with one another.

The filters between us see to it that what goes “viral” is frequently what markets well, but does not bode well for humanity’s future. We need to be more careful about everything we see and hear, and not just in and on major media but in and on the little devices we use for shopping and other personal pleasures, assuming we have any besides shopping. We need to be more critical and thoughtful of everything we see and hear before rushing off to judgment with nothing but a surface view of what often has extremely deep historic, cultural and economic roots. Most of what we get, whether on broadcast corporate media or on “personal” corporate media, warrants that we remember the adage: text without a context is a pretext. That was true before 911, but has become even truer since.

On July 31, unidentified Israeli settlers set the Dawabsha family home ablaze – killing husband and wife Saad and Riham as well as their 18-month-old infant Ali.

Four-year-old Ahmed alone survived so far – whether able to recover from severe third-degree burns remains to be seen. At best, he faces months of pain and suffering along with excruciating treatment and rehabilitation, likely remaining traumatized longterm from his ordeal. At worst, he may perish like his parents and brother.

On September, 10, Haaretz headlined “Israeli Authorities Know Who Burned Palestinian Family Alive, Defense Minister Says.”

Israel gets away with mass murder and occupation harshness unaccountably. Extremist settlers rampage with, committing near daily acts of violence and vandalism against defenseless Palestinians.

On Wednesday, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon admitted Israel knows who killed Dawabsha family members. Culpable individuals won’t be arrested or indicted, he said – to “protect the identity” of alleged intelligence sources, a ruse endorsing murder, effectively telling extremist settlers they can kill Palestinians with impunity.

A senior IDF official said security agencies have “no doubt” that immolating Dawabsha family members “was an act of Jewish terrorism, and that’s unambiguous.”

“All the conjecture and speculations being spread on this issue lack any basis in reality.” Eyewitnesses saw four individuals leave the crime scene – heading for the Maale Efraim settlement.

The official lied claiming Israeli security agencies are doing everything possible to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators. They’ve done nothing.

The crime made world headlines. Extrajudicially murdering Palestinians is longstanding practice – by soldiers, police, Mossad, other security operatives and extremist settlers.

UN figures show they carried out at least 142 violent attacks on Palestinians this year – over 20 since fire-bombing the Dawabsha family home. Accountability is virtually nil.

Separately, Netanyahu is in London Thursday meeting with David Cameron and other British officials. A petition demanding his arrest has over 109,000 signatures.

Hundreds wanting him held accountable protested outside Cameron’s Number 10 residence. He was officially welcomed as an honored guest – instead of arrested for high crimes against peace.

He persecutes Palestinians ruthlessly, wages premeditated naked aggression at his discretion, rejects peace entirely, his claims otherwise long ago discredited as Big Fat Lies.

Again from London, saying “here in 10 Downing Street, (I) reaffirm again that I am ready to resume direct negotiations with the Palestinians with no conditions whatsoever to enter negotiations, and I’m willing to do so immediately.”

False! He categorically rejects peace, wages daily war on Palestine, won’t negotiate – instead demands unconditional surrender.

Earlier peace process initiatives were dead on arrival each time. Decades of futility define them – the greatest hoax in modern times. Israel and Washington deplore peace. Violence and instability serve their agendas.

Palestinians have no say whatever, no rights, no security in their own land – brutally controlled by a foreign occupier. Nothing in prospect suggests change.

Israel and extremist settlers will continue getting away with murder. Palestinians legitimately defending their rights and well-being are called terrorists.

World leaders support Israeli high crimes by indifference and inaction. Palestinians continue suffering – with no end to their ordeal in sight.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PMCentral time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

The false flag operation of 9/11 was not an “intelligence failure”. It was the greatest “intelligence success” and criminal operation in history.

The Bush/Cheney administration’s 9/11 atrocity set in motion the world war that continues to expand and metastasize to this day. This war—the “war on terrorism”, the war on Afghanistan and Iraq, the war on Libya, the “war on the Islamic State” etc. is the same single war, all rooted in the Big Lie of 9/11. No corner of the world has escaped the reach of this still-growing horror. No individual is untouched by its flames. Thousands upon thousands have been murdered. Entire societies have been wiped out and displaced.

Today’s world—of endless war for oil, endless false flag terror operations and atrocities, unabated political criminality, economic looting, social upheaval, fascism, surveillance and cyber terror, and global war/intelligence-industrial police state—is the fruit of 9/11.

Fourteen years and countless false flag terror operations later, the US government is on the verge of toppling Syria using Al-Qaeda military-intelligence assets. The US now openly supports and arms Al-Qaeda all over the world. The very same Al-Qaeda terrorists that were “responsible for 9/11” are the West’s finest foot soldiers and military-intelligence assets. Al-Qaeda effectively controls two-thirds of Syria for the Anglo-American empire. Libya was overthrown by the same forces.

All of this merely brings us back to the inescapable conspiracy fact that the empire no longer bothers to hide:

Islamic “terrorists”, Al-Qaeda and its many functionaries (including the conveniently removed and semi-fictional Osama bin Laden) have been in the continuous employ of western forces and the CIA since the Cold War—before and since 9/11, up to this very minute. Al-Qaeda is American-made and CIA-sponsored. As written by Michel Chossudovsky, “those who lead the ‘Global War on Terrorism’ in the name of ‘Democracy’ are those who are supporting and financing the terrorist organizations which they themselves created”. The Islamic State is merely a variation upon the theme. It is also “American made”, openly supported and utilized by the United States and its allies, and under orders of US-NATO sponsors and handlers.

Today, Washington’s war makers can openly and freely embrace their terrorist associates and functionaries, and do so with confidence. The original 9/11 myth is so deeply embedded into the brain synapses that subsequent distortions do not even register. The acquiescent, ignorant masses scarcely notice that the official fairy tale has been routinely flipped this way and that, that way and this.

Even the refugee crisis—the direct result of the Anglo-American empire’s war and regional destabilization—is being manipulated by the CIA into yet another propaganda weapon. According the CIA’s corporate media, the Syrian government (that is under US attack) is to blame. Therefore, “we” must remove the Assad regime even sooner, by sending more of “our” Al-Qaeda “freedom fighters” to destroy what is left. Now, as on 9/11, Orwellian horror abounds.

Key 9/11 mastermind Dick Cheney promised that this war “will not end in our lifetimes”. Indeed it will not. Nor will the presence of 9/11’s most malignant criminals.

Barack Obama dutifully escalated the Bush/Cheney 9/11 agenda. Soon the Bush crime family will take back (or will be handed back) the reins of world criminal power again, under Jeb Bush, who aims to be president of the United States in 2016. Jeb, the “smart one”, has managed key Bush criminal enterprises since the Iran-Contra era.

George W. Bush is now a popular figure. A majority of Americans view him favorably. George H.W. “Poppy” Bush, the CIA godfather and venom-spitting mass murderer, is now viewed by most Americans as a kindly old harmless grandpa. The next generation of Bushes is on the rise, with George P. Bush, a nightmarish Bush scion of politically useful Latin descent, working his way up the ranks of Congress.

Hillary and Bill Clintons, whose association with the Bushes has been long-standing, are also poised for a White House run. Should a Jeb Bush campaign falter, the Clintons will run the war machine seamlessly. What is beyond much doubt is that the next phase of this war, one that will likely involve full-blown superpower conflict between the United States, Russia and China, will be spearheaded by denizens of the same criminal syndicate.

Tragically, everything that many whistleblowers of 9/11 have predicted has come about. It is bitter vindication for everyone who has spoken and written the truth. The world around us speaks for itself, and it is a death scream.

On September 11th and 12th, 2015, a global interactive broadcast of top researchers will expose the lies of the 9/11 attacks and the War on Terror. The broadcast can be viewed on www.RethinkSeptember11.wordpress.com from anywhere around the world.

click:  

www.RethinkSeptember11.wordpress.com 

Copyright: The source of this video is  Junio Lopez, Youtube, 2014

The “war on terror” is a 14-year-old lie foisted on the world by forces hostile to the US Constitution. This has been and remains a “war OF terror” waged against all people.

Low intensity police state at home and high intensity war abroad are the new norms. The fact that such a program has not been more widely acknowledged and refuted is a profound statement on the state of civil society in the early 21st century.

The lie is perpetuated by weakly-reasoned–indeed anti-scientifi–notions that renegade Islamic terrorists hijacked jet aircraft and defied basic physics by flying them into giant buildings at 500 MPH; that those very sky scrapers (one of which was never struck by an aircraft) crumbled into dust from minor fires; that the US was not preparing for war in the Middle East beginning shortly after George W. Bush’s inauguration; that Israel urgently sought a geopolitical rationale to crush the Second Intifada and confront its regional enemies.

Together these comprise the ideational edifice of the “war OF terror,” and the double think required of functioning journalists, academics, and statespersons today to buy the lie that “we” are combatting terrorism.

To think at any length that one’s everyday actions and entire way of life are predicated on the falsehood and deception begun 14 years ago is to be honest with oneself–to recognize a consciousness subdued in a constant forgetting the next mediated crisis is designed to bring.

The distant horror rooted in that complex set of events that to this day reverberates throughout the Middle East is too painful to acknowledge. Thus in the twisted logic required of salaried intellectual workers, those in search for potential causes grounded in science and reason are dismissed as pariahs–“conspiracy theorists”–while historical amnesia and broad acceptance of myth are accepted as the “sound judgement” required to perpetuate the madness.

–

Millions of refugees from Washington’s wars are currently over-running Europe.

Washington’s 14-year and ongoing slaughter of Muslims and destruction of their countries are war crimes for which the US government’s official 9/11 conspiracy theory was the catalyst. Factual evidence and science do not support Washington’s conspiracy theory. The 9/11 Commission did not conduct an investigation. It was not permitted to investigate.

The Commission sat and listened to the government’s story and wrote it down. Afterwards, the chairman and cochairman of the Commission said that the Commission “was set up to fail.” For a factual explanation of 9/11, watch this film: 

Here is a presentation by Pilots For 9/11 Truth:

Here is an extensive examination of many of the aspects of 9/11:

http://www.luogocomune.net/site/modules/sections/index.php?op=viewarticle&artid=167

Phil Restino of the Central Florida chapter of Veterans For Peace wants to know why national antiwar organizations buy into the official 9/11 story when the official story is the basis for the wars that antiwar organizations oppose. Some are beginning to wonder if ineffectual peace groups are really Homeland Security or CIA fronts?

The account below of the government’s 9/11 conspiracy theory reads like a parody, but in fact is an accurate summary of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory. It was posted as a comment in the online UK Telegraph on September 12, 2009, in the comment section in response to Charlie Sheen’s request to President Obama to conduct a real investigation into what happened on September 11, 2001.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/6177194/Charlie-Sheen-urges-Barack-Obama-to-reopen-911-investigation-in-video-message.html#disqus_thread

The Official Version of 9/11 goes something like this:

Directed by a beardy-guy from a cave in Afghanistan, nineteen hard-drinking, coke-snorting, devout Muslims enjoy lap dances before their mission to meet Allah. 

Using nothing more than craft knifes, they overpower cabin crew, passengers and pilots on four planes.

And hangover or not, they manage to give the world’s most sophisticated air defence system the slip.

Unfazed by leaving their “How to Fly a Passenger Jet” guide in the car at the airport, they master the controls in no-time and score direct hits on two towers, causing THREE to collapse completely.

The laws of physics fail, and the world watches in awe as asymmetrical damage and scattered low temperature fires cause steel-framed buildings to collapse symmetrically through their own mass at free-fall speed, for the first time in history.

Despite their dastardly cunning and superb planning, they give their identity away by using explosion-proof passports, which survive the destruction of steel and concrete and fall to the ground where they are quickly discovered lying on top of the mass of debris.

Meanwhile in Washington

Hani Hanjour, having previously flunked Cessna flying school, gets carried away with all the success of the day and suddenly finds incredible abilities behind the controls of a jet airliner. Instead of flying straight down into the large roof area of the Pentagon, he decides to show off a little. Executing an incredible 270 degree downward spiral, he levels off to hit the low facade of the Pentagon. Without ruining the nicely mowed lawn and at a speed just too fast to capture on video.

In the skies above Pennsylvania

Desperate to talk to loved ones before their death, some passengers use sheer willpower to connect mobile calls that would not be possible until several years later.

And following a heroic attempt by some to retake control of Flight 93, the airliner crashes into a Pennsylvania field leaving no trace of engines, fuselage or occupants except for the standard issue Muslim terrorist bandana.

During these events

President Bush continues to read “My Pet Goat” to a class of primary school children.

In New York

World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein blesses his own foresight in insuring the buildings against terrorist attack only six weeks previously.

In Washington

The Neoconservatives are overjoyed by the arrival of the “New Pearl Harbor,” the necessary catalyst for launching their pre-planned wars.

“You unpatriotic ‘9/11 Truthers’ can have annual conspiracy conventions on 9/11, with a host of speakers. To use a Russian expression, the dogs may bark as the train roars along. You are the dogs, and we are the train. Keep whining. We will keep on declaring ourselves unconvinced. We still own the TV, we still own the military, and you can chatter on the internet all you want as you fade into ineffectual obscurity.” –Tongue-in-cheek satirie from fellow 9/11 Truth-seeker Greg Ziegler PhD, a former US Military Intel officer and retired professor, whose commentary inspired this column.

This week will mark the 14^th anniversary of 9/11/01 and the beginning of America’s bankrupting endless war against any and all so-called foreign enemies that, in the opinion of the ruling elites, need to have their sovereign nations de-stabilized so that various economic and corporate predators can gain access to the resources of the region.

Thousands of ethical, intelligent, scholarly, science-based, peace-loving, truth-seeking and once patriotic researchers (seeing through the absurd conclusions widely promulgated starting on 9/11/01) have endured far too many years of black-listings by those who really know better – namely our willfully ignorant (or frankly deceptive) ruling elites (of both political parties) and their co-opted co-conspirators in the mass media who have obediently enforced the black-listings.

The arrow in the above photo points to an explosive “squib” that proves that there were pre-planted explosive devices used to sever the massive internal steel beams so that the doomed building will collapse down entirely into its own footprint, thereby minimizing the damage to adjacent buildings (the goal of every controlled demolition). Note that chunks of the steel girders have been thrown upwards and outwards at high speeds due to the power of the explosive devices that had been planted in the buildings for weeks prior to the demolitions by unknown co-conspirators. Everything else was pulverized into fine dust.

Galileo was a Fellow Truth–teller

Those of us who consider ourselves honorable 9/11 Truth-seekers understand how Galileo Galilei felt when his scientifically provable truth (that the earth revolved around the sun) was brutally suppressed by the ruling clerical elites of the 16^th century.

Of course his run-in with church authorities was partly incited because he couldn’t refrain from pointing out that, because of his astronomical findings, he had proof that certain passages in the Bible couldn’t be true, thus claiming that the Bible was not inerrant. Cognitive dissonance erupted in the Vatican, and Galileo was declared a heretic and an enemy of the church. His books were banned, he was forbidden by the Inquisition to teach his “heresy” and he was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. It took 4 centuries for the church to admit its error, thus inadvertently admitting that the Bible was not inerrant.

The enforced silence by the mass media concerning the Crime and Cover-up of the Century (the events of 9/11/01) should have been over long ago, that is, if there was any justice in this nation.

Is Courageous Investigative Journalism Dead?

If real investigative journalism was still alive and kicking in our corporatized, for profit media environment, and if exposing Big Lies was still regarded as important in our dying democracy, the black-listing of 9/11 truth-seekers and the court of law-worthy evidence that they have collected would have been celebrated and not denigrated.

But the absurd official, media-blessed version of what happened on 9/11/01 has been proven to be totally false and the consequences of the failure of our (mis-)leaders to admit that they have been bamboozled by the Big Lie have been devastating to the world. The consequences of the illegal and fraudulent invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, orchestrated under the guise of several Big Lies by the Cheney/Bush administration are still being played out in the millions of war refugees in the region that are desperately trying to leave the war-torn nations that the Pentagon helped to destabilize.

The endless wars that began in earnest after 9/11, and the constitution-shredding Patriot Acts and Homeland Security Act, had all been planned long before the three towers came down, and the recurring wars of retaliation (“Saddam tried to kill my daddy” – G. W. Bush) and resource theft (OIL = Operation Iraq Liberation) had likewise been planned ahead of time. Critics of American imperialism totally understand that “Great Satans” make good use of “Big Lies”.

The millions of whistle-blowers among us who have done the deep thinking, the heavy work and the research into what REALLY happened on 9/11 (and why) have become disillusioned with many previously respected politicians (of both political parties) who have run away from the unwelcome truths about the Crime and Cover-u of the Century. I have long wondered what could be wrong with those that accuse me and my 9/11 Truth-seeking colleagues of being lunatic, low-life “conspiracy theorists”.

The PNAC, the Real Conspiratorial Group that Needs to be Subpoenaed

So, partly to understand things from the standpoint of those false accusers, I have devised the monologue further below. It is my representation of what is the real attitude of the guilty parties (starting with the Project for the New American Century [PNAC], an outgrowth of the NeoConservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, whose purpose, among other things, was to increase military spending, subvert the United Nations and spread democracy/capitalism around the world through the barrel of a gun, and thus enrich PNAC’s already wealthy corporate interests, that included millionaire politicians, billionaire corporate war-profiteers, Wall Street financiers, oath-taking militarists and the corporate-controlled media.

Here is a brief summary of PNAC’s goals. The original members admitted that the goals would be difficult to implement without a catastrophic catalyzing event such as a “new Pearl Harbor” Enter 9/11/01.

Following is a scary list of some of the nefarious, hard right-wing ruling class elites who signed on to the PNAC’s statement of principles, which can be found at (http://www.oldamericancentury.org/pnac.htm).

This partial list of PNAC members (that should make every anti-fascist’s skin crawl) includes William Kristol (founder and chairman), Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, John Bolton, Richard Perle, James Wolsey, Elliot Abrams, Eliot Cohen, Dan Quayle, Gary Bauer, Donald Kagan, William J. Bennett, Scooter Libby, Vin Weber, Norman Podhoretz, Steve Forbes and others, many of whom officially and/or unofficially joined the Cheney/Bush administration after the election was infamously stolen. Despite their roles in leading America into the illegal and unconstitutional wars for oil that has resulted in millions of innocent men, women and children dead, wounded and homeless, none but Scooter Libby has spent any time in jail. Go figure.

The politicians, billionaire war-profiteers, Wall Street financiers, oath-taking militarists and the corporate-controlled media are groups that comprise the infamous chronically conspiratorial military/industrial/congressional/media complex, subgroups of which were certainly among the planners and/or orchestrators of the controlled demolitions of the three World Trade Center buildings and/or were part of the massive cover-up of the resulting crimes. Many of these traitorous elites, who were knowingly usurping American democracy, have, post-911, helped to prevent truly independent investigations from happening that would have brought out the truth of the matter, and the horrific slaughter of the innocents in the Middle East would have been averted.

All the existing evidence that has been accrued over the past 14 years proves that there are many guilty people and groups – hiding in plain sight – that conspired to plan, execute and cover-up the dirty deeds surrounding 9/11. Below is what I imagine a leader of such a group of conspirators would say. (To really get into the exercise, imagine that some punitive, inquisitorial humanoid that has the visage of a Dick Cheney, for example, is uttering the words.)

The 9/11 Perp Speaks

You 9/11 conspiracy nuts have no power, so suck it. You are in a minority, even though you have found out the truth about what we did on that fateful day. Granted, you have a lot of intelligent folks, scientists, architects, engineers, pilots, retired CIA types, physicists, mathematicians, theologians, etc who are, so far, all black-listed. Know that all my Republican Party buddies, helped out tremendously by the silence of many Democratic Party members, have recently gone to great lengths to publicly demean scientists and intellectuals of all stripes, mainly because of the climate change issue.

We have wildly succeeded in this effort to likewise demonize uppity blacks, competent females, gays, lesbians, intellectuals, deep thinkers and pesky whistle-blowers. Witness the fact that the majority of lower class conservatives and those with double digit IQs are no longer interested in what really happened. Since 9/11/01, my NeoCon friends have firmly embedded themselves in the Washington D.C. and Wall Street power structure and are totally on board with the cover-up. It is the rare Democrat or Libertarian that has had the guts to speak out about it; they are afraid to go up against any Big Lie propaganda that the mass media has either blessed or been fooled by. Look at what happened to Paul Wellstone when he kept putting his nose into areas that we warned him to stay away from.* (see below)

Of course, you liberal low-lifes don’t have the mass media behind you, especially the innately conservative publishers and editors. We have relied on them to toe the line on the 9/11 Big Lie. And they have totally complied. The admittedly absurd White House Big Lie conspiracy theory has been re-told so many times by our compliant media that it is now accepted as truth, thanks to the White House-generated media blitz that began on Day One. I can’t reveal to you how we did it, but the press got on board with the false flag operation myth by Day Two. No reporter was allowed to question the official trumped up story starting on 9/12/01. The power of the mass media can’t be easily overcome; and you don’t own it. My advice to you creeps is to give it up.

Joseph Goebbels and the Big Lie

If you jerks haven’t yet understood how Big Lie propaganda agendas work, just recall what one of our spiritual predecessors – Joseph Goebbels (Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment) – managed to do in Germany. By constantly re-telling the Fascist Big Lie on the radio 24/7, by banning independent, alternative media and radio broadcasts, by literally smashing all the liberal printing presses in Germany and by silencing the truth-tellers in a lot of ways, Goebbels got gullible Good Germans to believe that anti-fascists, leftists, democrats, liberal editors, investigative journalists, trade unionists, antiwar activists, socialists, communists and Jews deserved to be banned, black-listed, fired from their jobs, imprisoned and even executed. The infamous Republican Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy learned a lot about the Big Lie from the Nazis.

You leftist truthers are nothing but do-gooder, tree-hugging creeps who aspire to real democracy, where the common good is more important than national security, corporate profits and ruthless empire-building. Don’t you realize that compassion, fairness, forgiveness, negotiation and consideration for the little guy are for political losers? In real politics, no good deeds go un-punished.

Our NeoConservative movement has experienced a number of setbacks over the past century, including the failure of the attempted fascist coup against FDR back in 1934, thanks to US Marine Major General Smedley Butler’s high ethical standards that inspired him to rat on us. One of our most recent setbacks came about during the Nixon era, when that tyrant too carelessly attempted to achieve totalitarianism in the Watergate scandal. It set back our global agenda by a lot, especially with the demoralization of our military because of all the atrocities it committed in Vietnam. But we are more careful now. We learned some valuable lessons.

You puny whistle-blowers learned how powerless you all are when we created “free-speech zones” where antifascist protesters like you were herded by local police departments during the 2004 presidential campaign whenever and wherever our pro-war politicians came to campaign in your districts. Thankfully, the quaint First Amendment is just a shadow of its former self, and weakening it with the Patriot Acts has worked out well for us. Obscuring our secret agendas is so much easier without having to deal with you pesky truth-tellers. We can’t have any public expressions of dissent making it into the press, you know.

You might have heard the maxim about how the truth will always eventually come out, but, in the case of 9/11, the ruling elites plan to delay its emergence as long as possible, preferably long after we perps are dead and we can’t be indicted, fined, publicly humiliated or imprisoned. We think stone-walling and maintaining the myths will be worth it. In the meantime we have our wealth, our body guards, our fellow conspirators in high places and our gated communities that will allow us to maintain our luxurious lifestyle out of prison until we are dead or too old and feeble to be put on trial. The same thing has happened to most of the brutal kings, emperors, dictators and military juntas throughout history.

And as long as we are talking about the First Amendment that guarantees free speech, we freely admit that we have co-opted the major political debate organizers to forbid questions about 1) the anomalies of 9/11, 2) the affordability (or wisdom) of America’s out-of-control global militarization, 3) America’s economic colonization (quasi-enslavement), 4) the corporate control of the media or 5) the ruthless corporate exploitation of the developing world’s natural resources. That list of taboos questions is, of course, incomplete, but there is a lot of money to be made with those agendas, and there are the inevitable economic catastrophes to prepare for, and we need to make hay while the sun shines.

The perpetrators of the 9/11 false flag operation are still in positions of political or economic power. Many of them are members of the 400 or so right-wing think tanks whose immense power you naive anti-fascists fail to comprehend. Those cunning and very well-heeled groups easily manipulate the blindered, uber-patriotic types that are so common in our society into regularly supporting – and voting for – agendas that are clearly against their own best interests. All one really needs to do is wave the flag and claim that America’s national security is threatened.* (see the Goering quote below) So you may as well give up your opposition; those easily brain-washed folks don’t want to know any more about 9/11 than what we elites allow them to know.

You lowly leftists can’t possibly win on this one, especially when the majority of voters are kept totally unaware of unpleasant truths like what really happened on 9/11. Most of them don’t want to know. They would rather be left unchallenged by ANY new realities that would make them feel uncomfortable. We’re talking about cognitive dissonance.

We both understand what a powerful motivator is the reality of cognitive dissonance. We rely on that a lot. Folks that don’t have critical thinking skills feel anxious when they are confronted with a new truth that contradicts their deeply held beliefs. And so they deny obvious truths or plug their ears or close their eyes to avoid the emotional distress that comes from admitting that they might have been wrong.

Because our cause has already won in the court of public opinion, I am willing to admit that your 9/11 Truth-seeker’s findings are all true and that you have disproved the Big Lies about 9/11. But it won’t do you any good, for we will continue to deny that we admitted saying any such thing.

Keeping in mind my intent to deny what is obvious to even the casual observer, let me go through the impossible-to-substantiate, indeed absurd, White House Conspiracy Theory (a provably false Big Lie). That conspiracy theory says that 19 young Saudi Arabian terrorists who had never learned how to fly a commercial jet plane (impossibly) hi-jacked (with box-cutters, no less!) and then (impossibly) crashed two such planes at (impossibly) high speeds into two massively steel-reinforced 110 story New York City skyscrapers (that were designed to withstand more than one such crash).

The “crashes” were said to have been caused by momentary, self-extinguishing jet fuel fires that burned out within minutes but (impossibly) somehow caused both towers to suddenly explode and the massive amounts of concrete to self-pulverize into fine dust (except for massive amounts of office paper (that didn’t burn) and the towers’ neatly-sectioned 30 foot long steel girders. (Tellingly, some of those sections forcefully imbedded themselves into adjacent buildings across the street).

On that day three skyscrapers (google WTC# 7) collapsed at freefall speed into their own footprints (impossible without controlled demolition techniques) in less than 15 seconds. All of that supposedly happened because of the low-temperature office fires that consumed furniture and building materials that were all certified to be fire resistant.

You 9/11 Truthers were correct to note that the (allegedly) hi-jacked plane that allegedly crashed into the small hole in the side of the Pentagon left no traces behind; and the one that allegedly crashed at Shanksville, PA and supposedly disappeared into a small smoking slit in a field in Pennsylvania left no traces of the 100,000 pounds of aluminum either. That was the hardest claim to make because the rescue crews that came to the scene immediately found no airplane wings, no tail section, no massive titanium engines, no black box, no bodies and no luggage at either so-called crash site! And, tellingly, there was no attempt to search the Shanksville slit and try to rescue survivors – because there was no sign of any crashed plane there. We built an impressive memorial there and now nobody asks any questions. Cognitive dissonance is working wonders there.

Here are a couple more reasons why you idealists should just give up trying to convince the public about the truth of 9/11, even though are in agreement that the official conspiracy theory is a fraud, and your conspiracy theory has been proven to be factual.

For one thing, your little black-listed group is hugely out-numbered by the 36,000,000 American football fans who spend huge amounts of time, mind and money ignoring current events and past history playing Fantasy Football all year round. Many spend their non-working hours thinking about, planning for, betting on and then watching TV most of Sunday. Then there is all the time spent watching Monday Night Football, Thursday Night Football, Friday’s high school games and more than one college football game on Saturday. Many of these fans waste entire week-ends on the couch. Most of them are voters and rely on getting their information from headline news, mostly information that doesn’t take much time of effort comprehending. 20 second sound bites are our specialty and it takes hours to comprehend what really happened on 9/11/01

And the time and mind exerted by those 36 million football fans is dwarfed by the other spectator sports (and not just major league sports but also collegiate and high school basketball, hockey, baseball and soccer).

You can see your problem. I would suggest that you do not delude yourselves in thinking that you are going to interest many from those sports-addicts to even have the time to educate themselves, much less contact their congresspersons or go to the streets demanding truth and justice and an end to the perpetual wars that are so seriously impacting the lives and futures of their children and the planet.

I repeat, you liberal loonies may as well give up your efforts at truth-telling and truth-seeking. Trust me; it won’t work out for you. Far too many short-attention-spanned Americans are addicted to many other trivial pursuits like video gaming, gambling, pornography and entertainment (or the time-consuming acquisition, ingestion or selling of legal and illegal brain-altering drugs) to pay any attention to your lost cause. Too many voters (and their children) are watching our neatly co-opted mass media 4-8 hours EVERY day and many of them are struggling to survive on less than living wages. Trying to organize a grass roots effort concerning 9/11 Truth with those realities in mind seems foolish to me. Give it up. Even with the overwhelming evidence of our guilt that you have proven to me, you are still going to lose.

More Profoundly Truthful Quotes from Some Historical Masters of the Big Lie

In conclusion, let me quote for you some true statements from two of our other spiritual forbears, Hermann Goering, Hitler’s # 2, a member of the Nazi equivalent of America’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and a colleague of the liberal-hating Goebbels.

During the Nuremberg Trials Goering honestly expressed what every politician and war-mongering militarist knows to be true.

Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood.

But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

You tree-huggers can’t beat that time-honored strategy. Another one of our inspirations was Adolf Hitler. He knew what he was talking about when he said:

What good fortune for those in power that the people do not think…It gives us a very special, secret pleasure to see how unaware the people around us are of what is really happening to them…Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.

Our boy der Fuhrer also said:

The fascist state must not forget that all means must serve the ends; it must not let itself be confused by the drivel about so-called freedom of the press…it must make sure that (the media) is placed in the service of the state.

Here is a pertinent quote from Pat O’Reilly, a close friend of Paul Wellstone, that supports the allegations above:

I asked Paul how his week had been. He said, ‘it’s been tough. Vice President Cheney called me in and told me to get on their bandwagon or there would be serious ramifications in Minnesota. And stop sticking your nose into 9/11; there are some rumors going around, but we are going to get to the bottom of this.

When Paul made this statement, there were about 10 military veterans standing around us, and he spoke to them about 9/11…

‘There are so many things going on about 9/11 that just don’t make sense…’ Wellstone knew 9/11 was staged. Wellstone was after 9/11.

– From the Snowshoefilms documentary, “Wellstone: They Killed Him.”

It is suggested that readers view a lecture entitled “The Strange Death of Paul Wellstone” by assassination scholar Dr. James Fetzer.

It is suggested that everybody watch one or more of the fine documentaries on YouTube, perhaps starting with “9/11: Explosive Evidence – Experts Speak Out.”

Dr. Kohls is a retired physician who practiced holistic mental health care for the last decade of his career. He has been involved in peace and justice issues for decades and continues to speak out against totalitarianism, fascism, corporatism, militarism, racism and other anti-democratic movements. He is a member of Medical Professionals for 9/11Truth. A number of his columns that have dealt with 9/11 Truth-seeking can be found at http://duluthreader.com/articles/categories/200_Duty_to_Warn, where can be found references to numerous websites that overwhelmingly disprove the Cheney/Bush White House Conspiracy Theories about 9/11.

The vicious ideology of “humanitarian wars” invests war with merit while cancelling responsibility for consuming the lives of hundreds of millions of human beings.  The new wretched of the earth are fleeing the American and European wars and the miserable impoverishment of their countries, rich in resources and lands, by the wars’ mother-ideology—rapacious neoliberalism. A report by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War informs us that, following 9/11, the victims of humanitarian wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan alone were 1.300.000 people. This body count excludes the victims of the subsequent wars in Libya, Syria, Yemen, and the Donbas—as well as Somalia, the symbol of this epochal turn to the balkanization of the world, which also expressed itself in the actual Balkans in the 90s, killing Yugoslavia.

I still remember the shock in the 1980s when I returned to Italy after a five-year absence and saw my first beggar–the first since the war. It’s not that I didn’t already know theoretically that market fundamentalism would have this result. But seeing a mother with a child in one arm and the other stretched out begging in the street of a post-war Italian city felt uncanny. And nothing in the mid-1980s had happened yet–nothing like the monumental misery that followed the West’s peacock strut across the globe after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

As I write, 1.2 million people in Yemen are internally displaced; a lorry with seventy-one decomposing corpses of Syrian refugees was found abandoned on an Austrian highway. Vacationers on the Greek island of Kos, sunbathing on the beach throughout August, beheld the surreal emergence from the sea of exhausted “migrants”—and watched behind cold, dark sunglasses, without the wonder or solicitude of a Nausicaa, this new Odysseus shipwrecked by the phony “War on Terror,” collapsing on the beach. On the coast of dismembered Libya, “migrants”—30,000, reported in July– waited in terror on land to escape by terror on sea: fifty asphyxiated bodies found the previous week by Italian sea patrols. “Migrant,” is a legalistic cynicism to avoid using the legally binding term, “refugee,” which requires asylum.

Then, there was the Syrian little boy–drowned and washed up on a beach in Turkey.

But all this was preannounced.

Trieste, my city, borders on Croatia and Slovenia—Yugoslavia, once upon a time.  In the so-called Cold War, Trieste was where the “Iron Curtain” ended in the south—and a “Cold War” hot spot. Fear of “commonism,” as Eisenhower and LBJ pronounced it, was propagandized by the military allied occupation, which governed the city until 1954. The American military base in Aviano, with nuclear capability, lies today fourteen kilometers from Trieste. From here, the bombers took off, headed for Serbia every day between March and June of 1999 at 7:30 am, my mother told me, shivering as she remembered the roar of the engines overhead.

A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft departs Aviano Air Base, Italy, during a close air support training exercise Dec. 17, 2013. Italy today functions as a gigantic American aircraft carrier in the middle of the Mediterranean. (USAF photo)

Back in what I still call Yugoslavia in summer of 2000, a few kilometers east of Trieste, I was in Opatjia, on the Gulf of Kvarner, at the northern tip of the Adriatic Sea.

Before 1918, Opatjia had been the Riviera of the land-locked Viennese aristocracy and bourgeoisie. After 1945, Opatjia was in Yugoslavia, and after the fratricidal wars of the 1990s, it found itself in Croatia. Sumptuous art nouveau villas perched on white karst rock over the emerald sea; luscious parks and gardens; shaded, wisteria-scented paths winding above lapping waves, the resort town’s beauty seemed both intensified and diminished by a sense of desolation, as though ruing that it no longer belonged to itself, or even to a country, but to something transient and mercenary, calling itself the market.

Neo-capitalist entrepreneurs from Zagreb were buying up the villas for a song. I was buying all I could from the street vendors, who were actually beggars–exquisite lace work; artifacts in wood, even Tito’s bust in a junk shop. One woman told me her mother worked all winter to make the lace to sell in Optajia’s streets to feed the children.

The lace I bought from her is my loot from the “triumph of the West” over “commonism”–way too cheap for its incomparable skill and beauty, worked in little light and less warmth by old, patient hands somewhere in the hinterlands of Croatia.I had to fight hard in my youth to get from under the induced spectral fear of “commonism.” Coming to New York City, ironically, helped: I realized that the United States, the capital of the “Free World,” was an apartheid society with an impeccable history of aggression, then displaying itself spectacularly with genocidal zeal in Vietnam. But I still held some tiny residue of the erstwhile illusion of a reformed, anti-fascist, anti-imperialist, social-democratic Europe—more humane than the United States. The begging mother was, therefore for me, the last corrective sign to false consciousness.

Luciana (r)) and a friend, in Istria.

It was a hallucinating summer. Ten years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a global nightmare was materializing before my very eyes, disorienting because it felt as though the earth had suddenly turned on its axis to move in the opposite direction. A world, as before the war in the bourgeois liberal democracies, full of scrupulous social meanness, xenophobia, farcical politics, racial prejudice, bombastic military adventurism, intellectual bankruptcy—a world now bloated with a triumphant lack of solidarity, smirking at all humanity with the hubris of naked greed.  In 2000, this old New World Order had behind it already, to its shameful credit, the bombing of a capital in the heart of Europe: Belgrade; the slow starvation and bombing of Iraq; the invasion of Panama, and the martyrization of Somalia.

One Sunday, I was invited through a friend to the country retreat of one of those Zagreb entrepreneurs who were buying up Opatjia’s post-socialist real estate. The house was a converted farmhouse, overlooking the Gulf of Kvarner, as far as Rjieka, from its lofty height on the rocky hill. It was stuffed with antiques–“from Tuscany.” One large, cool room, as stark and white as a monastic refectory, was set aside for “artist seminars.” The dining room was dominated by a life-size (if such a thing can be anything like life) wooden crucifix. “Freedom,” said our host pointing at it. I thought he would make a good Mephistopheles to Marlowe’s Faust.

We ate under the grape pergola, in the heat of the day, with that emerald sea down below languidly caressing the white fringe of coastal rock–that invaluable Istrian rock which, transported to Venice, shapes its architectural bone structure. We were not the only guests: there was the young son, and his companions–all amiable, all at ease with their Western guests, including, and especially, with the guest of honor, the “retired” American Pentagon man, in his prime, ending his two-year contractor’s tour advising the Croatian military on “how to modernize its army.” Huh, huh. The NATO makeover artist. He read my mind.  He was insidiously seductive in his approachable, laid-back posture of unassuming power. In fact, even the boiling heat of the day seemed to calm and cool down around the solid perimeter of his imperturbable self-assurance. Not that his family was all-military, he suggested. I was not to think, he implied, that he was a vulgar “ugly American.” They had a son, of whom they were “very proud,” who taught philosophy at Brooklyn College. He and I, he added with a charming, self-effacing smile, would have much in common.  I found this performative vulnerability his most lethal weapon.

Flitting around from guest to guest, like a nectar-sucking bumblebee, rolled the rotund shape of a Brussels financial bureaucrat, scraping and bowing around the military contractor and the Zagreb neo-capitalist. He would have made a good barber of Seville.  But when the opportunity arose to agree, behind the American’s back, with some cautious remark critical of the “coarseness of American culture compared to European culture,” the wasp came out of the bumblebee with all the resentment of an opportunistic, frustrated Othello’s Iago.

Seated around the white-clothed table, we were served authentic peasant food: grilled sardines, fresh from the sea; purple malvasia wine; the crusty Istrian bread made from hard, unprocessed flour I loved so much; aged, hard and salty goat cheese; Istrian prosciutto, sliced by hand from the whole ham, as had been the custom in prosperous peasant homes. The Zagreb cosmopolite knew how to pay homage to local culture—and he wanted us to know that he knew it.

But who cooked and prepared the food? That was the former owner of the farmhouse and now a “friend”—Branko.  By then, I was hardly steady on my feet, drunk with wine, heat, and the surreal conversation of an unaccustomed cast of characters.  I made my tottering way to the back, where Branko was grilling more sardines. My Serbo-Croatian amounts to a barbarous Istrian village dialect.  I was under strict orders not to attempt it in public, lest I dishonor the family making such infamous, never-forgotten mistakes as asking an octogenarian lady from Bosnia on a train if she was pregnant when I meant was she well. But the sweet malvasia had worked magic, giving me a reckless linguistic confidence, so I dared ask Branko, “Where you in the wars?” Branko started flinging sardines on the grill at the speed of flying bullets. When he stopped, his face was stained with tears and his words broken, “Brother killing brother . . . it was terrible . . . Tito was dead . . . we fought the Nazis together and then we started killing each other.” Unless he was telling me he was pregnant. I can’t be sure. But, all the same, I thought how intolerably humiliating it must be for a former partisan to be cooking sardines in the house he no longer owned for a military, financial, capitalist troika lounging on the pergola. We both cried, in between a sardine or two and a glass of thick, fleshy, purple wine.

On the pergola, a party of Hungarians had joined the rest. They were staying in one the host’s villas turned hotel. They smiled politely at everyone and everything, like extras without a script. Urged energetically by the host, we dutifully scrambled down the steep, rocky decline in single file to see the host’s cave (he owned the whole mountain, apparently), no doubt a former partisan or arms hideout. As the sun sank red into the sea, inflaming the evening horizon, we all peered down into the cave’s dark mouth from the top. Nothing to see.

Driven home around midnight by the host’s son, I was racked by such fits of nausea that I vomited out the last of my rasping, embittered soul onto the hairpin mountain road at punctuated intervals.  Was it the heat, the sardines, the malvasia, Branko’s grief, or this absurd, surreal New Europe, with its beggars in the streets and its rapacious compradores in the hills? I don’t know, but some intimation of the nasty world we live in now occurred there.

Luciana Bohne is a distinguished author and retired college professor. 

“There’s a lot that I’d like to do to keep America moving. But the law is the law, and no person is above the law, not even the president,” said President Obama in a speech to the African Union in July, in which he also quipped that he could “probably” win a third term if the US Constitution allowed it. However, the irony behind Obama’s bleeding-heart speech about democracy in Africa is that in many African countries, Western backing is the only thing keeping kleptocrats in the presidential palace.

Obama’s empty rhetoric offers an interesting contrast to a reality in which many African countries are racing to remove the pesky two term-limit in their constitutions, as the continent braces itself for its own 2016 election fever. Indeed, no fewer than 13 African countries will have their presidential elections next year – and some leaders have taken steps to make sure their hold on power will not be weakened by something as trivial as the rule of law. While the West airs bland platitudes about respecting the rule of law, African leaders are snuffing democracy with impunity.

With blatant disregard for the popular mood, many African presidents have rid themselves of term limits. From Mozambique’s former leader and respected elder, Joaquim Chissano, who quipped that two terms are “not enough” for African leaders, to Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, who argues that his country is not stable enoughto go on without him at the helm, 11 African leaders have altered their constitutions in the past 15 years alone. Some, like Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni or Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, have been their countries’ leaders since the days of the Cold War. Others, like Djibouti’s Ismail Omar Guelleh, Burundi’s Pierre Nkurunziza andRwanda’s Kagame, are aspiring autocrats who have only recently solidified their hold on power by removing constitutional obstacles. “African leaders don’t hold elections to lose them,” said David Zenmenou of the Institute for Security Studies.

Leapfrogging to Democracy

A recent survey by Afrobarometer, a nonpartisan, pan-African research organization, of 51,600 citizens in 34 countries shows that three-quarters of Africans polled support term limits. Educated Africans, the young and those who are more exposed to the media overwhelmingly reject these autocrats and their systems of patronage.

Boniface Dulani, the author of the report, said that in countries like Zimbabwe, “where President Robert Mugabe has been in office for more than 30 years, 74 percent say that their president should be limited. Burundi, which has been in the news, in 2013, 51 percent of Burundian citizens, said their president should be limited. But, this number has actually increased to 62 percent.”

But such aspirations will forever be thwarted if the West (and the United States in particular) curries favor with those leaders Africans want ejected. President Obama’s pleas for democracy simply don’t stand up to scrutiny, and are revealed as nothing more than crunchy sound bites for the Western media to digest. If Obama were truly interested in keeping Africa on an even keel, he would have stopped funneling money to dictators, young and old alike.

Indeed, on top of an undisclosed amount of military aid, “Western aid pays for half of Burundi’s budget, roughly 40 percent of Rwanda’s, 50 percent of Ethiopia’s and 30 percent of Uganda’s.” Apart from being faithful Western allies, these countries also share a penchant for human rights abuses, ranging from genocide (in Rwanda and Burundi) to ethnic discrimination and widespread political persecution. For decades, the West has ignored the plight of Africans at the hands of despots either for the sake of undermining the Soviet Union, exploiting mineral wealth or more recently, fighting the infamous “war on terror.”

In retrospect, 9/11 was as pivotal for Africans as it was for the United States. Whereas Americans rallied around the red-white-and-blue, African leaders seized the moment to intensify their crackdown on their societies by … also rallying around the red-white-and-blue. According to journalist Nick Turse, Washington is now militarily active (either with installations or troops) in 90 percent of Africa’s 54 countries. Since 2011, countries such as Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda havedeployed troops across Africa in support of Washington’s 1,000-plus anti-terrorist missions, while their regimes were cracking down on political opponents on trumped up charges of “terrorism.”

For others, terrorism became a lucrative opportunity. The pocket-sized country of Djibouti is where the US stationed the largest squadron of drones (outside of Afghanistan) and the place from which the US strikes across the Horn of Africa and across the Bab al-Mandeb strait, into the Middle East. Even if Djibouti’s president, Ismail Omar Guelleh, has blood on his hands after winning a contentious third term that sparked violent street riots back in 2011, the United States didn’t spare a dime when Guelleh came to the White House in 2014. After a reception in the Rose Garden, Obama proudly announced that he will double aid to Djibouti. So far, Guelleh has refused to rule out whether he will stand for a fourth term in 2016. And when members of Congress cautioned the State Department over Djibouti’s human rights record, the country simply made a volte-face and invited China to open a military base on its territory. Apparently, the West has not only supported kleptocrats, but it has also taught them how to move from paymaster to paymaster to suit their interests.

There is hope, however. What once used to be solved with bullets and tanks is being swept away through uprisings. Popular fury led to the ouster of Burkina Faso’spresident in 2014 and Senegal’s in 2012. In the Democratic Republic of Congo in January 2015, protesters forced the government to change a controversial electoral law, while Burundi was the scene of bloody protests this year.

Despite the image some have of Africa as a continent marred by perpetual and intractable instability, the region has evolved politically at a quicker rate than most of the Western world. According to research carried out by the Brookings Institution, Africa has “leap-frogged” into the democratic processes of holding contested elections. “What the United States took a century and a half to accomplish, some African countries have accomplished in less than 40 years,” writes Vera Songwe. Even if the task has been at times tortuous, ebbing and flowing in some countries, the young generation is at the forefront in Africa’s democratic struggles.

The West’s task is simple: take a step back, because sooner or later we will choose our own path.

Adjoa Agyeiwaa is a Ghanian-born US national who studied at the University of Maryland, graduating with a degree in history and a master’s in international relations with a focus on West African politics. Agyeiwaa lives in Paris and works as a consultant for a strategy company.