Eva Bartlett is a Canadian freelance journalist and rights activist with extensive experience in the Gaza Strip and Syria. Her writings can be found on her blog, In Gaza.

Absurdities of Syrian war propaganda

RT : 2 Nov, 2017

As if we have no memory, corporate media continues to recycle accusations of starvation, chemical weapons, and more, in the propaganda war on Syria.

In Syria, there never was a “revolution.” Instead, it was a premeditated war on Syria by foreign powers (namely the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Israel) who armed even Al-Qaeda (something Qatar recently admitted).

In support of the conflict comes some of the most egregious war propaganda, endorsed by media, Hollywood celebs, and faux human rights groups. The following is a brief outline of some of the most obvious hoax personalities and purveyors of misinformation on Syria.

Al-Qaeda's rescuers

Irrefutable documentation reveals that the group known as the White Helmets and portrayed as “neutral, volunteer, rescuers,” are obscenely-funded by Western nations, work solely in Al-Qaeda and co-extremist areas, and have been present to clean up at executions. Yet, we are expected to believe they rescue civilians. People from areas liberated of Al-Nusra and cohorts described them as “the Nusra Front's civil defense.”

Corporate media did not bother to investigate this transparent propaganda construct. Instead, they lobbied for Al-Qaeda's rescuers to get the Nobel Prize.

While the group didn't get the Nobel, they did receive an Oscar, and actor George Clooney's endorsement. Even though he is busy being a celebrity, by now, he surely cannot claim ignorance. One wonders whether he will have the gall to continue his support for Al-Qaeda's rescuers.

Funny terrorist spokesman

American former comedian Bilal Abdul Kareem was embedded with Al-Qaeda and other “moderates” in eastern Aleppo, promoted their narrative and interviewed Saudi terrorist Abdullah Muhaysini. Yet, corporate media like CNN have presented him as an “independent” source of credible information on Syria.

As Aleppo was being liberated of Al-Qaeda and company, Abdul Kareem claimed civilians did not want to go over to 'regime areas.' However, on many occasions before liberation, civilians did try to flee to government areas. In November 2016, I interviewed one family who managed to escape, along with over 40 other people. This particular family had tried twice before and were forcibly prevented by the “moderates” in the district of al-Halek in Aleppo.

When I returned in June 2017, in eastern Aleppo, I spoke with residents who had come back when peace was restored. I also saw hospitals turned into terrorist headquarters, using basements for Sharia court prisons.

Following the expulsion of Al-Qaeda and other “moderates,” over 100,000 people from eastern Aleppo chose to stay in government-secured areas, celebrating the liberation of their city.

Starvation in Syria?

The “Assad is starving civilians” theme has been recycled for years, from Damascus to Aleppo to eastern Ghouta. In 2014, a month after the Old City of Homs was secured, I met civilians who told me of terrorists stealing every last morsel of their food. I heard the same in Aleppo, and also this June in Madaya and al-Waer, Homs. When I visited Madaya, people told me: terrorists hoarded the food aid and dramatically inflated the prices to rates civilians couldn't afford.

I saw a bomb factory, tucked away behind an apartment building, and remnants of the food aid which Ahrar al-Sham and Al-Qaeda had hoarded, and I visited some of their makeshift prisons used to torture and try civilians in Sharia courts. In al-Waer, life was trickling back. People spoke of starvation due to the terrorists, and of relief that their rule was over.

When “rebels” fire mortars into civilians areas, corporate journalists like to claim the Syrian government was the perpetrator. On a November 2016 day when two mortars hit Aleppo's Castello road, less than 100 meters from where I stood without a helmet or flak jacket, the NY Times wrote that soldiers blamed “rebels” and “rebel groups denied it.” Yet, there was no disputing that the shells came from an Al-Nusra area.

In April 2014, after an elementary school was mortared by terrorists east of Damascus, killing one child, the BBC later reported, “the government is also accused of launching them into neighborhoods under its control.” On a recent social media post, I noted this deceitful journalism, and the BBC could have easily learned about the trajectory of mortars and from where the mortar in question could only have come: the “moderates” east of Damascus.

Channel 4 and Guardian deceptions

In a hotel in Aleppo in July 2016, I shared an elevator with Channel 4 reporter Krishnan Guru Murthy, without knowing who he was. I would later become very familiar with Channel 4 and Guru Murthy's relentless anti-Syria propaganda and romanticization of the terrorist factions in Syria, white-washing their crimes, relying on Al-Qaeda and other very partial sources.

Guru Murthy produced a report embedded with the Nour al-Din al-Zinki faction, who he deemed “moderates,” although some months prior they had savagely beheaded Abdullah Issa, a Palestinian boy. Not initially a problem for Channel 4, they did later remove the incriminating video.

Not featured on Channel 4 or other corporate media reports were the nearly 11,000 civilians killed by the bombing and sniping of “rebels.”

I wrote about these attacks, and the over 4,000 Aleppo doctors disappeared by the media, along with hospitals and schools attacked by “moderates.” Corporate media was busy claiming “last doctors” in Aleppo.

When Krishan Guru Murthy, in July 2017, returned to Aleppo and interviewed MP Fares Shehabi, Guru Murthy refused to “get into history” over his lies, much less to acknowledge that the “moderates” he propagated about were Al-Nusra.

In April 2016, the Guardian reported that a Syrian or Russian airstrike “completely destroyed” the Quds hospital in Sukkari, Aleppo. The Guardian later claimed civilians were being treated in the same hospital after a chlorine gas attack, not researching that the sole chlorine gas factory in Syria had been taken over by Al-Nusra in 2012.

The original lie about Al-Quds' destruction came from Médecins Sans Frontières, which claimed Quds had been “destroyed,” reduced “to rubble.” Since the Guardian was complicit in reproducing the lie, why didn't the Guardian at least go to see the Quds hospital after Aleppo was secured? I did.

In June 2017, I stood inside the intact hospital. It was never destroyed.

I also met the boy, Omran Daqneesh, who, according to the Guardian, was injured by a Syrian or Russian airstrike in 2016. Mohammad Daqneesh said his son was only mildly injured, and not by an airstrike. He blamed media and those affiliated with the White Helmets for using his son in propaganda.

America's fake war on ISIS

In June 2017, the American-led coalition illegally attacked Syria, shooting down a Syrian plane. America did so admittedly to protect its proxy forces, the Kurdish SDF, which the US is using not to fight ISIS but in its continued attempts to destabilize Syria and control its oilfields.

In September 2016, the US-led coalition waged a nearly one hour attack on a Syrian military position in Deir ez-Zor, enabling ISIS to take over the post.

In May 2015, convoys of ISIS streamed through hundreds of kilometers of open desert, taking over ancient Palmyra. The well-equipped, high tech, US-led coalition, offered no resistance, something which even Robert Fisk, openly sour about his dislike of the Syrian government, noted.

America has also “accidentally” delivered weapons to ISIS and has long sought to use a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria, aka Islamic State, as per a declassified US DIA document. One can always listen to John Kerry speaking in September 2016 about how America watched ISIS flourish. Excerpts include Kerry saying “We were watching. We saw that, that Daesh was growing in strength. And we thought Assad was threatened.”

ISIS terrorist bedfellows with Israel

In July 2017, the Washington Post reported on an Israeli attack on Syria, citing Benjamin Netanyahu as saying they had attacked Syria “dozens” of times. Mint Press News reported on Israel giving medical treatment to over 3,000 terrorists. A 21st Century Wire article said the preference of Israeli politicians was even for an ISIS victory in Syria.

According to the Times of Israel, ISIS has opened fire on Israel and apologized. This is the jihadist group, ISIS, which doesn't attack the natural target, Israeli regime occupying Palestine, but instead, collaborates with it.

Unbelievable memoirs

Eight-year-old Aleppo girl, Bana al-Abed, is incapable of speaking or writing in English, and has recently miraculously published her memoirs. For those not familiar with the shameful exploitation of this girl by her mother and terrorist father, I wrote about it in July 2017, also noting: “The Bana narrative features an endearing child who causes otherwise rationally-thinking people to uncritically-accept transparent war propaganda rhetoric.” Rhetoric included calling for WW3.

Bana has been promoted by fiction writer J.K. Rowling, who shares the same sponsor: the Blair Partnership. Critiques on Amazon reveal that thinking people aren't buying brand Bana, in spite of her UN appearance and rehearsed speech about children dying from bombs and hunger (which the United Nations retweeted, as all good neutral and credible institutions might).

The above examples don't even begin to cover the depth of war propaganda on Syria, but they do serve as warnings to consider from where corporate media are getting their claims, and what agenda their claims serve. Hint: it isn't an agenda of bringing peace to the Syrian people. Maybe it's time to start believing us “Russian propagandists”: you know, those who actually go and speak to Syrians, instead of citing Al-Qaeda affiliated sources.

Approach to Business - China vs America

This business of China (and Russia) is business while the business of the US is war; terrorism, crimes against humanity; drug trafficking; financial fraud, stealing land and natural resources of other nations; spewing propaganda and lies; etc.

‘The business of China is business. The business of America is war’ – Gerald Celente
RT : 4 Nov, 2017

While the United States is concentrated on wars, China wants economic prosperity, according to business consultant Gerald Celente. He predicts the Chinese economy will become the largest in less than 10 years.

“Politicians lie, but numbers don’t. Take a look at the decline of America and the advancement of China. The trend is undeniable. America’s middle-income households had shrunk from 61 percent in 1971 to 50 percent today, while China’s grew from five percent in 2000, just before they joined the World Trade Organization, to nearly 35 percent today,” Celente told RT.

Beijing has pledged to invest in its economic future, which can be proved by President Xi Jinping’s speech at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in October, the analyst notes.

“China’s investing in its future. From high tech to NEVs (new electric vehicles), to speeding up the development of the internet plus advanced manufacturing and innovation enterprises. To foreign acquisitions of ports, industries and airports to the One Belt One Road Initiative, China’s on the fast track to become the master of economic globalization,” Celente wrote.

While China is concentrated on economic growth and prosperity of its citizens, the situation is opposite in the United States.

“You never hear those words coming from US politicians. Compare Xi’s vision to President Trump's actions for a massive budget request for the "greatest military buildup in American history" … and not a word about the growing needs for a better life, harmony, cultural advancement and a beautiful nation,” Celente said.

“And, Mr. Trump has lived true to his pledge with the expansion of wars throughout the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa. On the other hand, President Xi, putting the Chinese economy first, said modernization of the national defense and armed forces should be completed in 2035,” he added.

While the Chinese economy grows at 6.5 to seven percent per year, and the US is stuck in the two to 2.5 percent range, Celente predicts that China will become the largest economy in just 10 years.

“Not only will China’s GDP overtake the US level by around 2026, China’s middle class, exceeding 50 percent by then, will also overtake the US.”

The US has the chance to postpone the Chinese domination, but only when Washington stops sponsoring wars and favoring Wall Street.

“For America to advance economically beyond China, it must again unify for the common good, encourage entrepreneurship by reversing trends that favor Wall Street, large corporations and monopolization, and redirecting the nation's resources away from building a bigger war machine and foreign entanglements to investing in We the People on the home front,” Celente said.

Selected Comments:


# More correctly is to say that Russia and China has the same potential for nastiness. At the moment however this nastinesses is realised by the US to 2000% compared to 10% of Russia and China.

# Through the Belt and Road Initiative, China builds infrastructures and lifts hundreds of millions people out of poverty around the World. Through invasions, bombings, drownings and sanctions, USA destroys infrastructures and kills millions of people around the World.

# Militarily, America is longer dominant - with Russia and China teamed together. Economically, America is bankrupt - and will be more so with the petro-yuan. Socially, America is schizophrenic - withTrump's supporters vs Hillary supporters. And standing in the middle of all of this are decent people like Celente, Rand Paul and millions of ordinary people just trying to make ends meet.

# China is planning and executing the construction of the new Silk Road connecting Asia to Europe.....Warfare failed Empire USA is planning to tear it down. They are busy in Africa too, working against progress, facilitated by China.

Trump says Russia probe a disgrace!

Trump is a puppet? Perhaps. But the fact that voters put him in instead of Hillary will be an under appreciated benefit to the world. No one will know how bad Hillary would have been. Thanks to him winning the globalists have been hurt very very badly - regardless of his imperfections. If Hillary had won, the globalists would have done many more horrid things right away - thinking it was over. Now - they have a fight on their hands.

 ‘Zero collusion’: Trump says Russia probe a disgrace, many ads ‘bad’ for him
RT : 3 Nov, 2017

US President Donald Trump has called the ongoing Congress investigation into alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential election “a disgrace.” Trump added that it was a bad thing for the US itself, and lashed out at US ‘fake news’.

Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and the House had to admit that there is “no collusion,” but continue to look for it nevertheless, Trump said during his interview with Howie Carr at the White House on Thursday.

“In fact, even in all fairness with all of these investigations going on in the Senate and the House — they walk out, even the Democrats — ‘There’s no collusion but we’ll continue to look, there’s smoke, there’s no collusion but there’s — and the Republicans are coming out just saying, ‘There's just no collusion,’” he said.

“And it’s a disgrace that it can go on,” the US leader added when asked about the ongoing probe. “To be honest it’s a disgrace and it’s bad for our country.”

Meanwhile, the real “biggest” collusion is “fake media,” according to Trump, who stressed that CNN, NBC and CBS are doing “dishonest reporting.”

“That really is the collusion, really that is the fake news, that is something [that] set a level nobody has seen before,” Trump said.
Speaking about Facebook findings on Russia-linked ads, Trump said that they were a “strange thing” as “it’s not even ads that pertain to what we’re talking about."

“A lot of the ads, if you look at them and study them, it’s actually bad for me,” the president said adding that there was “zero collusion.”

Facebook, Google, Twitter staff aided both US presidential candidates – study

RT : 27 Oct, 2017

 

Employees of Facebook, Google and Twitter played a large role in developing candidates' messages and targeting voters in the US presidential election, according to a new study, which also said such support was especially vital for the Trump campaign.

The research, conducted by communications professors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Utah, says that tech giants’ employees went beyond their typical roles of "promoting services and facilitating digital advertising buys.
In fact, their efforts included "actively shaping campaign communications through their close collaboration with political staffers," the paper states.
Their tasks specifically included working more as political operatives by suggesting methods to target hard-to-reach voters online and helping to create responses to likely attack methods during debates. They also analyzed candidates' calendars to recommended ad pushes around upcoming speeches.
Researchers noted that Facebook coordinated so-called "dark spot" posts, which would only appear to certain users, and identified the kinds of photos that would perform best on Instagram. Twitter helped candidates analyze the performances of their fundraising tweets and recommended additional moves the campaigns should make. Google, for its part, monitored candidates' travel schedules to recommend geographically targeted advertisements.
The discovery is significant, as it reveals roles which have typically only been entrusted to candidates' own staff members or paid consultants.
"The extent to which they were helping candidates online was a surprise to us," co-author Daniel Kreiss from UNC Chapel Hill told Politico. He referred to the assistance as "a form of subsidy from technology firms to political candidates."
Although such services were offered to all political candidates free of charge, it was found to be most beneficial for Donald Trump's campaign, which did not heavily invest in its own digital operations during the primaries and made significant use of "embedded" Facebook, Google, and Twitter employees in the general election, according to the study.
Once Trump became the likely Republican nominee, employees from the three companies set up an office in a strip mall office rented by the Trump campaign in San Antonio, Texas, the researchers wrote, citing former Twitter communications official Nu Wexler. San Antonio is the home of Trump’s digital campaign chief, Brad Parscale.
"One, they found that they were getting solid advice, and two, it's cheaper. It's free labor," Wexler is cited as saying in the study. Tech company employees would work in the San Antonio office for days at a time, and ultimately helped Trump close his staffing gap with Hillary Clinton, according to digital experts interviewed by the researchers.
Clinton opted not to "embed" the tech companies' employees in her campaign, the researchers noted, instead choosing to develop her own digital framework and call in the tech firms to help execute certain elements of her strategy.
“Clinton viewed us as vendors rather than consultants," one unnamed tech company worker is quoted as saying. However, an anonymous source close to the Clinton campaign argued that her team was in regular contact with the tech companies. The source added that there would have simply been no advantage to having such professionals sitting at desks at Clinton's headquarters in Brooklyn, New York.
When the firms were asked specifically about the work they did for Trump, they stressed that their services were available to all candidates, regardless of their party affiliation.
Meanwhile, Kreiss says the study's findings warrant more research into the relationship between Silicon Valley and political campaigns.
"It raises the larger question of what should be the transparency around this, given that it's taking place in the context of a democratic election," he said.
The study, which is due to be published in the journal Political Communication, interviewed more than a dozen people, including tech company employees who worked inside several 2016 presidential campaigns and with campaign officials.

The research comes as Facebook, Google, and Twitter prepare to testify at next week’s congressional hearings on Russia's alleged use of the platforms to interfere with the 2016 election. Russia has repeatedly denied any interference in the election, pointing to a lack of evidence to support those claims. Trump has also referred to the accusations as a "hoax" and a "witch hunt."

‘Russian election posts’ 0.74% & 0.004% of content – Twitter & Facebook reveal size of ‘campaign’

RT : 31 Oct, 2017

Social media giants Facebook and Twitter have prepared their testimonies on the alleged 'Russia-linked' election-related posts to US lawmakers. Both appear to say the numbers are under one percent of all election-related posts.

Facebook's written testimony, seen by Reuters and Bloomberg, claims some 80,000 posts related to the US election were published by "Russia-based operatives" over two years.

In the massive flow of Facebook's content, that amounts to one in 23,000 posts, or some 0.004 percent. Regardless, Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch called such posts a "new threat" to the social network's "mission of building community and everything we stand for." He said the posts were created by "fake accounts" and are thus "unacceptable."

Falling neatly in line with US lawmakers’ relentless hunt for alleged "Russian interference" in the 2016 US election, Stretch will testify that the posts “opened a new battleground for our company, our industry and our society.” Some 126 million Americans may have seen the offending posts over the two-year period, Stretch claims.

Twitter will meanwhile testify that it has "tracked" 2,752 automated accounts to "Russian operatives," according to an unnamed source familiar with Twitter's prepared testimony, Reuters reports.

This is significantly up from the 201 accounts reported in September. The 1.4 million tweets by the "Russia-linked" automated accounts amount to some 0.74 percent of election coverage on Twitter and under-performed relative to their volume.

It is not clear whether the culpable accounts include Atlanta-based African-American rights activist Charlie Peach, who earlier told RT she was being banned in the "Russian bot" sweep, or any like her.

Facebook and Twitter have caved in to US lawmakers' pressure to find a centralized, Moscow-backed campaign that swayed American voters in the 2016 election, which saw Republic Donald Trump snatch a narrow win from Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Previously, Facebook revealed $100,000 worth of vaguely "Russia-linked" ads related to the election, over half of which it later admitted were posted after the election was over.

Twitter recently banned all ads from RT and Sputnik, citing "election interference." While doing so, however, it conveniently neglected to tell to lawmakers of its own multi-million dollar pitch for RT to buy ads during the election in question.

Twitter's move has prompted a stern rebuke from the Kremlin, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying it “sets a precedent of unequal treatment of its customers.” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said retaliatory measures could follow.

Russia has firmly and consistently denied any effort to sway the 2016 US election through social media.

Senior Google, Facebook and Twitter officials are expected to appear as witnesses at the Senate Judiciary Committee's panel on Crime and Terrorism Wednesday. Two more hearings involving Silicon Valley executives are scheduled: at the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee.

Selected Comments:

# Am I to understand that the American electorate is so fickle that it can be swayed by a few posts? Or that it is so uninformed of its own affairs that it depends on foreign posts to form an opinion on whom to elect? Or could it be that they are indeed informed and chose to change the status quo?

# The time on and taxpayers money being wasted on this when there are more important things to do and bigger fish to fry. As for Twitter & Facebook, typical American behaviour trying to shift the blame onto others to protect themselves.

# It is US who interferes in other countries. There is nothing here to make news on such lies, deceits and blatant bad mouthed campaigns overpowering from US.

# US elites trying to prove that their Idiot Electorate can't be trusted to use the World Wide Web, because information they see there might not be US-approved Propaganda.

An Elaborate History of the CIA...

A highly-researched eye-opening article!

The History of the CIA
Review of Douglas Valentine's Book
By Dr. P. Wilkinson

When I began reading the work of Douglas Valentine about six years ago, I had not read his books, only the articles that the US online journal Counterpunch had published. In fact I only began reading Counterpunch because of the accident of having been introduced to the two original editors of what was then only a printed newsletter. Later I was even able to publish a few pieces in that journal before its more famous founding editor’s demise. Why do I preface a book review with such personal observations? To that question I will return later.

After reading numerous articles I went to Douglas Valentine’s website and as I frequently do—even today—I asked him questions about things he had written. This began a conversation that has continued. Of course I could not hope to conduct a serious conversation with someone about their ideas without having read what they had already committed to paper. Hence I began with The Phoenix Program (1990). I then read both of his books on the US government’s drug organisations and was pleased to review them online. When Open Roads, under the direction of Mark Crispin Miller, re-published The Phoenix Program as the first in its e-book series “Forbidden Books”, I had the opportunity to review it as well. In other words although I have only known Douglas Valentine for a few years, I believe I am very well acquainted not only with his writing but I also know what makes it unique in the landscape.

His latest book, The CIA as organised crime, is not new. Nor is it intended to be. This book attempts something very difficult: compressing the essentials of nearly 30 years of intensive research, insight and implicit social theory into a volume accessible to readers with rapidly deteriorating attention spans who have been conditioned to what I would call “journalism as pornography” (I will return to that too.) Before I explain what I mean, permit me to briefly explain the structure of the book.

After introducing the reader to the “luck” he had in gaining access to the sources which made the book possible, Valentine presents revised interviews that explain the core information in The Phoenix Program (Part I) and the two-volume “Wolf/ Pack” study of US drug law enforcement (Part II). Then in part III he uses previous interviews and articles to explain the interrelationships between the CIA business and the DEA business and how they led to the Homeland Security business. Part IV is devoted to the various ways in which everything known from parts I – III are ignored, trivialised, distorted or censored so that such knowledge has virtually no impact in public consciousness. Here there might be a certain detectable irony since Valentine writes a book that concludes by saying that the means for acting on the information presented is already precluded—pre-empted rather than prohibited.

The book’s principle subject is the Central Intelligence Agency. For the historically challenged it may be useful to recall that the Central Intelligence Agency is an organisation of the US regime created by the National Security Act of 1947. Most history books will tell an average US citizen (or someone schooled with US curricular materials) that the act adopted by the US Congress on 29 July of that year was designed to consolidate the several branches of the military under a Department of Defence, for budgetary reasons, to restrain historic inter-service rivalries, and to create a more modern and efficient armed forces.

What is not said is that in 1945, the US government had demobilised its military and having emerged from the Second World War unscathed was trying to determine how to save its economy from a return to the pre-war depression. The intellectual elite of the US regime has already begun to warn that both domestic stability and US dominance in the world would be jeopardised if the regime did not maintain at least the level of armaments expenditure required during the war that had just ended. However there was no publicly defensible reason for permanent wartime footing. There were no more Native Americans to annihilate; despite the abolition of slavery Negroes were still well under control. The only country even approaching the US in military strength—the USSR—had been so devastated by the war that it would be decades before it could pose a genuine competitive threat. In other words, having pacified the world with atomic weapons and the blood of 30 million Soviet citizens, the US elite had no honest justification for the policy they were about to undertake.

The National Security Act of 1947 created the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, and what was first called the “National Military Establishment”—later renamed the Department of Defence. Given the fact that the international criminal court constituted to try war crimes in Nuremberg proclaimed the commencement of a war of aggression to be the ultimate war crime under international law, it ought to be clear that the legislation passed by the Congress in July of 1947 was tantamount to the establishment of a permanently organised war crimes establishment in the United States of America. The creation of the three executive instruments by which the US corporate elite in Congress assembled delegated the powers to declare war under their own charter (aka US Constitution) made the entire US regime an organised criminal conspiracy because the permanent state of war thus created in and of itself was an act of aggression in the very form condemned at Nuremberg—and for which those not particularly favoured by that regime were hanged or imprisoned.

It is within this legislatively mandated criminal enterprise that one has to understand the origins, purpose and function of the Central Intelligence Agency. The 1947 legislation chartered the CIA as an instrument of the National Security Council. On the tacit assumption that the US regime is in a permanent state of war—despite occasional suggestions to the contrary—the National Security Council constitutes something like a permanent war cabinet. The war cabinet has its weapons of mass destruction (the armed forces) but because this “cabinet” is composed of bureaucrats, academics, professional politicians, businessmen and assorted charlatans in the train of the reigning president there is need for an espionage organisation which in theory tells these ministers when, where and how to wage war most advantageously. That is the official reason why the criminal cabinet needs spies. According to the Act:

    (d) For the purpose of coordinating (subordinating) the intelligence activities (spying) of the several Government departments and agencies in the interest of national security (waging war), it shall be the duty of the Agency, under the direction of the National Security Council (permanent war cabinet)—

    (1) To advise the National Security Council in matters concerning such intelligence activities (spying) of the Government departments and agencies as relate to national security (waging war);

    (2) To make recommendations to the National Security Council for the coordination (subordination) of such intelligence activities (spying) of the departments and agencies of the Government as relate to the national security (waging war);

The ostensible function described is that of a consultancy, an almost academic organisation. However there are some other duties specified in the Act.

    (3) To correlate and evaluate intelligence relating to the national security (waging war), and provide for the appropriate dissemination (helping other government spies) of such intelligence within the Government using where appropriate existing agencies and facilities: PROVIDED, That the Agency shall have no police, subpoena, law-enforcement powers, or internal-security functions (This would be called a non-competition clause in commercial law. It was adopted to protect the right of the FBI and other domestic instruments of state terror from encroachments by the federal agency.): PROVIDED FURTHER, That the departments and other agencies of the Government shall continue to collect, evaluate, correlate, and disseminate departmental intelligence (no spying monopoly): AND PROVIDED FURTHER, That the Director of Central Intelligence shall be responsible for protecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure (preventing the public or victims of spying from defending themselves);

    (4) To perform, for the benefit of the existing intelligence agencies (all the military spies, police spies, and implicitly sanctioned corporate spying organisations), such additional services of common concern as the National Security Council determines can be more efficiently accomplished centrally (any other criminal activity for which the Agency is better equipped or has more benefit);

    (5) To perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence (covert action) affecting the national security (waging of war) as the National Security Council may from time to time direct.

The conspicuous crime for which the Central Intelligence Agency was created was spying, an offence punishable under Title 18 of the United States Code which incorporates the provisions of the 1917 Espionage Act. Of course one could argue that it is not a crime to spy on the enemy when at war. However officially at least the US has not been at war since 1945—at least not within the conventional interpretation of the war powers in the US Constitution, i.e. a resolution adopted by the US Congress declaring a state of war between the US and another country.  But even allowing executive liberty with the definition of a “state of war”, the Espionage Act also makes it a crime to spy on the “friends” of the United States—which of course has been standard operating procedure since the CIA was founded.

However the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency has another history, its genealogy. The CIA claims two inspirational heroes: Nathan Hale and William “Wild Bill” Donovan. Nathan Hale is heralded as the first or at least most famous colonial spy to be hanged by the British Army during the American War of Independence.Surely a bit of folklore, he was to have said before the noose did its work that he only regretted “that I have but one life to lose for my country”. William Donovan was a white shoe lawyer who persuaded US President Franklin Roosevelt to authorise the founding of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) from whose ranks many of the most renowned CIA executive management came.Nathan Hale’s place in the CIA pantheon is certainly no more than the vanity of its white elite founders. William Donovan is far closer to the true tradition from which the CIA arose.

Repeatedly CIA cadres make reference to the OSS as if it were the core of its “regimental history”. The myth intended is that the Office of Strategic Services was created in wartime (the last time the US was officially at war) and all those boys who joined the OSS were heroic soldiers fighting more or less covertly in the “good war”. Thus the CIA is the descendant of that band of heroic elite soldiers and patriots who quietly served their country under conditions that at least theoretically could lead them to share the fate of Nathan Hale. The truth however is quite different. William Donovan’s qualifications for the OSS were not his Medal of Honor awarded in the Great War but his political connections in New York. These political connections and his success as a lawyer enabled him to overcome the WASP barriers, which an Irish Catholic would generally face until one John Kennedy was elected for a visit to the White House.

Donovan was not only a lawyer and politician in Roosevelt’s home state, he was part of that community of corporate law firms whose specialties included organising covert action to defend US corporations abroad. Probably the most notorious in this league of private mercenary law firms was Sullivan & Cromwell—the firm in which John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles were partners.Prior to the creation of the CIA, there were law firms like Sullivan & Cromwell and the US Marines. After 1945, gentlemen like the Dulles brothers agreed that while it was not always opportune or good marketing to send the Marines, it was also very risky for US corporations and their law firms to intervene in foreign countries as they had done routinely prior to the Second World War.

There was a need for protecting corporations from the very real risks of de-colonisation and economic nationalism, which unfortunately had been given new impetus by colonised peoples who took the UN Charter seriously. Not only was it recognised by this segment of the US elite that a permanent war economy was essential for continued wealth accumulation and domestic peace but lip service had to be paid to the ideals of the UN Charter and the United Nations organisations (esp. since the admission of non-whites was inevitable).

The inspiration for the CIA came from precisely this class of white—mainly Protestant—descendants of the New England theocrats and Yankee slave traders whose entire identity was based on white supremacy and capitalism—both as a religious ideal and an enrichment strategy. It is one of the legacies of the US Civil War that overt violence, i.e. the armed forces, is dominated by the elites of the South while covert violence, i.e. finance and the secret police, is primarily managed by the elites of the North. So while 1945 brought the defeat of Ford’s, Bush’s and Dulles’ friends in Berlin and the disappointment of Soviet victory, there was still potential to exploit racism and domestic fears to create the illusions needed for a permanent war economy with all the trappings of a wartime police state.

This could not be done overtly because it could jeopardise markets in countries where US corporations hoped to replace European colonial competitors. There was also a domestic threat to be suppressed. After four years of telling US citizens that they were defending democracy and self-determination and opposing racism (although that actually was not a part of the WWII myth in the US until the 1970s), it was necessary to teach US corporate vassals (dictators) to at least walk and talk like US politicians. There had to be alternatives to the tried and true method of sending the Marines when the leaders in a foreign capital misbehaved. The people of “Wild Bill” Donovan’s class knew the methodology and understood the problem—but what they now needed was “official cover”. Nobody would believe—either in the UN General Assembly or any other public forum—that United Fruit supported or opposed governments based on democratic convictions. On the other hand, no one could (would dare) challenge the actions of the US government abroad to assist a government it declared to be democratic. Moreover if United Fruit broke the law, the local government could punish it, even by expropriation. But no local government would dare take such action against the United States itself—that could mean even war.

Hence the CIA was invented in the National Security Act not simply as an advisory and coordinating instrument for spying but as a criminal organisation to cover for the fundamental criminal activity of US corporations and those who own them. It was invented by those whose primary qualification for “government service” was their experience as mercenaries or mercenary managers for the corporations and wealthy families that own the United States government. Its leadership and cadre were and are drawn from the “families” who historically either own or defend the wealth concentrated in the US upper class. They are the essence of “organised crime”.

That brings me back to Valentine’s book: The CIA as organised crime. The subtitle of the book is “How illegal operations corrupt America and the World”. The title is fashioned like those of many typical exposés or what some might call “muckraking” journalism. If this title gets more readers than the means justifies the end. Yet I think the title is in fact a juxtaposition of two contrary perspectives of his subject. For Valentine’s book to be an exposé it would have to reveal something previously hidden. In fact Valentine concludes his book with the entirely justifiable assertion that what he has described is in fact in plain sight—not hidden at all. A “muckraking” story would take an otherwise tidy state of affairs and show that “beneath it all” it is really very ugly and dirty. However, no later than the Church and Pike Committee investigations of the 1970s and the Iran-Contra hearings of the late 1980s, it has been a matter of official record that the Central Intelligence Agency organises and perpetrates crimes as a matter of policy and that it does so with virtual impunity—in the interests of “national security” (waging war). So is Valentine’s book a revelation about the CIA?

No. Nor do I believe that he intended it to be.

The most important part of the book is in fact part IV: Manufacturing Complicity: Shaping the American Worldview. I see it as an act of self-defence that this part is not overtly the central part of the book. With respect for that I would like to point out why this self-defence is by no means trivial and at the same time I would like to take the risk or the liberty of elaborating why I believe self-defence is appropriate.

Valentine’s most important observations about the nature and structure of CIA action are:

    The CIA is a class-based organisation. Its membership and its mission are dedicated to defending the dominance of the predominantly US corporate elite, based on the ideology of capitalism and white supremacy.
    The CIA limits its scope of action to the extent that such action may be plausibly denied and is of benefit to its clients.
    The CIA does not recognise any barriers to action except those imposed by its clients or by the force of its opponents—i.e. it is beyond what most of us call the law. This does not mean that it is omnipotent.
    The CIA relies for much if not all of its tacit support upon the willing collaboration of the Establishment and the Counter-Establishment in all its forms and factions. The means for maintaining this collaboration are mastery of language and propaganda and an enormous capacity to reward support (witting or unwitting) and punish opposition.
    All of the above are attainable because of the degree of organisation and organisational discipline: class-based, bureaucratic and military in nature.

The CIA as organised crime is a compilation of examples drawn from his detailed case studies. It should motivate the reader to go back and read The Phoenix Program, The Strength of the Wolf and The Strength of the Pack. If this happens then the book will have been a success. If the reader is waiting for a daring revelation, he may be disappointed. Valentine does not trade in sensationalism. He is not a muckraker either. That is apparent from careful reading of the first two introductory chapters. On the contrary Douglas Valentine has written books, which prove that there are no real secrets for people who bother to ask the right questions and who listen to or read carefully the answers. The CIA as organized crime is another such book.

Here the reader of this review might object that of course there were secrets: the Phoenix Program was a secret. Without “Freedom of Information Act” (FOIA) searches and a lucky access to high-ranking CIA officials Valentine would never have discovered the truth, which was hidden from us all. Of course there are secrets. And of course it is the free press and heroic journalists like Seymour Hersh or Glen Greenwald and whistle-blowers like Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden (the list of journalists or “whistle-blowers” is by no means inclusive) that make sure that no matter how dreadful the people in Langley are, the truth will be discovered.

I think here it is important to distinguish between critical research published by a writer in periodical literature (journals) and journalistic pornography. The exposé is not accidentally connotative of striptease. As everyone knows who has at least thought about it, if not actually attended, the point of striptease is not the final nudity but the gradual and redundant suggestion of nudity. Pornography is literally not the graphic depiction of sexual acts but the graphic depiction of the activity of prostitutes. In this sense while it is conventional to identify prostitutes with those engaged in sex for remuneration, the reluctance to call people whose marriages result in monetary gain prostitutes has shifted the emphasis away from mere sex for money. This has given rise to such neologisms as “presstitute”—a journalist who prostitutes him or herself in his profession. The term “yellow journalism” was given to types of writing in the last century considered egregiously biased and aggressive. The tendency is to identify this kind of journalism with the “tabloids” or “boulevard press”.

The US journalist I.F. Stone, beatified in the US by many who call themselves “liberal” or “left”, knew that propaganda and “yellow journalism” was not a market cornered by the tabloids. His Hidden History of the Korean War is full of examples to show how the war in Korea was not reported, ill reported, or falsely reported by the so-called “quality press”. Douglas McArthur was just as successful at manipulating the Press as the generals and admirals that came after him. The collaboration of the media during the war against Korea was so effective that even forty years later, a documentary film about the war produced in the UK was censored in the US as a precondition to its being aired at all.

Those of us old enough to remember Morley Safer reporting from Vietnam on CBS might wonder at the story he told in 2010 to a select gathering of journalist veterans of that war about his relationship with then CIA station chief William Colby.Seymour Hersh is regularly trotted out by S.I. Newhouse’s New Yorker magazine as a critical journalist—also a Vietnam “veteran”. Hersh is given credit for bringing the My Lai massacre to the attention of the US public—an event Colin Powell did his best to help conceal while he was stationed in Vietnam. But Hersh did not make a name for reporting about the Phoenix Program (just as Morley Safer did not). The Vietnamese knew about Phoenix and they knew what kind of operation Lt. Calley was leading. Yet at no time during the trial of Calley was there ever any mention of the CIA or the campaign against the VCI of which Calley was just one tiny part. Instead we were all fed with nightly stories about how bad the war was and under what duress a young lieutenant was serving his country—that regrettable and even condemnable his acts may be but they were mere incidents of war. In fact Calley was acting in compliance with standard operating procedures and official policy of the CIA whose war Vietnam was.

The purpose of our press corps was and is to serve as part of the combined weapons deployed against the civilian population, esp. those in the “homeland” who have to be persuaded daily of the morality violated every day. On the one hand the population must be constantly reassured that that old disgusting Puritan morality remains the foundation of US society. On the other hand the prurient interest in breaches of that morality must be satisfied. Hence US Americans relish the hymns of praise for their Press that come from invidious comparisons with the media in the rest of the world (esp. the Soviet Union/ Russia). They need the titillation that comes from being told occasionally that elected officials patronise brothels, judges receive bribes and non-whites in foreign lands are tortured and assassinated. Even the most obscene acts perpetrated by CIA officers or their comrades in other branches of the State apparatus become delectable if served by those whose reporting respects the aesthetic dogma.

Bernardo Bertolucci directed a film Last Tango in Paris with Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider. A number of recent articles about the film focus on the non-consensual use of butter as a lubricant for the illusion of an anal sex rape scene. The film was rated as practically pornographic when it was released in the 1972. When I saw the film I was surprised that so much was written about the explicit sex. For me there was only one serious message in the film and it was very clearly articulated—regardless of whatever artistic pretensions Bertolucci may have intended. For the greater part of the film the characters played by Brando and Schneider meet and have unrestricted sex in an otherwise vacant Paris flat. The only rule throughout is that no names are to be asked or given.

As the film draws to a close this rule is breached and Schneider’s character is given a name for the man with whom she has had sex for such a long period. Shortly thereafter she borrows a pistol, meets the man in the flat and kills him. The moral of the story is simple. As long as we cannot name something that is bothering us, we have an enormous if not insurmountable impediment to action. The capacity for titillation, for erotic stimulation even with simultaneous pain, is enhanced by suspension of belief or cognition. This is what pornography does and it is also the function of compatible journalism.

The compatible Left enjoys journalistic pornography.Like sex pornography there are also different classes or grades of journalistic pornography, sensationalism, voyeurism, exposés, so-called “inside reports”. The quality usually depends on who is funding it and what audience is targeted. The main thing is that it is either exciting or something good for fund-raising, although sometimes it is enough to be good gossip. In other words, plot and character development or accurate dialogue are unimportant in comparison to that orgasm inducing “revelation”—an erection out of context. “Did you see that?” or “Did you hear that?” ejaculates from the stimulated consumer. Moreover the compatible Left believes just as strongly in American “exceptionalism” as the Establishment. The counter-establishment claims to be a victim of Establishment mistakes. The blind support given to Barack Obama derives in large part from the embarrassment felt that George W. Bush made people dislike the United States—not that people could dislike the policies and actions of the United States—not that people could object to the permanent war crimes establishment in Washington and New York.

To go beyond ejaculations—or even to dispense with them—one has to be willing to concentrate on the whole story, not just what appeared in today’s broadcasts or papers but what happened before that? Where did all that happen? Who are the people involved and with whom are they involved? These are the details of chronology, geography and genealogy.

History occurs in a context not of minutes but years, decades, even centuries. When angry Iranians seized the US embassy in Teheran in the wake of their revolution, none of the respectable media explained that the Shah had been installed by the CIA in 1954 or that US spies were still operating out of the US embassy when the seizure occurred. Even a media outlet generally assigned to the US Left produced a report on the anniversary of the Iranian revolution that omitted information it had reported at the time of the embassy seizure. Zbigniew Brzezinski’s creation of what are now called the Taliban, under President Jimmy Carter, to wage war against the Soviet Union is another fact conveniently omitted when deceptively comparing the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan with the US war against Vietnam.It is important to follow the timeline in its entirety, not just the segment served in the news bulletin.

When people in the US who do not know where the state of West Virginia is located are called “geographically challenged”, then it is all the more apparent that checking a map is a good thing to do before believing anything reported about a foreign place (meaning also any place one has never visited).

The Phoenix Program was developed by people who came from very specific professional backgrounds and biographies. When the program was up and running, the US Foreign Service was training whole classes of its employees to become Phoenix advisers in Vietnam. People like Richard Holbrooke and John Negroponte were working in rural pacification in Vietnam as 20-year-olds.Even if were it credible that the Phoenix Program was “terminated” when the US withdrew from Vietnam, there is an entire generation of cadre in the Foreign Service and military who began their careers learning how to manage the kidnapping, torture and assassination of unarmed civilians. Are these the people you would expect to run a proper democracy? Given that untold numbers of ex-servicemen join the police forces, one should not be surprised at how comfortable they feel in Ferguson, Los Angeles, Oakland, New York, Chicago, and New Orleans when they get to use military grade equipment.

There is nothing titillating about the routines of Homeland Security or the organisation of the US gulag. People like Jeremy Scahill do not need to masturbate in Iraq to find assassinations.They are the bread and butter business of the police and drug enforcement offices in every major US city. And torture—well that is celebrated in the endless hours of cop shows that even people beyond the US borders have to endure as standard TV and cinema fare.

I began this review with some personal observations—how I came to read and later to review the work of Douglas Valentine. Over the course of the past six years I have observed what I consider to be a steadily diminishing willingness to see the obvious and draw at least more obvious conclusions from those observations. Instead there has been an unceasing proliferation of opinion and chatter pretending to be debate. The US comedian Stephen Colbert used to parody this condition by portraying a person who always said in essence “truth for me is what I feel is true without any regard for the facts, or even despite them”. Unfortunately by the time the last editions of the Colbert Report were aired on Comedy Central, it was impossible to see the parody any more. There are innumerable examples of distortion in the public sphere—the substitution of spectacle for substance. Colbert never claimed to be a journalist but there are innumerable journalists who are in fact indistinguishable from their comedian imitators. A page from my grade school speller contained the aphorism “It is easier to be critical than correct.” It is easier to be a celebrity than a person with conviction.

The CIA as organized crime is not a book of opinion. Although there are interviews these were not for talk shows. The interview format—even with critical and informed interviewers—is problematic because of the need to make a dialogue out of material that requires individual intensity and focussed attention. Since Valentine is an experienced interviewer (as anyone can establish by listening to his Phoenix tapes), he makes the best out of a restrictive format. In doing so he does not tell us so much about asking questions as how we must learn to work with answers. Valentine’s book is also an exercise in giving critical questions, esp. from those who are less knowledgeable or experienced, the serious answers they deserve. That is one very important approach in teaching history, to restoring substance. Valentine is an excellent history teacher and there are simply not enough like him.

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Dr. P. Wilkinson, Global Research, 2017

Lid put on JFK assassination records...

Another American soap drama was played out centering the release of JFK records...

What Happened to the JFK Records?
By Rex Bradford
WhoWhatWhy 28 October 2017

What happened on Thursday, Oct. 26, with the JFK records scheduled for release under the JFK Records Act? A travesty. Most news reports correctly noted the release of about 2,800 documents, but added that only a few were held back, in some cases saying “300 documents” remain withheld (see CNN, and Washington Post for example). They are off by a factor of 100. In fact, tens of thousands of documents, possibly as many as 30,000, remain sealed at the National Archives.

If President Donald Trump had gone golfing at Mar-A-Lago and done absolutely nothing on Thursday, the National Archives (NARA) would have released all documents, as it was set to do. See the relevant language in the Assassination Records Review Board’s Final Report, quoting from the 1992 JFK Records Act.

This includes 3,147 “withheld in full” records never seen, and an unknown number of redacted documents estimated at about 30,000. Intensely lobbied by federal agencies including the CIA, Trump instead authorized the withholding of well over 90% of these documents. 52 of the 3,147 withheld-in-full records were released and put online by NARA, less than 2%, and 2,839 of the redacted documents were released, which is probably less than 10% of that set.

From the public metadata available for all these records, it’s clear that the most-desired records were held back. Still withheld-in-full records among the 98% of those still withheld include, for example:

    * Still-withheld Church Committee interview transcripts not included in the 1990s releases, including one with none other than CIA CounterIntelligence chief James Angleton.

    * Lengthy CIA files on officers who played a role in Castro assassination plotting and/or the JFK story, including William Harvey, David Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, James O’Connell, Richard Synder, and several others.

    * A 167-page CIA document on Valeriy Kostikov, the Soviet agent stationed in Mexico whose name was used as part of the “World War III” scenario that theWarren Commission we now know was created to push back against.

    * An interview the House Select Committee on Assassinations conducted with Orest Pena, the New Orleans bar owner who told the Committee that Oswald was an FBI informant and he often saw Oswald in the company of a particular FBI agent.

and many many more.

Additionally, many of the documents released online Thursday featured redactions — blacked out areas. In at least one case, the very same document has been available in fully unredacted form at the National Archives for more than 10 years. See the newly released version and compare to the MFF online version. These are two different copies of the same document held by different agencies, so perhaps one being redacted and the other not is just an accident. But why are there any redactions at all in the new copy? It is as yet unclear why so many redactions appear in what are supposed to be fully released records.

In a White House press release, President Trump announced “I am ordering today that the veil be finally lifted.” In fact, no such order was given or was necessary. The JFK Records Act mandated full disclosure by Thursday as a matter of law, with the only mechanism for holding anything back being a presidential certification that “continued postponement is made necessary by an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations” AND “the identifiable harm is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.” (see ARRB Final Report).

What happens next? According to the White House, there will be a review process over the next six months. By April 26, 2018, a further determination will be made as to whether full disclosure will occur, or more secrecy. Watch this space. Call your congressperson.

For more on these records, how to find online those which have been released, and links to essays discussing them, see the 2017 Document Releases project here at MFF.

Rex Bradford is the President of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, whose website hosts the largest searchable online collection of JFK assassination records.

Copyright © Rex Bradford, WhoWhatWhy, 2017

On occasion of the 100th anniversary of Balfour Declaration

Britain’s 1917 Balfour Declaration
By Stephen Lendman
Global Research, October 30, 2017

November 2 marks its 100th anniversary, a deplorable action, the beginning of the end of historic Palestine.

UK Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour’s declaration came in a 67-word letter to British Zionist Federation’s Lord Rothschild.

Accepted by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922, it stemmed from the mandate, giving Britain administrative control of Palestine.

Generations of political, military and cultural repression of its people followed, far worse after Israel’s so-called war of independence, stealing 78% of historic Palestine, the rest in June 1967.

Balfour’s call for establishing a nation for Jews (on stolen Palestinian land) was a high crime against humanity.

Endless conflict, occupation, dispossession, and repression, along with social and cultural fragmentation define conditions for beleaguered Palestinians – 100 years of suffering, no end of it in sight, the world community dismissive of their rights.

Balfour’s letter to Rothschild read as follows:

    “I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

    His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

    I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.”

Balfour acted without consulting Palestinians, reason enough for them to deplore Britain to this day, beginning the process of stealing their homeland, consigning them to future subjugation.

Former UK prime minister David Cameron urged PM Theresa May to commemorate the anniversary together with the Jewish community “in the most appropriate way,” without further elaboration.

Current UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson defended his predecessor’s action, saying

    “I am proud of Britain’s part in creating Israel.” The declaration was “indispensable to the creation of a great nation.”

It’s been a curse for Palestinians – their land stolen, their rights denied. The myth of “a land without people for a people without land” was predominantly Arab with small numbers of Jews and Christians at the time.

Balfour duplicitously promised Palestinians respect for their rights, saying they’d be protected, free from foreign rule.

Palestinian leaders saw the ruse, wanting no part of it. They opposed further Jewish immigration to no avail, their wishes conflicting with imperial Britain’s plans.

In 1947-48, historian Ilan Pappe explained what he called the “urbicide of Palestine – attacking and ethnic cleansing the country’s major urban centers, slaughtering and displacing Palestinians, making way for Jewish occupation and development.

The Nakba killed or displaced about 800,000 Palestinians. Over 500 historic towns and villages were erased, along with urban neighborhoods in Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and other cities, private property destroyed or confiscated, woman raped, other atrocities committed.

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, said during the Nakba “(e)very attack has to end with occupation, destruction and expulsion” – forcefully eliminating resistance.

Balfour and the British mandate made creating Israel and erasing Palestine possible – his declaration a document to live in infamy forever.

stephenlendman.org
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net

The laughable charade to implicate Russia continues...

The country that regularly meddles, directly or indirectly (or militarily if the former tactics fail) in other countries' elections, goes about complaining against the Russians for possible interference in its 2016 election! The MIC is running witch-hunt just to fool the easily-gullible sheeple while hiding the failure of their intelligence agencies...

How to steal a billion-dollar American election with a pocketful of rubles

Robert Bridge
RT : 31 Oct, 2017

For the next two days, the titans of social media will explain to stony-faced members of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Panel on Crime and Terrorism exactly how Russia purchased the 45th President of the United States for just pennies on the dollar.

Although Russia jumped on the democratic bandwagon rather late in the game, and the capitalist gravy train even later, it appears that Russian political technologists are already light-years ahead of the wolf pack when it comes to the election process, which - let’s be honest - has always been a tainted affair, even in fairy-tale Western capitals.

While US lobbyists are cunning enough to hedge their bets on both horses in every race, or join some shady Super PACs to get maximum bang for the buck, nobody has been able to determine - with absolute, rock-solid certainty - the outcome of any political contest.

That is, until now.

At this point, the more incredulous readers may wish to have a seat because the following news will send spasms of shock and awe to the very core of your democratic body.

Russia, the erstwhile ‘evil empire’ that only recently shook off the dusty cobwebs of communism, has mastered the democratic game of thrones with such impeccable precision that it is now able to buy any political candidate for about the going price of a German sports car, or a Spanish villa - take your choice, it's a consumer paradise. Despite considerable efforts to conceal the secret from annoying interlopers, the proverbial cat is out of the bag.

Consider Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, a veritable global warehouse of friends, photos and likes that the free world apparently can’t live without. After all, how else would we know what our friends had for dinner last night? But more to the point. Beginning on October 31 - apparently to achieve maximum Boo! effect - company executives will have to explain, with perfectly straight faces, that 'Russia-linked' election-related posts (whatever that means) comprise less than one percent of all such posts.

In other words, out of Facebook's massive influx of ad content, ‘Russia-linked’ election posts amount to one in 23,000 posts, or some 0.004 percent of overall content. It's difficult to fathom that such a negligible influence could have the slightest impact on the billion-dollar, barnstorming US elections. This should teach them to never underestimate Russian resourcefulness!

Russia’s ability to steer the outcome of the 2016 US election becomes even more fantastic when we realize that more than half of the ads were posted on the social media platform after the election was over. Yes, that's right, when the legendary fat woman was already singing. The social media giant also admitted that “25 percent of the ads were never shown to anyone.” 

Needless to say, Russia is now the envy of every lobbyist and campaign manager on K Street, and that may explain why the US refuses to provide a shred of evidence that pulls back the curtain on this “Russian collusion.” This information is just too damn valuable and could wreck the billion-dollar lobbying industry overnight. Eureka! Russia has found a way to take the unpredictability out of US elections, and save a lot of corporate dollars at the same time!

In an effort to deny Russia its victory parade, however, Facebook would only say the accounts were “likely operated out of Russia.” That statement is lamentable. After all, having spent so much time and effort devising such dirt-cheap and ingenious methods of manipulating the electoral process, would it be expecting too much to come out and acknowledge Russia’s rightful place in the rogue’s gallery of political chicanery? Alas, this appears to be the case.

With disturbing predictability, Russia is written off as a basket case every time it tries to do something remotely positive - from hosting the Olympics, to intervening against terrorists. But now that Russia has finally found its true calling – buying Western leaders for a fraction of the going price - nobody wants to acknowledge the debt! To paraphrase the journalist Greg Palast, 'is this the best democracy money can buy?' Certainly not!

Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch called Russia’s drop in the proverbial bucket a "new threat,” which, to be perfectly honest and humble, is probably about the same paltry amount one would expect to find from Lithuania, Libya or Latvia, although nobody ventured to study the cash flow emanating from those countries into the lily-white US political system, nor many others. The obvious question is: why?

Because quite simply we are talking about ‘Russian influence’ and who could deny the dark and dangerous connotations that delicious-sounding phrase conjures up? ‘Russian influence.’ Ah, yes, the way it rolls off the tongue has an almost hypnotic effect and is enough to make an American Neocon want to bomb something, anything. Indeed, as far as a political marketing tool, ‘Russian influence’ is second to none.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

There is also the question of Russia’s minuscule yet muscular presence on Twitter, which Donald Trump used with tremendous effect during his presidential campaign. In fact, he admitted he would not have ascended to the Oval Office without it.

“Tweeting is like a typewriter – when I put it out, you put it immediately on your show,” he told the Fox Business Network channel. “When somebody says something about me, I am able to go bing, bing, bing and I take care of it. The other way, I would never get the word out.”

And millions of other Twitterati feel exactly the same way. Bing, bing, bing! Yet somehow only Russia had the brains to steal an entire presidential election with the help of the platform. Again, at unbelievably low prices.

Twitter probably won’t relieve the jittery nerves of the Russian inquisition any time soon, despite a September report that stated: “Based on our findings thus far, RT spent $274,100 on US ads in 2016. In that year, the @RT_com, @RT_America, and @ActualidadRT accounts promoted 1,823 Tweets that definitely or potentially targeted the US market."

Donald Trump probably tweets that many messages before lunch.

In any case, despite these very slim findings, which is nothing more suspicious than the free market at work, Twitter banned all ads from RT and Sputnik, citing "election interference." While doing so, however, it failed to inform US lawmakers of its own multi-million dollar sales pitch for RT to buy ads during the election in question. Ah, those annoying details.

Google, meanwhile, said it found no evidence RT manipulated video hosting platform YouTube or violated its policies during the 2016 US election campaign. That is certainly not the Russian-made smoking gun that so many had been hoping for.

RT, which is the most-viewed global news network on the platform, actually won rave reviews: “Some have raised questions about the use of YouTube by RT, a media service funded by the Russian government,” the document said. “Our investigation found no evidence of manipulation of our platform or policy violations; RT—and all other state-sponsored media outlets— remains subject to our standard rules.”

Neverthless, many US politicians will be watching the McCarthy-like show trials with great interest, determined to learn how Russia was able to serve as the American ‘king-maker’ in the US political system, placing the crown on the head of a very unlikely candidate, Donald Trump, a real estate developer, for crying out loud.

In any case, it is very doubtful that the assembled US Senators, brought together by a whirlwind of suspicion created out of thin air, will learn anything at all from the deliberations, aside from whatever their vivid imaginations may conjure up.

After all, what else can we expect on Halloween besides more Russophobic-inspired phantoms?

Selected Comments:

# The Nobel literature prize should go to Russian Twitter accounts because apparently they have superhuman writing skills that control minds.

# The Washington political establishment and the corporate media cannot discard their cold war mentality. Worse, in their anti-Russian rhetoric, they are using adolescent techniques which would make any mature person blush. All they achieved is to erode the little esteem the US has left in the world.