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If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.' It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating one ham-fisted cover-up after another.
The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in Washington, "the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy." ~David Habakkuk Oct, 2018
British scientists conducted thorough experiments
and proved that absence or weakness of air defense
capabilities in the countries rich in oil inevitably lead to establishing of the democracy in the particular country GB: once a great cultured nation, now a poorly-educated gangster mafia state, ruled by oligarchs and inhabited by soccer hooligans hypocrisy noun - definition in British English Dictionary & Thesaurus - Cambridge Dictionary Online
hypocrisy - definition of hypocrisy by Macmillan Dictionary
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The British Ruling Class Degenerate, Debauched, Deceitful
That the British ruling class has fiddled whilst Britain burns is no longer a metaphor, it is literally true. Now that the pandora’s box of paedophilic corruption at the top has been opened, an avalanche of vile revelations exposing the whole establishment spews forth each day.
The latest news stands out for the scale of the cover-up it reveals. It is quite clear that for the British establishment cover-ups are routine and essential for self-preservation. The fact that this is the case proves that it is in the nature of the ruling class to engage in corruption and unpalatable behaviour.
This attitude of mutual protection in their mutual decadence was expressed by Lord Whitelaw, Thatcher’s Deputy Prime Minister and Home Secretary, who apparently asked ‘Why has this been allowed to come out?’ when a ‘Tories and prostitutes’ scandal broke in the ‘80s. This was admitted recently by a ‘very worldly former Conservative MP’. In other words, it was generally understood that there were practices to suppress news of this behaviour, and that by implication, this behaviour (of seeing prostitutes) was commonly practiced by Tories.
Clive Driscoll, a former senior Metropolitan police officer, is becoming a familiar face on British TV screens. This is a man who has ‘seen too much’. His investigation led to the conviction of two of Stephen Lawrence’s killers, after, by his own damning indictment of the police, decades of ‘disruption tactics’ to let these racist murderers go free.
exposed his former employer for protecting racist thugs, he has reported that “when he revealed - in an internal meeting - the names of suspects he wanted to investigate [for child abuse], which included politicians, he was taken off the case. He told the BBC his inquiry was ‘all too uncomfortable to a lot of people’.” It is now known that more specifically, a team of police covertly filmed the knighted Liberal MP Cyril Smith abusing children in Lambeth, for which he was actually arrested. He was then released without charge, and the officers were forced to hand over all evidence, including the video footage, notes, etc. and told if they ever spoke of it again they would be breaking the Official Secrets Act.
When asked how such a thing as the arrest of an MP could remain covered up for decades, Driscoll explained that “detectives are fathers, husbands, sons, they have their own families. It's incredibly difficult. If you felt that by coming forward and just telling the truth that you might have your livelihood taken away from you or you, worse still, may be taken to prison, then that's very difficult.” In an earlier interview, Driscoll said that this fear of victimisation for speaking out was widespread and exploited for cover-ups, “Whenever people spoke to you and shared their fears and their story about what they had seen, it was almost on the proviso that they wouldn't make a statement and that they would be scared if you realised who those people were that were talking for fear of reprisals to both themselves [sic] and their families."
It is clear that, as Labour MP Simon Danczuk has argued, Cyril Smith was immediately set free because a host of powerful people had participated with Smith in decades of abuse, and they feared his prosecution could lead to the whole network’s downfall. Clearly their ears and eyes were highly attuned to pick up any danger to their conspiracy and snuff it out immediately.
Scotland Yard itself now admits that a whole network of “politicians and establishment figures abused and terrorised children as young as seven more than 30 years ago and went on to kill three young boys.” Police have now raided the homes of former MP Harvey Proctor and former home secretary Leon Brittan for child abuse. The latter, who died only in January, stands accused of leading the entire cover up. According to one police officer he was actually photographed by police as he used ‘rent-boys’ in 1986 - that investigation was also rapidly shut down. Vishambar Mehrotra, whose son may have been one of those abducted and then killed by this network, took evidence of this to the police but was refused an investigation as it implicated ‘judges and politicians’.
So extensive is this network of paedophiles and mutual protection in the establishment, that the inquiry that has now been ordered into the scandal has moved onto its third judge after the first two were found to have close links to those implicated! They have had to go so far as New Zealand to find an experienced judge not discredited through connections to Britain’s paedophilic establishment!
In any given week, one would normally think the exposure of one extensive cover-up to be fairly unlikely, and yet this week we have the unearthing of two! The public has known for some years now that the real cause of the 96 deaths in the Hillsborough disaster was not the drunken hooliganism of Liverpool fans, as disgustingly portrayed by the police and the Sun, but the ineptitude or conscious neglect of the South Yorkshire police force - the same police force that terrorised miners in the Battle of Orgreave in the Miners’ Strike. But the ongoing inquiry - taking place decades too late - has forced the police force into embarrassing admissions proving a cover-up took place.
David Duckenfield, who was in charge at the stadium on the day of the disaster, has admitted that it was his own foolish decisions that led to fatal overcrowding in the stadium. Under questioning he also revealed the police’s contempt for the working class that underlay such foolish decisions. For instance, even after realising the situation was a ‘medical emergency’ and not simple fan ‘disorder’, he called for reinforcements of police dogs and no ambulances as he watched fans dying. Duckenfield ‘has no idea’ why he did this. There can be no other explanation than contempt for working class football fans, who in his eyes were little more than thugs to be barked at and bitten even whilst being crushed to death.
But the questioning also exposed the cover-up that has lasted decades. The police’s line after the disaster was always that it was the Liverpool fans’ fault - a line infamously taken up and played with by The Sun. Paul Middup, a Police Federation joint branch secretary at the time, was put up to making vile slanders on Liverpool fans, such as that they were drunk, ticketless, took coins from dying fans and urinated on police who were ‘heroically’ resuscitating victims, because his bosses could not be seen making such allegations publicly - although they backed him up. Middup now admits he wasn’t even at the game but was watching snooker at home.
There is a mass campaign in Liverpool to boycott The Sun for making the slanders which helped to deflect blame from where it really lay. Now that we know the police conspired to fabricate these falsehoods, the working class of Liverpool and elsewhere should boycott the police force and establishment as a whole, which is clearly not only no better morally than the rest of us, but is engaged in systematic cover-ups, exploitation, debauchery and violence on a staggering scale.
The British establishment is as corrupt and degenerate as any other, as George Monbiot has recently argued. He points out that, to top all this off, “The City of London, operating with the help of British overseas territories and crown dependencies, is the world’s leading tax haven, controlling 24% of all offshore financial services.”
Whereas our media patronises the Chinese with tales of widespread illegal bribing of officials and politicians, in Britain we have instead legalised and very traditional corruption - the buying and selling of politicians, something at which the Conservative Party is particularly adept. The unwelcome publicity around its notorious ‘black and white ball’ money raiser was extremely revealing. This was a party that welcomed oligarchs and billionaires from all over the world to buy favours from our government so they can fund their election campaigns and lifestyles.
Norman Tebbit was very recently disgraced for offering his services to apparent Chinese businessmen in a very free and easy fashion, subsequently justifying himself on the grounds that he cannot be expected to live on a mere £67,000 salary.
Only yesterday, a sting on the Conservative party recorded Hugo Swire, foreign office minister, joking that those on benefits can afford to make £55,000 donations, whilst at the same fundraiser Russian oligarch Alexander Termerko boasted he could provoke a change of Prime Minister because “for a change of prime minister you need 20 [MPs], I have 37. Much more than half.” So one oligarch feels he ‘owns’ 37 MPs, enough to select the Prime Minister of an entire country!
The relentless revelation of establishment scandals is now feeding off itself, as each outing encourages others to come forward and diminishes the Press’ incentive to hold back - especially after they themselves feel aggrieved at the exposure of their own phone-hacking scandal. One wonders what other scandals are currently suppressed? What network of duplicitous MPs, press barons, bankers and royals are protecting each other’s secrets?
Prince Andrew accused of having solicited minors - Photo: Siim TellerWe cannot be fooled into thinking that these inquiries and press reports will weed out the corruption, which is too endemic to the ruling class. Mostly these inquiries happen decades after the fact when the crimes can no longer be denied, and their perpetrators are long dead. And where is the campaigning outrage against these scandals from our media and political parties? In the past, they actively encouraged not only outrage but marches and movements against individual, non-establishment paedophiles. Now they report on systematic cover ups by leading politicians, on entire networks of decades long abuse protected by the state, on our very own royalty accused of using under-age prostitutes. They report it, once they have to, but make no bones about these most appalling crimes which reveal that our society is run by liars and abusers of the worst kind.
What these scandals really tell us is that our society as a whole is unjust, violently oppressive and based on lies and illusions. It is high time we rise up and overthrow the lot and avenge those countless victims of ruling class oppression.
Read More
- Britain: dark clouds ahead for Flybe 21 Nov 2018
- Britain: the Brexit bombshell 15 Nov 2018
- Britain: 'Lest we forget' – Poppy Appeal hysteria and hypocrisy 11 Nov 2018
- Britain: don't be fooled by budget headlines – austerity isn't over 6 Nov 2018
- Britain's brexit crisis: what is the likely outcome? 25 Oct 2018
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Apr 27, 2021 | turcopolier.com
English Outsider says: April 17, 2021 at 7:14 am
The BBC take on the position in the Ukraine –
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-56776463
The art of omission at its most effective. Reply
- Kouros says: April 17, 2021 at 4:51 pm
The Brits are the real pros on this:
http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-newsletter-100-amateurs-talk-cancel-pros-talk-silence/ Reply
- English Outsider says: April 17, 2021 at 8:56 pm
Just as well he left out the Opium Wars.
Wodehouse, that most perfect of stylists, was not as lost in his imaginary world as all that. I suppose his main sources for pastiche or parody were the Bible, Shakespeare, American gangster idiom and such novelists as Ethel M Dell. That's where he got his square jawed characters who went out to often unspecified parts of the Empire and did often unspecified great things. Wodehouse rips them to pieces, as he also shreds the English Blut und Boden Fascists of the pre-war years. I suppose I, courtesy of old second-hand bookshops, must be one of the few who've read Ethel M Dell. Often wonder what people who haven't make of Wodehouse.
Dickens is I think misrepresented in the article. His extraordinarily vivid characters derive from his personal and first hand experience. He knew little of Empire or had little contact with it, but knew enough to rip apart Mrs Jellyby's misdirected do-goodery in Borioboola-Gha. I thought of Mrs Jellyby when President Biden's philanthropic schemes for South Amrerica were being discussed on the Colonel's site recently.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/jun/20/backbencher
In fact the British Empire, for all the harm it did, is a transient affair not to be confused with the great continental land empires. Disraeli got going with the "Queen Empress" braggadocio in the late nineteenth century and barely twenty years later Kipling was writing the prophetic obituary of that chapter of English history.
It's an accurate article as far as I know – the exploitation of the Indian peasant, for example, was shocking in its ruthlessness. We get a more balanced account of the Irish famine from modern Irish historians though in my view, for all Victoria's munificant £5,000, the failure to get to grips with that famine was not only a condemnation of the neo-liberals of that era. It removed for all time any prospect of peaceful union between Ireland and England. Don't forget Dr Johnson's remark when Union was being mooted many decades earlier. ""Do not make an union with us, Sir. We should unite with you only to rob you. We should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had anything of which we could have robbed them".
Seems the great Doctor knew all about Empire.
Mar 22, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
foolisholdman , Mar 21 2021 19:14 utc | 36
Has anyone else noticed this piece of idiocy?
SAS ORDERED TO START DISRUPTING RUSSIAN MEDDLING AROUND THE WORLD
(Headline in the Daily Telegraph)
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/sas-takes-fight-meddling-russiaSTARTns-194726807.html
SAS soldiers will be told to disrupt Russian meddling around the world as part of a major shake up of defence priorities.The SAS and other units in the Special Forces Group will likely work alongside MI6 to conduct covert surveillance operations against Russian spies and military units.
Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, the chief of the general staff, told The Telegraph that special forces will be tasked with tackling "hostile state actors".
The move comes ahead of the publication of the Defence Command Paper, the MoD's contribution to the Government's Integrated Review of foreign, defence, security and development policy, which will be published on Monday.
How can one interpret this except as an attempt to curry favour in Washington? Why now? Presumably, because the USG has just said that it is focussing on Russia. Even if this is a policy shift why announce it? This is the sort of information that, (You might think!) discovered and passed to the Russian Embassy would get you locked up for a long time! If this has any effect, I imagine it would be that if/when the Russians come across any unexplained Brits in (say) Syria, they will KNOW what they are there for and will deal with them accordingly. A more poodle-like action is hard to imagine.
Fyi , Mar 21 2021 19:35 utc | 38
migueljose , Mar 21 2021 19:41 utc | 39Mr. B
The Five Eyes are servants of polities that are dominated by the English-speaking White Judeo-Christians.
3 of them - Canada, Australia, New Zealand - are military protectorates of the American wing of the Judeo-Christians.
As a practitioner of permaculture I look for patterns, including power constructs of the U.S./5 eyes mafia. Here's one.
Look at Luis Almagro, enthusiastic mouthpiece and cheerleader for the U.S. empire. Now look at NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. They could be brothers or cousins judging their resumes and history of kissing the rings of powerful mafiosos. Norwegian has already given us a summary of how Stoltenberg "failed up" and Almagro's history is similar. He's most known lately for being the screamer who triggered the coup in Bolivia over a year ago.He didn't ask for my advice. I'd have told him: "run away and hide!" He's still in the limelight as he once again stepped up to call for Jeanine Añez's release from jail for her crimes during the nazi/keystone (cops) reign of terror. Bolivia is responding much like the Russians, Chinese and Iranians: they are standing firm AND now considering prosecuting Almagro!
https://orinocotribune.com/oas-almagro-defends-coup-plotters-in-bolivia-declares-court-case-political-persecution/
https://orinocotribune.com/bolivia-considers-taking-legal-action-against-oas-secretary-general-luis-almagro/
To me, it is like Almagro is walking around naked and trying to act as if he has clothes on. Almagro is similar to Kamala in that his own people in Uruaguay don't like him: national hero and former Tupac Amaru revolutionary hero before he became president Jose Mujica canceled Almagro. He snuggled up to Pompeo and now seamlessly genuflects before... pick a name: Blinken, Kamala, Colombian born frat boy Juan Gonzalez. Fear of the U.S. is diminishing. Same in Ecuador. Alliances are growing stronger--Venezuela and Iran are a shining example of the way forward. They are not hiding their actions... they are BRAGGING about them! https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/15133
Bottom line-- obvious dimwit psychopaths Elliot Abrams and Pompeo are gone, replaced by new guys who are not that bright but they think they are while they are losing the only leverage left: threats. No one likes them and no one fears them. China and Russia's smackdowns will resonate throughout Latin America. Alliances will grow at an increasingly rapid pace. Meanwhile, watch the Ecuador election results April 11. Arauz is strong and gaining more, the people there are getting more mobilized. another game changer in South America.
Feb 28, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
migueljose , Feb 28 2021 17:37 utc | 12
My apologies if this has already been posted. Aaron Mate continues to rise in stature-- IMO-- as he keeps digging into Russiagate and exposing deeper and deeper proof of U.S. and U.K. plots, programs and coverups regarding Russia. In this video Mate and Max Blumenthal start by explaining how Twitter inadvertently boosted the Grayzone's explosive uncovering of the BBC, Bellingcat and others' programs designed to do what Russiagaters accuse Putin of doing; the difference is that Blumenthal gives evidence in the form of emails. impressive. bottom line, "R2P""Russia bad"... the wheels are falling off.
Feb 25, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
Bemildred , Feb 25 2021 0:54 utc | 53
You would think they would hire people who have some idea as to what might be plausible when they invent these stories? It's very strange to see. There has been a long string of these unconvincing stories aimed at Russia. The claim the supported Trump after 2016 was a watershed too, all caution to the winds after that. Skripals, Navalny, one after another that makes no sense. It's like they want to make a point and are failing. Or maybe propaganda is all they have.
Feb 24, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Feb 23 2021 1:26 utc | 173
Last week, Grieved linked to a book available at The Archive, The Empire of "The City" which is free to download. It's quite a sensation, and I cited a bit from it as soon as I began reading. Here's another outtake:
"News that definitely points to the existence of the secret world supergovernment of "The City" is treated with dense silence. The current activities of what has been identified as the most powerful international society on earth, the "Pilgrims," are so wrapped in silence that few Americana know even of its existence since 1903.
As a glaring example let us consider the cross-examination of Henry Morgenthau, Jr. as to the contacts of his father with the peculiar activities of the mysterious and secret British statesman Viscount Reginald Esher by Senator Gerald Nye in a Senate hearing on January 28, 1940.
Apparently not one newspaper in the United States gave one inch of space to this immensely sensational exposure, while Senator Nye, like many other statesmen who have ventured too far into forbidden realms, has been effectively submerged."
Great prose, yes?! Even more interesting information, Yes! There's much to commend it, and much to learn from it. The geopolitics it discusses certainly impacts the domestic world and explains the current idiocy of the UK toward China. They think themselves still at the head of an Empire because they are.
Hoarsewhisperer , Feb 23 2021 3:20 utc | 180
Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 23 2021 1:26 utc | 172
(Book: The Empire of "The City")On a not unrelated theme, a few weeks ago I posted the outline of a 2020 TV doco called Secrets of America's Shadow Government and prepping for Continuity Of Government in the event that the psychos in charge miscalculate. A couple of weeks later I noticed that it was only Episode 1 of an ongoing series, not a stand alone doco, having missed Episode 2. The film makers have gone to great lengths to expose AmeriKKKa's dirty linen in an extremely unflattering context.
Episode 6 is about the CIA and FBI and whose interests they do and DO NOT protect. It also touches on Morgenthau's characterisation of AmeriKKKa as "dual state" and has caught up to the Trump Show. But the details are presumably being aired in Episode 7.
One nice touch is that after every ad break the program resumes with a few seconds of banner headline declaring WHILE THE REST OF US DIE.
Feb 16, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org
In 2018 we wrote about:
The reporting was based on the British Integrity Initiative's internal files which some 'anonymous' organization had acquired and published.
Data acquired from Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office by the same group revealed large British propaganda programs in support of Jihadis in Syria as well as British influence operations designed to undermine the security institutions of Lebanon and to secretly influence its population.
Now another large set of files has been published by the same source. These describe an extensive British government program designed to undermine Russia by organizing and financing 'independent' Russian language media, by 'training' Russian journalists and by secretly paying Russian influencers. It is certainly not the only British anti-Russia program but it probably has, secretly, the most public influence.
The anonymous author has laid out the complete Undermining Russia program in four extensive parts: One , two , three , four .
The information discussed is from government files which outlay various projects and from companies and -- interestingly -- from charities who make bids to run the FCO projects. All underlying files are available for download as one archive file (~80 MB).
The most interesting files are the bids the companies make for projects. They reveal previous projects, methods and people and thereby create the larger picture.
The budget for the various anti-Russian projects runs at dozens of millions pounds per year. The first programs were launched in 2016 and some continue through this year.
A 'Supplier Event' for one of the projects laid out the general idea :
Programme Strands
- ENGAGE – working through the British Council to implement people-to-people activities between ethnic Russians and local communities to develop links along the lines of 21st century skills – includes English language skills and media literacy, social enterprises and cultural activities;
- ENHANCE – supporting independent media in Russia's near abroad to bring balance and plurality to Russian language media, in the Baltic States and Eastern Partnership countries;
- EXPOSE – by debunking and exposing Russian disinformation in real time, which can be reported in mainstream media with the goal to expose malign state disinformation in countries that are targeted by it. If you expose disinformation, it is less likely to be impactful; therefore, the Russian State becomes less credible.
- ENABLE – working with allied governments through the Government Communication Service to improve their strategic communications to their populations.
Note that 'Russian disinformation' is whatever Britain does not like about Russia. 'Exposing' such 'disinformation' is best done by spreading one's own. These are not defensive programs but attacks on Russia.
Projects to achieve the above were to be implemented in nearly every country that borders Russia and has a Russian speaking minority as well as in Russia itself.
The British government does not want you to know about such projects. The 'Supplier Event' sheet says:
SecurityNo unauthorised disclosures of activity on this work. Contract will need to take a look at who we are working with. Basic IT security reasonable steps should cover our requirements but the FCO may request an explanation of what steps have been taken to ensure security and Duty of Care.
It should be noted that for security reasons, some grantees will not wish to be linked to the FCO. It should be noted that the Programme Team would prefer the programme documents do not end up in the Russian media. We know that they are following us, and we are expecting an expose soon.
What is the overall purpose of such secret programs? The author of the Undermining Russia series explains that with regards to the 'poisoning' of Alexei Navalny:
Many years of painstaking work of HMG through its embassies and intelligence cutouts precede a chemical attack. They create Media, CSOs and pseudo humanitarian organisations that happen to be just at the correct place and in the correct time with their cameras ready when 'suddenly' a dreadful accident 'shocks every one into action'.Do you believe HMG staged the 'Navalny accident' as part of some kind of a secret operation? Did HMG create Media outlets, nurture bloggers and stringers that it controlled? Did it engage Russia's youth and CSOs? Did it try to demonise Putin just like it had done with Assad by labeling them Evil Dictators who poisoned their people with forbidden chemical weapons? Do you know what all of this is needed for? They need it to delegitimise a leader of a country and convince people around the world that 'no holds should be barred to fight a mad dictator'. Can you grasp the gravity of what is going on? Well, you ought to. They are preparing us for war with the Russians and the Chinese. They are looking for casus belli, and only the truth can stop them, because 'if wars can be started by lies, they can be stopped by truth'. (Julian Assange)
That view is not even exaggerated. The 'west' has the knives out against Russia. We previous mentioned a report from the Pentagon think tank RAND which evaluated how to best 'unbalance and overextend' Russia. In the end it was clearly aimed at regime change in Russia, or if not otherwise possible, war. On Friday Gabriel Felbermayr , the president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, was asked by a German radio station about new sanctions the EU might impose on Russia. He is skeptic that those might work because (my translation):
The aims we have towards Russia are very big. We do not want anything less but regime change in Russia, which is difficult to achieve by economic pressure.The new documents also reveal some interesting new points on Navalny who seems to be on the British government payroll:
biggerThese self-exposing documents show that the FCO has established a network of popular YouTubers in Russia who investigate corruption in the government, and the YouTubers get assistance from some journalists from the Baltic States. Also, the FCO has experience of instigating protests in Russia.By now you must have guessed the identity of one of the popular YouTubers investigating corruption. After obtaining EXPOSE Network files and examining the case studies two years ago, we didn't figure out which YouTuber the FCO supported through ZINC. We refrained from making any preliminary conclusions even when journalists discovered that Vladimir Ashurkov, a close ally of Alexei Navalny, was a part of the Integrity Initiative cluster.
But when we saw Mr. Navalny and Bellingcat together, things started to make sense. By digging deeper, we discovered another Navalny's supporter who lives in London - some shadowy Maria Pevchikh who is promoting a system of smart voting in Russia. The Labour used a similar voting system to take the votes of the Conservatives. So, basically it is highly likely that the UK recommended the system to Mr. Navalny.
It also turned out that Navalny began a smear campaign against the RT - one of the few media outlets in the West that allows those who disagree with the official position of western government to speak out. Note that Navalny's campaign was running in parallel with that of the Integrity Initiative. A reasonable question is - why Navalny who is mostly engaged in political battles inside Russia spends time fighting a TV network operating outside the country? Was RT really such a problem for him? No, it wasn't. It was a problem for the Western imperialists and apparently, they told Navalny to join in.
Anyway. Here are again links to the four parts of 'Undermining Russia': One , two , three , four .
They give extensive insight into the methods the 'west' is using to destroy foreign countries. Knowledge that one needs to really understand what is happening in this world.
Posted by b on February 15, 2021 at 19:24 UTC | Permalink
Norwegian , Feb 15 2021 20:13 utc | 4Many thanks b. This is real journalism. That is a strong compliment these days.Paco , Feb 15 2021 20:22 utc | 5Projects to achieve the above were to be implemented in nearly every country that borders Russia and has a Russian speaking minority as well as in Russia itself.Piotr Berman , Feb 15 2021 20:23 utc | 6Not only countries bordering Russia, a cell existed in Spain and it had consequences, when the new government came to power the local cell ran a campaign against the new nominee for National Security for not being tough on Russia as required, he was out of the job, and the main local newspapers were and are in bed with British intelligence dutifully reporting how bad Russia is and how good Navalny and his boys are, journalists working for the media with the largest readership in the country. Some got fired when the scandal went public, others went through the revolving door, that simple. They had a lot to do with the Assange case, as explained in the link bellow.
Russian authorities are more sophisticated that the British, not to mention Americans. The way I see it, American flunkies tend to make most glaring mistakes routinely, and with propaganda efforts they may get some mileage in Latin America -- not as much as they could wish. But in Europe and Middle East, it takes the British to keep track which country is which etc.Erelis , Feb 15 2021 20:57 utc | 10In that vein, Russia is not so eager to clobber Navalniks with political accusations. To a larger degree than China and the West, Russia wants to allow free access to information etc., and focuses on discrediting "Navalniks". Let them have 40 offices around the country plus a slew of foreign ones, online TV channels etc. In the same time, Russia is copying Western methods.
- For example, tagging people as "foreign agents" if they use foreign money to operate.
- Converting stories "discrediting the regime" into flops, like "Putin palace".
- Imposing rules that make it hard for new parties to run in elections -- copied from New York State?
- Imposing rules that make it hard to run demonstrations where you want and issuing pesky penalties for violations.
In the same time, collaborating with the West puts people who do it in an unpopular box. Navalny tries to circumvent those limitation with rank demagogy, but he still suffers by contagion, and from condemnations from less cynical followers of other Western projects -- for accepting Russian Crimea, frowning on immigrants etc.
On the US side, the program 60 Minutes just aired a segment where president of Microsoft claimed that the Russians used 1000+ hackers for the SolarWinds flair. No wonder Microsoft produces such crap software. If the Russians could manage 1000+ engineers, then they should be outsourced for all of DOD's software.Stonebird , Feb 15 2021 21:08 utc | 11Largest-ever the world has seen': Microsoft president claims 1,000+ software engineers must have worked on SolarWinds breech
https://www.rt.com/news/515617-solarwinds-breach-largest-everThe Biden admin is supposedly now deciding what new sanctions or actions to take against Russia. And this psyop comes out. Timing. All about timing. Somebody timed this.
Just confirms that the Biden regime will take the US into a shooting war with Russia just as the Brits were going toward that if their propaganda failed to oust Putin.
Thanks b.karlof1 , Feb 15 2021 21:27 utc | 14
Skimmed through part 1. I see you are quoted. A question (which may be answered in a later part of the same), are the connections to the "five eyes" as well as the Spanish (re. Paco post) organised by the UK or are they joint efforts? (Anonymous doesn't think too much of the others.)The FCO seems to be the operative, but is it really the originator? In the sense that at present the financial and "sanctions" elements are part of US/Israel policy. They may have been suggested by the FCO discretely?
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I note that Corbyn was attacked for anti-semitism by the FCO and also by Israeli media. They also seem to be deeply involved in the same setup. Were the Israelis involved in the planning?
Many things to consider given this new information. It provides extra dimensions to Today's Crooke essay and the one by Tim Kirby I posted yesterday. Agent Smith tried to pooh-pooh it all by saying the international culture wars are a side show when in reality they are the crux of the matter since at the end of the day everything boils down to First Principles--Values. Truth, Virtue and Promotion of the Individual to Advance the Many versus Lies, Deceit and Denigration of the Individual to Advance The Few.mpn , Feb 15 2021 21:28 utc | 15@10 erelis. Noticed the paid advert on 60 minutes last nite, also. But after watching for 5 minutes, had to switch channels. Saw b's latest write up on Solarwinds which I would tend to trust note than ms / CBS. A follow up from b would be nice.MarkU , Feb 15 2021 21:33 utc | 16The poisoning narratives touted by the Western oligarchies and their corporate media should be seen for what they are, hilariously funny. As I said on a previous occasion, I laughed out loud for about half a minute when I read that Navalny had been poisoned with a 'novichok-like substance'. In the most literal sense those stories do not pass the laugh test. From the Litvinenko-polonium story to the Navalny- novichok underpants story they have all been a tissue of quite absurd lies.Mar man , Feb 15 2021 21:42 utc | 17Worryingly, despite the absurdities and the frequent changing of details in these narratives, people who are demonstrably quite intelligent in their daily lives appear to be buying into the anti-Russian narrative. People who can watch 'Game of Thrones' and comprehend a fictional character's argument when he asks the question 'why would I frame myself' are seemingly incapable of applying the argument in real life situations. Why would the FSB frame themselves? Why would they use a substance that has not yet succeeded in killing any of the intended targets? There must be literally hundreds if not thousands of toxins that could be used and there are countless other ways of killing a person.
Imagine a check box list of the desirable characteristics of an assassination weapon, neither 'novichok' nor polonium would tick enough (if any) of those boxes to be considered.
So what is it about? Clearly that rubbish is not going to work on the people of the Russian Federation (at least not enough of them to be worthwhile) That just leaves us as the target, they are quite obviously manufacturing consent. Do they actually mean to start WW3? or is it a bluff intended to frighten the Russians into submission? Or ruin their economy with massive increases in arms expenditure? Perhaps it is just more pressure to cancel Nordstream 2 so the US can sell their overpriced fracked gas and delay their coming economic collapse for a short while. Only time will tell, I fear the worst.
Oligarchies usually end with arrogance, stupidity, ignorance and eventually insanity. The modern counterparts of Nero and Caligula are running the western world. While dynasties are usually founded by exceptional people, as a rule the only exceptional thing about their descendants is their arrogance.
There are some flaws in western plans.JohninMK , Feb 15 2021 21:47 utc | 18
- Russians can, and do, watch and read western media to see firsthand how badly western press slander Putin and Russians in general. Putin is extremely popular in Russia for saving the country from oligarchs, reuniting Crimea, shutting down western sponsored terrorism in southern Russia and standing up to naked aggression from NATO. Western press shows Russians just how stupid western people have become by believing the inane poisoning stories, airplane shootdowns, and Russian "invasions" such as Crimea. The Russians only need to read western press to know the west is preparing regime change or war. Putin and the Kremlin do not need to say a word to convince Russians the west considers them enemies.
- The constant lies about Russia and threats to Europeans and Turkey are backfiring. The Germans, Turks and others are furious over the British and Americans constantly demonizing them for making smart business deals and military purchases with Russia. With all the "maximum pressure" campaigns and sanctions, some European and Middle East countries consider the US and UK bigger threats than Russia.
- If the west actually achieves the goal of starting war with Russia, the result will be disastrous for the west. Russia has become so advanced militarily, there is no doubt Russia would easily crush any attacks and then counter attack. Be careful what you wish for, Americans.
Whilst we the British people, who have no problem with the Russians, have no say in the matter. Oh to be a fly on the wall at the next official Anglo Russian get together. That will be a 'shortest straw' gig as no British politician will want to face Lavrov now, especially after that EU prat visit last week.John Cleary , Feb 15 2021 22:07 utc | 19Very interesting b.Tuyzentfloot , Feb 15 2021 22:28 utc | 20Alex Salmond joined RT as a commentator in November 2017. Immediately the powers of the west turned against him.
But Alex is a helluva politician. He fought back, and that fightback reaches its climax in the coming weeks.
What's going on? Why this animosity towards Russia?
I'll give you my opinion.
The British leadership are VERY ambitious. The nature of their empire has changed. First, They no longer seek to become an empire of nations, but rather an empire of national leaders - primarily Heads of State who control the domestic legal system. Second, they are a feminist empire, with power passed from mother to daughter. They are able to do this because, while there can be but one King, there can be multiple queens simultaneously. For example, from the death of George vi in 1952 until the death of Mary of Teck in 1953 there were no less that three queens of the United Kingdom. Then until 2001 there were two queens. Like chess, with two queens you always win the game.
But they can only do this while the United Kingdom exists. England alone, shorn of Scotland, loses the medieval laws and powers that underpin this empire.
If you investigate the monarchies of Europe you will find that they all are members of the Order of the Garter (KG). This is a sovereign order, which means that in order to join one must swear an oath to the Sovereign of the Order, Queen Elizabeth.
If you investigate the politicians of the US you will find many that have joined the Order of Bath (KB) even though it is explicitly against the constitution for them to do so (I think it is called the Emoluments Clause, but I may have misremembered). Again, in order to join this organization you must swear an oath to Queen Elizabeth.
It used to be that only the Republicans (Reagan, Bush, Weinberger and so on). But in January 2001 I came across a photograph of the three Clintons "leaving Buckingham Palace following a private visit". The benefits gained by the Clintons is what has launched the family into the big time of money and personal unrestrained power and the complete control of the Democratic Party.
This is a millennial empire. It is meant to last for a thousand years. The other great civilizations - Russia, China, Iran - are equally millennial, and are seen as a threat to the British plans for world domination.
The other great civilizations understand all I have written. They know a fight is coming. And I think that this is the reason that Lavrov finally took off the gloves when dealing with Borrell last week. For while he would bend over backwards to understand the EU position in the past, the UK has now quit the EU. The only ties now to the British Empire are those personal ones to the monarchs of Europe like, in the case of Borrell, Felipe vi and his father, juan Carlos. Both Knights of the Garter.
Hope this helps.
Devinette: when was the last time a state which was not supported by the US has committed a chemical attack? I think we can dismiss Syria and Iraq.psychohistorian , Feb 15 2021 22:30 utc | 21@ John Cleary | Feb 15 2021 22:07 utc | 19 with the description of the British empirePaul , Feb 15 2021 22:55 utc | 24About that Queen thing. I can't think right now where the details are but it is my understanding that annually the Queen presents herself to the City of London in a supplicatory manner. I agree that there is empire and that the Queen is part of the fabric of the curtain behind which are the real lever movers, those that own global private finance.
British hostility to Russia has a long history. Indeed, we should not forget that the British Royal family supported Hitler. No doubt this, at least in part, accounts for Neville Chamberlain's 'appeasement' Adolf Hitler, following Germany's annexation of Sudetenland in 1938 and sequent invasion of Czechoslovakia in March, 1939.kiwiklown , Feb 15 2021 23:04 utc | 25
See- A brief history of the British Royals and their alleged Nazi connections 28 Aug 2017; Link:
https://www.sbs.com.au/guide/article/2017/08/28/brief-history-british-royals-and-their-alleged-nazi-connections
Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 15 2021 21:27 utc | 14 -- "Many things to consider given this new information. It provides extra dimensions to Today's Crooke essay and the one by Tim Kirby I posted yesterday. Agent Smith tried to pooh-pooh it all by saying the international culture wars are a side show when in reality they are the crux of the matter since at the end of the day everything boils down to First Principles--Values. Truth, Virtue and Promotion of the Individual to Advance the Many versus Lies, Deceit and Denigration of the Individual to Advance The Few."Jen , Feb 15 2021 23:08 utc | 26Thanks, karlof1, for yet another informative article. Saved it for study along with the Tim Kirby article.
So much to read... so much to learn.... so much to pleasure in.... first principles, eternal values, objective truth, good governance... and did God say that the white man's burden is to go rape, pillage, rob the rest of the world?
And thanks for reminding me that his name is Agent Smith.
This is to help me remember not to engage trolls and / or idiots:
"Never again will we try to persuade a foolish person with reason, for it is senseless and dangerous. In conversation with them, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of them. They are under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in their very being.' -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
schmoe , Feb 15 2021 23:11 utc | 27... These self-exposing documents show that the FCO has established a network of popular YouTubers in Russia who investigate corruption in the government, and the YouTubers get assistance from some journalists from the Baltic States. Also, the FCO has experience of instigating protests in Russia ...It would be interesting to know if the Russian-language news website Meduza.io might have some connection to this assistance to the YouTubers. Meduza.io is based in Riga, Latvia, and employs Russian-language journalists. Kevin Rothrock , formerly of The Moscow Times (English-language newspaper in Moscow), is editor-in-chief of Meduza.io's international version.
BTW Maria Pevchikh accompanied Alexei Navalny from Omsk to Berlin. She was the one who was supposed to have gone to his hotel room in Tomsk and picked up the water bottle supposed to contain Novichok, at least until information came out that she acquired the water bottle from a vending machine at Omsk airport en route to Berlin. Pevchikh was the one person in Navalny's entourage who did not submit to questioning by Russian authorities on Navalny's poisoning.
I think we should see a bit more (in Google's English-language translation) of what Gabriel Felbermayr said to Katharina Petz of Deutschlandfunk:
Gabriel Felbermayr : I am sceptical about [further sanctions]. The question is always what we want to achieve with sanctions. If we really want to bring Russia to its knees economically, we would need a large coalition of countries to do so, and Europe alone cannot do as much as is necessary. At least China on board and, best of all, India and other [Russia's] trading partners would need it. The fact that sanctions have worked so badly in the past has to do with the fact that they are being undermined by other countries, that is a key problem. That is why I am sceptical that putting a on it (sic) really helps now. The objectives we have with Russia are very large. After all, we want nothing less than regime change in Russia, which is very difficult to achieve with economic pressure ...
... I believe that we must also see who we are hitting with the sanctions. Are these really the people who are acting and who, in the light of the sanctions, may then reconsider their actions, or is it the general population that is hit very diffusely, each a little bit. This does not hurt enough, so to speak, to put great pressure on the regime, but it does hit the general public. That is why I believe that a sanctions instrument that is much more adicating (sic) to individuals is more promising and does not affect the broad mass of Russians. That already exists, we are using it in the European Union. These could be travel restrictions, that could be the freezing of assets abroad, and this could also be sanctions against certain companies that are very close to the Kremlin. Perhaps there is more that can be done than Europe alone, because Russian foreign assets are not in China, so to speak, and the second residences of Russian oligarchs are not somewhere in the Third World, but in Monaco and London and Paris. So smart sanctions are certainly what is more promising – one has to ask whether Europe has the right instruments ...
...Yes, of course, the economic impact of the sanctions is quite different. Germany suffers from the Russia sanctions that have been in place since 2014, more than any country in the world, in absolute terms, and is also much more affected in percentage of economic output than in France. In Germany, this costs about 0.2% of GDP, according to various estimates, and in France this figure is much lower. There are, of course, other European countries where the level of concern is higher, [Bulgaria] for example, or the Eastern European Member States of the European Union as a whole. This unequal concern is certainly a political dilemma.
It is also a political problem with regard to the United States of America, which, while always insisting and pushing for sanctions, has so far drawn little economic disadvantage from it, simply because US trade with Russia is very low. That is the core problem when it comes to forging a broad coalition that costs are too unevenly distributed. We would certainly also have to think about compensation mechanisms within Europe or within the Western world, so that the joint fight against the violation of human rights, for example in Russia, must be paid for economically, not only by a few countries ...
... Yes, I would agree, I think [Nordstream II shutdown] is overestimated. The question is how much billions of export revenues Russia generates in the European Union by selling natural gas, that is the central question. And whether natural gas enters the European Union via Ukraine or Turkey or Germany does not matter much. It may even be the case that the possibility of shutting down or blocking such a pipeline again, or imposing conditions, means that Germany will even get a leverage over Russia that would not otherwise have been possible.
So I also think that Nord Stream 2 is overestimated. Here again the question would have to be asked, who does it actually cost if you do not complete the project. A great many European and German investors are also negatively affected, and with sanctions we want to inflict pain, above all, on the Russian power apparatus and not on ourselves. I believe that Nord Stream 2 is a bad instrument ...
So the sanctions regime against Russia is hitting the EU, and Germany and parts of Eastern Europe in particular, harder than it's hitting Russia and the EU needs more nations on board with sanctioning Russia.
I can't imagine the US would be willing to compensate the EU for any losses it has to sustain by sanctioning Russian government officials and businesspeople.
I recall that I first found the video below from a MofA comment, but very pertinent to this discussion and maybe it is discussing the same program: Top French Intel Boss Reveals Operation Beluga: US UK Plot to Discredit Putin and Destabilize RussiaSam F , Feb 15 2021 23:26 utc | 29The UK aristocracy and their opportunists have nothing to credit themselves but ill-gotten money or the hope thereof, they have always been forced to equate money=virtue to pretend to any merit, between themselves and their families. This is the cause of their eternal hatred of socialism and virtue in government, and their eternal hatred of Russia, even in the post-USSR era. If they have no one with less money to hate, they have no claim to personal merit, and must face the truth.Passer by , Feb 15 2021 23:28 utc | 30Of course the same is true of the upper classes anywhere, even among the poorest. For what was the purpose of their lying, cheating, stealing and perpetual materialism, what were the values they taught their children, if money is not virtue. Virtue is an unknown land to them, an unforgiveable sin, for that way lies the ugly truth about them.
>>More British Efforts To Undermine RussiaPasser by , Feb 15 2021 23:35 utc | 32Lots of people living in la la land - that is - in the good old times when the West subjugated the planet.
UK economic drop 2020 -10 %
EU economic drop -7 %
Russia economic drop -3.1 %Moment to reach 2019 Q4 economic level:
UK beginning of 2023
EU beginning of 2023
Russia Autumn 2021>>Gabriel Felbermayr: The aims we (EU) have towards Russia are very big. We do not want anything less but regime change in Russia.
Yes, Gabi, it is good that you are honest. It will only warn people of your intentions, so it is preferable to talk that way. :) Meanwhile, in the real world, lots of EU businesses and NGOs will flew out from Russia and be replaced with Asian ones. It already happening with cars, trade, energy flows, diplomatic missions and tourists. So good riddance to bad rubbish.
Posted by: Jen | Feb 15 2021 23:08 utc | 26oldhippie , Feb 15 2021 23:45 utc | 34>>I can't imagine the US would be willing to compensate the EU for any losses it has to sustain by sanctioning Russian government officials and businesspeople.
The place of the EU in this whole scheme was already described by Victoria Nuland. That is - "F the EU". :)
This is not a problem though, they have long experience with it.
US will not be selling any LNG to EU/Germany to compensate for loss of NS2. The fracking business is shutting down and shutting down right now. Wells are going offline, replacements are not being drilled. No drill, no gas. Fertilizer shortages are already in sight. As we lose ability to grow food we will not be sending feedstock material across the ocean just because it sounded good in a strategic fantasy.kiwiklown , Feb 15 2021 23:59 utc | 37
Posted by b on February 15, 2021 at 19:24 UTC | -- "They give extensive insight into the methods the 'west' is using to destroy foreign countries."Passer by , Feb 16 2021 0:06 utc | 40Thanks, B, for using the light of truth to expose the insanity of western leadership. It gives me pause to try to understand the ethics / morals / humanity of the thousands of western bureaucrats working on these elaborate (sometimes comical) plans to destroy other nations. How does a "civil" servant like that conceive such evil, then go home to teach their children how to be human beings? This banality of evil is absolutely unfathomable to ordinary people such as I.
Reminds me of the thousands of good Germans who "went along to get along" on the way into WW2. Also, the thousands of good British "planners" who war-gamed their way into WW2.
Gabriel Felbermayrkarlof1 , Feb 16 2021 1:24 utc | 41>>And whether natural gas enters the European Union via Ukraine or Turkey or Germany does not matter much.
This ignorant euro-puppet should be fired immediately.
Having a gas pipeline via Turkey increases the geopolitical weight of Turkey and it allows it to blackmail the Balkan Countries receiving the gas.
Using the Ukrainian route means that additional billions of euros will have to be invested in repairing the old and disrepeit Ukrainian Gas Transit Network which is from the 80s, with good amount of the money disappearing due to corruption.
The gas then may stop due to Russia-Ukrainian disputes (as it happened in the past) or "misterious" explosions may happen on the pipeline (as it happened too).
It is also unclear for how long will Russia be interested in saving the EU from freezing (in January the EU was forced to buy record amounts of gas due to cold temperatures), considering the rise of Asian markets.
Right now Russia is connecting the Western pipelines and the Eastern Pipelines, meaning that "EU gas" may be reserved for the East.
Gazprom is also looking to accelerate work on the Power of Siberia 2 (PoS2) pipeline, as part of plans to unite domestic gas transmission infrastructure across eastern and western Russia into a single system.
https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2127793-work-starts-on-final-part-of-russiachina-gas-pipeline
TASS reports Lavorv's comments after meeting Finnish Foreign Minister revealing the lawless nature of the EU's behavior as it abets crimes against its own laws:kiwiklown , Feb 16 2021 1:57 utc | 42"The minister paid special attention to the fact that Brussels enables brazen violations of rights of Russian speakers and attacks on the Russian language and culture in the Baltic States, Ukraine and several other states. '
Of course, we cannot but take into account the EU condoning blatant breaches of Russian speakers, Russians and the attacks on the Russian language and culture that we witness in the Baltic States, Ukraine and some other countries. When Russian-speaking [TV] channels are shut down, when criminal cases are opened against Russian-speaking journalists for simply doing their jobs, when the disgraceful institute of statelessness remains in the EU, while the European Union watches it all without any desire to change anything, I believe that it is not Russia distancing itself from the EU, but the very EU moves away from the Russian language, Russian culture and all things Russian, meaning that it is drifting away from the Russian Federation ,' the minister noted." [My Emphasis]
As reported earlier, Russia will finish Nord Stream 2 and continue fulfilling its commitments. But given EU co-responsibility for the terrorism and refugee crises combined with the recent revelations, I don't see any positive developments occurring.
Posted by: Jen | Feb 15 2021 23:08 utc | 26norecovery , Feb 16 2021 2:02 utc | 43Thanks for that very revealing translation of Gabriel Felbermayr's words. It shows that a man can be intelligent and insane at the same time. He speaks as if the need for destroying Russia is a given. Sounds like he is one of those thousands who go along to get along....
"I fooled myself. I had to. I didn't want to see it, because I would then have had to think about the consequences of seeing it, what followed from seeing it, what I must do to be decent. I wanted my home and family, my job, my career, a place in the community." -- Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45
Let's get to the heart of the matter: why are expatriate Jews so mad at Russia? That is it, in the simplest terms, is it not?norecovery , Feb 16 2021 2:20 utc | 44The answer: because they can never get enough.kiwiklown , Feb 16 2021 2:33 utc | 45Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 15 2021 23:46 utc | 35 -- "I see New Zealand is still headed by the Queen of England. Time for independence I'd say!"RJPJR , Feb 16 2021 2:54 utc | 46No way to break free until the world order is rearranged after WW3.
Which may, or may not be during our lifetimes..... ;o)
For Psychohistorian and John Cleary, regarding the City of London...kiwiklown , Feb 16 2021 2:57 utc | 47The City was never thoroughly brought to heel by William the Conqueror with the result that it was granted a sort of autonomy within the realm, hence its absence in the Doomsday Book, which assessed the realm's lands for taxation by the crown. Whether or not it is part of the United Kingdom is a moot point, for its autonomy (strengthened over time) makes it, in a sense, impervious to United Kingdom legislation that it wishes to ignore. In this regard, it is a sort of anomaly, like the Channel Islands (the last remaining part of the Duchy of Normandy still under the British crown) and the Isle of Mann, both of which are NOT part of the United Kingdom and were not part of the European Union, and both of which are notorious tax havens.
The peculiar status of the City of London is what has made it a great financial center, for it can regulate itself (and does, to some extent, if only to keep the scandalmongers at bay), unlike the New York and Swiss financial centers, which are subject to "outside" oversight, New York by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and Switzerland by the FINMA (Financial Market Supervisory Authority).
MarkU @ 16 -- "While dynasties are usually founded by exceptional people, as a rule the only exceptional thing about their descendants is their arrogance."Stonebird , Feb 16 2021 11:33 utc | 68Ancient Chinese wisdom on generational wealth: First generation make money; second generation keep money; third generation lose money. Start over.
MarkU @ 16 -- "Oligarchies usually end with arrogance, stupidity, ignorance and eventually insanity. "
Good fit for most parts of the Western (*) leadership, lying one day, reversing their own lies the next, then reverting to their original lie, then pivoting to some other lie. Insane. They have gone past derision, gone past shame, gone past dishonour, into insanity. Destruction cometh next.
(*) Russia is Eurasia, not the West.
"Now it's time to expose another intelligence cutout - BBC Media Action. Don't be surprised that the detested mainstream media outlet BBC has its own secret firm which gets its funding from your taxes as well as from the CSSF." (Taken from part two)Jackrabbit , Feb 16 2021 15:08 utc | 73One visible thing about the complete "undermining of Russia", is that a large amount of bureaucratic planning has gone into it. The quantity of companies that have been employed and with specific duties to perform is shocking. An incidental factor is that the UK and French participants get well paid. £975 or £700 per day, in comparaison to "locally found" participants.
Other things of note are the targeting of Russian speaking, younger age groups and the admission that the over 40's are more difficult to change. (This is a common factor for other areas of propaganda as well.)
The "Covid story" has had an effect. No longer are " mother and daughter tea parties " with 40 participants possible. Not a joke , but it serves to underline the thoroughness of the propaganda effort leading up to effect a "regime change".
----
About the Monarchy, and inferred connection to the "landed Gentry Aristocracy". Possible, but would rely on education in the "best" Schools, and their production of eligible members of "secret" manipulative societies via old boy networks, as well as "ordinary" leaders. ie Politicians, Top civil servants.
Private Schools such as Eton and Harrow have recognised "specialities" and form the basis of networks. It is not for nothing that you have to put the names down of likely progeny almost at birth. Closed shop attitude as in a "trade Union"! ST. Johns, Leatherhead, produces clergy for example.
The UK Monarchy was connected by intermarriage to almost all the Royalty in Europe. There are still connections (for those who have the cash), through such goups as Bilderberg, etc.The relation of the "Dukes" to a desire to take over Russia, is a possible source of interest. ie. The Duke of Grosvernor owns the Square mile of the City of London. (Which is an entity in itself.) The City has the key to the finance of the UK and much of the "dark money, and money laundering in the world.
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all for today.vetinLA @Feb16 6:32 #60Stonebird , Feb 16 2021 15:49 utc | 74Those beliefs led us to DJT..Obama, Bernie and DJT have led their flocks to nowhere. What led us to them is the establishment's desire to derail populist Movements.One clue (among many): Each of these so-called populists is pro-Empire.
Nothing will change as long as we keep falling for compromised leaders that are promoted by a compromised media.
- Obama conducted covert wars and regime changes. He declined to prosecute any CIA people for rendition & torture and dismissed privacy concerns about NSA spying. He also lied to us: 1) about a 'public option' in his healthcare plan and 2) never making the Bush tax cuts permanent (Obama participated in the 'fiscal cliff' farce that made most Bush tax cuts permanent while cutting social programs);
- Bernie , aka "Senator F35" is a closet Zionist that supports the Empire. He was Hillary's sheepdog in 2016. He then founded "Our Revolution", a nonprofit that accepted money from large donors. Bernie folded like a tent in 2020 to support establishment candidate Biden. Bernie put forth a bogus bill to end US involvement in the Saudi war on Yemen that would not actually end that involvement due to an exception. And he has criticized Venezuela's Maduro as USA has been trying to overthrow him.
- Trump - a billionaire conman, Clinton insider, and friend of Epstein - got in front of the Tea Party parade with slogans like "America First". His actions show that he is a fraud who is actual "Empire First". Trump dramatically increased spending on the military, terminated multiple peace agreements, renegged on his peace deal with North Korea, gave Israel everything on its wish list (including killing Iranian Gen. Soleimani), militarized space, and continued the War on Whistle-blowers with prosecution of Assange. Along the way he lied to the American people about the severity of the looming pandemic and excused MbS's killing of Jamal Khashoggi.
!!
JohninMK | Feb 16 2021 12:59 utc | 70Prof K , Feb 16 2021 17:23 utc | 81I heard this when I was a student in London. It may be hearsay after all, as I also tried to find relevant info after your comment. Trouble is the enormous power of the City, the Banks, and major corporations all who have a "vote" (or not) in the affairs of the Corporation, make any detailed study next to impossible. Trusts, etc. I followed somebodies FOI request which led to ..... nothing.
Note that known Grosvenor territory (the house I had a flat in. The street belonged to them.) were part of their assets, and in the last seven years of a 99yr lease. After which it had to be "returned in the same state as it was "sold" in the first place.
The present Duke does apparently not have much to say in the Grosvenor Family Trust. He is still rich. (according to one grovelling article).
It does make a prime suspect for setting up the Anti-Russian saga, as those Banks/Corporations and Billionaires etc. would be the ones to profit massively from a"regime change".
tut, tut !!
Like clockwork, the NYT begins to set a rationalization for more US imperialism in Syria. This is such a contrived article. It doesn't come out of the blue.Charles Michael , Feb 16 2021 17:33 utc | 82
These ferocious dogs never stop. The push is to rebuild the Turkish relationship, and so regain influence over Syria through 'protecting Idlib' and its 'children.'Karlofi (with all due respect for your posts)karlof1 , Feb 16 2021 18:07 utc | 83About Tim Kirby advises to Russia. The guy is completely delusional and really ignorant of Russia history and mental structures.Russi is not going to metamporphose in USA or UEJohn Hermer: http://johnhelmer.net/1000th-dance-with-bears/
But Russia is going fine with ChinaCharles Michael @81--psychohistorian , Feb 16 2021 18:24 utc | 85Thanks for your reply! I've often disagreed with Kirby; but as I wrote in my first linking to his essay, there are some suggestions that merge with ideas we've discussed over the months here. I've written about what I see as Russia's fundamental ideology, how it differs from the West, and fume intensely when Putin says differences with the West aren't ideological when it's so clear they are--Putin just laid out the vast chasm in his Davos speech. Lavrov just reiterated that Russia cannot abide nations/organizations that are pathological prevaricators. And China is the same. IMO, the First Principles of Russia and China are the ones humanity needs to adhere to and merge with policy. They are the same as those proposed by Henry Wallace for his Century of The Common Man. I see them as an evolutionary step forward to a Commonwealth of Humanity that would inspire a Great Leveling--which the elite of course oppose. The most recent manifestation of the Abrahamic Religions also appeals to such an arrangement as does most Afro/Asian philosophy.
What we have is an embattled minority trying to keep its power using every trick at its disposal. The #1 question most of us have: Is that minority suicidal--will it see nuclear war as a way to keep its position? Putin has answered that if it does try it will lose. And IMO, the minority knows that it currently will lose but hopes to reverse that outcome--They don't seek compromise as they want it all. And that's where the big problem lies--How to dissuade them of their unattainable Zero-sum Fetish?
So empire (is it British, American, Jewish...) threw up Donald Trump as the attempt to gather the totally delusional around a maniacal "strong/bully" leader to push back against the Russia/China axis and it didn't work entirely like they wanted but it broke enough social anchors to increase the fragility/fear factors of society. When the mostly manufactured crisis does come they trust their ability to manufacture Western outcomes that keep private finance alive and with some ongoing control over some chunk of the world.juliania , Feb 16 2021 18:47 utc | 86I don't expect to live to see private finance go entirely away anymore. I think the trajectory is set in that direction but the timeframe will be longer than I wanted/expected. Look at the number of commenters here that still want to play whack-a-mole bad apples games while behind the curtain the global private finance elite are continuing their species perversion through British ways like b has shown here.
The West needs a better social system that has the broader public instead of a cult of folks as its focus or we will continue our road to deserved extinction.
emersonreturn @ 9, I have just done the same this morning as gently as I could with family members in New Zealand. It is very hard for them to recognize this is not all Trump's doing - especially when they are benefitting from better government themselves as far as coping with the virus, and they remember fondly better days in the relationship with the US.Paco , Feb 16 2021 18:56 utc | 87All we can do is keep trying.
Lavrov at work, day after day. Today with Togolese Foreign Minister, a quick translation so as to induce a little smile:willie , Feb 16 2021 19:00 utc | 88Question: How do Western countries view the rapprochement between Russia and African countries?
Foreign Minister Lavrov: In different ways. Some are neutral, others, like the former US Administration, are very negative. Former US Secretary of State M. Pompeo traveled to Africa before the end of President Trump's term and publicly urged not to cooperate with Russia and China in the field of trade, because Moscow and Beijing allegedly proceed from geopolitical interests, trying to benefit. The United States, on the other hand, "does it from the heart." I will not comment on this kind of position.
Recently, representatives of the new US Administration called on the Russian Sputnik V vaccine to be viewed with suspicion, since again, this is a "Kremlin's geopolitical plan" and one must be "careful" not to become "dependent on Russia."
I think Crimea was meant to be the new homeland for Israel citizens, when the usurpator state goes down. Now they will have to save themselves to Patagonia.Hoarsewhisperer , Feb 16 2021 19:11 utc | 89Intriguing topic.juliania , Feb 16 2021 19:19 utc | 91
It's anyone's guess why the Christian West's front-of-curtain leaders are training the Homeland serfs to become accustomed to 24/7 lies about remote enemies. The notion that the West can "win" a war with Russia/China is laughable. Each/both could retaliate EFFECTIVELY if attacked. So if the bs isn't about WWIII then what is it about?My guess is that it's nothing more sophisticated than Creative Distraction from what's been going on in AmeriKKKa and, to a lesser extent the Rest of the West, since the Oligarchs had their own taxes slashed in the '70s, '80s and '90s. This helped to fund the Oligarch's favourite hobby: "Privatise Every Publicly Owned Monopoly/Utility." Keeping wage-growth flat also helped to fund the take-over.
From a country-to-country perspective the trend, whilst quite uneven, has been inexorable. And there is a notable absence of serious debate about reversing the trend.
It doesn't matter what the ultimate goal of this social engineering may or may not be. It has to be reversed. And one way to reverse it would be to submit every excuse Rich People use to justify their tax breaks to Public Scrutiny and laughed out of court.
In the 1950s Rich People, worldwide, paid eye-watering Taxes on all 'excess income' beyond the top marginal rate. And when they went to Heaven their Estate was taxed on its 'excess value'. They've killed off those taxes too, by playing one country/ jurisdiction off against another - using Lawfare (high-priced lawyers whom ordinary folk can't afford).
They're too eerily inept to win a war against Russia/China. Their war is against their own countrymen. And it's aim is to prevent as many serfs as possible from getting their grubby little mits on OUR MONEY!
Thank you, karlof1 @ 14; Crooke's essay is masterful! If only others in the West could be persuaded to read it -- the references to Ireland and India are so persuasive, but then he doesn't stop but demonstrates how the situation today is so much worse. The bolded quote,Jo , Feb 16 2021 19:31 utc | 93"...We may have democracy, or we may have surveillance society, but we cannot have both." (Emphasis added).has to be seen in the entirety of the article to be appreciated, and his definition of the EU as a cartel is pure genius! They are all not even worthy of the title 'empire' -- they are all cartels!!
UK loaned 1.5b to Ukraine to build 2 warships for them...plus rebuild shipyards to re construct the navy....paratroopers are training Ukraine forces....do they plan to go against Donbass like this....reminds me of old film a bridge too far where British forces failed ......and Nato gonna give Black Sea a lot more trouble for Russia too.karlof1 , Feb 16 2021 19:48 utc | 94Paco @87--Paco , Feb 16 2021 20:14 utc | 98I was just going to post the link to that transcript, From it much can be learned about the degree of Russian involvement in Togo and Africa as a whole; this for example:
"The Association for Economic Cooperation with the African States was created in Russia following the 2019 Sochi summit. It includes representatives from the related departments and major Russian companies. The Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, which is a political association, was created as well. Its secretariat is located at the Russian Foreign Ministry. We agreed to hold the forum's annual political meetings at the foreign minister level, from Russia and the African Union Troika that is comprised of its former, current and incoming chairpersons. In 2020, we held them via videoconference with the foreign ministers from South Africa, Egypt and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Hopefully, we'll be able to meet in person in 2021."
That's a lot of interaction that also includes Russian businesses, all of which ought to be added to China's activities. In addition to what Paco provided, there's this closing paragraph that reveals more of the Anti-Russian nature of BidenCo:
" It wasn't long ago that representatives of the new US administration said the Russian Sputnik V vaccine should be treated with suspicion, since it was another geopolitical plan from the Kremlin, and that one must be careful not to become dependent on Russia . It's sad if they have nothing else to say about normal and friendly relations between countries, and if this is the only thing that they have to say about this. We never make friends with other countries in order to oppose third countries. If Russia and its foreign partners are mutually attracted, we have every right to develop our relations as we see fit. I hope others will also learn their lessons and treat our ties with Africa with respect." [My Emphasis]
Russia and China act while the Outlaw US Empire focuses on fashioning a False Narrative that can easily be seen as such. However, it seems the underlying scourge is becoming easier for English speakers to see: "All animals are equal; but some animals are more equal than others."
Posted by: karlof1 | Feb 16 2021 19:48 utc | 94Too bad the mid.ru site usually does not publish the guests comments and answers, excess of caution maybe, but it was interesting what the Togo foreign minister had to say concerning good relations with the Soviet Union and then Russia in many countries all over Africa, he expressed his gratitude for the many African students in Russia, students that have become high cadres in Togo and other countries. Another interesting point was the fact that Lome is the main deep water port in all of West Africa, and therefore the minister was talking about regional matters, Togo as a hub. Macron must have watched the press conference, after all the foreign minister spoke in French. Russia is recovering lost presence in Africa.
Jan 17, 2021 | national-justice.com
British Security Service's Involvement In Combat 18
While the FBI's COINTELPRO program in the 1960s is well-documented, the British government has engaged in similar intelligence operations more recently.
When the British National Party (BNP), under the leadership of John Tyndall, began making inroads in local elections during the early 1990s, a parallel and initially friendly organization, Combat 18, emerged around the same time.
C18, as it came to be known, was founded by a man named Charlie Sargeant with help from American Harold Covington.
Initially, Tyndall enjoyed the enthusiasm of C18 members, who promised to help defend against "antifa" groups that were attacking BNP events.
The relationship quickly soured when C18 began attacking the BNP for its parliamentary approach, which they saw as inferior to C18's open avowal of terrorism -- "direct action" -- to achieve political ends. Later, C18 members launched a campaign of ruthless beatings of lone BNP members and became a source of gossip and slander against other nationalist leaders in the British scene.
In 1995, Tyndall wrote an editorial in the BNP's newspaper Spearhead outlining C18's irrational and violent war to destroy the BNP , despite both sharing similar goals and enemies. In it, he states his belief that C18 was being influenced by MI5 and the Special Branch, with help from the FBI in America, in a ploy to disrupt and discredit the British nationalist movement.
A year and a half later, C18 leader Charlie Sargeant murdered Christopher Castle during a power struggle for control of the group with Wilf Browning.
According to an investigative piece on the incident, Sargeant and Browning told police during their interrogations that they had friends in high places and wanted to speak to the Special Branch (a British counter-terrorism agency). They tried to use their service to the unit as a way to get out of trouble. Tyndall's suspicions were confirmed: Sargeant and Browning were indeed state assets and had special license to commit crimes.
A chapter in researcher Larry O'Hara's 1994 book Turning Up the Heat: Mi5 After the Cold War suggests that Combat 18 was partially organic, but then was taken over by MI5 agents and informants as both a counter-intelligence project to undermine and divide the BNP, as well as a honeypot to peel away the most violent outliers in the National Front and BNP with the intention of later entrapping them in bogus terror plots to justify their crackdowns.
As for C18's other "founder," Harold Covington, nationalists such as William Pierce have for decades suspected he was himself an FBI asset and agent provocateur. Covington was known for inventing lies from whole cloth about high profile nationalists in America and loudly broadcasting them, including that they were police informants, thieves, homosexuals, pedophiles, secret Jews, and other baseless gossip.
Left-wing activist Nick Martin filed a FOIA request to see the FBI's files on Covington in December 2018, but the government continues to drag its feet in providing them according to Martin's most recent update last month on MuckRock.
If Covington is confirmed to have been an intelligence operative, then MI5 and the FBI have recently collaborated in these nefarious conspiracies against nationalist dissidents.
Oct 19, 2020 | www.rt.com
After years of focusing on combating terrorism, US Special Forces are preparing to turn their attention to the possibility of future conflict with adversaries Russia and China. The outgoing head of MI6, the UK's clandestine intelligence service, says that the perceived threat posed by Russia and China against the UK is overstated and distract from addressing the UK's domestic problems. Meanwhile, his replacement insists that the threat posed by Russia and China is real and is growing in complexity. Rick Sanchez explains. Then former US diplomat Jim Jatras and "Going Underground" host Afshin Rattansi share their insights.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is meeting for a for a final day of deliberations before the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's controversial pick for the US Supreme Court. RT America's Faran Fronczak reports. RT America's Trinity Chavez reports on the skyrocketing poverty across the US as coronavirus relief funds dry up and the White House stalls on additional stimulus. RT America's John Huddy reports on the backlash against Facebook and Twitter for their suppression of an incendiary new report about Democratic nominee Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and his foreign entanglements.
Oct 15, 2020 | www.rt.com
Britain has always been unfair, unequal and divided – Covid-19 has only served to show this in even more stark relief Dr Lisa McKenzie
Dr Lisa McKenzie is a working-class academic. She grew up in a coal-mining town in Nottinghamshire and became politicized through the 1984 miners' strike with her family. At 31, she went to the University of Nottingham and did an undergraduate degree in sociology. Dr McKenzie lectures in sociology at the University of Durham and is the author of 'Getting By: Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain.' She's a political activist, writer and thinker. Follow her on Twitter @redrumlisa . 14 Oct, 2020 14:02 / Updated 13 hours ago Get short URL The Angel of the North © Wikipedia / Picnicin; © Corbis via Getty Images / Frédéric Soltan 51 Follow RT on As London politicians hammer the regions with even more lockdowns, they highlight the yawning chasm decades of unrestrained capitalism has slashed across the country.
It seems the old divisions of North and South are creeping back into our public consciousness. These divides are ancient and etched deeply into the fabric of Britain. Divisions of clan, of geography and of power have always been there, but Covid-19, like a dry summer exposing an ancient settlement, is causing the inequalities in our society to re-emerge with a vengeance.
It's hard not to see them, as government policy made in the South seems to be hitting those in the North more harshly, with the virus further exploiting the policies of those past governments that created this unfair, unequal and divided country. The spectres of our industrial past loom large in the current climate. The great Cheshire-based novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, who wrote 'North and South', a book outlining Britain's industrial upheavals in the 18th century, may well be watching and sighing at our failure to learn anything about the dangers of unchecked inequality.
READ MORE Disgust & applause after huge crowds swarm Liverpool ahead of 'tier 3' coronavirus lockdown (VIDEOS)The ghosts of Britain's past haunt this island. The UK has such varied geography, such differences in natural resources, not to mention a weather system that means two towns within miles of one another can have very different climates, all of which creates incredibly localised cultures. Our recent history is about how we used those resources to build an empire – a narrative told by those above, by those who benefitted from those divisions, and more importantly those resources, to those below.
In the 1980s, the Thatcher government was the enemy of the North of England. The Iron Lady saw swathes of the country as unproductive and idle, so she put in place policies that ensured the North-South divide was deepened. The traditional jobs of the Industrial Revolution – of coal and steel, of manufacturing and exporting goods – would be replaced by a focus on finance, marketing, insurance and the legal framework needed to hold this new global system together.
The North-South divide was deepened even further by subsequent governments, both Labour and Tory, with no opposition put up to the establishment of a British Babylon filled with excess, inequality and the stinking rich. The so-called Third Way was vaunted as a method to use money from the private sector to fund investment in public services. But, like all trickle-down economics, the Third Way was, in reality, just another way of the rich getting richer.
And now, in 2020, wealth inequality has never been wider. The richest are shooting for the stratosphere, while Covid-19 further entrenches all those bad policy choices of the past, keeping the poor welded to the bottom.
In truth the North-South divide is more of a Southeast doughnut. The global elite's use of the Southeast of England as a millionaire's playground has carved a hole into the country. That wound, inflicted by the wealthy in London and the Home Counties, has raised land and property prices so high that there's effectively been a working-class exodus.
Meanwhile, Britain's middle class and the aforementioned global elite see endless opportunities in this 21st-century Babylon, filled to the brim with cultural, media, political, and financial goodies for those with the right connections and accent, and enough money. The doughnut's hole is growing ever larger as these deepening divisions continue to stretch it.
ALSO ON RT.COM As Covid crisis adversely affects UK's white working class, it is the middle class's self-interest that means there is no easy fixLocal councils and representatives in the rest of the country have started to realise they simply cannot compete. But they have to do something, so they try to attract new businesses into their areas. With the old industries of coal and shipbuilding consigned to the dustbin of history, they now offer up all that's left to exploit: the local population.
Their towns are given over to the giants of the global distribution economy. Great warehouses can be constructed quickly, and the locals, in desperate need of work, are commodified just like the coal their fathers once mined. The Kent coalfields are now distribution centres and car parks for international logistics firms, while the Midlands and parts of the North are used to pick and pack Europe's cheap clothing and pharmaceuticals. Northern mayors and councillors roll out the red carpet for Amazon, despite knowing their constituents are doomed to lives devoid of much hope or meaning, to keep those same constituents down with myths of 'opportunity'.
Our divisions of North and South are deep, and while it once may have been about clan, natural resources and geography are now created in town halls and Government. Britain has been carved into zones: the important, wealthy, cultural and creative areas are well fed and nurtured, while the zones of those whose ancestors toiled in the mines, mills, docks and shipyards exist solely to feed consumerist greed. They need jobs and global capitalism needs workers.
ALSO ON RT.COM The Culture War is nothing but a bourgeois distraction from the only war that really matters – Class WarBut now these places are no longer split only by geography, the poor of the South are just as exploited as those in the North. The division between them has been carved by the gerrymandering of wealth by the elite in Westminster and the City. While it may be romantic to think of a great North-South divide, it's also no longer correct. Our social historical and economic geography is far more complex – and yet, at the same time, depressingly predictable.
In the past, the mill owners, the mine moguls and the shipyard entrepreneurs had family and ancestral homes all over the United Kingdom and townhouses in London – just as the bankers and brokers of today have their penthouses and countryside pied-à-terres. The booming voices of those with power have always been able to tell their own stories of success while moving freely around the country to have the best of all worlds. If you want to know where and how our country is divided, simply look to those who are unable to move and those you cannot hear.
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Septuagenarian 11 hours ago I always get a touch of nostalgia when reading Ms McKenzie's articles. This kind of analysis and class conflict was still common in the sixties, long after the socialist experiment of the forties was quashed. Nothing changed, of course. The changes ahead for UK are mass unemployment, no major employers outside the NHS - if it survives a US/UK deal and if there is one. Lack of enterprise, lack of capital, raging inflation. Her beloved working class doesn't exist anymore. There'll be little employment, embourgeoisement for the few with a job, higher taxes and no chance to change it through the ballot box, what with a lack of credible opposition and a voting system bent in favour of the Tory party. Only hope is for those from the sub-continent to create jobs in their sweatshops. Sexton 6 minutes ago I basically agree with Ms. McKenzie, but one needs to go back in history a little further. In 1066 a bunch of criminals referred to as William and his Robber Barons came over from Normandy and stole every last acre of England. Their descendants are still around and own about 80% of UK. Right from the start they used a bunch of original Saxons, nowadays referred to as the middle-class, to help them control the peasant class. Up to the present day very little has changed. Reply fjapjawpjd 13 hours ago Thats a gross simplification of history. The stark hierarchy and sick society came with the religions and thats no coincidence.
Oct 11, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
MOSCOW EXILE October 10, 2020 at 12:18 am
About "The Insider":
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The Insider is an online publication specializing in investigative journalism, fact-checking and political analytics.The Insider has received numerous international awards, including the Council of Europe Innovation Award (2018), The European Press Prize (2019), Free Media Award (2019) and many others.
An important source of funding for The Insider is regular donations, so we encourage everyone who wants to support our publication to subscribe to regular donations.
CONTACTS
Moscow office: 119072, Bersenevskaya nab. 6, building 3, office 1.From Russian Wiki:
"The Insider" is a Russian online publication. Founded in November 2013 by a member of the movement "Solidarity" , a journalist and political activist of liberal-democratic orientation Roman Dobrokhotov , who is the editor-in-chief of the publication.
Dobrokhotov. As I live and breathe -- a "kreakl"!!!!In September 2018, in collaboration with "Bellingcat" Eliot Higgins, "The Insider" conducted an investigation, allegedly publishing copies of official documents of the Russian Federal migration service for passport application in the name of Alexander Petrov, one of the suspects of the British authorities in the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, which may indicate his connection with the Russian special services.
In February 2020, "The Insider", jointly with "Bellingcat"and "Der Spiegel", conducted an investigation and stated that the murder of Zelimkhan khangoshvili in Berlin in August 2019 was organized by the special unit of the FSB "Vimpel". They said that the FSB special assignment Centre was preparing a repeat killer, Vadim Krasikov, for this murder, and they also gave some details of Krasikov's movements around Europe.
On November 10, 2017, "The Insider" received from "The World Forum for Democracy" an award for innovation in democracy with the following wording:
"'The Insider' is an investigative publication that seeks to provide its readers with information about the current political, economic and social situation in Russia, while promoting democratic values and highlighting issues related to human rights and civil society. In addition, 'The Insider' carries out the project 'Antifake', the task of which is to systematically expose false news in the Russian media, which helps its audience to distinguish real information from false news and propaganda".
In 2019, "The Insider" and "Bellingcat" received the European Press Prize for establishing the identity of the two men allegedly responsible for the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal .
How drole! "The insider" likes to shout out "Fake!" yet seems to work closely with "Bellingcat".
Sep 20, 2020 | www.brookings.edu
The paper's biggest single recommendation was that the United States and EU establish a Counter-Disinformation Coalition, a public/private group bringing together, on a regular basis, government and non-government stakeholders, including social media companies, traditional media, Internet service providers (ISPs), and civil society groups. The Counter-Disinformation Coalition would develop best practices for confronting disinformation from nondemocratic countries, consistent with democratic norms. It also recommended that this coalition start with a voluntary code of conduct outlining principles and agreed procedures for dealing with disinformation, drawing from the recommendations as summarized above.
In drawing up these recommendations, we were aware that disinformation most often comes from domestic, not foreign, sources. 8 While Russian and other disinformation players are known to work in coordination with domestic purveyors of disinformation, both overtly and covertly, the recommendations are limited to foreign disinformation, which falls within the scope of "political warfare." Nevertheless, it may be that these policy recommendations, particularly those focused on transparency and social resilience, may be applicable to combatting other forms of disinformation.
Sep 18, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
New Documents Reveal Secret British Efforts To Arm, Assist And Propagandize 'Moderate Rebels' In Syria
In November 2018 some anonymous people published a number of documents that had been liberated from a clandestine British propaganda organization, the Integrity Initiative .
The same group or person who revealed the Integrity Initiative papers has now released several dozens of documents about another 'Strategic Communication' campaign run by the British Foreign Office. The current release reveals a number of train and assist missions for 'Syrian rebels' as well as propaganda operations run in Syria and globally on behalf of the British government.
Moon of Alabama , as well as other sites , had published a series of pieces about the Integrity Initiative . There were also connections between the Integrity Initiative and the Skripal 'novichok poisoning' affair.
They newly released documents about British operations in Syria are accessible under:
- Op. HMG Trojan Horse: From Integrity Initiative To Covert Ops Around The Globe. Part 1: Taming Syria I
- Op. HMG Trojan Horse: From Integrity Initiative To Covert Ops Around The Globe. Part 1: Taming Syria II
All the now published documents archived in one file are available for download under:
Most of the documents are detailed company responses to several solicitations from the Foreign Office for global and local campaigns in support of the 'moderate rebels' who are fighting against the Syrian government and people.
The documents lay out large scale campaigns which have on-the-ground elements in Syria, training and arming efforts in neighboring countries, command and control elements in Jordan, Turkey and Iraq, as well as global propaganda efforts. These operations were wide spread.
biggerMost of the documents are from 2016 to 2019. They detail the organization of such operations and also portrait persons involved in these projects. They often refer back to previous campaigns that have been run from 2011/2012 onward. This is where the documents are probably the most interesting. They reveal what an immense effort was and is waged to fill the information space with pro-rebel/pro-Islamist propaganda.
The documents are not about the 'White Helmets' which were a separate British run Strategic Communication campaign financed by various governments. While the operations described in the new documents were coordinated with U.S. efforts they do not reference the CIA run campaigns in Syria which included similar efforts at a cost of $1 billion per year.
The various projects and the detailed commercial offers to implement them from various notorious companies are roughly described in the above two links. I will therefore refrain from repeating that here. Some of the documents' content will surely be used in future Moon of Alabama posts. But for now I will let you rummage through the stash.
Please let us know in the comments of the surprising bits that you might find.
Posted by b on September 18, 2020 at 15:51 UTC | Permalink
james , Sep 18 2020 16:22 utc | 1
thanks b... i will look at them and get back on this..Red Ryder , Sep 18 2020 16:32 utc | 2Documents the "war crimes industry" of the UK, and others, as expressed in Libya and Syria.vk , Sep 18 2020 16:53 utc | 3Assad has indicated he will pursue reparations from the nations that have killed 400,000 citizens, destroyed or stolen his industrial infrastructure (whole factories broken down and trucked into Turkey).
One reason why the US and UK and France want Assad dead is the tens of billions of dollars they will have to pay the Syrian people for the genocidal war waged for a decade in order to kill Assad and break Syria into pieces.
This confirms the UK has essentially kept the same military doctrine it adopted by necessity in 1945, which is: attach itself to the USA, focus on intelligence, punch above your weight. Ideologically, they rationalize that by attributing themselves the role of the cultured province of the USA; "Greece to the USA's Rome".The British were always fascinated with intelligence/paramilitary forces. In their vision, it gives you (a nation) an air of sophistication, a civilizing aspect to the nation that wages this kind of warfare.
After the Suez fiasco of 1956, the UK gave up direct interventions in the Middle East. It now only intervenes there under the skirt of the USA. Of course, whenever they can, they do that with their weapon of choice, which is intelligence. So, yeah, these documents don't surprise me.
Aug 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Herodotus , 3 hours ago
aspnaz , 2 hours agoIf Johnson doesn't play ball, Christopher Steele will prepare a dossier on him.
Sandmann , 1 hour agoOnly the UK would be dumb enough to keep on paying Steele. Jesus, he is like a muck spreader: **** in, **** rain out.
Unknown User , 2 hours agoSteele was disowned by UK in Jan 2017 in handwritten note to White House
PJBloggs , 2 hours agoRussians build rockets, jets, missiles, nukes, etc. but can't seem to produce a poison. Unlike Brits who successfully poisoned lots of Russians, starting with Ivan the "Terrible" (that's what Brits called Ivan the Fearsome) and his whole family including his son, which Brits insist was killed by Ivan. And remember Rasputin? The one who was poisoned and then shot by a British agent.
Yes. Useless Russians can't do it like the Brits.
aspnaz , 2 hours agoIt is indeed suspicious that Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia have disappeared into the embrace of the British deep state and not been heard from since. Their family in Russia got one phone call from a stressed Yulia who they believed couldn't speak freely.
If the Skripals are indeed safe and living willingly & freely in British protection, then the UK should give them a live interview to express their gratitude and reassure their family in Russia.
The silence from the Skripals is more suspicious than what ails Navalny.foxenburg , 1 hour agoDavid Kelly is dead: Skripals are dead.
Ace006 , 34 minutes agoImagine if a US citizen (version of Yulia) were detained in Moscow and the US consular people wanted to speak with her to check that she was OK....and they were told to buzz off and she didn't want to speak to them. Diplomatic law, signed by all countries, states that consular access MUST be allowed to citizens....even if they don't want it...because otherwise a country has no way of establishing if its citizen has been kidnapped or murdered.
What if the Iranians managed to kidnap Pompeo (Oh, Happy Day!) and when the State Dept went ballistic and said give him back, the Iranians just released a statement; "Mr Pompeo says he does not want to speak to any US officials. He has thanked Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for saving his life. He says please leave him alone. In deference to his security needs, you will never hear from him again".
headfake , 4 hours agoFull marks. It's astonishing to have Boris on the Russians' case about yet another poisoning (YAP) by them when, hopefully, he's holding two alleged victims incommunicado for over two years. "Oh, THAT, old bean. Bit of a bother. We disappear people in the U.K. all the time."
Herodotus , 3 hours agoWhy does the UK and US always try to demonise Russia? Where does this deep rooted hatred come from? Were they not allies in WW2? I've never understood this. Is it jealousy or something different? Did they not like the fact the Russians developed their own Nuclear arsenal and therefore cannot be bossed around? Or was it cos they kicked out the bankers?
Arch_Stanton , 2 hours agoThe UK always allys with others in opposition to the strongest military power in Europe. That is their foreign policy. They don't want any single power to be able to dominate the continent. Today, that happens to be Russia. In the past, it was Germany, or France, or Spain.
PJBloggs , 2 hours agoTrue, but someone should tell pedo island that the 19th century wants its foreign policy back.
JPHR , 2 hours agoRussia under Putin exerts its sovereignty from the globalist banking oligarchy based in London, Wall Street, Israel & Western Eorope. Russia is in the way of the NWO this planned demic is meant to usher in.
Sandmann , 1 hour agoBritish Empire lost "Great Game to Russia". That started the downfall of that British Empire. US intelligence was groomed by British intelligence during WWII. US hegemony as illustrated by Brzezinsky's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy & Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" still based on the very same McKinder based ideas from the British Empire defining control over Eurasia as a precondition for maintaining that empire. Adding insult to injury Putin twarted US and UK banks in their operation to destroy Russia and acquire its resources.
The malignancy of this ideology is well illustrated in Brzezinski proudly announcing in the intrduction of aforementioned book how his ideas are shared by both Hitler and Stalin:
"Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played, and that struggle involves geostrategy -- the strategic management of geopolitical interests. It is noteworthy that as recently as 1940 two aspirants to global power, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, agreed explicitly (in the secret negotiations of November of that year) that America should be excluded from Eurasia. Each realized that the injection of American power into Eurasia would preclude his ambitions regarding global domination. Each shared the assumption that Eurasia is the center of the world and that he who controls Eurasia controls the world. "
PJBloggs , 2 hours agoUK has a natural ally in Europe - it is not France - it is Russia.
Uk is run by interests like Bill Browder who buy influence and set the tenor. UK is a very Oligarchic country, highly centralised run for the Benefit of The Few
Volkodav , 2 hours agoNavalny was an asset to Putin. With a popularity rating around 2% his party couldn't get seats in the Duma.
Why would you poison him and give The West a propaganda victory at same time The West is trying a colour revolution in your most valuable military ally?Just like why would you poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia just before holding a successful World Cup of football?
By the way where are the Skripals?
Cui Bono?
deef , 2 hours agoLitvinenko
https://www.unz.com/article/revisiting-litvinenko-what-really-happened/
Litvinenko's Father told his son was dirty, crime involved.
Joiningupthedots , 1 hour agoUsing Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors as Nootropics (smart drugs to enhance memory):
https://peaknootropics.com/using-acetylcholinesterase-inhibitors-nootropics/
Vladimirovich , 2 hours agoThe Skripals are probably DEAD.......and that happened on the UK's watch under UK control.
The Russian poison meme?
Even the the thickest halfwit that reads The Sun, The Mirror, The Star....the comic strips et al understands that the monkeys in control are actually nothing more than better read versions of themselves.
Johnstone and Co are certainly not more intelligent.......their nonsense utterances and actions prove this.
Roger Casement , 2 hours agoDear Readers,
Sadly the British people are every bit a dopey as others in the western world and will always vote for the worst possible person to 'do the job'. Please be patient.
In the UK Boris Johnson is colloquially known as "The village idiot", and he does his best to match up to that title.
That being so he will remain in office until his masters decide to make a change.
Wish the UK well......PLEASE !
Son of Captain Nemo , 2 hours agoGangsters always play dumb. So do all politicians.
Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
aspnaz , 2 hours agoReading between the lines of B0J0...
We the U.K. who's "sun never sets", requires a generous purchase of British Pound Sterling and $USD by the Russian Central Bank effective immediately before his Nation's "sun sets"!...
And if the Russian Federation should refuse... We shall make up more nasty hasbara stories that aren't true like Skripal/Navalny to our public that doesn't care about either of them!...
Ace006 , 1 hour agoYep, "Sun never sets", the government really need to hire some better astronomer, astrologers, maybe witches, to sort this out. I often wonder about this, lying in bed in Wickham in the dark at midnight.
deplorableX , 3 hours agoWell, technically the British Empire extends to the English Channel these days so what's true in Wickham may not necessarily be true in Norwich.
bh2 , 3 hours agoBojo appears to be struggling with alcoholism which would explain his sticking to a saga which was pretty much fabricated from the get go. Delirium tremens.
Moribundus , 3 hours agoAfter the absurd plot described by British authorities in the Skripal case, nobody believes these concocted political dramas.
Until both Skripals can be interviewed in public and without an official UK "keeper" hovering about, nobody is going to believe them, either.
NuYawkFrankie , 2 hours agoEvaluation of the finding is misinformation, because without medicinal products from the category, cholinesterase inhibitors, it is not possible to keep the patient in artificial sleep or to connect to artificial lung ventilation, because cholinesterase inhibitor preparations are not a poison but a drug such as diazepam used to treat anxiety or clonazepam, which are used specifically to relax the patient's muscles during artificial lung ventilation.
Thus, the Germans did not find out what caused the comatic condition of the patient, but what the patient was treated in Russia,
respectively given to the patient on board the aircraft, during transport to Germany.When induced coma, hospitals use relaxants in combo with anaesthetic. Typically those are indeed Choline Sterase inhibitors... So, some of that stuff is in his system the moment they intubated him in hospital.. at least under normal circumstances (learned al lot about covid ICU treatment = induced coma).
NIRP_BTFD , 2 hours agoI have to give credit where it's due:
Nobody - absolutely NOBODY! - can recycle a Silly Schoolboy Script - with a straight face! -as well as the THICK BRITS... even as the rest of Planet Earth laughs its a$$ off!
Aug 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
uncle tungsten , Aug 1 2020 0:39 utc | 39
Jackrabbut #3
Thank you for those John Helmer reports. I note that the new head of MI6 is a lover of all fine Turkish things including Erdoghan. "Richard Moore, currently a third-ranking official of the Foreign Office, an ex-Ambassador to Turkey; an ex-MI6 agent; and a Harvard graduate".
Perhaps he was even the initiator of the White Helmets? My take away from those reports is that Cummings and Johnson have commenced a transition strategy within the UK and that the future of Integrity Initiative and its bogan crew may be limited.
They have also restrained the MI6 manipulators that would conspire and contrive the overt 'Hate Russia' policy. Not that Bojo and Cummings will necessarily change anything other than a superficial rearrangement in their favour (for a month or two anyway).
AtaBrit #9 includes an excellent link to a National Interest report on Turkey and is worth the read in this context of the rise and rise of Richard Moore. Thank you AtaBrit.
Caitlin Johnston has recently posted an astute analysis of the current distraction politics and why we should not be distracted by Covid19 rants from seeing the immediate rendition of the great game.
I guess the UK will be less overt re Russia but expect the Libyan war to escalate as UKUSAI use Turkey in Libya to push back against Russia and even Sisi in Egypt. They have a willing US president now and likely continuing in the next few years (be it Trump or Biden). The UK could stage yet another 'Suez incident' with this mendacious confluence of opportunities.
The USA has become the patsy for these thugs, when will they rise?
Jul 29, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
WARREN July 27, 2020 at 10:07 am
https://www.youtube.com/embed/NG17cgS2-sU?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
UK 'Russia report' fear-mongers about meddling yet finds no evidence
10,974 views•25 Jul 2020The Grayzone
111K subscribers
Pushback with Aaron MatéA long-awaited UK government report finds no evidence of Russian meddling in British domestic politics, including the 2016 Brexit vote. But that hasn't stopped the fear-mongering: the report claims the UK government didn't find evidence because it didn't look for it, and backs increased powers for intelligence agencies and media censorship as a result. Afshin Rattansi, a British journalist and host of RT's "Going Underground", responds.
Guest: Afshin Rattansi, British journalist and host of RT's "Going Underground."
Jul 25, 2020 | www.rt.com
Propaganda for kids: UK govt-backed 'news' site teaches children about 'ruthless' Putin & 'shameless' Russia 24 Jul, 2020 19:09 / Updated 1 day ago Get short URL
Jul 24, 2020 | consortiumnews.com
Consortiumnews Volume 26, Number 206 – Friday, July 24, 2020 AFGHANISTAN , COMMENTARY , FOREIGN POLICY , HISTORY , HUMAN RIGHTS , MEDIA , PROPAGANDA , RUSSIA , RUSSIAGATE , UKRAINE , UNITED KINGDON , UNTIL THIS DAY--HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE NEWS Cold Wars & Profit July 21, 2020 Save
Craig Murray lambasts a Russophobic media that celebrates a supposed cyber attack on UK vaccine research, ignores collapse of key evidence of a "hack" and dabbles in dubious memorabilia.
The Guardian's headquarters in London. (Bryantbob, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
By Craig Murray
CraigMurray.org.uk... ... ...
Attack on UK Vaccine Research
Andrew Marr, center, in 2014. ( Financial Times , Flickr)
A whole slew of these were rehearsed by Andrew Marr on his flagship BBC1 morning show. The latest is the accusation that Russia is responsible for a cyber attack on Covid-19 vaccination research. This is another totally evidence-free accusation. But it misses the point anyway.
The alleged cyber attack, if it happened, was a hack not an attack -- the allegation is that there was an effort to obtain the results of research, not to disrupt research. It is appalling that the U.K. is trying to keep its research results secret rather than share them freely with the world scientific community.
As I have reported before , the U.K. and the USA have been preventing the WHO from implementing a common research and common vaccine solution for Covid-19, insisting instead on a profit driven approach to benefit the big pharmaceutical companies (and disadvantage the global poor).
What makes the accusation that Russia tried to hack the research even more dubious is the fact that Russia had just bought the very research specified. You don't steal things you already own.
Evidence of CIA Hacks
If anybody had indeed hacked the research, we all know it is impossible to trace with certainty the whereabouts of hackers. My VPNs [virtual private networks] are habitually set to India, Australia or South Africa depending on where I am trying to watch the cricket, dodging broadcasting restrictions.
More pertinently, WikiLeaks' Vault 7 release of CIA material showed the specific programs for the CIA in how to leave clues to make a leak look like it came from Russia. This irrefutable evidence that the CIA do computer hacks with apparent Russian "fingerprints" deliberately left, like little bits of Cyrillic script, is an absolutely classic example of a fact that everybody working in the mainstream media knows to be true, but which they all contrive never to mention.
Thus when last week's "Russian hacking" story was briefed by the security services -- that former Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn deployed secret documents on U.K./U.S. trade talks which had been posted on Reddit, after being stolen by an evil Russian who left his name of Grigor in his Reddit handle -- there was no questioning in the media of this narrative. Instead, we had another round of McCarthyite witch-hunt aimed at the rather tired looking Corbyn.
Personally, if the Russians had been responsible for revealing that the Tories are prepared to open up the NHS "market" to big American companies, including ending or raising caps on pharmaceutical prices, I should be very grateful to the Russians for telling us. Just as the world would owe the Russians a favor if it were indeed them who leaked evidence of just how systematically the DNC rigged the 2016 primaries against Bernie Sanders.
But as it happens, it was not the Russians. The latter case was a leak by a disgusted insider, and I very much suspect the NHS U.S. trade deal link was also from a disgusted insider.
When governments do appalling things, very often somebody manages to blow the whistle.
Crowdstrike's Quiet Admission
Crowdstrike's Shawn Henry presenting at the International Security Forum in Vancouver, 2009.
(Hubert K, Flickr)If you can delay even the most startling truth for several years, it loses much of its political bite. If you can announce it during a health crisis, it loses still more. The world therefore did not shudder to a halt when the CEO of Crowdstrike admitted there had never been any evidence of a Russian hack of the DNC servers.
You will recall the near incredible fact that, even through the Mueller investigation, the FBI never inspected the DNC servers themselves but simply relied on a technical report from Crowdstrike, the Hillary Clinton-related IT security consultant for the DNC.
It is now known for sure that Crowdstrike had been peddling fake news for Hillary. In fact, Crowdstrike had no record of any internet hack at all. There was no evidence of the email material being exported over the internet. What they claimed did exist was evidence that the files had been organized preparatory to export.
Remember the entire "Russian hacking" story was based ONLY on Crowdstrike's say so. There is literally no other evidence of Russian involvement in the DNC emails, which is unsurprising as I have been telling you for four years from my own direct sources that Russia was not involved. Yet finally declassified congressional testimony revealed that Shawn Henry stated on oath that "we did not have concrete evidence" and "There's circumstantial evidence , but no evidence they were actually exfiltrated."
This testimony fits with what I was told by Bill Binney, a former technical director of the National Security Agency (NSA), who told me that it was impossible that any large amount of data should be moved across the internet from the USA, without the NSA both seeing it happen in real time and recording it. If there really had been a Russian hack, the NSA would have been able to give the time of it to a millisecond.
That the NSA did not have that information was proof the transfer had never happened, according to Binney. What had happened, Binney deduced, was that the files had been downloaded locally, probably to a thumb drive.
Bill Binney. (Miquel Taverna / CCCB via Flickr)
So arguably the biggest news story of the past four years -- the claim that Putin effectively interfered to have Donald Trump elected U.S. president -- turns out indeed to be utterly baseless. Has the mainstream media, acting on security service behest, done anything to row back from the false impression it created? No it has doubled down.
Anti-Russia Theme
The "Russian hacking" theme keeps being brought back related to whatever is the big story of the day.
Brexit? Russian hacking.
U.K. general election 2019? Russian hacking
Covid-19 vaccine? Russian hacking.Then we have those continual security service briefings. Two weeks ago we had unnamed security service sources telling The New York Times that Russia had offered the Taliban a bounty for killing American soldiers. This information had allegedly come from interrogation of captured Taliban in Afghanistan, which would almost certainly mean it was obtained under torture.
It is a wildly improbable tale. The Afghans have never needed that kind of incentivization to kill foreign invaders on their soil. It is also a fascinating throwback of an accusation – the British did indeed offer Afghans money for, quite literally, the heads of Afghan resistance leaders during the first Afghan War in 1841, as I detail in my book "Sikunder Burnes."
Taliban in Herat, Afghanistan, 2001. (Wikipedia)
You do not have to look back that far to realize the gross hypocrisy of the accusation. In the 1980s the West was quite openly paying, arming and training the Taliban -- including Osama bin Laden – to kill Russian and other Soviet conscripts in their thousands. That is just one example of the hypocrisy.
The U.S. and U.K. security services both cultivate and bribe senior political and other figures abroad in order to influence policy all of the time. We work to manipulate the result of elections -- I have done it personally in my former role as a U.K. diplomat. A great deal of the behavior over which Western governments and media are creating this new McCarthyite anti-Russian witch hunt, is standard diplomatic practice.
My own view is that there are malign Russian forces attempting to act on government in the U.K. and the USA, but they are not nearly as powerful as the malign British and American forces acting on their own governments.
The truth is that the world is under the increasing control of a global elite of billionaires, to whom nationality is irrelevant and national governments are tools to be manipulated. Russia is not attempting to buy corrupt political influence on behalf of the Russian people, who are decent folk every bit as exploited by the ultra-wealthy as you or I. Russian billionaires are, just like billionaires everywhere, attempting to game global political, commercial and social structures in their personal interest.
The other extreme point of hypocrisy lies in human rights. So many Western media commentators are suddenly interested in China and the Uighurs or in restrictions on the LBGT community in Russia, yet turn a completely blind eye to the abuse committed by Western "allies" such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
As somebody who was campaigning about the human rights of both the Uighurs and of gay people in Russia a good decade before it became fashionable, I am disgusted by how the term "human rights" has become weaponized for deployment only against those countries designated as enemy by the Western elite.
Finally, do not forget that there is a massive armaments industry and a massive security industry all dependent on having an "enemy." Powerful people make money from this Russophobia. Expect much more of it. There is money in a Cold War.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010.
This article is from CraigMurray.org.uk .
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Tags: Cold War Craig Murray Russophobia Ukrainian Insurgent Army Ukrainian Resistance
Post navigation ← COVID-19: The Pentagon Confronts the Pandemic State Dept-Funded Transparency International Silent on Jailed Transparency Activist Julian Assange → 12 comments for " Cold Wars & Profit "
DH Fabian , July 22, 2020 at 19:54
On the core subject here: By necessity, a pandemic requires a cooperative international response. Only one country has refused to do so: The US. In their supreme arrogance, our ruling class lost track the fact that the US needs the rest of the world, not the other way way around.
Zalamander , July 22, 2020 at 19:12
One by one the so-called Russiagate "evidence" have collapsed. The fake Steele Dossier, "Russian spy" Joseph Mifsud who is actually a self-admitted member of the Clinton Foundation, Roger Stone's non-existant Wikileaks contacts, Russian Afgan bounties, etc. But the neoliberal mainstream media still presents these as "facts" with no retractions. This is not journalism, its disinformation designed to distract the American public from the failures of capitalism.
Piotr Berman , July 22, 2020 at 18:03
Peter Janney
July 22, 2020 at 06:55
Craig Murray succinctly (and very beautifully) gives us a REAL glimpse of what great journalism really looks like.
-- --
Perhaps it is great writing, but is it journalism?Some people in National Union of Journalists (a trade union in UK) ponder that question for many months, unable to decide if Craig should be allowed to join or not. If he is neither a flack nor a hack, who kind of journalist is he? (More details at Craig Murray's web site).
Peter Janney , July 23, 2020 at 06:06
Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed.
Everything else is public relations.
-- George Orwellrosemerry , July 22, 2020 at 16:42
All of the Russophobia and lies serve the rulers of the USA?UK and their poodles well. The whole year of Skripal mania started by Theresa May and joined in by Trump, with the media such as the Guardian's scurrilous Luke Harding providing fantasy "evidence" and the whole story conveniently disappearing, like the Skripals, when other "news" arrived, has no benefit to seekers of even the minimum of truth.
DH Fabian , July 22, 2020 at 19:46
Certainly, and this is key to understanding the current situation. What we're seeing now is the final stages of the long-sinking West -- those once-mighty partners of empire, the UK/US. This descent appears to have begun with the Reagan/Thatcher years, and is now in the final stages. We've seen a rather dramatic growth of psychosis in the political-media-public discussion over the past 3-4 years, driven by an irrational obsession with China/Russia. (Russia and China both quietly observe, prepared to respond if attacked.) There really isn't anything we can do about it, beyond acknowledging it as what it is.
Jerome J Donnelly , July 22, 2020 at 12:12
Very good, but needs to be supplemented by reference to the interview with NIH Director Franaic Collins on last Sunday's Meet the Press. When host Chuck Todd asked Collins about Russian hacking of US vaccine research Collins smiled and answered by pointing out that the research wasn't intended to be secret and that it was all to be published for "transparency." Todd looked disappointed, mumbled, "OK," and changed the subject. No media have reported this exchange, which is retrievable on the internet.
JOHN CHUCKMAN , July 22, 2020 at 10:58
Brilliant, but that's what one expects of Craig Murray.
Ray McGovern , July 22, 2020 at 10:13
Brilliant article, Craig. You do have a way of saying things. Thanks.
Question: "Team Mueller" forgot to interview you. Have any of the new investigators taken the trouble to talk to you?
Ray
Bob Van Noy , July 22, 2020 at 09:18
Can't thank you enough Craig Murray for your professional life of honesty!
Please read: hXXp://off-guardian.org/2020/07/21/globocap-uber-alles/
Peter Janney , July 22, 2020 at 06:55
Craig Murray succinctly (and very beautifully) gives us a REAL glimpse of what great journalism really looks like. I commend his courage for never bending in the face of all the bullshit we have had to tolerate from the mainstream media. Thank you, thank you dear Craig . . .
geeyp , July 22, 2020 at 00:10
Regarding Craig's last summing up paragraph, all one need do to confirm that is read the previous article of Michael T. Klare.
Apr 20, 2019 | theduran.com
Marcus April 20, 2019There is something rotten in the state .. of England.
This Skripal thing smelled to high heaven from day 1. My opinion is that Sergei Skripal was involved (to what degree is open to speculation) with the Steele dossier. He was getting homesick (perhaps his mother getting older is part of this) for Russia and he thought that to get back to Russia he needed something big to get back in Putin's good graces. He would have needed something really big because Putin really has no use for traitors. Skripal put out some feelers (perhaps through his daughter though that may be dicey). The two couriers were sent to seal or move the deal forward. The Brits (and perhaps the CIA) found out about this and decided to make an example of Sergei. Perhaps because they found out about this late, the deep state/intelligence people had to move very quickly. The deep state story was was extremely shaky (to put it mildly) as a result. Or they were just incompetent and full of hubris.
Then they were stuck with the story and bullshit coverup was layered on bullshit coverup. 7 Reply FlorianGeyer Reply to Marcus April 20, 2019
@ Marcus.
To hope to get away with lies, one must have perfect memory and a superior intellect that can create a lie with some semblance of reality in real life, as opposed to the digital 'reality' in a Video game. And a rather corny video game at that.
MI5/6 failed on all parts of Lie creation 2 Reply Mistaron April 21, 2019
If Trump was so furious about being conned by Haspel, how come he then went on to promote her to becoming the head of the CIA? It's quite perplexing.
Jul 18, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Stonewall Jackson , 3 hours ago
The Big Fat Bastard , 3 hours agoLet's set aside Trump for a moment... it will be interesting attempting to charge the retarded Prince with statutory rape. Boy won't that be a legal circle jerk between two countries...
"retarded Prince"
Perfect description.
Jul 13, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
ET AL July 7, 2020 at 2:53 am
MARK CHAPMAN July 7, 2020 at 8:28 amEver wondered what happened to our mouth foaming favorite russophobe, Ed Lucas?
Daily Fail: EDWARD LUCAS: At last! The end of the age of appeasing Beijing bullies
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8495983/EDWARD-LUCAS-end-age-appeasing-Beijing-bullies.html####
Remember, Sir John Sawers is the former chief of MI6 and is in no way linked to the UK government. He is a private individual. This is not Hybrid Warfare.
Which is good, because it allows Ed to earnestly parrot his talking points and add plenty of filler in that well known balanced, independent and journalistically shining star of an outlet, the Daily Fail.
The lesson I think we can take from this is that UK gov has finally been caught in its own bitch 'n' slap China trap and also a victim of t-Rump's bash China campaign. Time has run out on this strategy. It was more than happy to sign on to loud anti-China slogans, as long as it didn't cost UK plc serious cash or future investme nt. The problem is that China has had enough of mostly ignoring those slings and arrows for years.
The new so-called 'Wolf-warrior' China response that the west is publicly bemoaning as 'threatening' comes after so much sinophobia. Thus, UK gov has got the message much more forcefully in the last few days and the opposition like 'ex' directors of British intelligence and others are all hands to the wheel because they do not hold official power and have no other way of influencing the government. 2020 really is a momentous year.
I didn't really have time to read it because I have to leave for work, but the headline alone is enough to showcase classic Lucas behavior – enthusiastically cheer the government 'taking a stand', and leaving the accountants to sort out the damage and try to salvage something from the rubble. You know, it is a miracle Britain has survived as long as it has with the eejits who are let to run it.
Jul 11, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
MARK CHAPMAN July 6, 2020 at 8:38 am
Thanks, Jennifer; I didn't really have to do much – Moscow Exile was kind and psychic enough to print out Straw's whole editorial, else I might have had to subscribe to The Independent to even see it. *Shudder*. And Straw just opened his head and let the bullshit flow – I only had to redirect the stream a little here and there.
I don't think Miller was the neighbour, I seem to remember a different name nope, that was Ross Cassidy, who was cited by John Helmer as perhaps the only person Skripal trusted enough to have left a key with him, but he didn't live next door. Pablo Miller does indeed also live in Salisbury, but I have seen no mention of where,
https://www.theblogmire.com/joining-some-dots-on-the-skripal-case-part-2-four-invisible-clues/
Pablo Miller, Mark Urban and Hamish de Bretton-Gordon all served in the same tank regiment in the British Army. I have seen one other source – can't remember where now – that claimed Christopher Steele also served in the same regiment, but that's not true – he was recruited straight out of Cambridge at graduation, by MI6, and worked for them for 22 years. That's not to say there were not connections, though – Steele was also Case Officer for Litvinenko, and was allegedly the first to assess that Litvinenko's death was 'a Russian state hit'.
"Over a career that spanned more than 20 years, Steele performed a series of roles, but always appeared to be drawn back to Russia; he was, sources say, head of MI6's Russia desk. When the agency was plunged into panic over the poisoning of its agent Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, the then chief, Sir John Scarlett, needed a trusted senior officer to plot a way through the minefield ahead – so he turned to Steele. It was Steele, sources say, who correctly and quickly realised that Litvinenko's death was a Russian state "hit"."
You'll enjoy that piece by The Grauniad – it goes on and on about how first-rate credible Steele was, and how the quality of his work is above reproach. His legendary 'dossier', obviously, has since fallen apart and been dismissed as fanciful disinformation.
Jul 09, 2020 | www.thekomisarscoop.com
U.S. & UK intensify campaign against Russia; UK harks back to first pillar of new Cold War, the Magnitsky hoax
By Lucy Komisar
July 6, 2020, Committee for an East-West Accord .The U.S. and UK are intensifying their collaborative Cold War against Russia. In Washington, calls for sanctions are based on the fake "bountygate," and the UK has sanctioned selected Russians based on William Browder's Magnitsky hoax.
The "bountygate" charge that Russia paid militants to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan is unproved by U.S. intelligence agencies and even discounted by the international wire-tapping National Security Agency (NSA). The UK sanctions against 25 Russians, judges and court officials, tax investigators, and prison doctors, are based on disproved claims by billionaire investor William Browder that they were responsible for the death of his accountant Sergei Magnitsky.
Browder's Magnitsky story is a pillar of America's Russiagate, which has five. Before bountygate, there was the 2019 Mueller Report which found no evidence that President Trump had colluded with the Russians, the Jan 2017 intelligence agencies' charge of Russian interference in the U.S. 2016 election which concludes with the admission that they had no proof; and the 2016 accusation that Russians had stolen Democratic National Committee emails, made by the private security group CrowdStrike, later walked back by CrowdStrike's president Shawn Henry at a secret House hearing in Dec 2017, but not revealed till this May.
With the UK, we return to the first pillar of the U.S. Russiagate story, the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which targeted many on the U.S. list. The Magnitsky Act is recognized as the beginning of the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations. It is based on a hoax invented by Browder and easily disproved by documentary evidence, if governments cared about that.
Jun 14, 2020 | www.unz.com
Mefobills , says: Show Comment Next New Comment June 13, 2020 at 6:21 pm GMT
@JakeIt was England, not Israel, that booted South Africa from the Commonwealth 0f Nations. It was WASPs in England, not Jews in England, that led that charge.
That is technically correct. But WASP ideology is Jewish at root.
The mind virus had already infected the British brain, and has since spread to much of the world.
This mind virus is: Judaizer Christianity + Debt Spreading Banking + Usury + Perpetual Corporations + Money Markets
I contributed to below article, which may help in understanding how WASP came about.
https://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2014/06/05/capitalism-is-jewish-usury/
Another issue is miss-identification of Biblical passages regarding sin, which is really debts.
https://michael-hudson.com/2017/12/he-died-for-our-debt-not-our-sins/
Jun 11, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
2020 , Jun 11 2020 11:02 utc | 106
The Australian High Court has ruled that correspondence between the Queen and the Governor-General of Australia, her viceroy in the former British colony, is no longer "personal" and the property of Buckingham Palace. Why does this matter?
Secret letters written in 1975 by the Queen and her man in Canberra, Sir John Kerr, can now be released by the National Archives - if the Australian establishment allows it. On November 11, 1975, Kerr infamously sacked the reformist government of prime minister Gough Whitlam, and delivered Australia into the hands of the United States.
Today, Australia is a vassal state bar none: its politics, intelligence agencies, military and much of its media are integrated into Washington's "sphere of dominance" and war plans. In Donald Trump's current provocations of China, the US bases in Australia are described as the "tip of the spear".
There is an historical amnesia among Australia's polite society about the catastrophic events of 1975. An Anglo-American coup overthrew a democratically elected ally in a demeaning scandal in which sections of the Australian elite colluded. This is largely unmentionable. The stamina and achievement of the Australian historian Jenny Hocking in forcing the High Court's decision are exceptional.
Gough Whitlam was driven from government on Remembrance Day, 1975. When he died six years ago, his achievements were recognised, if grudgingly, his mistakes noted in false sorrow. The truth of the coup against him, it was hoped, would be buried with him.
During the Whitlam years, 1972-75, Australia briefly achieved independence and became intolerably progressive. Politically, it was an astonishing period. An American commentator wrote that no country had "reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution".http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-cia-coup-against-the-most-loyal-ally-is-history-s-warning-in-2020
Jun 09, 2020 | www.unz.com
Wyatt , says: June 7, 2020 at 9:17 pm GMT
@Europe Europa h problem once and for all, failure to stop Hitler when they had the power and authority to do so (and thus preventing all the dumb shit that happened as a result of WW2), tens of millions dead in India from casual and frequent starvations, failure to eliminate the Irish once and for all, thus plaguing America with loutish white ignoramuses who have been reliable Democrat voters despite getting fucked over by them many times.The British have consistently outstripped everyone and I mean EVERYONE in their ability to dick over everyone else and cause centuries long problems. Frankly, fuck'em.
May 28, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
guidoamm , May 28 2020 7:05 utc | 60
Center For Public IntegrityFunding
The Center for Public Integrity has received contributions from a number of left-leaning foundation funders including the Ford Foundation, Omidyar Network Fund, Foundation to Promote Open Society, Knight Foundation, and MacArthur Foundation.[3] The foundation has stated that it no longer accepts corporate gifts, but it takes money from the private foundations of many of the richest Americans including actor Leonardo DiCaprio.Seems to be the parent of the UK government's Integrity Initiative boondoggle
May 24, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
>Uncle Volodya says, "We become slaves the moment we hand the keys to the definition of reality entirely over to someone else, whether it is a business, an economic theory, a political party, the White House, Newsworld or CNN."
"The receptivity of the masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan."
– Adolf Hitler
We're going to do something just a bit different today; the event I want to talk about is current – in the future, actually – but the reference which is the subject of the discussion is almost a year old. and the event it discusses is coming up to its sixth anniversary. The past event was the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 over Ukraine, the future event is the trial in absentia of persons accused by the west of having perpetrated that disaster, and the reference is this piece, by Mark Galeotti, for the Moscow Times: "Russia's Roadmap Out of the MH17 Crisis" .
You all know Mr. Galeotti, I'm sure. Here's his bio, for Amazon:
"Professor Mark Galeotti is a senior researcher at UMV, the Institute of International Relations Prague, and coordinator of its Centre for European Security. Formerly, he was Professor of Global Affairs at New York University and head of History at Keele University. Educated at Cambridge University and the LSE, he is a specialist in modern Russian politics and security and transnational organized crime. And he writes other things for fun, too "
Yes, yes, he certainly does, as you will see. But this bio is extremely modest, albeit he most likely wrote it himself. Mr. Galeotti also authored an excellent blog, In Moscow's Shadows , which was once a go-to reference for crime and legal issues in Russia, a subject in which he seems very well-informed. The blog is still active, although he seems mostly to use it now to advertise podcasts and sell books. That's understandable – it's evident from the blur of titles appended to his name that he's a very busy man. Always has been, really; either as a student or an educator. He also speaks with confidence on the details of military affairs and equipment despite never having been in the military or studied engineering; his education has pretty much all been in history, law or political science.
I know what you will say – many of the greatest reference works on pivotal battles, overall military campaigns and affairs were written by those who had no personal military experience themselves. Mr. Galeotti studied under Dominic Lieven, whose "Russia Against Napoleon" was perhaps the greatest work of military history, rich with detail and insight, that I have ever read. It won him the Wolfson prize for History for 2010, a well-deserved honour. Yet so far as I could make out, Mr. Lieven never served a day in uniform, and if you handed him an AK-47 and said "Here; field-strip this", your likely response would be a blank look. He most certainly was not a witness to the subject military campaign. No; his epic work on Napoleon's invasion of Russia was informed by research, reading the accounts of others who were there at the time, poring over reams of old documents and matching references to get the best picture we have been afforded to date of Napoleon's ignominious defeat through a combination of imperial overreach, a poor grasp of logistics and, most of all, resistance by an adversary who refused to be drawn into playing to Napoleon's strength – the decisive, crushing battle in which the enemy could not retreat, and in which Napoleon would commit all the reserves and crush his enemy to dust.
So it is perfectly possible for an inquisitive mind with no military experience to put together an excellent reference on military happenings which already took place, even if the owner of that mind was not present for the actual event. Given human nature and the capabilities afforded by modern military equipment, it is even possible to forecast future military events with a fair degree of accuracy, going merely by political ambitions and enabling factors, without any personal military experience. After all, the decision-makers who give the orders that send their military forces into battle are often not military men themselves.
Returning for a moment to Mr. Galeotti, it is quite believable that an author with no military background could compose such works as "Armies of the Russian-Ukrainian War" , although there is no serious evidence that Russia is a part of such a conflict in any real military strength. You could write such a book entirely from media references and documentation, which in this case would come almost entirely from the side which claims it is under constant attack by the other – Ukraine. Likewise "Kulikovo 1380; the Battle that Made Russia" . None of us were around in 1380, so we all have to go by historical references, and whoever collects them all into a book first is likely to be regarded as an expert.
No, it's more when we get into how stuff works that I have an issue with it. Like " Spetsnaz: Russia's Special Forces ". Or " The Modern Russian Army ". I'm kind of skeptical about how someone could claim to know the actual internal workings of either organization simply from reading about them in popular references, considering that more than half the material on Russia written in English in western references is rubbish heavily influenced by politics and policy. We would not have to look very far to find examples in which ridiculous overconfidence by one side that it had the other side's number resulted in a horrible surprise. In fact, we would not have to look very far to find an example of this particular author confidently averring to know something inside-out, only to find that version of reality could not be sustained . And I would no more turn to a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague for expert analysis of the "Combat Vehicles of Russia's Special Forces" than I would ask a house painter to cut my hair. Unless I see some recollections of a college-age Galeotti tinkering with drivetrains and differentials until the sun went down from a pure love of mechanics, I am going to go ahead and assume that he knows what the vast majority of us knows about military vehicles – he could pick one out of a lineup which included a melon, a goat and an Armored Personnel Carrier, and if it had a flat tire he could probably fix it given time and the essential equipment.
Just before we move on, the future event: the MH-17 'trial' has been postponed until June 8th , to give defense attorneys more time to prepare after the amazingly fortuitous capture of a 'key witness' in Eastern Ukraine. I'm not going to elaborate here on what a kicking-the-can-down-the-road crock this is; we'll pick that up later. The whole MH-17 'investigation' has been such a ridiculous exercise in funneling the pursuit to a single inescapable conclusion – that Russia shot it down – irrespective of how many points have to be bent to fit the curve that no matter how it comes out, it will stand as perhaps the greatest example of absurd western self-justification ever recorded.
There are a couple of ways of solving a mystery crime. One is to collect evidence, and follow where it takes you. Another is to decide who you want to have been responsible, and then construct a sequence of events in which they might have done it. To do that, especially in this case, we will have to throw out a few assumptions, such as all that stuff about means, motive and opportunity. In the absence of a believable scenario, that is. Let's look at what we have, and what we need, and see how we get from there to here.
First, we need for Ukraine not to have been responsible. That's going to be awkward, because it looks as if the aircraft was shot down by a missile, but the missile had to have come from inside Ukraine, because the aircraft was too far from the nearest point in Russia at the moment it was stricken for the missile to have come from there. But we need Russia to have been responsible, and not Ukraine. Therefore we need a sequence of events in which a Russian missile launcher capable of shooting down an airliner at cruising altitude was inside Ukraine, in a position from which it could have taken the shot.
You know what? We are going to have to look at means, motive and opportunity, just for a second. My purpose in doing so is to illustrate just how improbable the western narrative is, starting from square one. The coup in Ukraine – and anyone who believes it was a 'grass-roots revolution' might as well stop reading right here, because we are going to just get further apart in our impressions of events – followed by the triumphant promise from the revolutionaries to repeal Yanukovych's language laws and make Ukrainian the law of the land touched off the return of Crimea to its ancestral home in the Russian Federation. Crimea was about 65% ethnic Russian by population at the time, and only about 15% Ukrainian, and Crimea had made several attempts to break free of Ukraine before that yet for some reason the west refused steadfastly to accept the results of a referendum which voted in favour of Crimea becoming a part of the Russian Federation, as if it were more believable that a huge ethnic-Russian majority preferred to learn Ukrainian and be governed by Kiev.
Be that as it may, Washington reacted very angrily; much more so than Europe, considering the distance between the United States and Ukraine versus its proximity to Europe. Perhaps that is owed simply to Washington's assumption that every corner of the world looks to it for leadership, and that it must have a position ready on any given situation, regardless how distant. So Washington insisted there must be sanctions against Russia, for stealing Crimea from its rightful owner, Ukraine. We're not really going to get into struggles for freedom and the right to self-determination right now, except to state that the USA considers nothing more important in some cases, while in others it is completely irrelevant. Washington demanded sanctions but much of Europe was reluctant .
"It is notoriously difficult to secure EU agreement on sanctions anywhere because they require unanimity from the 28 member states. There were wide differences over the numbers of Russians and Crimeans to be punished, with countries such as Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Spain reluctant to penalise Moscow for fear of closing down channels of dialogue. The 21 named were on an original list that ran to about 120 people Expanding the numbers on the sanctions list is almost certain to be discussed at the EU summit on Thursday and Friday. Some EU states are torn about taking punitive measures against Russia for fear of undoing years of patient attempts to establish closer ties with Moscow as well as increase trade. The EU has already suspended talks with Russia on an economic pact and a visa agreement The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said any measure must leave "ways and possibilities open to prevent a further escalation that could lead to the division of Europe" .
The original list of those to be sanctioned was 120 people. The haggling reduced that to 21. Only 7 of those were Russians. Putin was not included. That was pretty plainly not the United Front That Speaks With One Voice that Washington had envisioned, and the notion that Europe would buy into sanctions that might really do some damage to Russia, albeit there would be economic costs to Europe as well, was a dim prospect.
Gosh – you know what we need? An atrocity which can be quickly tied to Russia, and which will so appall the EU member states that resistance to far-reaching sanctions will collapse. That's called 'motive'. It's just not a motive for Russia. Having just gone far out on a limb and taken back Crimea, to the obvious and vocal fury of the United States, it is a bit of a stretch that Russia was looking for what else it could do that would stir up the world against it.
Means, now. That presents its own dilemma. Because Russia could have shot down an airliner from its own territory. Just not with the weapon chosen. The S-400 could have done it; it has the range, easily. But if you were setting up a scenario in which something happened that you wanted to blame on Russia, but they didn't really do it, you must have the weapon to do it yourself, or access to it. By any reasonable construct, Ukraine must be a suspect as well – there was a hot war going on in Ukraine, Ukraine controlled both the airspace and the aircraft that was lost, and the aircraft was lost over Ukrainian territory. But Ukraine doesn't have the S-400. You could use a variety of western systems, but it would quickly be established that the plane was shot down with a weapon that Russia does not have. In order for the narrative to be believable, Russia must have the weapon – but if it wasn't Russia, then whoever did it must have the weapon, too.
Enter the Buk system, with the 9K37 SA-11 missile. It's got the range, it's got the altitude, the Russians have it in active service. Oooo problem. It's got the range, but only if it was fired from inside Ukraine.
Which brings us back to Mr. Galeotti, an expert in Russian combat systems; enough of an expert to write books on them, anyway. And he plainly believes it was an SA-11 missile fired from a single Buk TELAR (Transporter/Erector/Launcher and Radar) which brought down the Boeing; he says that's what the evidence demonstrates, although by this time (2019) most of the world has backed away from saying Putin showed up with no shirt on to close the firing switch personally (cue the instant British-press screaming headlines before the dust had even settled, "PUTIN'S MISSILE!!!" "PUTIN KILLED MY SON!!!"). Now the story is that the disgraceful deed was done by 'Ukrainian anti-government militants', using a weapon supplied by Russia.
"In this context, a full reversal of policy seems near-enough impossible. The evidence suggests that while the fateful missile was fired by Ukrainian anti-government militants, it was supplied by the Russian 53rd Air Defense Brigade under orders from Moscow and in a process managed by Russian military intelligence.
To admit this would not only be to acknowledge a share in the unlawful killing of 298 innocents, but also an unpicking of the whole Kremlin narrative over the Donbass. It would mean admitting to having been an active participant in this bloody compound of civil war and foreign intervention, to having armed the militants without due thought as to the consequences, and to having lied to the world and the Russian people for half a decade."
We don't really have the scope in this piece to broaden the discussion to Russia's probable actual involvement. Suffice it to say that despite non-stop allegations by Poroshenko throughout his presidency of entire battalions of active-service Russian Army soldiers inside Ukraine, zero evidence has ever been provided of any such presence, although there have been some clumsy attempts to fabricate it . To argue that the Russian Army has been trying to overrun Ukraine for six years now, but has been unable to do so because of the combat prowess of the Ukrainian Army is to imply a belief in leprechauns. This is only my own inexpert opinion, but it seems likely to me the complete extent of Russia's involvement, militarily, is the minimum which prevents Eastern Ukraine from being overrun by the Ukrainian military, and including the rebel areas' own far-from-inconsequential military forces. I'm always ready to entertain competing theories, though; be sure to bring your evidence. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Constitution prohibits using the country's military forces against its own citizens. The logic of 'Have cake, and eat it" cannot apply here – either the Ukrainian state is in direct and obvious violation of its own constitution or the people of the breakaway regions are not Ukrainian citizens.
Anyway, back to the Buk system. And not a moment before time, either – I just re-read that sanctimonious stab above, again; " having armed the militants without due thought as to the consequences " What, exactly, is the ridiculous nature of the accusation being presented here? That the Russians gave an anti-aircraft system to the 'militants' without considering they might use it to shoot down an aircraft? How did they not see that coming? The Ukrainian Army shot down a civilian airliner in October of 2001 , and lied about it for as long as it could – interestingly, it took place during joint Ukrainian-Russian air defense exercises on the Crimean peninsula, and Russia tried hard to avoid assigning blame to Ukraine, while at least one Israeli television station claimed the Russians had shot down their own aircraft. This disaster and subsequent lying did not prevent the USA from giving the Javelin missile to Ukraine – did it not occur to them that they might use it to shoot tanks? No due thought to the consequences, obviously.
The Buk air-defense system normally consists of at least 4 TELAR launchers , each with 4 missiles on the launch rails, a self-propelled acquisition radar designated by NATO nomenclature as Snow Drift (the radar on the nose of the TELAR unit itself is designated Fire Dome), and a self-propelled command post, for a minimum of 6 vehicles. Also usually part of the system is a mobile crane, to reload the launchers. If you were going to supply an air-defense system to militant rebels, why wouldn't you give them the whole system? In a pinch, you might be able to get away without the command post vehicle, although it is the station that collates all the input from the sensors and makes the decision to assign targets for acquisition, tracking and engagement. If you didn't give them the crane vehicle, and perhaps a logistics truck with some reloads, they would be limited to the missiles that came already mounted – once those were fired, they'd have to abandon the system, because they couldn't reload it. Seems a little wasteful, don't you think?
What about the acquisition radar? Because acquiring targets is all about scanning capability and situational awareness. We're going to assume for a moment that you don't use an air defense system exclusively to hunt for airliners, but that you want to defend yourself against ground-attack aircraft like the Sukhoi SU-25. Because, when you think about it, who is more likely to be trying to kill you ? A Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777, or an SU-25? The latter is not quite as fast as an airliner at its cruising height of 30,000 ft+, but it is very agile and will be nearly down in the treetops if it is attacking you. You need to be able to search all around, all the time.
That's where the acquisition radar comes in. A centimetric waveband search radar, the Snow Drift (called the 9S18M1 by its designer) has 360-degree coverage and from 0 to 40 degrees of height in a 6-second sweep in anti-aircraft mode, with a 160 km detection range, obviously dependent on target altitude. An airliner, being a large target not attempting to evade detection, and at a high altitude, would quite possibly be detected at the maximum range of which the system is capable. But then the operators would certainly know it was an airliner. And the narrative says whoever shot it down probably did so by accident.
Maybe if it was his first day on the job. Let's talk for a minute about air-defense deconfliction. It would be nice if your Command parked you somewhere that there was nothing around you but enemies. Well, not as nice as parking you across the street from a pulled-pork barbecue joint with strippers and cold beer, but from a defense standpoint, it'd be nice to know that anything you detected, you could shoot. Know something? It's never like that. Your own aircraft are flying around as if they didn't even know you are dangerous, and as everyone now knows, civilian airliners continue their transport enterprises irrespective of war except in rare instances in which high-flying aircraft have been shot down by long-range missiles. That rarely happens. Why? Because an aircraft flying a steady course, at 30,000 ft+ and not descending, is no threat to you on the ground. From that altitude it can't even see you in the ground clutter, and it'd be quite a bombardier that could hit a target the size of a two-car garage with a bomb dropped from 30,000 ft while flying at 400 knots.
And unless you are an idiot, you know it is an airliner. When you are deployed into the field in an air-defense role, you know where the commercial airlanes are that are going to be active. You know what a commercial-aviation profile looks like – aircraft at 30,000 ft+ altitude, flying at ≥400 knots on a steady course, squawking Mode 3 and Charlie = airliner. Might as well take a moment here to talk about IFF ; Identification Friend or Foe. This is a coded pulse signal transmitted by all commercial aircraft whenever they are in flight unless their equipment is non-functional, and you are not allowed to take off with it in that state. Mode C provides the aircraft's altitude, taken automatically from its barometric altimeter. All modern air search radars have IFF capability, and a dashed line just below the raw video of the air track can be interrogated with a light-pen to provide the readout. You already know how high the plane is if you have a solid radar track, but Mode C provides a confirmation.
Military aircraft have IFF transponders, too; in fact, most of the modes are reserved for military use. But military aircraft often turn off their IFF equipment, because it provides a giveaway who and where they are. In Ukraine, which uses mostly Soviet military aircraft, both sides are capable of reading each other's IFF, so all the more reason not to transmit. Foreign nations typically cannot read each other's IFF except for the modes which are for both military and civilian use, other than those nations who are allies. Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that the Snow Drift acquisition radar has IFF, and if it detected an airliner-like target at 160 km., the operator would have that much more time to interrogate it and determine it was an airliner. Just to reiterate, the western narrative holds that the destruction of the airliner was a mistake.
I'm going a little further with my inexpert opinion, to say that the Buk system was selected as the 'murder weapon', because it provides a limited autonomous capability. To be clear, the Fire Dome radar on the nose of the TELAR does have a limited search capability, and once the radar is locked on to a target, the TELAR vehicle is completely autonomous. The purpose of the surveillance radar is to detect the target from far beyond the Fire Dome's range, assign it to a TELAR and thereby direct it to the elevation and bearing of the target so that the TELAR's radar knows exactly where to look, and continue to update its position until the TELAR to which it was assigned has locked on to the target.
That autonomous capability is probably what made it attractive to those building the scenario; consider. A complete Buk system of 6, maybe 7 vehicles could hardly get all the way inside Ukraine to the firing position without being noticed and perhaps recorded. But perhaps a single TELAR could do it. The aircraft could be shot down by an SA-11 missile and blamed on Russia – Ukraine has access to plenty of SA-11's. But it is a weapon in the Russian active-service inventory. Further, Galeotti's commitment to the allegation that the single TELAR was provided by Russia's 53rd Air Defense Brigade tells us he supports the crackpot narrative offered by Bellingcat, the loopy citizen-journalist website headed by failed financial clerk Eliot Higgins. Bellingcat claims the Buk TELAR was trucked into Ukraine on the back of a flatbed, took the shot that slew MH-17, and was immediately withdrawn back to Russia.
Ummm .how was that an accident? The Russians gave the Ukrainian militants a single launcher with no crane or reload missiles, so it was limited to a maximum of four shots. Its ability to defend itself from ground attack was almost nil, since the design purpose of mounting a Fire Dome radar on each TELAR is not to make the launcher units autonomous; it is to permit concurrent engagements by several launchers, all coordinated by the acquisition radar and command post. Without a radar of its own on the launcher, the firing unit would have to wait until each engagement was completed before it could switch to a new target, but with a fire-control guidance radar on each TELAR, multiple targets can be assigned to multiple launchers, while the search radar limits itself to acquisition and target assignment.
The Fire Dome radar mounted on the TELAR can search a 120-degree sector in 4 seconds, at an elevation of 6 to 7 degrees. Its search function is maximized for defense against ground attack aircraft, and a single launcher is not looking at 240 degrees of potential air threat axis during each sweep. It is not looking high enough to see an airliner at 30,000 ft+. More importantly for a system which was not designed to shoot down helpless airliners, it leaves two-thirds of a circle unobserved all the time it is searching for a target. And the Russians provided this to the 'militants' for air defense? They should be shot.
A single TELAR with no reloads and no acquisition radar would have to be looking directly at the target when it was activated in order to even see it; it takes 15 seconds for the launcher to swing into line and elevation even when that information is transmitted to it from the acquisition radar. It takes 4 seconds for a scan to be completed when there is a whole two-thirds of a circle that it is not even looking at, and you have to manually force it to search above 7 degrees because it is not designed to shoot down airliners. All this time, the target is crossing the acquisition scope at 400 knots+. Fire Dome has integrated IFF, so if it did by some miracle pick up an airliner in its search, the operator would know from transmitted IFF that he was looking at an airliner. A single TELAR with no reload capability sent on an air-defense mission would have its ass ripped in half by ground-attack aircraft that it never saw – if the autonomous capability is so good, why don't the Ukrainians use them as a single unit? Think of how much air-defense coverage they could provide! Do you see the Ukrainian air-defense units employing the Buk that way? Never. Not once. Four TELARS, acquisition radar vehicle, command vehicle, just the way the system was designed to operate.
Just because it has a limited capability to function in a given capacity should not suggest you would employ it that way. You can use a hockey stick to turn off the bedroom light, and you won't even have to get out of bed. Would you do that? I hope not.
A one-third effective capacity in the air defense role together with the covert delivery and immediate withdrawal suggests that the Russians provided the 'militants' with a single TELAR for the express purpose of shooting down a defenseless airliner. Except nobody is saying that. It was a mistake. Well, except for Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, who claimed "Terrorists and militants have planned a cynical terrorist attack on a civilian aircraft Aeroflot AFL-2074 Moscow-Larnaka that was flying at that time above the territory of Ukraine." He further claimed that this was motivated by a desire to 'justify an invasion'. I'm pretty sure if any western authority could prove anything even close to that, we would not have had to wait 6 years for a trial.
Which brings us to the covert delivery and extraction. As part of his personal investigation, Max van der Werff drove the route Bellingcat claimed was the extraction route by which the single TELAR, on its flatbed, was returned to Russia. He verified that there is a highway overpass on the route which is too low for a load that tall to pass underneath. When he pointed this out to Higgins, he was told there is a bypass spur which goes around it, which would allow the flatbed to regain the road beyond without having gone through the overpass. Max drew his attention to the concrete barriers which blocked that road at the top of the hill, and which locals claimed had been in place long before the destruction of MH-17. And that was the end of that conversation. I cannot say enough about the quality of Max's work and his diligent, patient dissection of the evidence . His diagrams of the entry and egress routes as provided by Bellingcat illustrate how little sense they make. It was imperative the guilty Russians get the fuck out of Dodge with the greatest possible dispatch so they drove 100 kilometers out of their way? Don't even terrorist murderers have GPS now?
Similarly, the simpleminded flailing of the Ukrainian investigators suggests they do not even have much of a grasp of how Surface-To-Air missiles work. In excited posts like this one , the BBC discloses that an exhaust vent from the tail section of a 'Buk missile' (the missile is actually the SA-11, while Buk is the entire system) was found in the wreckage of the crashed plane, while this one even shows terminally-stunned head prosecutor Fred Westerbeke standing next to what is allegedly part of the rocket body of an SA-11, including legible inventory markings, also 'found at the crash scene'.
Do tell.
Let me review for you how an SA-11 missile shoots down an aircraft. Does it pierce it like a harpoon, blow up in a thunderous explosion, and ride the doomed aircraft down to the crash site? It certainly does not. The missile blasts out of the launcher and flies to the target via semiactive homing, which means it has an onboard seeker that updates the missile trajectory, while the radar on the launcher also communicates with it and the missile and the target are brought together in intercept. When the proximity fuse of the missile – this is the important part – senses that the missile's warhead is close to the target, the internal explosive detonates, and a shower of prefragmented shrapnel pierces the area of the plane near where the missile detonated, usually the front, because the missile is constantly adjusting to make sure it stays with the target until intercept.
MH-17 traveled on, mostly intact, for miles before it crashed into the ground; the crash site was some 13 miles from where the plane was hit. The missile self-destructed miles away from the crash site, and the only parts of it which accompanied the plane to its impact point were the shrapnel bits of the exploded warhead. The body of the missile, together with the exhaust vent, fell back to the ground somewhere quite close to where the plane was hit, not where it fell. Once the missile's fuel is exhausted, either because it ran out or because it was consumed in the explosion triggered by the proximity fuse, the missile parts do not fly around in formation, seeking out the wreckage and coming gently to rest in it where they can later be found by investigators. I don't know how many times I have to say this, because this is certainly not the first, but there would not be any missile parts in the wreckage of MH-17 because the missile would have blown up in front of the plane without ever touching it. The missile does not hit the plane. The pieces of the warhead do. But reality has to take a back seat to making out an airtight case.
There is no telling what kind of ordnance might be found in the wreckage itself, as the Ukrainian Army continued to shell the site for days after the crash; doubtless various artillery shells could be found at the crash site, as well, but it would be quite a leap of faith to suggest a Boeing 777 was shot down by artillery. What you would not find is pieces of the SAM that shot it down.
Several witnesses claimed to have seen an SU-25 near the plane before it exploded. They quite possibly did – the Ukrainian Air Force was observed to be using civilian airliners as cover to allow them to get close to Eastern-Ukrainian villages which might be protected by hand-held launchers known as MANPADS (for Man-Portable Air Defense System), reasoning the defenders would not shoot if they were afraid they might hit a civil aircraft. Once they were close enough to the village or other target to make an attack run, they would then return to the vicinity of the airliner for protection while withdrawing; the rebel side complained about this illegal and immoral practice a month before the destruction of MH-17. But there is no evidence I am aware of linking the destruction of MH-17 to an attack by aircraft.
It may no longer be possible to look at the shooting-down of the Malaysian Boeing objectively; the event has become a partisan rush to judgment which was rendered immediately, after which an investigation began which plainly had as its goal proving the accusations already made. Means and motive clearly favour the accusers rather than the accused, and opportunity is mostly irrelevant as a consideration. Ukraine obviously had to be a suspect – the destruction of the aircraft occurred over Ukraine while Ukraine was in control of it and the airspace in which it traveled. Yet Ukraine was allowed to lead the investigation, and to gather and safeguard evidence, while the owner of the aircraft – Malaysia – was excluded until the investigation had been in progress for four months. Russia was not allowed any part in it save to yield whatever evidence the investigators demanded, while all its theories were widely mocked. Demonstrations set up by Almaz-Antey, the designers and builders of the SA-11, were unattended by any investigating nation – small wonder they do not have Clue One how the missile works, and believe they are going to find big chunks of it in the wreckage, perhaps with Putin's passport stuck to one of them. If any of these conditions prevailed in an investigation which favoured Russia, NATO would scream as if it were being run over with spiked wheels – if the Boeing had been shot down over Russia, who thinks Russia would have been heading the investigation, and custodian of the evidence?
Nor is that by any means all. The Dutch investigation which concluded with the preliminary report implied that nothing of any investigative value was found on the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) or the Flight Data Recorder (FDR). Nothing to indicate what might have happened to the aircraft – just that it was flying along, and suddenly it wasn't. How likely is that? No transcript was provided, and I guess that would be expected if there was no information at all. Funny how often that happens with Malaysian airliners; they really need to look at their quality control. Oh; except they don't build the aircraft. Boeing does. I could see there not being any information after the plane began to break up, because both the CVR and the FDR are in the tail , and that broke off before the fuselage hit. But the microphones are in the ceiling of the cockpit and in the microphone and earpiece of the pilots' headsets, which they wear at all times while in flight. The last audio claimed to have been recorded was a course alteration sent by Ukrainian ATC.
According to the Malaysian government, there was an early plan by NATO for a military operation involving some 9000 troops to 'secure the crash site', which was forestalled by a covert Malaysian operation which recovered the 'black boxes' and blocked the plan. I have to say that given the many, many other unorthodox and bizarre happenings in the conduct of what was supposed to be a transparent and impartial international investigation, it's getting so nothing much is unbelievable. The Malaysian Prime Minister went on record as believing that the western powers had already concluded that Russia was responsible, and were mostly just going through the motions of investigating.
The telephone recordings presented by the SBU as demonstrating Russian culpability were analyzed by OG IT Forensic Services, a Malaysian firm specializing in forensic analysis of audio, video and digital materials for court proceedings, which concluded the recordings were cut, edited and fabricated . Yet they are relied upon as important evidence of guilt by the Dutch and the JIT.
The conduct of the investigation has been all the way across town from transparent, and in fact seems to represent a clique of cronies getting their heads together to attempt nailing down a consistent narrative, which is in the judgment of forensic professionals based upon clumsy fabrications. The investigators plainly have no understanding of how the weapons systems involved perform, or they would not claim confidently to have discovered pieces of the very missile that destroyed the plane in the wreckage of it. But rather than take an objective look at how this flailing is perceived, they continue to rely on momentum and the appearance of getting things done while being scrupulously impartial, all the while that more mountains of evidence are collected, which they cannot disclose to the public, although it is all right to let the prime suspect keep it safe under wraps.
Make of that what you will.
" Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. Thus the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person's obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic exceed his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic. "
-Harry G. Frankfurt
May 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Casual Observer , May 22 2020 22:45 utc | 36
" Britain had to agree to the pact because it had lost the capability to defend the colony."...
The Bristish had never defended Hong Kong and never had the intention to defend Hong Kong. My mother was a teenage girl when the Japanese invaded Hong Kong. According to her account, she saw the Bristush battle ships and submarines ran from the harbor before the advance of the Japanese troops. Leaving only the local Boy Scouts and the Salvation Army to fire a few token shots (who were all killed eventually). They didn't even bother to collect their own citizens when they ran, leaving behind a group of British nurses at a hospital, who were raped by the Japanese soldiers when they arrived.vk , May 23 2020 0:30 utc | 47
@ Posted by: Kay Fabe | May 23 2020 0:09 utc | 42The timing doesn't add up. China opened up in 1972 (the famous Nixon-Mao handshake), while the UK's agreement to give HK back was from 1984 - well into the Thatcher Era.
The most likely reason for the UK to decide to obey the lease deal was of military nature: the valuable land necessary to defend HK was the flatland adjacent to the city proper, where potable water comes from. It already part of the Mainland, thus rendering the defense of HK virtually impossible without an outright invasion of the Mainland itself.
Margaret Thatcher probably didn't want to obey the treaty (99-year lease), as a good neoliberal she was, but her military advisors probably warned her of the practical difficulties, and, since it was a 99-year lease anyway, she must've agreed to simply allow the treaty to be followed.
It is important to highlight that, in 1984, there were a lot of reasons the capitalist world should be optimist about China becoming capitalist. After all, it really got off the Soviet sphere after 1972, and Deng's reforms were - from the point of view of a vulgar (bourgeois) economist - indeed a clear path to a capitalist restoration. It didn't cross Thatcher's mind that China could stand its ground and remain socialist - at least not in 1984. If you read the sources of the time, you will easily see the Western elites treated China's return to capitalism as a given.
May 21, 2020 | off-guardian.org
Howard ,
"History," they say, "is written by the winners." But if you want to get at the fundamental flaw, remove the last three words and you have it: "History is written."Events cannot be written, they can only be lived.
Just as a sun in a picture cannot give heat or light. The problem is that those who live history seldom speak of it, it's much too traumatic for them.
And those who speak voluminously of it most likely did not live it.
kenny gordon ,
Nice comment, Howard.When my Father [Royal Artillery] was told to stop fighting against my Father-in-Law [Waffen SS], he was sent off to fight against MOSSAD in Palestine he witnessed the brutal treatment handed out to the "indigenous people" and was very reluctant to talk about his experience.. "By way of deception thou shalt do war"..!
May 21, 2020 | off-guardian.org
n 1996 a task force, led by Richard Perle, produced a policy document titled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm for Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then in his first term as Prime Minister of Israel, as a how-to manual on approaching regime change in the Middle East and for the destruction of the Oslo Accords.
The "Clean Break" policy document outlined these goals:
Ending Yasser Arafat's and the Palestinian Authority's political influence, by blaming them for acts of Palestinian terrorism Inducing the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Launching war against Syria after Saddam's regime is disposed of. Followed by military action against Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt."Clean Break" was also in direct opposition to the Oslo Accords, to which Netanyahu was very much itching to obliterate. The Oslo II Accord was signed just the year before, on September 28th 1995, in Taba, Egypt.
During the Oslo Accord peace process, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu accused Rabin's government of being "removed from Jewish tradition and Jewish values." Rallies organised by the Likud and other right-wing fundamentalist groups featured depictions of Rabin in a Nazi SS uniform or in the crosshairs of a gun.
In July 1995, Netanyahu went so far as to lead a mock funeral procession for Rabin, featuring a coffin and hangman's noose.
The Oslo Accords was the initiation of a process which was to lead to a peace treaty based on the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, and at fulfilling the "right of the Palestinian people to self-determination." If such a peace treaty were to occur, with the United States backing, it would have prevented much of the mayhem that has occurred since.
However, the central person to ensuring this process, Yitzak Rabin, was assassinated just a month and a half after the signing of the Oslo II Accord, on November 4th, 1995. Netanyahu became prime minister of Israel seven months later. "Clean Break" was produced the following year.
On November 6th, 2000 in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, who was the chief negotiator of the Oslo peace accords, warned those Israelis who argued that it was impossible to make peace with the Palestinians:
Zionism was founded in order to save Jews from persecution and anti-Semitism, and not in order to offer them a Jewish Sparta or – God forbid – a new Massada."
On Oct. 5, 2003, for the first time in 30 years, Israel launched bombing raids against Syria, targeting a purported "Palestinian terrorist camp" inside Syrian territory. Washington stood by and did nothing to prevent further escalation.
"Clean Break" was officially launched in March 2003 with the war against Iraq, under the pretence of "The War on Terror". The real agenda was a western-backed list of regime changes in the Middle East to fit the plans of the United Kingdom, the U.S. and Israel.
However, the affair is much more complicated than that with each player holding their own "idea" of what the "plan" is. Before we can fully appreciate such a scope, we must first understand what was Sykes-Picot and how did it shape today's world mayhem.
Arabian NightsWWI was to officially start July 28th 1914, almost immediately following the Balkan wars (1912-1913) which had greatly weakened the Ottoman Empire.
Never one to miss an opportunity when smelling fresh blood, the British were very keen on acquiring what they saw as strategic territories for the taking under the justification of being in war-time, which in the language of geopolitics translates to "the right to plunder anything one can get their hands on" .
The brilliance of Britain's plan to garner these new territories was not to fight the Ottoman Empire directly but rather, to invoke an internal rebellion from within. These Arab territories would be encouraged by Britain to rebel for their independence from the Ottoman Empire and that Britain would support them in this cause.
These Arab territories were thus led to believe that they were fighting for their own freedom when, in fact, they were fighting for British and secondarily French colonial interests.
In order for all Arab leaders to sign on to the idea of rebelling against the Ottoman Sultan, there needed to be a viable leader that was Arab, for they certainly would not agree to rebel at the behest of Britain.
Lord Kitchener, the butcher of Sudan, was to be at the helm of this operation as Britain's Minister of War. Kitchener's choice for Arab leadership was the scion of the Hashemite dynasty, Hussein ibn Ali, known as the Sherif of Mecca who ruled the region of Hejaz under the Ottoman Sultan.
Hardinge of the British India Office disagreed with this choice and wanted Wahhabite Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud instead, however, Lord Kitchener overruled this stating that their intelligence revealed that more Arabs would follow Hussein.
Since the Young Turk Revolution which seized power of the Ottoman government in 1908, Hussein was very aware that his dynasty was in no way guaranteed and thus he was open to Britain's invitation to crown him King of the Arab kingdom.
Kitchener wrote to one of Hussein's sons, Abdallah, as reassurance of Britain's support:
If the Arab nation assist England in this war that has been forced upon us by Turkey, England will guarantee that no internal intervention take place in Arabia, and will give Arabs every assistance against foreign aggression."
Sir Henry McMahon who was the British High Commissioner to Egypt, would have several correspondences with Sherif Hussein between July 1915 to March 1916 to convince Hussein to lead the rebellion for the "independence" of the Arab states.
However, in a private letter to India's Viceroy Charles Hardinge sent on December 4th, 1915, McMahon expressed a rather different view of what the future of Arabia would be, contrary to what he had led Sherif Hussein to believe:
[I do not take] the idea of a future strong united independent Arab State too seriously the conditions of Arabia do not and will not for a very long time to come, lend themselves to such a thing."
Such a view meant that Arabia would be subject to Britain's heavy-handed "advising" in all its affairs, whether it sought it or not.
In the meantime, Sherif Hussein was receiving dispatches issued by the British Cairo office to the effect that the Arabs of Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia (Iraq) would be given independence guaranteed by Britain, if they rose up against the Ottoman Empire.
The French were understandably suspicious of Britain's plans for these Arab territories. The French viewed Palestine, Lebanon and Syria as intrinsically belonging to France, based on French conquests during the Crusades and their "protection" of the Catholic populations in the region.
Hussein was adamant that Beirut and Aleppo were to be given independence and completely rejected French presence in Arabia. Britain was also not content to give the French all the concessions they demanded as their "intrinsic" colonial rights.
Enter Sykes and Picot.
... ... ...
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s violent confrontations between Jews and Arabs took place in Palestine costing hundreds of lives. In 1936 a major Arab revolt occurred over 7 months, until diplomatic efforts involving other Arab countries led to a ceasefire.
In 1937, a British Royal Commission of Inquiry headed by William Peel concluded that Palestine had two distinct societies with irreconcilable political demands, thus making it necessary to partition the land.
The Arab Higher Committee refused Peel's "prescription" and the revolt broke out again. This time, Britain responded with a devastatingly heavy hand. Roughly 5,000 Arabs were killed by the British armed forces and police. Following the riots, the British mandate government dissolved the Arab Higher Committee and declared it an illegal body.
In response to the revolt, the British government issued the White Paper of 1939, which stated that Palestine should be a bi-national state, inhabited by both Arabs and Jews.
Due to the international unpopularity of the mandate including within Britain itself, it was organised such that the United Nations would take responsibility for the British initiative and adopted the resolution to partition Palestine on November 29th, 1947.
Britain would announce its termination of its Mandate for Palestine on May 15th, 1948 after the State of Israel declared its independence on May 14th, 1948.
A New Strategy for Securing Whose Realm?Despite what its title would have you believe, "Clean Break" is neither a "new strategy" nor meant for "securing" anything. It is also not the brainchild of fanatical neo-conservatives: Dick Cheney and Richard Perle, nor even that of crazed end-of-days fundamentalist Benjamin Netanyahu, but rather has the very distinct and lingering odour of the British Empire.
"Clean Break" is a continuation of Britain's geopolitical game, and just as it used France during the Sykes-Picot days it is using the United States and Israel.
The role Israel has found itself playing in the Middle East could not exist if it were not for over 30 years of direct British occupation in Palestine and its direct responsibility for the construction of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which set a course for destruction and endless war in this region long before Israel ever existed.
It was also Britain who officially launched operation "Clean Break" by directly and fraudulently instigating an illegal war against Iraq to which the Chilcot Inquiry, aka Iraq Inquiry , released 7 years later, attests to.
This was done by the dubious reporting by British Intelligence setting the pretext for the U.S.' ultimate invasion into Iraq based off of fraudulent and forged evidence provided by GCHQ, unleashing the "War on Terror", aka "Clean Break" outline for regime change in the Middle East.
In addition, the Libyan invasion in 2011 was also found to be unlawfully instigated by Britain.
In a report published by the British Foreign Affairs Committee in September 2016, it was concluded that it was "the UK and France in March 2011 which led the international community to support an intervention in Libya to protect civilians from forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi" .
The report concluded that the Libyan intervention was based on false pretence provided by British Intelligence and recklessly promoted by the British government.
If this were not enough, British Intelligence has also been caught behind the orchestrations of Russia-Gate and the Skripal affair .
Therefore, though the U.S. and Israeli military have done a good job at stealing the show, and though they certainly believe themselves to be the head of the show, the reality is that this age of empire is distinctly British and anyone who plays into this game will ultimately be playing for said interests, whether they are aware of it or not.
Originally published by Strategic Culture
Yossi B said:Zionism was founded in order to save Jews from persecution and anti-Semitism
Ever heard of Dumbo? He's a flying elephant.
The crusade in the ME will continue, with Israel the top dog until America's military support is no longer there. Even without the Israeli eastern european invaders, the area is primed for perpetual tribal warfare because the masses are driven by tribalist doctrines and warped metaphysics dictated by insane and inhumane parasites (priests). It is the epicenter of a spiritual plague that has infected most of the planet.
paul ,
There is complete continuity between the activities of Zionist controlled western countries and those of the present day.In the 1930s, there were about 300,000 adult Palestinian males. Over 10% were killed, imprisoned and tortured or driven into exile. 100,000 British troops were sent to Palestine to destroy completely Palestinian political and military organisations. Wingate set up the Jew terror gangs who were given free rein to murder, rape and burn, in preparation for the complete ethnic cleansing of the country.
We see the same ruthless, genocidal brutality on an even greater scale in the present day, serving exactly the same interests. Nothing has ever come of trying to negotiate with the Zionists and their western stooges – just further disasters. It is only resolute and uncompromising resistance that has ever achieved anything. Hezbollah kicking their Zionist arses out of Lebanon in 2000 and keeping them out in 2006. Had they not done so, Lebanon would still be under Zionist occupation and covered with their filthy illegal settlements.
They have never stopped and they never will. The objective is to create a vast Zionist empire comprising the whole of Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and parts of Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. This plan has never changed and it never will. The Zionist thieves will shortly steal what little is left of Palestine. But the thieving will not end there. It will just move on to neighbouring countries.
The prime reason they have been able to get away with this is not their control of British and US golems. It is by playing the old, dirty colonial games of divide and rule, with the Quisling stooge dictators serving their interests. They have always been able to set Sunni against Shia, and different factions against others. The dumb Arabs fall for it every time. Their latest intrigues are directed at the destruction of Iran, the next victim on their target list after Iraq, Libya and Syria. And the Quisling dictators of Saudi Arabia are openly agitating for this and offering to pay for all of it. Syria sent troops to join the US invasion of Iraq in 1991, though Iraqi troops fought and died in Syria in 1973 against Israel. Egypt allows Israel to use its airspace to carry out the genocidal terror bombing of Gaza.
All this is contemptible enough and fits into racist stereotypes of Arabs as stupid, irrational, corrupt, easily bought, violent and treacherous. This of course does not apply to the populations of those countries, but it is a legitimate assessment of their Quisling dictators, with a (very) few honourable exceptions.
Seamus Padraig ,
Of course, Arab rulers who don't tow the Zionist line generally get overthrown, don't they? And that usually requires the efforts/intervention of FUKUS, doesn't it? So you can't really pretend that 'Arab stupidity' is the main factor.Richard Le Sarc ,
The fact that, as the Yesha Council of Rabbis and Torah Sages declared in 2006, as Israel was bombing Lebanon 'back to the Stone Age', under Talmudic Judaism, killing civilians is not just permissible, but a mitzvah, or good deed, explains Zionist behaviour. Other doctrines allow an entire 'city' eg Gaza, to be devastated for the 'crimes' of a few, and children, even babies, to be killed if they would grow up to 'oppose the Jews'. Dare mention these FACTS, seen everyday in Israeli barbarity, and the 'antisemitism' slurs flow, as ever.Julia ,
" is that this age of empire is distinctly British".it takes some balls to make such an absurd statement and still expect to be taken seriously. The US of course with its 800 military bases around the world and gifts of 40 billion a year to Israel has no opinion on the future of the Middle East. You would have us believe that they are just humble onlookers, as a small bankrupt country tells them what to do. We are being told that the CIA, the most formidable spy agency and manipulator of countries in history, sits quietly by as the British and Israel tells the US what to do.
Absurd isn't it., Clearly the truth is that Israel is just another military base for the US in the Middle East, easily the most important geopolitical region in the world. They fund it, arm it, and protect it from all attacks, Israel does as it is told by the US for the most part despite the pantomime on the surface.
Many on the far right like to hide US interests behind a wall of antisemitism that likes to paint 'the jews' as an all powerful enemy but this is just cover for Israel's real geopolitical roll as a US puppet.
Time and time again all we are seeing is attempt to write the US, the largest empire in the history out of the news and out of the history books, like it is some invisible benign force that has not interests, no control and does noting to forward it's interests and it's empire.''To find out who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise."
I don't know about you, but I'm not 10 years old and I know I am looking at Empire and it's power being flexed every day in every part do the world, especial in the parts of the world that it funds with trillions of dollars.
Julia ,
" is that this age of empire is distinctly British".it takes some balls to make such an absurd statement and still expect to be taken seriously. The US of course with its 800 military bases around the world and gifts of 40 billion a year to Israel has no opinion on the future of the Middle East. You would have us believe that they are just humble onlookers, as a small bankrupt country tells them what to do. We are being told that the CIA, the most formidable spy agency and manipulator of countries in history, sits quietly by as the British and Israel tells the US what to do.
Absurd isn't it., Clearly the truth is that Israel is just another military base for the US in the Middle East, easily the most important geopolitical region in the world. They fund it, arm it, and protect it from all attacks, Israel does as it is told by the US for the most part despite the pantomime on the surface.
Many on the far right like to hide US interests behind a wall of antisemitism that likes to paint 'the jews' as an all powerful enemy but this is just cover for Israel's real geopolitical roll as a US puppet.
Time and time again all we are seeing is attempt to write the US, the largest empire in the history out of the news and out of the history books, like it is some invisible benign force that has not interests, no control and does noting to forward it's interests and it's empire.''To find out who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise."
I don't know about you, but I'm not 10 years old and I know I am looking at Empire and it's power being flexed every day in every part do the world, especial in the parts of the world that it funds with trillions of dollars.
Richard Le Sarc ,
The antithesis of the truth. It is US politicians who flock to AIPAC's meeting every year to pledge UNDYING fealty to Israel, not Israeli politicians pledging loyalty to the USA. It is Israeli and dual loyalty Jewish oligarchs funding BOTH US parties, it is US politicians throwing themselves to the ground in adulation when Bibi the war criminal addresses the Congress with undisguised contempt, not Israeli politicians groveling to the USA. The master-servant relationship is undisguised.Pyewacket ,
In Daniel Yergin's The Prize, a history of the Oil industry, he provides another interesting angle to explain British interest in the region. He states that at that time, Churchill realised that a fighting Navy powered by Coal, was not nearly as good or efficient as one using Oil as a fuel, and that securing supplies of the stuff was the best way forward to protect the Empire.BigB ,
Yergin would be right. The precursor of the First World War was a technological arms race and accelerated 'scientific' perfection of arsenals – particularly naval – in the service of imperialism. British and German imperialism. The full story involves the Berlin to Cairo railway and the resource grab that went with it. I'm a bit sketchy on the details now: but Churchill had a prominent role, rising to First Lord of the Admiralty.Docherty and Macgregor have exposed the hidden history. F W Engdahl has written about WW1 being the first oil war.
And don´t forget which of the US Military command regions into which the US Military divided the WHOLE World is named "US CENTCOM"!
„One Thing Must be Clear to the World: The US Power Elite Regards the Whole Globe as Their Colony!": https://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2016/10/26/one-thing-must-be-clear-to-the-world-the-us-power-elite-regards-the-whole-globe-as-their-colony/Antonym ,
In 1996 a task force, led by Richard Perle, produced a policy document titled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm for Benjamin Netanyahu
No source link for this!
By the way 1996 was during the Clinton administration. Warren Christopher was secretary of state and John Deutch was the Director of Central Intelligence . George Tenet was appointed the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence in July 1995. After John Deutch's abrupt resignation in December 1996, Tenet served as acting director.
Reg ,
Here you go, sonny boyRichard Le Sarc ,
Antsie, what are you going to deny next? The USS Liberty? Deir Yassin? The Lavon Affair? Sabra, Shatilla? Qana (twice)? The Five Celebrating Israelis on 9/11?Does not impress.
May 11, 2020 | www.unz.com
Anonymous [208] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment May 11, 2020 at 10:43 am GMT
To achieve their goals, the pro-NATO propagandists often exploit the so-called 'Russian threat' concept; however, this merely provides a cover for their aggressive actions to silence and discredit opposing opinions and sources of information they deem to be counter to their own interests.
The reason behind their activity is simple – they must justify their existence in reports to their sponsors. They are constantly and fiercely working to engineer 'successful actions' regardless of their validity. In order to continue securing funding to expose and defeat an imaginary enemy, they must create imaginary victories, irrespective of reality.
Uh, the author obviously knows better so why promote this narrative? These operatives are not going after "wrong", or "invalid" targets to justify their funding. They're specifically hired to do what they're doing now.
May 05, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
begob , May 5 2020 2:08 utc | 114
In the UK, looks like Tom Tugendhat, chair of the foreign affairs committee, is spreading the China-did-it propaganda, after his comments on the BBC last week. He can file it alongside his promotion of the White Helmets and the Skripal affair.
Apr 30, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
xxx logicalman 4/27/2020, 1:40:42 PM (Edited)
Perfidious Albion.
After WW2 the Brits collected as many Enigma machines as they could get their hands on and gave them to all the commonwealth countries, and a few others, saying they were un-crackable all the while knowing that wasn't the case and they could read them like the daily papers. That's why Enigma was top secret for at least 40 years - some details will likely be kept secret for ever.
My dad worked on cracking it - got a medal for his work 50 years after the end of WW2. Didn't let on to anyone until his work was declassified. I had some very interesting conversations with him towards the end of his life.
He was invited down to Bletchley for the official switch-on when the Colossus rebuild was finished.
Apr 18, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Phyryne's frock , Apr 17 2020 21:48 utc | 124
Does anyone know where Nancy Pelosi lives? Is there any talk of forming a line of cars outside her house, everybody holding up signs "My kids are hungry give them your ice cream!"(just saw on my rarely-scanned fb page her actually proudly showing off her big stash of very expensive consumables and james cordon fawning over her, every bit as bizarro as trump and minions)
Once again, The poor should immediately apologize to the rich, take all the wealth off them that was not self-earned but merely drifted to them via myriad legal thefts that exist in our economic dystems un-countered, and then promise never again to allow heaps of wealth to be piled on any human being. Because piling heaps of unearned wealth on people is a very cruel thing to do to them: it allows them to succumb to their own worst instincts (like james cordon and nancy did in that gobsmacking "interview"), it makes them targets of the poor and all the other rich, they are forced to waste their lives eroding their overfortunes trying to defend their overfortunes, it deprives them of the greatest joy in life, fraternity and camaraderie being part of the human herd, wealth makes soft and lazy and far-to-fall.
GK Chesterton said "The modern English oligarchy does not rest on the cruelty of the rich to the poor - it rests on the unfailing kindness of the poor to the rich."
He was wrong about that. It IS NOT a kindness to ANYONE to be putting people in positions of economic inferiority and superiority. It is artificially and unnecessarily contrived poison - but people swallow it every day, every hour, every minute.
Apr 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Realist , Apr 15 2020 17:51 utc | 8
Re: British Labour Party leader "Sir" Keir Starmer and his connection to British Military Intelligence service MI5https://www.twitter.com/DCKennard/status/1250344315777212416
Matt Kennard
Why did then head of the CPS, Keir Starmer, meet then head of MI5, Sir Jonathan Evans, for informal social drinks in April 2013, the year after Starmer decided not to prosecute MI5 for its role in torture. No record any other CPS head accepting hospitality from an intel chief.
When Starmer decided not to prosecute MI5, its director-general Sir Jonathan Evans said: "I am delighted that after a thorough police investigation the CPS has concluded that [MI5] has no case to answer".
Sir Jonathan Evans left MI5 a week following his drinks with Starmer. The day after Evans left the service, Starmer announced he would also leave the CPS. Evans is now Baron Evans of Weardale after David Cameron made him a life peer in 2014.
The CPS' role involved attempting to trace responsibility for the actions of the MI5 officer it was investigating further up MI5's chain of command. It is likely that Sir Jonathan Evans -- who joined MI5 in 1980 -- played a role in the case under investigation.In September 2001 Sir Jonathan Evans had become director of international counter terrorism at MI5 and was in this position when the British resident -- whose treatment the CPS was investigating -- was snatched, tortured and rendered by the CIA, with MI5 involvement.
It's not known if Evans would have been criminally liable if the prosecution had gone ahead, but he later had to defend MI5 from accusations of a cover-up in case after Lord Neuberger, then President of the Court of Appeal, said there was a "culture of suppression" in the agency
The value of the hospitality Starmer received from Evans is listed as "unknown" and MI5 is not mentioned, indicating this was a social meeting. Formal meetings for the head of the CPS are registered separately under "meetings with external organisations", which would include MI5Such social drinks appear to be unusual for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). The three years hospitality records for the period after Starmer left the CPS show his successor as DPP received no hospitality from a sitting intelligence chief -- or met them formally.
At the time of Starmer's social drinks with Sir Jonathan Evans the CPS was still investigating the role of MI5's sister organisation MI6 in the rendition of two families to Libya when it was ruled by Muammar Gaddafi.
In 2012 -- the year before Starmer met Evans for drinks -- Conservative MP David Davis said it was "essential" for MI5 to be investigated by Scotland Yard for joint operations it conducted with Libyan intelligence against Libyan dissidents living in the UK. That never happened.TRILATERAL COMMISSION: Sir Keir Starmer is a member of the intelligence-linked Trilateral Commission, an organisation set up in 1973 by American billionaire David Rockefeller who was then chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank. Starmer is the only British MP who is a member.
Apr 14, 2020 | www.unz.com
annamaria , says: Show Comment April 13, 2020 at 11:13 am GMT
@A123 Poor quetching zionist. Why do your brethren prefer NYC to Israel?Your Singers, Adelsons, Epsteins, Wexlers, Lauders, and other Schumers don't want to live with Hasidim and the supremacist scum of Schneerson's followers. So much for the Jewish State of collaborators with self-proclaimed neo-nazi in Kaganat of Nuland (former Ukraine). https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/rights-groups-demand-israel-stop-arming-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-1.6248727
Your obnoxious lot has never been able to create a distinct civilization but only a fungus.As for zionism of the 21st century, the worst of the worst have united into a ziocon plague made of the walking cadavers of Cheney, Blairs, Clintons, Obama, Trump, Rumsfeld, and ghastly founders of PNAC (dreaming of Amalek): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
The Wars for Israel have this prominent victim: https://consortiumnews.com/2020/04/12/assange-partner-speaks-out-after-threat-from-judge/
A legitimate question:
Dirty rotten British establishment. Why is Assange in jail and NOT Ghislaine Maxwell????
Why, "A123?" Do you know why the courageous journalist is in jail in the thoroughly zionized UK, but the procuress of teens for wealthy pedophiles is free to wander, and her property is protected in the UK? The Friends of Israel indeed have a lot of power in the UK, and you surely know the secret of Ghislaine Maxwell's success.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/LgK5ZqjvC5s?feature=oembed
Apr 06, 2020 | asiatimes.com
...a leak from a laboratory in the Chinese city is "no longer being discounted" by UK ministers, according to a report in The Mail on Sunday .
... ... ...
American biosecurity expert Professor Richard Ebright, of Rutgers University's Waksman Institute of Microbiology, New Jersey, said that while the evidence suggests Covid-19 was not created in one of the Wuhan labs, it could easily have escaped from there while it was being analyzed, the report said.Prof Ebright said he has seen evidence that scientists at the Centre for Disease Control and the Institute of Virology studied the viruses with only "level 2" security -- rather than the recommended level 4 – which "provides only minimal protection against infection of lab workers," the report said. He concluded that the evidence left "a basis to rule out [that coronavirus is] a lab construct, but no basis to rule out a lab accident."
Intriguingly, when the wildlife market was closed in January, a report appeared in the Beijing News identifying Huang Yanling, a researcher at the Institute of Virology, as "patient zero" – the first person to be infected.
The claim was described as "fake information" by the institute, which said Huang left in 2015, was in good health and had not been diagnosed with Covid-19.
Mar 21, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Stonebird , Mar 21 2020 21:25 utc | 31
I just think that the US "Intelligence" and most of the US Administration just haven't got it. I suppose when you are waiting for the "rapture" anything that can add to the chaos is to be included.1) Pompeo and Grenell reportedly arguing that coronavirus has created window of opportunity for a direct strike on a weak and divided Iran. They were arguing about the severity of the strike.
2) Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisian has criticized the #UK for not delivering millions of masks #Iran bought in preparations ahead of #Covid19 outbreak. The London govt. refused to deliver them citing US sanctions! Note that Germany took supplies meant for Switzerland, The US via the Italian Mafia (I suppose) gets masks from Bergamo. etc. Wonderful show of world-wide solidarity.
Pompeo should hold his "rapture" in his hot little hand and .....
Jan 29, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Without enforced suppression of truth, there would be no way that the U.S. and its allied regimes could continue hiding the lies that were behind their invasions of Iraq in 2003 , and of Syria since 2012 , and their coup against Ukraine in 2014 , and also of their takeovers and attempted takeovers of other countries that had refused to be bullied by the U.S. regime into complying with its obsessive anti-Russian demands -- America's subterranean continuation of the Cold War, even after Russia had quit the Cold War in 1991 .
All of the lies are still being propounded by the U.S. regime and remain fully enforced by suppression of the truth about these matters.
That's being done in all news-media except a few of the non -mainstream ones.
So: this is about an actual Western samizdat - the West's equivalent to the former Soviet Union's systematic, and equally pervasive, truth-suppression, to fool the public into thinking that the Government represents them, no matter how much it does not.
(The chief trick in this regard is to fool them into thinking that since there is more than one political party, one of them will be "good," even though the fact may actually be that each of the parties represents simply a different faction of a psychopathically evil aristocracy. After all: each party lied and supported invading Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, and Syria constantly; and no party acknowledges that the 2014 regime-change in Ukraine was a U.S. coup instead of a domestic Ukrainian democratic revolution. On such important matters, they all lie, and in basically the same ways. These lies are bipartisan, even though most of the other political lies are heavily partisan.)
Right now, Julian Assange is rotting to death inside Britain's equivalent to the U.S. regime's Guantanamo Bay prison, which is Belmarsh Prison, in London. As the CIA-edited and written Wikipedia's article on Belmarsh Prison retrospectively admits, "Between 2001 and 2002, Belmarsh Prison was used to detain a number of people indefinitely without charge or trial under the provisions of the Part 4 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, leading it to be called the 'British version of Guantanamo Bay'." However, only because of the case of Julian Assange is it now publicly known that this characterization of that prison is -- at least for him -- equally true today . And Assange is, indeed, being held there "indefinitely without charge or trial," even after his having previously been held in various other forms of confinement, ever since at least 12 April 2012, when -- being then 'temporarily' under house-arrest in Norfolk England, while awaiting trial on a manufactured rape-charge against him which was reluctantly abandoned by the Government only when the alleged victim refused to testify against him -- Assange broadcast an interview for RT, Russian Television, an interview of the head of Lebanon's Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.
The U.S.-and-allied regimes' billionaires-owned-and-controlled 'news'-media condemned Assange for this interview, because it enabled whomever still had an open mind, amongst the Western public, to hear from one of those billionares' destruction-targets (Nasrallah), and for Assange's doing this on the TV-news network of the main country that America's billionaires are especially trying to conquer, which is (and since 26 July 1945 has consistently been ) Russia.
The great then-independent investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald headlined about that interview, at Salon on 18 April 2012, "Attacks on RT and Assange reveal much about the critics: Those who pretend to engage in adversarial journalism will invariably hate those who actually do it." How true that was, and unfortunately still is! And Assange himself is the best example of it. Greenwald wrote:
Let's examine the unstated premises at work here. There is apparently a rule that says it's perfectly OK for a journalist to work for a media outlet owned and controlled by a weapons manufacturer (GE/NBC/MSNBC), or by the U.S. and British governments (BBC/Stars & Stripes/Voice of America), or by Rupert Murdoch and Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal (Wall St. Journal/Fox News), or by a banking corporation with long-standing ties to right-wing governments (Politico), or by for-profit corporations whose profits depend upon staying in the good graces of the U.S. government ( Kaplan/The Washington Post ), or by loyalists to one of the two major political parties (National Review/TPM/countless others), but it's an intrinsic violation of journalistic integrity to work for a media outlet owned by the Russian government. Where did that rule come from?
But from 'temporary' house-arrest there, Assange was allowed asylum by Ecuador's progressive President Rafael Correa on 20 June 2012 , to stay in London's Ecuadoran Embassy, so as not to be seized by the UK regime to be sent to prison and probable death-without-trial in the U.S. To Correa's shock, it turned out that Correa's successor, Vice President Lenin Moreno, was actually a U.S. agent, who promptly forced Assange out of the Embassy, into Belmarsh prison, to die there or else become extradited to die in a U.S. prison, also without trial.
And, for what, then, is Assange being imprisoned, and perhaps murdered? He divulged government secrets that should never even have been secrets! He raised the blanket of lies, which covers over these actually dictatorial clandestine international operations. He exposed these evil imperialistic operations, which are hidden behind (and under) that blanket of imperialists' lies. For this, he is being martyred -- a martyr for democracy, where there is no actual democracy (but only those lies).
Here is an example:
On December 29th, I headlined "Further Proof: U.S., UK, & France Committed War-Crime on 14 April 2018" and reported highlights of the latest Wikileaks document-dumps regarding a U.S.-UK-French operation to cover-up (via their control over the OPCW) their having committed an international war-crime when they had fired 105 missiles against Syria on 14 April 2018, which was done allegedly to punish Syria for having perpetrated a gas-attack in Douma seven days before -- except that there hadn't been any such gas-attack, but the OPCW simply lied and said that there might have been one, and that the Syrian Government might have done it! That's playing the public for suckers.
Back on 3 November 2019, Fox News bannered "Fox News Poll: Bipartisan majorities want some U.S. troops to stay in Syria" and reported that when citing ISIS as America's enemy that must be defeated, 69% of U.S. respondents wanted U.S. troops to stay in Syria. But when did ISIS ever constitute a threat to U.S. national security? And under what international law is any U.S. soldier, who is inside Syria, anything other than an invader there? The answer, to both of these questions, is obviously "never" and "none." But if you are an investor in Lockheed Martin, don't you want Americans to be suckers about both ? And, so, they are . People such as Julian Assange don't want the public anywhere to be lied-to. Anyone who is in the propaganda-business -- serving companies such as Lockheed Martin -- wants the public to be suckers.
This is the way the free market actually works. It works by lying, and in such a country the Government serves the people who have the money, and not the people who don't. The people who don't have the money are supposed to be lied-to. And, so, they are. But this is not democracy.
Democracy, in fact, is impossible if the public are predominantly deceived.
If the public are predominantly deceived, then the people who do the deceiving will be the dictators there. And if a country has dictators, then it's no democracy. In a totally free market, only the people with the most money will have any freedom at all; everyone else will be merely their suckers, who are fooled by the professionals at doing that -- lying.
The super-rich enforce their smears, and their other lies, by hiring people to do this.
When Barack Obama said that "The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation" - so that each other nation is "dispensable" - he was merely exemplifying the view that only the most powerful is indispensable, and that therefore everyone else is dispensable. Of course, this is the way that he, and Donald Trump, both have governed in the U.S. And Americans overwhelmingly endorse this viewpoint . They're fooled by both parties, because both parties serve only their respective billionaires -- and billionaires are above the law; they are the law, in America and its allied regimes. That's the way it is.
This is the American gospel, and it is called "capitalism." Oddly, after Russia switched to capitalism in 1991, the American gospel switched instead to pure global conquest -- über -imperialism -- and the American public didn't even blink. So: nowadays, capitalism has come to mean über-imperialism. That's today's American gospel. Adolf Hitler would be smiling, upon today's Amerika.
And as far as whistleblowers -- such as Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning, and other champions of honesty and of democracy -- are concerned: Americans agree with the billionaires, who detest and destroy such whistleblowers. Champions of democracy are shunned here, where PR reigns and real journalism is almost non-existent.
Nov 22, 2019 | futurefastforward.com
If you want to stop the coup against the President, you must understand how Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton's State Department carried out a coup against the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014.
In a November 16 webcast, LaRouche PAC's Barbara Boyd presented the real story behind the present impeachment farce: how the very forces running the attack on President Trump, used thugs as their enforcers, in order to turn Ukraine into a pawn in the British geopolitical war drive against Russia.
Jan 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
bevin , Jan 10 2020 18:52 utc | 15
"Reuters is a British agency.."
Or is it Canadian? Or is it both? It probably doesn't matter.as b says it is economic warfare-maximum pressure- designed to impoverish and isolate Iranians.
Lord Salisbury was credited with having said that the problem with those British strategists who saw Russia as a menace to India was that they were using maps of such small scale that the enormous distances and formidable physical barriers that lay between Moscow of Delhi were neglected.
In this case the problem the US has is that it seems to look at Iran only from the west, forgetting that overland access from the east and north- the New Silk Road- is equally possible. Sometimes it looks as if the strategy of the US is to do all it can to advance China's BRI and to tighten the bonds between Eurasia's vast populations.
Nov 24, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Likbez,It looks like UK and USA are engaged in the contest to see who can come up with the most surreal anti-Russian propaganda psy-ops.
British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns
That shed some light on the common origin of MH17, Russiagate and Scripal propaganda campaigns connecting all three with British government's psy-op operation called The ' Integrity Initiative ' which builds 'cluster' or contact groups of trusted journalists, military personal, academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via social media to take action when the British center perceives a need.
And among others participants, William Browder is listed too:
Members of the Atlantic Council, which has a contract to censor Facebook posts , appear on several cluster lists. The UK core cluster also includes some prominent names like tax fraudster William Browder , the daft Atlantic Council shill Ben Nimmo and the neo-conservative Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum. One person of interest is Andrew Wood who handed the Steele 'dirty dossier' to Senator John McCain to smear Donald Trump over alleged relations with Russia. A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times, Neil Buckley from the FT and Jonathan Marcus of the BBC.Here is one interesting comment from MoA:Anya, Nov 24, 2018 11:57:00 AM
The British government has been running a serious meddling into the US affairs:https://www.zerohedge.com/n...
"The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soilA Steele & Skrupal's anti-Russian / anti-Trump saga: https://spectator.org/big-d...
throughout 2016.""Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele dossier..."For M16 to expose this level of stupidity is stunning.
Jan 08, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Is there a chorus of politicians singing in there about how lazy they are, and how they never bothered to verify Browder' story? The story is indeed remarkable, but not in the way that first appears.
Stephen Fry / @stephenfry
You may or may not know the remarkable story of @Billbrowder and the #MagnitskyAct - find out the startling truth by listening to
#MagnitskytheMusical by the wondrous @JohnnyFlynnHQ & @roberthudson - @BBCRadio3 7.30 Sun 12th JanBook and lyrics by Robert Hudson
Music and lyrics by Johnny Flynn12 January 2020
О 1 hour, 34 minutesJohnny Flynn and Robert Hudson bring us a musical based on the
incredible story of an American venture capitalist, a Russian tax
advisor, a crazy heist, the Trump Tower meeting and the very rule of
law.Blending music and satire, the story explores the truths and fictions
surrounding the origins and aftershocks of the Magnitsky Act; global
legislation which allows governments to sanction those who they see
as offenders of human rights.It tells the story of a tax adviser's struggle to uncover a huge tax
fraud, his imprisonment by the very authorities he is investigating,
and the American financier's crusade for justice.Johnny Flynn, Paul Chahidi and members of the cast perform songs in
Bill Paul Chahidi Sergei Johnny Flynn Jamie Fenella Woolgar Natalia Ellie Kendrick Kuznetsov Gus Brown Guard Clive Hayward Silchenko Ian Conningham Jared Will Kirk Fisherman Neil McCaul Judge Jessica Turner
a epic story that explores democracy, corruption, and how we
undervalue the law at our peril.Additional singing by Sinead Maclnnes, Laura Christy, Scarlett
The cellist is Joe Zeitlin. Sound is by Peter Ringrose. Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko.
Courtney and Lucy Reynolds.
Dec 17, 2019 | countercurrents.org
In the 1920s, the influential American intellectual Walter Lippman argued that the average person was incapable of seeing or understanding the world clearly and needed to be guided by experts behind the social curtain. In a number of books he laid out the theoretical foundations for the practical work of Edward Bernays , who developed "public relations" (aka propaganda) to carry out this task for the ruling elites. Bernays had honed his skills while working as a propagandist for the United States during World War I, and after the war he set himself up as a public relations counselor in New York City.
There is a fascinating exchange at the beginning of Adam Curtis's documentary, The Century of Self , where Bernays, then nearly 100 years old but still very sharp, reveals his manipulative mindset and that of so many of those who have followed in his wake. He says the reason he couldn't call his new business "propaganda" was because the Germans had given propaganda a "bad name," and so he came up with the euphemism "public relations." He then adds that "if you could use it [i.e. propaganda] for war, you certainly could use it for peace." Of course, he never used PR for peace but just to manipulate public opinion (he helped engineer the CIA coup against the democratically elected Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954 with fake news broadcasts). He says "the Germans gave propaganda a bad name," not Bernays and the United States with their vast campaign of lies, mainly aimed at the American people to get their support for going to a war they opposed (think weapons of mass destruction). He sounds proud of his war propaganda work that resounded to his credit since it led to support for the "war to end all wars" and subsequently to a hit movie about WWI , Yankee Doodle Dandy , made in 1942 to promote another war, since the first one somehow didn't achieve its lofty goal.
As Bernays has said in his book Propaganda ,
The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world today.
He was a propagandist to the end. I suspect most viewers of the film are taken in by these softly spoken words of an old man sipping a glass of wine at a dinner table with a woman who is asking him questions. I have shown this film to hundreds of students and none has noticed his legerdemain. It is an example of the sort of hocus-pocus I will be getting to shortly, the sly insertion into seemingly liberal or matter-of-fact commentary of statements that imply a different story. The placement of convincing or confusing disingenuous ingredients into a truth sandwich – for Bernays knew that the bread of truth is essential to conceal untruth.
In the following years, Bernays, Lippman, and their ilk were joined by social "scientists," psychologists, and sundry others intent on making a sham out of the idea of democracy by developing strategies and techniques for the engineering of social consensus consonant with the wishes of the ruling classes. Their techniques of propaganda developed exponentially with the development of technology, the creation of the CIA, its infiltration of all the major media, and that agency's courting of what the CIA official Cord Meyer called in the 1950s "the compatible left," having already had the right in its pocket. Today most people are, as is said, "wired," and they get their information from the electronic media that is mostly controlled by giant corporations in cahoots with government propagandists. Ask yourself: Has the power of the oligarchic, permanent warfare state with its propaganda and spy networks increased or decreased over your lifetime. The answer is obvious: the average people that Lippman and Bernays trashed are losing and the ruling elites are winning.
This is not just because powerful propagandists are good at controlling so-called "average" people's thinking, but, perhaps more importantly, because they are also adept – probably more so – at confusing or directing the thinking of those who consider themselves above average, those who still might read a book or two or have the concentration to read multiple articles that offer different perspectives on a topic. This is what some call the professional and intellectual classes, perhaps 15-20 % of the population, most of whom are not the ruling elites but their employees and sometimes their mouthpieces. It is this segment of the population that considers itself "informed," but the information they imbibe is often sprinkled with bits of misdirection, both intentional and not, that beclouds their understanding of important public matters but leaves them with the false impression that they are in the know.
Recently I have noticed a group of interconnected examples of how this group of the population that exerts influence incommensurate with their numbers has contributed to the blurring of lines between fact and fiction. Within this group there are opinion makers who are often journalists, writers, and cultural producers of some sort or other, and then the larger number of the intellectual or schooled class who follow their opinions. This second group then passes on their received opinions to those who look up to them.
There is a notorious propaganda outfit called Bellingcat , started by an unemployed Englishman named Eliot Higgins, that has been funded by The Atlantic Council, a think-tank with deep ties to the U.S. government, NATO, war manufacturers, and their allies, and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), another infamous U.S. front organization heavily involved in so-called color revolution regime change operations all around the world, that has just won the International Emmy Award for best documentary. The film with the Orwellian title, Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World, received its Emmy at a recent ceremony in New York City.
Bellingcat is an alleged group of amateur on-line researchers who have spent years shilling for the U.S. instigated war against the Syrian government, blaming the Douma chemical attack and others on the Assad government, and for the anti-Russian propaganda connected to, among other things, the Skripal poisoning case in England, and the downing of flight MH17 plane in Ukraine.
It has been lauded by the corporate mainstream media in the west. Its support for the equally fraudulent White Helmets (also funded by the US and the UK) in Syria has also been praised by the western corporate media while being dissected as propaganda by many excellent independent journalists such as Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Beeley, Catte Black, among others. It's had its work skewered by the likes of Seymour Hersh and MIT professor Theodore Postol, and its US government connections pointed out by many others, including Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal at The Gray Zone. And now we have the mainstream media's wall of silence on the leaks from the Organization for the Prohibition on Chemical Weapons (OPCW) concerning the Douma chemical attack and the doctoring of their report that led to the illegal U.S. bombing of Syria in the spring of 2018. Bellingcat was at the forefront of providing justification for such bombing, and now the journalists Peter Hitchens, Tareq Harrad (who recently resigned from Newsweek after accusing the publication of suppressing his revelations about the OPCW scandal) and others are fighting an uphill battle to get the truth out.
Yet Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World won the Emmy , fulfilling Bernays' point about films being the greatest unconscious carriers of propaganda in the world today.
Who presented the Emmy Award to the film makers, but none other than the rebel journalist Chris Hedges . Why he did so, I don't know. But that he did so clearly sends a message to those who follow his work and trust him that it's okay to give a major cultural award to a propaganda outfit. But then, perhaps he doesn't consider Bellingcat to be that.
Nor, one presumes, does The Intercept , the billionaire Pierre Omidyar owned publication associated with Glen Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill, and also read by many progressive-minded people. The Intercept that earlier this year disbanded the small team that was tasked with reviewing and releasing more of the massive trove of documents they received from Edward Snowden six years ago, a minute number of which have ever been released or probably ever will be. As Whitney Webb pointed out , last year The Intercept hosted a workshop for Bellingcat. She wrote:
The Intercept , along with its parent company First Look Media, recently hosted a workshop for pro-war, Google-funded organization Bellingcat in New York. The workshop, which cost $2,500 per person to attend and lasted five days, aimed to instruct participants in how to perform investigations using "open source" tools -- with Bellingcat's past, controversial investigations for use as case studies Thus, while The Intercept has long publicly promoted itself as an anti-interventionist and progressive media outlet, it is becoming clearer that – largely thanks to its ties to Omidyar – it is increasingly an organization that has more in common with Bellingcat, a group that launders NATO and U.S. propaganda and disguises it as "independent" and "investigative journalism."
Then we have Jefferson Morley , the editor of The Deep State, former Washington Post journalist, and JFK assassination researcher, who has written a praiseworthy review of the Bellingcat film and who supports Bellingcat. "In my experience, Bellingcat is credible," he writes in an Alternet article, "Bellingcat documentary has the pace and plot of a thriller."
Morley has also just written an article for Counterpunch – "Why the Douma Chemical Attack Wasn't a 'Managed Massacre'" – in which he disputes the claim that the April 7, 2018 attack in the Damascus suburb was a false flag operation carried out by Assad's opponents. "I do not see any evidence proving that Douma was a false flag incident," he writes in this article that is written in a style that leaves one guessing as to what exactly he is saying. It sounds convincing unless one concentrates, and then his double messages emerge. Yet it is the kind of article that certain "sophisticated" left-wing readers might read and feel is insightful. But then Morley, who has written considerably about the CIA, edits a website that advertises itself as "the thinking person's portal to the world of secret government," and recently had an exchange with former CIA Director John Brennan where "Brennan put a friendly finger on my chest," said in February 2017, less than a month after Trump was sworn in as president, that:
With a docile Republican majority in Congress and a demoralized Democratic Party in opposition, the leaders of the Deep State are the most -- perhaps the only -- credible check in Washington on what Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) calls Trump's " wrecking ball presidency ."
Is it any wonder that some people might be a bit confused?
"I know what you're thinking about," said Tweedledum; "but it isn't so, nohow."
"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."
As a final case in point, there is a recent book by Stephen Kinzer , Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb And The CIA Search For Mind Control, t he story of the chemist known as Dr. Death who ran the CIA's MK-ULTRA mind control project, using LSD, torture, electric shock therapy, hypnosis, etc.; developed sadistic methods of torture still used in black sites around the world; and invented various ingenious techniques for assassination, many of which were aimed at Fidel Castro. Gottlieb was responsible for brutal prison and hospital experiments and untold death and suffering inflicted on all sorts of innocent people. His work was depraved in the deepest sense; he worked with Nazis who experimented on Jews despite being Jewish himself.
Kinzer writes in depth about this man who considered himself a patriot and a spiritual person – a humane torturer and killer. It is an eye-opening book for anyone who does not know about Gottlieb, who gave the CIA the essential tools they use in their "organized crime" activities around the world – in the words of Douglass Valentine, the author of The CIA as Organized Crime and The Phoenix Program . Kinzer's book is good history on Gottlieb; however, he doesn't venture into the present activities of the CIA and Gottlieb's patriotic followers, who no doubt exist and go about their business in secret.
After recounting in detail the sordid history of Gottlieb's secret work that is nauseating to read about, Kinzer leaves the reader with these strange words:
Gottlieb was not a sadist, but he might well have been . Above all he was an instrument of history. Understanding him is a deeply disturbing way of understanding ourselves.
What possibly could this mean? Not a sadist? An instrument of history? Understanding ourselves? These few sentences, dropped out of nowhere, pull the rug out from under what is generally an illuminating history and what seems like a moral indictment. This language is pure mystification.
Kinzer also concludes that because Gottlieb said so, the CIA failed in their efforts to develop methods of mind control and ended MK-ULTRA's experiments long ago. Why would he believe the word of a man who personified the agency he worked for: a secret liar? He writes,
When Sydney Gottlieb brough MK-ULTRA to its end in the early 1960s, he told his CIA superiors that he had found no reliable way to wipe away memory, make people abandon their consciences, or commit crimes and then forget them.
As for those who might think otherwise, Kinzer suggests they have vivid imaginations and are caught up in conspiracy thinking: "This [convincing others that the CIA had developed methods of mind control when they hadn't] is Sydney Gottlieb's most unexpected legacy," he asserts. He says this although Richard Helms, the CIA Director, destroyed all MK-Ultra records. He says that Allen Dulles, Gottlieb, and Helms themselves were caught up in a complete fantasy about mind control because they had seen too many movies and read too many books; mind control was impossible, a failure, a myth, he maintains. It is the stuff of popular culture, entertainment. In an interview with Chris Hedges, interestingly posted by Jefferson Morley at his website, The Deep State , Hedges agrees with Kinzer. Gottlieb, Dulles, et al. were all deluded. Mind control was impossible. You couldn't create a Manchurian Candidate; by implication, someone like Sirhan Sirhan could not have been programmed to be a fake Manchurian Candidate and to have no memory of what he did, as he claims. He could not have been mind-controlled by the CIA to perform his part as the seeming assassin of Senator Robert Kennedy while the real killer shot RFK from behind. People who think like this should get real.
Furthermore, as is so common in books such as Kinzer's, he repeats the canard that JFK and RFK knew about and pressured the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro. This is demonstrably false, as shown by the Church Committee and the Assassinations Record Review Board, among many others. That Kinzer takes the word of notorious liars like Richard Helms and the top-level CIA operative Samuel Halpern is simple incredible, something that is hard to consider a mistake. Slipped into a truth sandwich, it is devoured and passed on. But it is false. Bullshit meant to deceive.
But this is how these games are played. If you look carefully, you will see them widely. Inform, enlighten, while throwing in doubletalk and untruths. The small number of people who read such books and articles will come away knowing some history that has no current relevance and being misinformed on other history that does. They will then be in the know, ready to pass their "wisdom" on to those who care to listen. They will not think they are average.
But they will be mind controlled, and the killer cat will roam freely without a bell, ready to devour the unsuspecting mice.
Edward Curtin is a writer whose work has appeared widely. He teaches sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. His website is http://edwardcurtin.com/
thern Star December 24, 2019 at 12:02 pm https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50902496Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Patient Observer December 24, 2019 at 1:03 pm
A remarkably disingenuous article I would say. Russia sanctioned and sanctioned again with threats of being kicked out of SWIFT and isolated in every way takes minimal precautions against an internet collapse and is criticized. For example, DNS resolution function which I believe resides in various western countries could be denied rendering much of the Russian internet useless.https://myopswork.com/how-does-my-browser-find-the-right-website-8b156037c3eb
US cellphones and computer OS have more back doors than a bordello and Russia is criticized for developing their own OS.
Mr. Putin – Build the Wall!
Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Jen December 23, 2019 at 2:23 pm
If the British were the ones to organise an independence referendum in Crimea, they would probably push as many people as possible into postal voting and reduce the number of polling stations as part of this strategy.Postal vote fraud seems to be an ongoing problem in the UK as detailed a 2016 report on electoral fraud by Sir Eric Pickles:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sir-eric-pickles-publishes-report-into-tackling-electoral-fraud
Aug 10, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org
Anonymous | Aug 4, 2017 7:00:33 PM | 37
Enrico Malatesta @13The Russians were there in Yugoslavia but they were not following NATO's script. There was an incident where Russian forces took control of a key airport to the total surprise of NATO. The US overall commander ordered the UK to go in and kick the Russians out. The UK ground commander wisely said he was not prepared to start WW III over Russian control of an airfield.
There has been a gradual decline in the rationality of UK forces thinking. They insisted on UN legal cover cover the invasion of Iraq but were totally on board with pre-emptive action in Libya, happily training effectively ISIS forces before Gaddafi was removed. They are now training Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and training ISIS/whatever in Syria, effectively invading the country. I guess this may reflect the increasing direct Zionist control of Perfidious Albion with attendant levels of hubris.
Dec 14, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Massive win, Colonel, that as far as I know nobody predicted. Not the polls, not the political blogs. But I didn't follow it that closely so that's just a general impression.
My man, Nigel Farage, got squeezed mercilessly. I was looking around the BBC site to find out how mercilessly when I came across a picture of the bete noir of my father's time, Harold Wilson. Wilson was convinced that MI something was out to get him - bugged his office, spread smear stories about him around the press, even a possible coup.
The odd rumour of all this had spread to my corner of the English provinces and I'd always wondered if there was anything in it. So I clicked on the BBC article -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-49939123
- and came across this -
" .. A 1987 inquiry concluded the allegations of a security service plot against Wilson were untrue. However, an inquiry by cabinet secretary Lord Hunt in 1996 concluded that "a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5" had "spread damaging malicious stories".
Well, if a cabinet secretary says that it must be true. MI5, not MI6 - I think MI5's the heavy mob - but I just wondered if our spooks had passed these tricks on to the lads who put the Steele dossier about.
On another security matter I note with concern above - "Those are Jacobite tribesmen at the top. Some of my ancestors were such as they." I thought so. '15 and '45 caused us a lot of trouble and just in case the tradition remained in your family I'm opening a file. We're very happy with our present Queen, thank you, and we don't want you replacing her with some Stuart relic you might happen to have dug up.
Though I suppose it would only be poetic justice. We've just had a go at toppling your President so why shouldn't you return the compliment and topple Her Majesty.
Dec 14, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
uncle tungsten , Dec 12 2019 21:36 utc | 9
I don't want to see the following headline:Nigel Farage returns hated Conervatives to powerbut then such is perfidious Albions style.
Alternatively this headline would make my day:
Blairite traitors decimated in Corbyn WIN
Dec 12, 2019 | theintercept.com
Just as was true when the Mueller investigation closed without a single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election, Wednesday's issuance of the long-waited report from the Department of Justice's Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives from the U.S. media were utter frauds .Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBI's gross abuse of its power – its serial deceit – is so grave and manifest that it requires little effort to demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI – in order to convince a FISA court to allow it spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter Page during the 2016 election – manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating evidence, and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.
If you don't consider FBI lying, concealment of evidence, and manipulation of documents in order to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign to be a major scandal, what is? But none of this is aberrational: the FBI still has its headquarters in a building named after J. Edgar Hoover – who constantly blackmailed elected officials with dossiers and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into killing himself – because that's what these security state agencies are. They are out-of-control, virtually unlimited police state factions that lie, abuse their spying and law enforcement powers, and subvert democracy and civic and political freedoms as a matter of course.
In this case, no rational person should allow standard partisan bickering to distort or hide this severe FBI corruption. The IG Report leaves no doubt about it. It's brimming with proof of FBI subterfuge and deceit, all in service of persuading a FISA court of something that was not true: that U.S. citizen and former Trump campaign official Carter Page was an agent of the Russian government and therefore needed to have his communications surveilled.
Dec 03, 2019 | www.nytimes.com
The blogger Eliot Higgins made waves early in the decade by covering the war in Syria from a laptop in his apartment in Leicester, England, while caring for his infant daughter. In 2014, he founded Bellingcat, an open-source news outlet that has grown to include roughly a dozen staff members, with an office in The Hague. Mr. Higgins attributed his skill not to any special knowledge of international conflicts or digital data, but to the hours he had spent playing video games , which, he said, gave him the idea that any mystery can be cracked.
...
Bellingcat journalists have spread the word about their techniques in seminars attended by journalists and law-enforcement officials. Along with grants from groups like the Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, the seminars are a significant source of revenue for Bellingcat, a nonprofit organization.
Apr 19, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Ghost Ship | Apr 19, 2018 3:07:17 AM | 15
OT but very relevant to the Skripal/Douma incidents.
The Guardian has an article today headlined " The taboo on chemical weapons has lasted a century – it must be preserved " which is a bare-faced lie as the Guardian should know because the British used chemical weapons against the Russian in August, 1919, less than a century ago, and the Japanese, among America's closest allies used them against the Chinese in World War 2.
The strongest case for Churchill as a chemical warfare enthusiast involves Russia, and was made by Giles Milton in The Guardian on 1 September 2013, which prompted this article. Milton wrote that in 1919, scientists at the governmental laboratories at Porton in Wiltshire developed a far more devastating weapon: the top secret "M Device," an exploding shell containing a highly toxic gas called diphenylaminechloroarsine [DM].The rest of the article defends Churchill against claims that he wanted to use "poison gas" in India and Iraq against tribesmen by suggesting that he meant tear gas but equally he could have been referring to mustard gas which "only" killed about 2.5% of the 165,000 WW1 soldiers it was used against but that was with a level of medical care I doubt Indian or Iraqi tribesmen could even begin to dream off.The man in charge of developing it, Major General Charles Foulkes, called it "the most effective chemical weapon ever devised." Trials at Porton suggested that it was indeed a terrible new weapon. Uncontrollable vomiting, coughing up blood and instant, crippling fatigue were the most common reactions. The overall head of chemical warfare production, Sir Keith Price, was convinced its use would lead to the rapid collapse of the Bolshevik regime. "If you got home only once with the gas you would find no more Bolshies this side of Vologda."
A staggering 50,000 M Devices were shipped to Russia: British aerial attacks using them began on 27 August 1919 .Bolshevik soldiers were seen fleeing in panic as the green chemical gas drifted towards them. Those caught in the cloud vomited blood, then collapsed unconscious. The attacks continued throughout September on many Bolshevik-held villages .But the weapons proved less effective than Churchill had hoped, partly because of the damp autumn weather. By September, the attacks were halted then stopped.
Peter AU 1 , Apr 19, 2018 4:20:05 AM | 23
"The 'chemical incident' has likely been faked. It suspiciously happened just a few days after U.S. President Trump had announced the he wanted the U.S. military to leave Syria. A year earlier a similar incident was claimed to have happened after a similar announcement by Trump. The U.S. had responded to the 2017 incident by bombing an empty Syrian airfield."Watching reports coming out of Syria in real time, I thought it was a genuine strike. Same as I thought the JK build up was the real thing and also the 59 missiles a year ago.
Once the dust, smoke, and the fog of war had cleared, it became apparent that this, was yet again a choreographed move, same as the missiles on Shayrat airfield.
I may well be wrong, as I do not go along with group think here, but this strike seems a preemptive move by Trump to prevent a push for for US military action in Syria that will take us to WWIII.
Apr 19, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Ghost Ship | Apr 19, 2018 3:07:17 AM | 15
OT but very relevant to the Skripal/Douma incidents.
The Guardian has an article today headlined " The taboo on chemical weapons has lasted a century – it must be preserved " which is a bare-faced lie as the Guardian should know because the British used chemical weapons against the Russian in August, 1919, less than a century ago, and the Japanese, among America's closest allies used them against the Chinese in World War 2.
The strongest case for Churchill as a chemical warfare enthusiast involves Russia, and was made by Giles Milton in The Guardian on 1 September 2013, which prompted this article. Milton wrote that in 1919, scientists at the governmental laboratories at Porton in Wiltshire developed a far more devastating weapon: the top secret "M Device," an exploding shell containing a highly toxic gas called diphenylaminechloroarsine [DM].The rest of the article defends Churchill against claims that he wanted to use "poison gas" in India and Iraq against tribesmen by suggesting that he meant tear gas but equally he could have been referring to mustard gas which "only" killed about 2.5% of the 165,000 WW1 soldiers it was used against but that was with a level of medical care I doubt Indian or Iraqi tribesmen could even begin to dream off.The man in charge of developing it, Major General Charles Foulkes, called it "the most effective chemical weapon ever devised." Trials at Porton suggested that it was indeed a terrible new weapon. Uncontrollable vomiting, coughing up blood and instant, crippling fatigue were the most common reactions. The overall head of chemical warfare production, Sir Keith Price, was convinced its use would lead to the rapid collapse of the Bolshevik regime. "If you got home only once with the gas you would find no more Bolshies this side of Vologda."
A staggering 50,000 M Devices were shipped to Russia: British aerial attacks using them began on 27 August 1919 .Bolshevik soldiers were seen fleeing in panic as the green chemical gas drifted towards them. Those caught in the cloud vomited blood, then collapsed unconscious. The attacks continued throughout September on many Bolshevik-held villages. But the weapons proved less effective than Churchill had hoped, partly because of the damp autumn weather. By September, the attacks were halted then stopped.
Peter AU 1 , Apr 19, 2018 4:20:05 AM | 23
"The 'chemical incident' has likely been faked. It suspiciously happened just a few days after U.S. President Trump had announced the he wanted the U.S. military to leave Syria. A year earlier a similar incident was claimed to have happened after a similar announcement by Trump. The U.S. had responded to the 2017 incident by bombing an empty Syrian airfield."Watching reports coming out of Syria in real time, I thought it was a genuine strike. Same as I thought the JK build up was the real thing and also the 59 missiles a year ago. Once the dust, smoke, and the fog of war had cleared, it became apparent that this, was yet again a choreographed move, same as the missiles on Shayrat airfield.
I may well be wrong, as I do not go along with group think here, but this strike seems a preemptive move by Trump to prevent a push for for US military action in Syria that will take us to WWIII.
Nov 08, 2019 | crookedtimber.org
England's ruling pathology; Boarding School Syndrome
by Maria on November 7, 2019 George Monbiot writes movingly about how the habit of Britain's (well, mostly England's) upper middle and upper classes of sending their children to boarding school from the age of seven onward causes profound emotional damage and has created a damaged ruling class. He's not the first to notice this. Virginia Woolf drew a very clear line between the brutalisation of little boys in a loveless environment and their assumption as adults into the brutal institutions of colonialism. It's long been clear to many that the UK is ruled by many people who think their damage is a strength, and who seek to perpetuate it.
I was at a talk last week about psychoanalysis and The Lord of the Flies. The speaker convincingly argued that much of what happens in that story happens because most of the boys have been wrenched from solid daily love before they were old enough to recreate it. It's a pretty compelling lens to see that novel through and it reminded me of a teaching experience from a couple of years ago.
I was teaching a post-grad course on politics and cybersecurity and did a lecture on the Leviathan and how its conception of the conditions that give rise to order embed some pretty strong assumptions about the necessity of coercion. Basically how if you're the state and in your mind you're fighting against the return of a persistent warre of all against all, your conception of human behaviour can lead you to over-react. Also some stuff about English history around the time of Hobbes. I may have included some stills from Game of Thrones. During the class discussion, one person from, uh, a certain agency, said that yes, he could see the downside, but that Hobbes was essentially how he viewed the world.
Listening again to the tale of sensible centrist Ralph, poor, benighted (but actually very much loved by his Aunty and from a solid emotional background) Piggy, the little uns, and the utter depravity of it all – and also having forgotten the chilling final scene where the naval officer basically tells Ralph he's let himself down – something occurred to me.
Lord of the Flies is many people's touchstone for what would happen if order goes away, even though we have some good social science and other studies about how, at least in the short to medium term, people are generally quite altruistic and reciprocally helpful in the aftermath of disaster. Lord of the Flies is assumed by many to be a cautionary tale about order and the state of nature, when in reality it's the agonised working out of the unbearable fears of a group of systematically traumatised and loveless children.
Lord of the Flies isn't an origin story about the human condition and the need for 'strong' states, though we treat it as such, but rather is a horror story about the specific, brutalised pathology of the English ruling class.
Matt 11.07.19 at 9:27 am ( 1 )
How common is boarding school for the upper middle/upper class in England these days? (that's a real question, not rhetorical – I have no idea.)Saurs 11.07.19 at 9:40 am ( 2 )I checked out Hobbes's childhood, because I couldn't remember it well, other than that he was born prematurely because of the Spanish Armada (his mother famously "giving birth to twins, him and fear".) It turns out his mother died when he was young, he was semi-abandoned to a relative who sent him (I think) a boarding school, and then to Oxford at 15. So, the theory fits him, I guess.
Henry Sidgwick and (I think) Matthew Arnold wrote about the evils inflicted by such schools even before Woolf, no doubt from first-hand experience.
They, or some of them, are "rescued" by a walking, talking symbol of an imperial army who justified its genocide and colonization as a "civilizing" force. Yet here are our lovely white sons, murdering one another under the shadow of a mighty military vessel their government built for the domination of isles like this and to enable the exploitation of its inhabitants, nod nod wink wink. It is at this point the naval officer gets his Alanis Morissette moment.Z 11.07.19 at 10:18 am ( 5 )@Maria Lord of the Flies isn't an origin story about the human condition and the need for 'strong' states, though we treat it as such, but rather is a horror story about the specific, brutalised pathology of the English ruling class.SusanC 11.07.19 at 12:43 pm ( 6 )Yes! (For my pre-adolescent self, oblivious of the peculiarities of any national ruling class, it appeared to be the projection of the brutality of the social system, not a depiction of what happens when it disappears, and so were planted the first seeds of anarchism, I guess.)
The horror movie The Lesson (directed by Ruth Platt) is an interesting commentary on Lord of the Flies: two schoolboys are imprisoned and tortured by a crazy teacher. (In the tradition of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Wolf Creek II, etc.)librl 11.07.19 at 1:12 pm ( 8 )As with many horror movies, you can tell how its going to end right from the start (especially given the Lord of the Flies references), but that doesnt detract from it.
It is or has been an essential feature of several social systems (Sparta comes to mind obviously) that the children of the ruling class are treated brutally so they would reproduce that brutality towards the lower classes and other enemies.Donald 11.07.19 at 2:05 pm ( 9 )C.S. Lewis despised the cruelty of his boarding school. As a conservative Christian of his era he thought homosexuality was a sin but in " Surprised by Joy" he says ( in homophobic language) that the affection people found in homosexual relationships was one of the few bright spots in what was otherwise a horrible experience. He thought the pride and cruelty and backstabbing and lust for power were much worse than what he saw as the fleshly sin of gay sex.Harry 11.07.19 at 2:37 pm ( 10 )He also has some harsh satirical takes on colonialism in his first space novel, so there might be a connection there as well.
PatinIowa 11.07.19 at 4:30 pm ( 12 )"How common is boarding school for the upper middle/upper class in England these days? (that's a real question, not rhetorical – I have no idea.)"I don't have actual data to hand, but I do know boarding schools went into rapid decline in the 1990s and 2000s, as the children of people who grew up in the 60s and 70s reached the age. There are very few boarding-only schools, but a lot with a few boarders and plenty of non-boarders. Private school attendance has remained pretty constant though.
Eton College is about a 5 minute walk from Windsor Castle, but I imagine William and Harry boarded (probably to avoid the bloody security involved in getting into the Castle).
This assumes, of course, that the family automatically provides a more nurturing environment. As feminism is teaching us, bit by bit, that's a huge assumption.steven t johnson 11.07.19 at 5:47 pm ( 13 )I assume we wouldn't have to work too hard to generate a list of tyrants and authoritarians who grew up stable families, where one or both parents were abusive, and even where both parents were, as they say, "good enough."
Ayn Rand grew up in a fairly stable-looking family, at least from on-line bios. Of course there was a revolution during her teens, so who knows?
Some other literary comments? Matthew Arnold's father, Thomas, was a figure in Tom Brown's School Days, as he was headmaster when Hughes, the author, actually attended Rugby. One of the characters in that, Flashman, was the Flashman of the Fraser series of novels. The British school novel is back with us with the Harry Potter series of course.Chris Bertram 11.07.19 at 6:20 pm ( 14 )It seems highly unlikely The Lord of the Flies was not intended to express the eternal human condition, especially since it is about the rotten souls even of schoolboys who were privileged to be etc. But as to Monbiot, it's not entirely clear to me that actually being wealthy or aristocratic, especially landed wealth, isn't a way of life that has quite as much to do with the psychology of the English ruling classes as child hood rearing practices.
I was sent to a prep school in the Peak District at the age of 8 in 1967. It was ferociously cold and we were expected to play outdoor sports wearing only 1 layer. The headmaster was replaced by his 27-year-old son after a sexual indiscretion with a matron within a few months of his arrival (it was a family business) and the new headmaster used corporal punishment a great deal. I think I received over 100 strokes of the gym shoe from him between 67 and 72. On one occasion in winter, when I accidentally hit a teacher with a snowball, I was knocked to the ground and kicked repeatedly on the floor by him and efforts were made to prevent me informing my parents. The very worst occasion was when a cleaner discovered that someone had shat in a bucket and the whole school was assembled so that the headmaster could demand that the culprit confess. No confession was forthcoming so we were all made to stand motionless in lines in the car park in the hot sun. Anyone who moved was taken from the line, beaten, and returned to it. All these children were aged 7-13.ADAM ROBERTS 11.07.19 at 6:33 pm ( 15 )The boarding school I moved to in 1972 was much better for me at least. I was never beaten (though others were), though the general appearance and ambiance was not unlike Lindsay Anderson's If Needless to say, in both schools there was a good deal of bullying among the boys and a fair amount of violence and torture. In the latter school, several teachers later went to prison for sexual offences against children and it was well known at the time I was there that some of them had a penchant for attractive boys. Fortunately, I wasn't.
Futher to Chris's (horrible!) experiences, I could add my own also from the 1970s (and into the very early 80s), although I didn't go a boarding school but a state grammar day-school. There wasn't a culture of violence, and caning was not school policy; but there was quite a lot of verbal and physical violence nonetheless. One day, during class, I was chatting with friends at the back of Chemistry one day and the teacher threw a board-rubber (thick wooden handle with a felt pad attached) at my head to shut me up. It hit me over my right eye and cut me quiet deeply: I still have the scar. There were also lots of cuffs, slaps, and so on, plenty of wounding sarcasm, several sexually dodgy teachers. My take, looking back, was that it wasn't boarding as such that was behind all this, but the fact that many of the older teachers (the Chemistry teacher for instance) were of the generation to have fought in WW2, and that this experience had damaged them in some quite deep, lasting way; and had certainly casualised them where aggression and violence was concerned.oldster 11.07.19 at 7:08 pm ( 16 )The pathology is larger than the boarding schools, which never trained more than a small fraction of the population. The other factor is: how did their pathology ramify throughout the ranks?J 11.07.19 at 7:12 pm ( 17 )If Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, then Trafalgar was won in the workhouses of London and Manchester. We must ask: what conditions of society made it possible to keep thousands of poor uneducated men in the penal and worse than penal conditions of serving in a man o' war for months on end? Why was mutiny as rare as it was, given that life on shipboard had (as Dr. Johnson said) all of the discomforts of life in prison, with the additional danger of drowning? What was life on shore like, that men sometimes volunteered to serve?
So the story may start with the boarding schools, and they may have set the tone, but the full story is closer to the story of Sparta, where an entire society is geared towards domination.
Has anyone ever done some sort of comparison study of English Boarding schools and Canada's Indigenous Residential schools?Chris Lay 11.07.19 at 8:30 pm ( 19 )https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system#Conditions
The OP strikes me as broadly correct, and as rhyming with this recent essay in n+1 that frames American collegiate greek life as a cycle of abuse that produces the sort of abusers who are capable of running an empire: https://nplusonemag.com/issue-34/essays/special-journey-to-our-bottom-line/RobinM 11.07.19 at 8:53 pm ( 21 )To my surprise I once encountered a former Fife, Scotland, primary school teacher in North Dakota, of all places, who told me the following.J-D 11.07.19 at 9:11 pm ( 22 )One of his pupils was a nasty, brutal little bully whom he'd punished, as was the norm in Scottish schools in those days, by striking the boy's hands with a leather strap. The boy's response was to tell the teacher he would have to deal with his dad on the following day.
The next morning the teacher, standing at the school door, saw the boy coming accompanied by his father, a rather large coal miner well known in the area as a Communist militant. "Did you belt my boy," the man asked. "Yes," said the teacher. "Did he deserve it," the man asked. "Yes," said the teacher. "You did the right thing," said the man who then turned and walked away.
In other words, I'm glad Adam Roberts (@15) and oldster (@16) have done their bit towards shifting the conversation away from the childhood miseries of the privileged few towards a wider concern with a society in which brutality was -- and is -- widespread and widely accepted by perpetrators and victims alike.
http://crookedtimber.org/2019/11/07/englands-ruling-pathology-boarding-school-syndrome/#comment-769421novakant 11.07.19 at 10:09 pm ( 23 )I think Golding believed he was saying something eternal about the human soul.
Confirmed by Golding himself in the essay 'Fable', specifically dealing with questions about The Lord Of The Flies , in which he wrote that experience in the Second World War compelled the conclusion that men produce evil the way bees produce honey.
I remember watching and listening to "The Wall" (and Monty Python' s "The Meaning of Life") as a teenager and asking myself: "what on earth is their problem?" – I really didn't get it, because everything seemed so alien and medieval to me.Alan White 11.07.19 at 11:11 pm ( 24 )A hearty second on the terrific post Maria (if I may). But I have to say that many of these comments about boarding school are truly shocking to me, a product of Northern California public education that, while certainly not socially perfect, makes me more grateful than ever for it. And as I've said before, this is why CT continues my education even in retirement!Jack Morava 11.08.19 at 12:02 am ( 25 )readings for extra credit:Faustusnotes 11.08.19 at 12:02 am ( 26 )
- George Orwell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Such,_Such_Were_the_Joys
- Robert Musil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Confusions_of_Young_%C3%B6rless
Without wanting to detract from the point of the OP (which I agree with) it's worth bearing in mind that British non boarding schools (state and private) in the 1970s and 1980s were nasty and brutal and the British model of parenting at that time (children should be seen but not heard) was pretty loveless. Savile was roaming the halls of hospitals in the 1980s raping children and he wasn't picking on the kids of the ruling class. So when we see damaged politicians today it's not just boarding school that did it. (I say this as someone who went to state schools in the uk in the 1970s and 1980s then moved to oz in 1986 and the difference was huge).Chetan Murthy 11.08.19 at 12:28 am ( 27 )Does anyone know if corbyn went to boarding school? Because on top of everything else he seems personally to be a decent guy.
As a further aside I would mention that the Golding view of society is also part of the reason that so many modern libertarians and liberals think that all laws and social norms are backed up by coercive power. Their entire education precludes then believing people might pay taxes or follow traffic laws because they want to cooperate with each other.
librl @ 8: I found this series of posts on Sparta to be quite interesting: https://acoup.blog/2019/09/27/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-vii-spartan-ends/joel hanes 11.08.19 at 3:52 am ( 28 )One of this theses is that the Spartan "education" system was really a system for the indoctrination of child soldiers (in the modern meaning) and with all the abominations that that entails.
I'm a little surprised that no one has yet mentioned Orwell's "Such, Such Were The Joys"John 11.08.19 at 3:56 am ( 29 )
http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/joys/english/e_joysThere is a lot of truth to this essay but it seems to me that the problem is hell-deep more pervasive than indicated.What if most/all of our his-story is driven by the individual and collective suppressed rage of childhood abuse, which was, and still is the norm throughout the world. Four websites which illuminate the situation:craig fritch 11.08.19 at 3:57 am ( 30 )
- http://psycohistory.com/articles/the-history-of-child-abuse
- http://www.violence.de/index.html
- http://www.wombecology.com
The second and third sites are linked to this site: http://www.ttfuture.org
And of course the work of Alice Miller the author of For Your Own Good. Plus the book Spare the Child by Philip Greven which is especially relevant to fundamentalist Christians in the USA
As a long time schoolteacher in a northern Canadian community, I recognize the common culture of the English boarding school and our residential schools. The brutality, sexual assaults and complacent do-gooding. Officially, good intentions, but the reality far messier. However a big difference is the racist assumption of "improvement".Peter T 11.08.19 at 5:10 am ( 32 )But paramount was the fact that very young children were torn from families for years at a time, some never again seeing family.
The result is suicide, substance abuse and damaged childrearing capacity. Very different from cruel domination of the lower classes and colonial subjects.
An interesting side-note is that the people who actually built British 'success' were mostly not the product of boarding schools, but the sons of families much lower in the class stratum. The navy, the East India Company and the merchants of London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol were run by these, while the upper classes were often an incompetent but domineering veneer.
Nov 06, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
The Integrity Initiative, as paid for by the British Foreign Office, Ministry of Defense, NATO and other such entities, will live on as a non-charitable entity with even less transparency. Its website, as well as that of Institute of Statecraft, is down. That it will now have to live in total secrecy will make it more difficult for it to recruit foreign journalists to spread its propaganda.
Since the Integrity Initiative was exposed the British government opened and financed a new secretive shop that will continue to spread anti-Russian disinformation :
On 3rd April, Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) minister Alan Duncan revealed his department's 'Counter Disinformation and Media Development Programme' - which bankrolls the Institute for Statecraft and its Integrity Initiative subsidiary - was funding a new endeavour, Open Information Partnership (OIP).The announcement, buried in a response to a written parliamentary question, was supremely light on detail - Duncan merely said the effort would "respond to manipulated information in the news, social media and across the public space". Official fanfare was also unforthcoming - there was no accompanying press release, briefing document, or even mention of the launch by any government minister or department via social media channels.
The original proposal for the Open Information Partnership , as released by 'anonymous' , included the Institute of Statecraft , a Media Diversity Institute , Bellingcat , DFR Lab (i.e. the Atlantic Council) and some others in a so called ZINC Network . On the current OIP website the Institute of Statecraft 'charity' is no longer named.
---
Previous Moon of Alabama reports on the issue:
- Nov 24 2018 - British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns
- Dec 13 2018 - British Spies Infiltrated Bernie Sanders' Campaign?
- Dec 14 2018 - Newly Released 'Integrity Intitiative' Papers Include Proposal For Large Disinformation Campaigns
- Dec 15 2018- The 'Integrity Initiative' - A Military Intelligence Operation, Disguised As Charity, To Create The "Russian Threat"
- Jan 04 2019- 'Integrity Initiative' - New Documents From Shady NGO Released
Tim Hayward provides a list (scroll down) of a large number of articles written here and elsewhere about the Integrity Initiative . Speaking of Bellingcat:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BfLPJpRtyq4RFtHJoNpvWQjmGnyVkfE2HYoICKOGguA/mobilebasPosted by: NOBTS | Nov 4 2019 18:45 utc | 2
karlof1 , Nov 4 2019 18:49 utc | 3
At Kit Klarenberg's Twitter , there's a long tweet thread further detailing what b has written above. I can't help be wonder how the Monty Python troop would have portrayed the Institute for Statecraft and its parent the Integrity Initiative. It appears that the governments of the English speaking nations became addicted to lying to their citizens @1900 and are unable to kick the habit and instead have actually deepened their addiction. Elsewhere on the planet, it seems that people are learning it's easier to talk straight and transparently with other people and to pool resources and combine efforts to form a community of nations and humanity to better one and all. Seems simple enough to determine which is functional and which isn't./div> Oops! Googlehidden. Here's one that might work. An interesting compendium: https://www.comsuregroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Bellingcats-Digital-Toolkit.pdfPosted by: NOBTS , Nov 4 2019 18:51 utc | 5
Oops! Googlehidden. Here's one that might work. An interesting compendium: https://www.comsuregroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Bellingcats-Digital-Toolkit.pdfSymen Danziger , Nov 5 2019 11:34 utc | 41Posted by: NOBTS | Nov 4 2019 18:51 utc | 5
Bellingcat only serves one interest, a propaganda/info laundering shop for NATO, the military industrial complex and some very rich people. The blatant lies about MH17, chemical weapons in Syria, OPCW, Russia, the list goes on and on.By the time the people in the Netherlands find out how they have been manipulated with the MH17 narrative and the role of Bellingcat in this operation, hopefully they will torch the office of Bellingcat in The Hague and club the survivors to death like the Uktainian Nazi friends of Bellingcat did in Odessa.
The Ukrainian army shot down MH17. It was no accident. The Dutch were also involved with the 2014 coup in the Ukraine. Putting the blame on Russia is a political decision, its not based on facts. Dutch politicians are very dirty people. Burn in hell.
Sep 17, 2019 | www.unz.com
Lochearn , says: September 16, 2019 at 11:22 pm GMT
Thanks Gilad for your courageous work. I think we should always remember the ordinary Jews, the grocers, the tailors, and all the others who have lived ordinary lives and suffered due to the activities of their elites. We should remember the radical Jews and the artists like Cohen, Dylan and Lou Reid to mention just a few. I could make a case that the English elites have caused just as much trouble as elite Jews. In fact, it was the meeting of English and Jewish elites that created the British empire.
Jan 01, 2019 | dailymaverick.co.za
The Guardian, Britain's leading liberal newspaper with a global reputation for independent and critical journalism, has been successfully targeted by security agencies to neutralise its adversarial reporting of the 'security state', according to newly released documents and evidence from former and current Guardian journalists.
The UK security services targeted The Guardian after the newspaper started publishing the contents of secret US government documents leaked by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in June 2013.
Snowden's bombshell revelations continued for months and were the largest-ever leak of classified material covering the NSA and its UK equivalent, the Government Communications Headquarters. They revealed programmes of mass surveillance operated by both agencies.
According to minutes of meetings of the UK's Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee, the revelations caused alarm in the British security services and Ministry of Defence.
" This event was very concerning because at the outset The Guardian avoided engaging with the [committee] before publishing the first tranche of information," state minutes of a 7 November 2013 meeting at the MOD.
The DSMA Committee, more commonly known as the D-Notice Committee, is run by the MOD, where it meets every six months. A small number of journalists are also invited to sit on the committee. Its stated purpose is to "prevent inadvertent public disclosure of information that would compromise UK military and intelligence operations". It can issue "notices" to the media to encourage them not to publish certain information.
The committee is currently chaired by the MOD's director-general of security policy Dominic Wilson, who was previously director of security and intelligence in the British Cabinet Office. Its secretary is Brigadier Geoffrey Dodds OBE, who describes himself as an "accomplished, senior ex-military commander with extensive experience of operational level leadership".
The D-Notice system describes itself as voluntary , placing no obligations on the media to comply with any notice issued. This means there should have been no need for the Guardian to consult the MOD before publishing the Snowden documents.
Yet committee minutes note the secretary saying: "The Guardian was obliged to seek advice under the terms of the DA notice code." The minutes add: "This failure to seek advice was a key source of concern and considerable efforts had been made to address it."
' Considerable efforts'
These "considerable efforts" included a D-Notice sent out by the committee on 7 June 2013 – the day after The Guardian published the first documents – to all major UK media editors, saying they should refrain from publishing information that would "jeopardise both national security and possibly UK personnel". It was marked "private and confidential: not for publication, broadcast or use on social media".
Clearly the committee did not want its issuing of the notice to be publicised, and it was nearly successful. Only the right-wing blog Guido Fawkes made it public.
At the time, according to the committee minutes , the "intelligence agencies in particular had continued to ask for more advisories [i.e. D-Notices] to be sent out". Such D-Notices were clearly seen by the intelligence services not so much as a tool to advise the media but rather a way to threaten it not to publish further Snowden revelations.
One night, amidst the first Snowden stories being published, the D-Notice Committee's then-secretary Air Vice-Marshal Andrew Vallance personally called Alan Rusbridger, then editor of The Guardian. Vallance "made clear his concern that The Guardian had failed to consult him in advance before telling the world", according to a Guardian journalist who interviewed Rusbridger.
Later in the year, Prime Minister David Cameron again used the D-Notice system as a threat to the media.
" I don't want to have to use injunctions or D-Notices or the other tougher measures," he said in a statement to MPs. "I think it's much better to appeal to newspapers' sense of social responsibility. But if they don't demonstrate some social responsibility it would be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act."
The threats worked. The Press Gazette reported at the time that "The FT [Financial Times] and The Times did not mention it [the initial Snowden revelations] and the Telegraph published only a short". It continued by noting that only The Independent "followed up the substantive allegations". It added, "The BBC has also chosen to largely ignore the story."
The Guardian, however, remained uncowed.
According to the committee minutes , the fact The Guardian would not stop publishing "undoubtedly raised questions in some minds about the system's future usefulness". If the D-Notice system could not prevent The Guardian publishing GCHQ's most sensitive secrets, what was it good for?
It was time to rein in The Guardian and make sure this never happened again.
GCHQ and laptops
The security services ratcheted up their "considerable efforts" to deal with the exposures. On 20 July 2013, GCHQ officials entered The Guardian's offices at King's Cross in London, six weeks after the first Snowden-related article had been published. At the request of the government and security services, Guardian deputy editor Paul Johnson, along with two others, spent three hours destroying the laptops containing the Snowden documents.
The Guardian staffers, according to one of the newspaper's reporters, brought "angle-grinders, dremels – drills with revolving bits – and masks". The reporter added, "The spy agency provided one piece of hi-tech equipment, a 'degausser', which destroys magnetic fields and erases data."
Johnson claims that the destruction of the computers was "purely a symbolic act", adding that "the government and GCHQ knew, because we had told them, that the material had been taken to the US to be shared with the New York Times. The reporting would go on. The episode hadn't changed anything."
Yet the episode did change something. As the D-Notice Committee minutes for November 2013 outlined: "Towards the end of July [as the computers were being destroyed], The Guardian had begun to seek and accept D-Notice advice not to publish certain highly sensitive details and since then the dialogue [with the committee] had been reasonable and improving."
The British security services had carried out more than a "symbolic act". It was both a show of strength and a clear threat. The Guardian was then the only major newspaper that could be relied upon by whistleblowers in the US and British security bodies to receive and cover their exposures, a situation which posed a challenge to security agencies.
The increasingly aggressive overtures made to The Guardian worked. The committee chair noted that after GCHQ had overseen the smashing up of the newspaper's laptops "engagement with The Guardian had continued to strengthen".
Moreover, he added , there were now "regular dialogues between the secretary and deputy secretaries and Guardian journalists". Rusbridger later testified to the Home Affairs Committee that Air Vice-Marshal Vallance of the D-Notice committee and himself "collaborated" in the aftermath of the Snowden affair and that Vallance had even "been at The Guardian offices to talk to all our reporters".
But the most important part of this charm and threat offensive was getting The Guardian to agree to take a seat on the D-Notice Committee itself. The committee minutes are explicit on this, noting that "the process had culminated by [sic] the appointment of Paul Johnson (deputy editor Guardian News and Media) as a DPBAC [i.e. D-Notice Committee] member".
At some point in 2013 or early 2014, Johnson – the same deputy editor who had smashed up his newspaper's computers under the watchful gaze of British intelligence agents – was approached to take up a seat on the committee. Johnson attended his first meeting in May 2014 and was to remain on it until October 2018 .
The Guardian's deputy editor went directly from the corporation's basement with an angle-grinder to sitting on the D-Notice Committee alongside the security service officials who had tried to stop his paper publishing.
A new editor
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger withstood intense pressure not to publish some of the Snowden revelations but agreed to Johnson taking a seat on the D-Notice Committee as a tactical sop to the security services. Throughout his tenure, The Guardian continued to publish some stories critical of the security services.
But in March 2015, the situation changed when the Guardian appointed a new editor, Katharine Viner, who had less experience than Rusbridger of dealing with the security services. Viner had started out on fashion and entertainment magazine Cosmopolitan and had no history in national security reporting. According to insiders, she showed much less leadership during the Snowden affair than Janine Gibson in the US (Gibson was another candidate to be Rusbridger's successor).
Viner was then editor-in-chief of Guardian Australia, which was launched just two weeks before the first Snowden revelations were published. Australia and New Zealand comprise two-fifths of the so-called "Five Eyes" surveillance alliance exposed by Snowden.
This was an opportunity for the security services. It appears that their seduction began the following year.
In November 2016, The Guardian published an unprecedented "exclusive" with Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, Britain's domestic security service. The article noted that this was the "first newspaper interview given by an incumbent MI5 chief in the service's 107-year history". It was co-written by deputy editor Paul Johnson, who had never written about the security services before and who was still sitting on the D-Notice Committee. This was not mentioned in the article.
The MI5 chief was given copious space to make claims about the national security threat posed by an "increasingly aggressive" Russia. Johnson and his co-author noted, "Parker said he was talking to The Guardian rather than any other newspaper despite the publication of the Snowden files."
Parker told the two reporters, "We recognise that in a changing world we have to change too. We have a responsibility to talk about our work and explain it."
Four months after the MI5 interview, in March 2017, the Guardian published another unprecedented "exclusive", this time with Alex Younger, the sitting chief of MI6, Britain's external intelligence agency. This exclusive was awarded by the Secret Intelligence Service to The Guardian's investigations editor, Nick Hopkins, who had been appointed 14 months previously.
The interview was the first Younger had given to a national newspaper and was again softball. Titled "MI6 returns to 'tapping up' in an effort to recruit black and Asian officers", it focused almost entirely on the intelligence service's stated desire to recruit from ethnic minority communities.
" Simply, we have to attract the best of modern Britain," Younger told Hopkins. "Every community from every part of Britain should feel they have what it takes, no matter what their background or status."
Just two weeks before the interview with MI6's chief was published, The Guardian itself reported on the high court stating that it would "hear an application for a judicial review of the Crown Prosecution Service's decision not to charge MI6's former counterterrorism director, Sir Mark Allen, over the abduction of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his pregnant wife who were transferred to Libya in a joint CIA-MI6 operation in 2004".
None of this featured in The Guardian article, which did, however, cover discussions of whether the James Bond actor Daniel Craig would qualify for the intelligence service. "He would not get into MI6," Younger told Hopkins.
More recently, in August 2019, The Guardian was awarded yet another exclusive, this time with Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Neil Basu, Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer. This was Basu's " first major interview since taking up his post" the previous year and resulted in a three-part series of articles, one of which was entitled "Met police examine Vladimir Putin's role in Salisbury attack".
The security services were probably feeding The Guardian these "exclusives" as part of the process of bringing it onside and neutralising the only independent newspaper with the resources to receive and cover a leak such as Snowden's. They were possibly acting to prevent any revelations of this kind happening again.
What, if any, private conversations have taken place between Viner and the security services during her tenure as editor are not known. But in 2018, when Paul Johnson eventually left the D-Notice Committee, its chair, the MOD's Dominic Wilson, praised Johnson who, he said, had been "instrumental in re-establishing links with The Guardian".
Decline in critical reporting
Amidst these spoon-fed intelligence exclusives, Viner also oversaw the breakup of The Guardian's celebrated investigative team, whose muck-racking journalists were told to apply for other jobs outside of investigations.
One well-placed source told the Press Gazette at the time that journalists on the investigations team "have not felt backed by senior editors over the last year", and that "some also feel the company has become more risk-averse in the same period".
In the period since Snowden, The Guardian has lost many of its top investigative reporters who had covered national security issues, notably Shiv Malik, Nick Davies, David Leigh, Richard Norton-Taylor, Ewen MacAskill and Ian Cobain. The few journalists who were replaced were succeeded by less experienced reporters with apparently less commitment to exposing the security state. The current defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh, started at The Guardian as head of media and technology and has no history of covering national security.
" It seems they've got rid of everyone who seemed to cover the security services and military in an adversarial way," one current Guardian journalist told us.
Indeed, during the last two years of Rusbridger's editorship, The Guardian published about 110 articles per year tagged as MI6 on its website. Since Viner took over, the average per year has halved and is decreasing year by year.
" Effective scrutiny of the security and intelligence agencies -- epitomised by the Snowden scoops but also many other stories -- appears to have been abandoned," a former Guardian journalist told us. The former reporter added that, in recent years, it "sometimes seems The Guardian is worried about upsetting the spooks."
A second former Guardian journalist added: "The Guardian no longer seems to have such a challenging relationship with the intelligence services, and is perhaps seeking to mend fences since Snowden. This is concerning, because spooks are always manipulative and not always to be trusted."
While some articles critical of the security services still do appear in the paper, its "scoops" increasingly focus on issues more acceptable to them. Since the Snowden affair, The Guardian does not appear to have published any articles based on an intelligence or security services source that was not officially sanctioned to speak.
The Guardian has, by contrast, published a steady stream of exclusives on the major official enemy of the security services, Russia, exposing Putin, his friends and the work of its intelligence services and military.
In the Panama Papers leak in April 2016, which revealed how companies and individuals around the world were using an offshore law firm to avoid paying tax, The Guardian's front-page launch scoop was authored by Luke Harding, who has received many security service tips focused on the "Russia threat", and was titled "Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin".
Three sentences into the piece, however, Harding notes that "the president's name does not appear in any of the records" although he insists that "the data reveals a pattern – his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured without his patronage".
There was a much bigger story in the Panama Papers which The Guardian chose to downplay by leaving it to the following day. This concerned the father of the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, who "ran an offshore fund that avoided ever having to pay tax in Britain by hiring a small army of Bahamas residents – including a part-time bishop – to sign its paperwork".
We understand there was some argument between journalists about not leading with the Cameron story as the launch splash. Putin's friends were eventually deemed more important than the Prime Minister of the country where the paper published.
Getting Julian Assange
The Guardian also appears to have been engaged in a campaign against the WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who had been a collaborator during the early WikiLeaks revelations in 2010.
One 2017 story came from investigative reporter Carole Cadwalladr, who writes for The Guardian's sister paper The Observer, titled "When Nigel Farage met Julian Assange". This concerned the visit of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage to the Ecuadorian embassy in March 2017, organised by the radio station LBC, for whom Farage worked as a presenter. Farage's producer at LBC accompanied Farage at the meeting, but this was not mentioned by Cadwalladr.
Rather, she posited that this meeting was "potentially a channel of communication" between WikiLeaks, Farage and Donald Trump, who were all said to be closely linked to Russia, adding that these actors were in a "political alignment" and that " WikiLeaks is, in many ways, the swirling vortex at the centre of everything".
Yet Cadwalladr's one official on-the-record source for this speculation was a "highly placed contact with links to US intelligence", who told her, "When the heat is turned up and all electronic communication, you have to assume, is being intensely monitored, then those are the times when intelligence communication falls back on human couriers. Where you have individuals passing information in ways and places that cannot be monitored."
It seems likely this was innuendo being fed to The Observer by an intelligence-linked individual to promote disinformation to undermine Assange.
In 2018, however, The Guardian's attempted vilification of Assange was significantly stepped up. A new string of articles began on 18 May 2018 with one alleging Assange's "long-standing relationship with RT", the Russian state broadcaster. The series, which has been closely documented elsewhere, lasted for several months, consistently alleging with little or the most minimal circumstantial evidence that Assange had ties to Russia or the Kremlin.
One story, co-authored again by Luke Harding, claimed that "Russian diplomats held secret talks in London with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, The Guardian has learned". The former consul in the Ecuadorian embassy in London at this time, Fidel Narvaez, vigorously denies the existence of any such "escape plot" involving Russia and is involved in a complaint process with The Guardian for insinuating he coordinated such a plot.
This apparent mini-campaign ran until November 2018, culminating in a front-page splash , based on anonymous sources, claiming that Assange had three secret meetings at the Ecuadorian embassy with Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort.
This "scoop" failed all tests of journalistic credibility since it would have been impossible for anyone to have entered the highly secured Ecuadorian embassy three times with no proof. WikiLeaks and others have strongly argued that the story was manufactured and it is telling that The Guardian has since failed to refer to it in its subsequent articles on the Assange case. The Guardian, however, has still not retracted or apologised for the story which remains on its website.
The "exclusive" appeared just two weeks after Paul Johnson had been congratulated for "re-establishing links" between The Guardian and the security services.
The string of Guardian articles, along with the vilification and smear stories about Assange elsewhere in the British media, helped create the conditions for a deal between Ecuador, the UK and the US to expel Assange from the embassy in April. Assange now sits in Belmarsh maximum-security prison where he faces extradition to the US, and life in prison there, on charges under the Espionage Act.
Acting for the establishment
Another major focus of The Guardian's energies under Viner's editorship has been to attack the leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.
The context is that Corbyn appears to have recently been a target of the security services. In 2015, soon after he was elected Labour leader, the Sunday Times reported a serving general warning that "there would be a direct challenge from the army and mass resignations if Corbyn became prime minister". The source told the newspaper: "The Army just wouldn't stand for it. The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardise the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul, to prevent that."
On 20 May 2017, a little over two weeks before the 2017 General Election, the Daily Telegraph was fed the story that "MI5 opened a file on Jeremy Corbyn amid concerns over his links to the IRA". It formed part of a Telegraph investigation claiming to reveal "Mr Corbyn's full links to the IRA" and was sourced to an individual "close to" the MI5 investigation, who said "a file had been opened on him by the early nineties".
The Metropolitan Police Special Branch was also said to be monitoring Corbyn in the same period.
Then, on the very eve of the General Election, the Telegraph gave space to an article from Sir Richard Dearlove, the former director of MI6, under a headline: "Jeremy Corbyn is a danger to this nation. At MI6, which I once led, he wouldn't clear the security vetting."
Further, in September 2018, two anonymous senior government sources told The Times that Corbyn had been "summoned" for a "'facts of life' talk on terror" by MI5 chief Andrew Parker.
Just two weeks after news of this private meeting was leaked by the government, the Daily Mail reported another leak, this time revealing that "Jeremy Corbyn's most influential House of Commons adviser has been barred from entering Ukraine on the grounds that he is a national security threat because of his alleged links to Vladimir Putin's 'global propaganda network'."
The article concerned Andrew Murray, who had been working in Corbyn's office for a year but had still not received a security pass to enter the UK parliament. The Mail reported, based on what it called "a senior parliamentary source", that Murray's application had encountered "vetting problems".
Murray later heavily suggested that the security services had leaked the story to the Mail. "Call me sceptical if you must, but I do not see journalistic enterprise behind the Mail's sudden capacity to tease obscure information out of the [Ukrainian security service]," he wrote in the New Statesman. He added, "Someone else is doing the hard work – possibly someone being paid by the taxpayer. I doubt if their job description is preventing the election of a Corbyn government, but who knows?"
Murray told us he was approached by the New Statesman after the story about him being banned from Ukraine was leaked. "However," he added, "I wouldn't dream of suggesting anything like that to The Guardian, since I do not know any journalists still working there who I could trust."
The Guardian itself has run a remarkable number of news and comment articles criticising Corbyn since he was elected in 2015 and the paper's clearly hostile stance has been widely noted .
Given its appeal to traditional Labour supporters, the paper has probably done more to undermine Corbyn than any other. In particular, its massive coverage of alleged widespread anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has helped to disparage Corbyn more than other smears carried in the media.
The Guardian and The Observer have published hundreds of articles on "Labour anti-Semitism" and, since the beginning of this year, carried over 50 such articles with headlines clearly negative to Corbyn. Typical headlines have included " The Observer view: Labour leadership is complicit in anti-Semitism ", " Jeremy Corbyn is either blind to anti-Semitism – or he just doesn't care ", and " Labour's anti-Semitism problem is institutional. It needs investigation ".
The Guardian's coverage of anti-Semitism in Labour has been suspiciously extensive, compared to the known extent of the problem in the party, and its focus on Corbyn personally suggests that the issue is being used politically. While anti-Semitism does exist in the Labour Party, evidence suggests it is at relatively low levels. Since September 2015, when Corbyn became Labour leader, 0.06% of the Labour membership has been investigated for anti-Semitic comments or posts. In 2016, an independent inquiry commissioned by Labour concluded that the party "is not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism. Further, it is the party that initiated every single United Kingdom race equality law."
Analysis of two YouGov surveys, conducted in 2015 and 2017, shows that anti-Semitic views held by Labour voters declined substantially in the first two years of Corbyn's tenure and that such views were significantly more common among Conservative voters.
Despite this, since January 2016, The Guardian has published 1,215 stories mentioning Labour and anti-Semitism, an average of around one per day, according to a search on Factiva, the database of newspaper articles. In the same period, The Guardian published just 194 articles mentioning the Conservative Party's much more serious problem with Islamophobia. A YouGov poll in 2019, for example, found that nearly half of the Tory Party membership would prefer not to have a Muslim prime minister.
At the same time, some stories which paint Corbyn's critics in a negative light have been suppressed by The Guardian. According to someone with knowledge of the matter, The Guardian declined to publish the results of a months-long critical investigation by one of its reporters into a prominent anti-Corbyn Labour MP, citing only vague legal issues.
In July 2016, one of this article's authors emailed a Guardian editor asking if he could pitch an investigation about the first attempt by the right-wing of the Labour Party to remove Corbyn, informing The Guardian of very good inside sources on those behind the attempt and their real plans. The approach was rejected as being of no interest before a pitch was even sent.
A reliable publication?
On 20 May 2019, The Times newspaper reported on a Freedom of Information request made by the Rendition Project, a group of academic experts working on torture and rendition issues, which showed that the MOD had been "developing a secret policy on torture that allows ministers to sign off intelligence-sharing that could lead to the abuse of detainees".
This might traditionally have been a Guardian story, not something for the Rupert Murdoch-owned Times. According to one civil society source, however, many groups working in this field no longer trust The Guardian.
A former Guardian journalist similarly told us: "It is significant that exclusive stories recently about British collusion in torture and policy towards the interrogation of terror suspects and other detainees have been passed to other papers including The Times rather than The Guardian."
The Times published its scoop under a strong headline , "Torture: Britain breaks law in Ministry of Defence secret policy". However, before the article was published, the MOD fed The Guardian the same documents The Times were about to splash with, believing it could soften the impact of the revelations by telling its side of the story.
The Guardian posted its own article just before The Times, with a headline that would have pleased the government: "MoD says revised torture guidance does not lower standards".
Its lead paragraph was a simple summary of the MOD's position: "The Ministry of Defence has insisted that newly emerged departmental guidance on the sharing of intelligence derived from torture with allies, remains in line with practices agreed in the aftermath of a series of scandals following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq." However, an inspection of the documents showed this was clearly disinformation.
The Guardian had gone in six short years from being the natural outlet to place stories exposing wrongdoing by the security state to a platform trusted by the security state to amplify its information operations. A once relatively independent media platform has been largely neutralised by UK security services fearful of being exposed further. Which begs the question: where does the next Snowden go? DM
The Guardian did not respond to a request for comment.
Daily Maverick will formally launch Declassified – a new UK-focused investigation and analysis organisation run by the authors of this article – in November 2019.
Matt Kennard is an investigative journalist and co-founder of Declassified . He was previously director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London, and before that a reporter for the Financial Times in the US and UK. He is the author of two books, Irregular Army and The Racket .
Mark Curtis is a leading UK foreign policy analyst, journalist and the author of six books including Web of Deceit: Britain's Real Role in the World and Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam .
Sep 12, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
et Al September 9, 2019 at 9:14 am
I only mentioned Mark 'Gerasimov' Galeotti recently linked to a MT source one of you posted and hey, prestoDances With Bears: MARK GALEOTTI IS A FACT FAKER – HIS BOOK ON RUSSIAN CRIME IS A HATE CRIME, A WAR CRIME
http://johnhelmer.net/mark-galeotti-is-a-fact-faker-his-book-on-russian-crime-is-a-hate-crime-a-war-crime/Repeating lies over and over makes old-fashioned Joseph Goebbels-type propaganda. Repeating lies, then contradicting them; moving them from one government-paid think-tank to another; footnoting a new lie to an older version; quoting policemen and gangsters saying fatuities; adding slang and the words of pop songs -- this is still Goebbels-type but stretched out and product-diversified to make its author more money. This is Mark Galeotti's method .
####The rest at the link and a deep dive on Galeotti himself.
Sep 08, 2019 | off-guardian.org
Back in the 1960s, the CIA official Cord Meyer said the agency needed to "court the compatible left."
Right-wing and left-wing collaborators were needed to create a powerful propaganda apparatus that would be capable of hypnotizing audiences into believing the myth of American exceptionalism and its divine right to rule the world.
The CIA therefore secretly worked to influence American and world opinion through the literary and intellectual elites.
Frances Stonor Saunders comprehensively covers this in her 1999 book, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA And The World Of Arts And Letters, and Joel Whitney followed this up in 2016 with Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers, with particular emphasis on the complicity between the CIA and the famous literary journal, The Paris Review.
By the mid-1970s, as a result of the Church Committee hearings, it seemed as if the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. had been caught in flagrante delicto and disgraced, confessed their sins, and resolved to go and sin no more.
Then in 1977, Carl Bernstein wrote a long piece for Esquire – “The CIA and the Media” – naming names of journalists and media (The New York Times, CBS, etc.) that worked hand-in-glove with the CIA, propagandizing the American people and the rest of the world.
It seemed as if all would be hunky-dory now with the bad boys purged from the American “free” press. Seemed to the most naïve, that is, by which I mean the vast numbers of people who wanted to re-stick their heads in the sand and believe, as Ronald Reagan’s team of truthtellers would announce, that it was “Morning in America” again with the free press reigning and the neo-conservatives, many of whom had been “converted” from their leftist views, running things in Washington.
... ... ...
...read Lansing’s July 10, 2019 testimony before the House Appropriations Sub-Committee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs: “United States Efforts to Counter Russian Disinformation and Malign Influence.”
Here is an excerpt:
USAGM provides consistently accurate and compelling journalism that reflects the values of our society: freedom, openness, democracy, and hope. Our guiding principles—enshrined in law—are to provide a reliable, authoritative, and independent source of news that adheres to the strictest standards of journalism…
Russian Disinformation. And make no mistake, we are living through a global explosion of disinformation, state propaganda, and lies generated by multiple authoritarian regimes around the world. The weaponization of information we are seeing today is real. The Russian government and other authoritarian regimes engage in far-reaching malign influence campaigns across national boundaries and language barriers.
The Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation machine is being unleashed via new platforms and continues to grow in Russia and internationally. Russia seeks to destroy the very idea of an objective, verifiable set of facts as it attempts to influence opinions about the United States and its allies. It is not an understatement to say that this new form of combat on the information battlefield may be the fight of the 21st century.
Then research the history of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Voice of America, Radio and Television Marti, etc. You will be reassured that Lansing’s July testimony was his job interview to head National Propaganda Radio.
Edward Curtin writes, and his writing on varied topics has appeared widely over many years. He writes as a public intellectual for the general public, not as a specialist for a narrow readership. He believes a non-committal sociology is an impossibility and therefore sees all his work as an effort to enhance human freedom through understanding. His website is edwardcurtin.com
Aug 07, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
Craig Murray on Boris Johnson, Deripaska, Russian wealth among British elites
Linda Wood on Mon, 08/05/2019 - 12:39pm
Because snoopydawg linked us to Craig Murray in an essay yesterday, I happened to see this important commentary.HenryAWallace on Mon, 08/05/2019 - 12:51pmMurray makes the point that much of the wealth controlling our obscenely corrupt system has come from the pillaging of Russian resources during the Yeltsin period and that the motive for demonizing Putin is to keep that wealth out of the hands of the Russian people.
On an only mildly-related and very ironic note...Linda Wood on Mon, 08/05/2019 - 3:55pmhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_C._Koch#Business_career
(When shut out of the American system his sons so vaunt, Fred Koch went to the Soviet Union, which his sons so malign, to make the Koch family fortune.)
Not off-topic at all.HenryAWallace on Mon, 08/05/2019 - 4:35pmCapitalist exploitation of Russia and support for Hitler are the story of the last century. From your link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_C._Koch#Business_career
This extended litigation effectively put Winkler-Koch out of business in the U.S. for several years. "Unable to succeed at home, Koch found work in the Soviet Union".[13] Between 1929 and 1932 Winkler-Koch "trained Bolshevik engineers[14] and helped Stalin's regime set up fifteen modern oil refineries" in the Soviet Union. "Over time, however, Stalin brutally purged several of Koch's Soviet colleagues. Koch was deeply affected by the experience, and regretted his collaboration."[13] The company also built installations in countries throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia.[1] Koch partnered with William Rhodes Davis to build the third-largest oil refinery serving the Third Reich, a project which was personally approved by Adolf Hitler.[15] Koch President and COO David L. Robertson acknowledged that Winkler-Koch provided the cracking unit for the 1934 Hamburg refinery, but said that it was but one of many "iconic" American companies doing business in Germany at the time.[16]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_C._Koch#Business_career
(When shut out of the American system his sons so vaunt, Fred Koch went to the Soviet Union, which his sons so malign, to make the Koch family fortune.)
Thank you, Linda Wood.k9disc on Mon, 08/05/2019 - 1:29pmI was trying to warn away from hijacking the thread to make it about the Kochs instead of about Russia. Or about RUSSIA!, which is how I've been referring to the nation since Russiagate began.
I Have Seen the Perestroika Model Unfolding Globally.Azazello on Mon, 08/05/2019 - 1:56pmYou open up markets and provide a fence for the local oligarchs to offload vital public infrastructure and national resources. Selling rubles for dollars was a no brainer. Rinse, repeat.
Up until the 21st Century, this was only done to the 3rd world and those of the 2nd world who didn't play ball.
I've seen the model looming over America too. The hollowing out and offshoring of America, IMO, is quite similar to the pillaging of Russia. It's just lacking the hard coup and cannon fire at the capitol.
The same banksters are financing and laundering the money to boot.
I guess sheep are just meant to be fleeced, eh?
Good on Murray for calling it out. I like that guy.
London is just a big, stinking haven for dirty money.Linda Wood on Mon, 08/05/2019 - 4:11pmThis from Bloomberg: Dirty Money Spotlights Role of Family Offices as Enablers
Fascinating article.Cant Stop the M... on Tue, 08/06/2019 - 7:16pmI've just begun reading it, and already there is mention of HSBC, which connects to Mueller, when he was FBI Director, and Comey, who was a board member of some part of HSBC.
This from Bloomberg: Dirty Money Spotlights Role of Family Offices as Enablers
When arguing with Leave supporters on TwitterI kept telling them that, unless they dealt with the City, separating from Europe wasn't going to help them at all. It's not internationalism that's hurting them: it's the depredations of international capital. Leaving the European Union won't fix that.
While I understand that they feel like they're losing their culture and feel threatened by immigration on that account, the deeper sufferings of their lives, both economic and political, go back, not to some person with dark skin and less money speaking a foreign tongue who immigrates to Britain, but to good upstanding upper-class British financiers. And the good upstanding upper-class foreign financiers with whom those Brits have made deals.
They also might want to look into MI5 and MI6.
This from Bloomberg: Dirty Money Spotlights Role of Family Offices as Enablers
Aug 14, 2019 | averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com
... ... ...
The problem, however, is because this is overlaid by factional struggle ...
This, of course, is compounded by the over-amplifying of anti-Semitism by the media and the alacrity with which it has been taken up by Corbyn opponents, including hypocrites who floated "rootless cosmopolitan" criticisms of Ed Miliband when it suited just a few years ago.
Here's the thing. Just because your opponents take up an issue, some times cynically and in bad faith. and use it to inflict as much damage as they can does not mean the problem is fictitious.
Precisely because they can point to Facebook groups full of useful fools, and Twitter accounts with Corbyn-supporting hashtags acting as if the Israel lobby and "Zionists" are the only active force in British politics, this is the stuff that makes the attacks effective and trashes the standing of the party in the eyes of many Jews and the community's allies and friends.
The institutional anti-Semitism in the Labour Party is, therefore, somewhat different to the kind you find in other institutions. It is sustained by the battle for the party, a grim battlefront in a zero sum game of entrenched position vs entrenched position. As such, whatever the leadership do, whatever new processes the General Secretary introduces for one side it will never be enough because, as far as many of them concerned, the leadership are politically illegitimate; and for the other it's a sop and capitulation.
The resolution of the anti-Semitism crisis then is not a matter of compromise -- for each side the issue will only go away with the complete crushing and driving out of the party of the other. A situation that can only poison the well further, and guarantee anti-Semitism won't honestly and comprehensively be confronted.
Boffy said... 3 March 2019 at 16:42A good analysis. But, it emphasizes the point I made in the previous post, which is that, the right are currently engaged in an all out push to remove Corbyn and crush the left with the same old bureaucratic means. Whatever else Williamson may or may not be guilty of, his point that the leadership have facilitated this situation by their continual appeasement of the right is absolutely valid. Its that he is being attacked for, not anti-Semitism.asquith said... 3 March 2019 at 18:54It is first necessary to close ranks, and defeat the assault of the Right. As Marr said to Blair this morning, had Prescott announced he was forming a separate group, and was establishing his own witch-hunting bureaucratic apparatus in the party, Blair would have sacked him immediately - actually not so easy as the Deputy is elected. But the thrust is valid. Unless Corbyn deals with Watson, the Right will roll over the Left, despite the huge disparity in numbers.
Again it comes down to whether Corbyn is up for that task, or whether we need a leadership of the left with a bit more backbone to see it through.
I'm afraid this IS due to the "intersectionality" cult, whereby certain groups are always privileged and wrong, and some are always oppressed and right. Jews are, according to this "analysis", the uber-privileged and uber-white.Ian Gibson said... 4 March 2019 at 05:30We've heard several times that according to "intersectionality" that it's impossible to be racist against white people because racism requires both prejudice and power, and white people are by definition powerful. Therefore, anti-Semitism is dismissed because it can't be a thing because Jews are all-powerful and even more oppressive than other whites.
Those who don't subscribe to all of these beliefs are nevertheless tinged with them, which is why people who aren't staunch antisemites will nevertheless fail to take anti-Semitism seriously.
Coming on the day when the FT have a column seriously positing that criticizing capitalism is inherently anti-Semitic, it seems to me that dancing on the head of a pin about whether the 'careless' anti-Semitism you've described means the party is institutionally anti-Semitic is rather missing the point. (OK, the column is by John McTernan, but the FT gave him column inches to argue that case, and I guess they didn't mean it as the satire it most certainly is.)Boffy said... 4 March 2019 at 09:47As many of the comments on your blog on Williamson attest, the salient feature of this - well, call it witch-hunt for the sake of argument - is the double standards where we have to be whiter than white, whilst no account whatsoever is taken of the most egregious racism elsewhere. We live in society: we can never, ever be that whiter than white - especially when it comes to Israel/Palestine, which is so full of contradictions and traps for the unwary (e.g. the position of the Israeli state claiming to speak for all Jewry around the world, in the way that the Board of Deputies position themselves as speaking for all British Jews - neither close to being true, but small wonder that opponents of what they do and stand for take that universality at face value.)
The fight we need to take up is to compare and contrast just how pro-active the current party is against anti-Semitism in its constitution and machinery with the glaring absence of such elsewhere, and to present a positive picture of what we are doing, rather than mumbling apologetically into our beards. We need to take the fight to the rigged system at the same time as being unstinting in rooting out the troubling stuff.
The other nonsense that has grown up is that it is only those that suffer any form of discrimination who can define what that discrimination is, i.e. only Jews can define anti-Semitism, only black people can define racism against them, only women can define discrimination against women.Jim Denham said... 4 March 2019 at 15:25That then assumes that the members of each of these groups are themselves homogeneous, and agreed in such definitions. In reality, it means that dominant elements, i.e. those connected to the ruling class and ruling ideas get to make those determinations.
If we look at anti-Semitism, for example, it is quite clear that there is no agreement amongst Jews on what constitutes anti-Semitism. The JVL, certainly have a different definition than the JLM.
But, just rationally, the concept that only those discriminated against get to define the discrimination is bonkers. Suppose you come from Somalia or some other country that practices FGM, you could argue that it is part of your cultural heritage, and that anyone seeking to prevent you from undertaking this barbaric practice was thereby racist, on your self-definition of what that discrimination against you amounts to. Or Saudis might argue that it is racist to argue against their practice of lopping off women's heads, or stoning them to death for adultery, including having been raped, etc.
The JVL come pretty close to arguing that there is *no* anti-Semitism in the Labour party (Jenny Manson, for instance, says she's never witnessed any)and Glyn Secker wrote a piece in the Morning Star last year comparing claims of anti-Semitism within Labour to the story of the emperor's new clothes.Boffy said... 5 March 2019 at 09:00Given that the actual data, even allowing for all of the spurious and mischievous accusations of anti-Semitism in the party, made by right-wing enemies of the the party, and particularly of Corbyn and his supporters, amounts to only 0.1% of the membership, and given that of these, 40% were straight away found to be accusations against people who were not even LP members, with a further 20%, being found to have absolutely no evidence to back them, its quite possible that individual members of the LP, have never seen any instance of it.Boffy said... 5 March 2019 at 09:22Take out all those mischievous and malicious allegations made in order to whip up the hysteria, so as to to damage the party, by its enemies, and you arrive at a figure of only 400 potential cases, out of a membership of 600,000, which is 1 member in 1500. If the average branch size if 100 active members, it means on average there is one potential case of anti-Semitism in every 15 branches. So, if you are a member in any of the other 14 branches, you would never see that one potential case of anti-Semitism.
In fact, based upon the actual facts, as opposed to the fiction and factional hysteria that is being whipped up by right-wing opponents of Corbyn and the party, and by supporters of Zionism for their own narrow political reasons, the chances are about 14: that you will never see any even potential instance of anti-Semitism, even on the narrow definition that the party has now imposed upon itself, which comes pretty close if not entirely to identifying anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism, or even just criticism of the current Bonapartist regime of Netanyahu.
In the US, Jewish groups that have long been ardent defenders of Israel have more recently come out to criticize the regime of Netanyahu, and the actions of the Israeli state. The main defenders of Zionism, besides the actual Zionists themselves, appear to be people like the AWL, who for whatever reason hitched their wagon to Zionist ideology some time ago, probably in their usual knee-jerk reaction of putting a plus sign wherever the SWP put a minus. Having done so, and as a result of the bureaucratic centrist nature of the sect, they find themselves now having to follow through on the position they adopted on the basis of the "practical politics" - opportunism - as it dictated itself to them at the time.
If, and probably more likely when, they change position, it will come as with all their previous changes of position with the assertion that "nothing has changed", as when after claiming a few years ago that the LP was a stinking corpse - as they ridiculously stood their own candidates in elections with the inevitable result - and the next minute proclaimed themselves as its most ardent militants, as they sought to use their sharp elbows to gain positions on Momentum's leading bodies!
Incidentally, on the question of "observance", the only time I have seen someone get stabbed, is more than 50 years ago, when I was at school. I've seen plenty of other violent stuff in the intervening period, for example, people getting glassed, people having wrought iron tables smashed over their heads. My sister, who is several years older than me, and was out bopping during the days of the Teddy Boys, saw more people getting slashed, in the 1950's, because the flick knife was the Ted's favoured weapon.Jim Denham said... 5 March 2019 at 11:14But, that doesn't mean that I disbelieve the media when it talks about the current spate of knife crimes. Its just that, however, terrible such crimes are for those that suffer or witness them, and no matter how much the media that has to sensationalise every story, for its own commercial purposes, talks about an epidemic or a knife crime crisis, the number of knife crimes per head of population is extremely small.
The chances that 999 out of 1,000 of us will never be the victim of, or witness knife crime does not mean it doesn't exist. But, those that then claim that the 999 out of 1,000 of us who say we have not seen it, must be somehow being dishonest, are not dealing with the facts, and are simply fuelling a moral panic.
When some phenomena is statistically insignificant, which 1 in 1,500 cases, is, and when as with many such phenomena there is no normal distribution of the occurrence of such cases - for example, knife crime will tend to be concentrated in particular areas - trying to present any kind of rational analysis based upon personal observation is a mug's game.
Just because the only case of stabbing I have witnessed was more than 50 years ago, does not, and should not lead me to think that knife crime was worse 50 years ago than it is today. The actual data would seem to suggest that cases of anti-Semitism were greater in the LP in previous times than they are currently, contrary to what the media and those with factional motives would have us believe. It is certainly thec ase that anti-Semitism is a bigger problem in the Tory party, and other right-wing organisations than it is in the LP, again not that you would know that from the reporting of it, or from the attitude of certain factional sects, such as the AWL.
Speedy said... 6 March 2019 at 06:39Labour has 'much larger' group of antisemitic members which Corbyn has failed to deal with, Momentum founder warns
By Rob Merrick Deputy Political Editor The Independent, Monday 25 February 2019 16:10 |
Labour has "a much larger" group of antisemitic members than it recognises which Jeremy Corbyn has failed to "deal with", Momentum founder Jon Lansman has warned.
The Labour leader's long-standing ally said "conspiracy theorists" had infiltrated the party – a consequence of its huge surge in membership in recent years.
Mr Lansman stopped short of backing the call from Tom Watson, Labour's deputy leader, for Mr Corbyn to take personal charge of the antisemitism complaints dogging Labour.
But he said: "I do think we have a major problem and it always seems to me that we underestimate the scale of it. I think it is a widespread problem.
"I think it is now obvious that we have a much larger number of people with hardcore antisemitic opinions which, unfortunately, is polluting the atmosphere in a lot of constituency parties and in particular online. We have to deal with these people."
Approaching this from another angle...Boffy said... 6 March 2019 at 10:42The apparent level of anti-semitism in Labour is a modern phenomenon turbo-charged and amplified by social media. People have their views reinforced within their bunkers where anti-Israeli memes become anti-Zionist and then become anti-Semitic. It is much easier to send an anonymous email than a letter.
History is very much the tale of new technology transforming the potential of human behaviour and beliefs, and one of the oldest beliefs ("the blood libel") is anti-Semitism.
This is how Labour has changed - ie, the rise of Corbyn has coincided with the ubiquity of this technology. In fact, arguably the rise of Corbyn was aided by it.
Corbyn's nuanced position on Israel/Palestine gives permission to social media extremists.
The rest is history.
Incidentally, this is why you are less likely to confront anti-Semitism in real-life while the internet may be awash with it - there are the real and virtual identities which only occasionally bleed into each other.
Which is true and which is not? We might wonder if technology has evolved ahead of human adaptation - the "real world" filters that govern apparently "real" behaviour missing.
I'm sure even certain posters here are less bananas in "real life" than their online comments might suggest!
I wouldn't trust Lansman on this issue, any more than on many others. Lansman abolished democracy, to the extent it existed to begin with, by turning it into his personal fiefdom, reminiscent of the activities of Hyndman and the SDF. His position on anti-Semitism, and fighting the witch-hunt, and of appeasing the Blair-right's as they attacked Corbyn, has been appalling throughout.Jim Denham said... 7 March 2019 at 09:10Having abolished any democracy in Momentum, which he now runs as its CEO, he also appears to want Corbyn to do the same thing with the Labour Party, abolishing its internal democratic procedures, and putting himself personally in charge of those disciplinary measures. That truly would be the actions of a Bonapartist. That Tom Watson is prepared to do that, as he sets himself up in a situation of dual power, to confront Corbyn is no surprise that anyone who even remotely considers themselves a part of the Left should support should a move is a disgrace. Perhaps no surprise that the AWL supporters of Zionism, and the witch-hunt, appear to be doing so, then.
Its notable that, yesterday, when the Welsh Labour Grass Roots organisation came out to call for Williamson's suspension to be reversed, Kinnock and other Blair-rights immediately called for an investigation into them, and for its Secretary who sits on Labour's NEC to also be suspended, for interfering in an ongoing investigation! So, why did those same Blair-rights not call for the suspension of Watson, who immediately demanded Williamson's suspension, and withdrawal of the whip, before any investigation, or indeed of Hodge and others who on a daily basis go to the media to sally forth about cases that are under investigation, or waiting for investigation.
This truly is reaching into the realms of McCarthyism, where you are found guilty not just of witchcraft, but of consorting with witches, or even having an opinion as to whether an individual charged with witchcraft is guilty, or even the extent to which the number of witches amongst might be exaggerated.
Jim Denham's comment is a case in point. How much more "anti-Semitism" exists? What is the factual basis of the statement, as opposed to click bait headline. Even if the actual extent is 100% more than the data so far presented, that would mean that potentially 1 in 750 LP members might be guilty of some form of anti-Semitism. Its hardly an epidemic, or institutional anti-Semitism, and far less than exists in the Tory Party, which is also infected by Islamaphobia, misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia.
In fact, its probably much less than you would find in the BBC, Sky or other establishment institutions. Anti-Semitism exists, and is a problem, but that does not mean it is not being used by Labour's enemies or the proponents of Zionism for their own political ends. The real conspiracy theorists are those that try to present anti-Semitism as a conspiracy based upon infiltration of the LP, the same people who presented the support for Corbyn from 300,000 new members as really just being a case of far left entryism, by Trots.
This is a meme, taken from Incog Man, a far-right site. It was posted with positive endorsement by a Labour member, Kayla Bibby, a delegate to conference in fact:Boffy said... 7 March 2019 at 12:36Link to the meme:
https://static.timesofisrael.com/jewishndev/uploads/2019/02/ellmann-640x400.jpg
Bibby subsequently received only a formal warning, with Thomas Gardiner of Labour's Governance and Legal Unit (what used to be the Compliance Unit), saying it was only anti-Israel, and not anti-Semitic.
Not only could a Labour member post something obviously anti-Semitic, it was not deemed to be so by the Compliance Unit. I bet we all know people who would agree.
It's not a factually accurate description of global political realities, because Israel does not control the US, if that is what the image is intended to imply. But, the message, is thereby anti-Israeli state, not anti-Semitic. It could only be considered anti-Semitic, if in fact you are a Zionist and claim that Israel and Jews are are interchangeable terms, which they are not.Boffy said... 7 March 2019 at 13:47In fact, there are probably not an inconsiderable number of Jews, who think that the state of Israel does exercise undue influence over US policy, and certainly it seems to be the case that, in the US, more liberal Jewish groups, seem to think that one reason that the Bonapartist regime of Netanyahu, in Israel, was so supportive of Trump, and we see the same support for Trump amongst Zionists in Britain, is at least in part due to the fact that Obama had been distancing the US from its historical uncritical support for Israel.
If we replace Zionism with Toryism, and Jew with British, the situation becomes fairly clear. If the we show the British state as being controlled by Tories, who implement their ideology of Toryism, in what way would criticism of the British state, under the control of such Tories, or criticism of Tories be the equivalent of British people as a whole?
Clearly it wouldn't, because there are a majority of British people who oppose Toryism, and thereby oppose the actions of the British state under the control of the Tories. A nationalist, or racist might want to equate the nation state with the whole of its people, but the people who are doing that here, by interpreting criticism of the Israeli state with anti-Semitism, are the Zionists themselves, and their apologists, because they seek thereby to delegitimize any criticism of the state of Israel and Zionism by equating it with anti-Semitism.
That in effect makes the Zionists themselves, and their apologists anti-Semites, because in adopting this equation of Jewishness with being Zionist, and with Israel, they make all Jews thereby responsible for the actions of Zionism and of the state of Israel!
The problem for the AWL, and its members like Jim Denham, on this issue comes down to this. Until thirty years ago, the organisation, under its previous names, was an ardent defender of the ideas and traditions of Jim Cannon. Cannon's "The Struggle for a Proletarian Party" was required reading for all of its members. Then, in an about face, the organisation overnight collapsed into what Trotsky called "the petit-bourgeois Third Camp", and so became ardent defenders of the enemies of Cannon, the petit-bourgeois Third Camp of Burnham- Shachtman. That kind of wild zig-zag is typical of bureaucratic-centrist organisations, which is what the AWL is.Anonymous said... 7 March 2019 at 16:54As part of this collapse into the petit-bourgeois Third Camp, and the moralistic politics it is based upon, the AWL also adopted the ideas of Third Campists like Al Glotzer, in relation to Israel and Zionism, as opposed to the position of Mandel, which represented a continuation of the ideas of Cannon and Trotsky. I set this out in a short blog post 12 years ago Glotzer and the Jews as Special , after the AWL had repeatedly censored it appearing on their website in response to an article setting out Glotzer's position.
Having committed themselves to the reactionary Zionist ideology that essentially underpins Glotzer's stance - the same thing idea of having lost faith in the working-class, and so having to rely on the bourgeois state, or "progressive imperialism" to accomplish the tasks of the working-class, is behind the AWL's support for NATo's war against Serbia, Iraq, Libya etc., but is also behind the politics of other Third Campists such as the SWP, that instead look to other larger forces, such as reactionary "anti-imperialist" states to carry forward its moral agenda - the AWL are left now trying to defend their position of support for the creation of a racist, expansionist state in Israel, as the inevitable consequences of that venture unfold.
For a Marxist, it is not at all difficult to say that the establishment of the state of Israel is one that we should not have supported at the time, because it would lead to the kind of consequences we see today, and yet, to say, 75 years on from the creation of that state, it is an established fact, and trying to unwind history, by calling for the destruction of that state would have even more calamitous consequences for the global working-class. It is quite easy for a Marx to say that the current nature of the Israeli state, as a racist Zionist state, based, like almost no other state in the world on a confessional basis, i.e. of being a Jewish state, a state for Jews in preference to every other ethnic/religious group flows from the ideology, and nature of its creation. But, then to argue that the answer to that is not a destruction of the state of Israel, which could only be done on the bones of millions of Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, but is to wage a working-class based struggle against that racist foundation upon which the state has been founded, and that struggle is one that must unite Jews and Arabs alike. In fact, the position of palestinians today is a mirror image of that of the Jews 75 years ago.
The hope of a Two-State Solution disappeared long ago, and was never credible. It simply allows Zionists to proclaim they are in favour of it, whilst doing everything to make it practically impossible, such as extending West Bank Settlements. The solution must flow from a struggle for democratic rights for Israeli Arabs, and for a right for all Arabs in occupied territories to be extended the same rights as any other Israeli, including the right to vote, and send representatives to the Knesset. As I argued thirty years ago, the longer-term solution is a Federal Republic of Israel and Palestine, guaranteeing democratic rights to all, as part of building a wider Federal Republic of MENA.
Boffy said... 8 March 2019 at 11:15Jim Denham: imperialist lackey and sycophant turned Witch hunter in chief
Let us be very clear about what this witch hunt is about, it is about purging from public life any credible and effective opposition to Israel in particular and more generally opposition to the imperialist barbarians of the imperialist core. It is about driving from universities, social media and intellectual life any form of opposition to the interests of the imperialists.
This is nothing but authoritarianism in action, censorship of political opponents and the closing down of any credible definition of free speech.
In other words this is something any leftist worth half an atom would be fighting against with all their energies.
But what do we find, pathetic pro war pro imperialists leftists and post modern liberals joining the witch hunt.
Meanwhile in the real world:
A UN report has concluded that Israel deliberately targeted and killed hundreds of protesting civilians, including children and disabled people and it shot 20,000+ people (yes 20,000+!). The UN says this likely a war crime. Why are the noble defenders of the Palestinian cause in the dock and not notorious Palestinian haters like Jim Denham?
How can anyone on the left get away with supporting and providing ideological cover for Israel How can any leftist allow a socialist movement to be sabotaged by the Israel state and its army of appalling immoral apologists?
These attacks on Corbyn and his supporters, repeated in all of the most aggressive imperialist countries, are simply a proxy attack on the Palestinian people themselves.
Jim Denham's comment here illustrates the problem entirely. The picture he has linked to shows an alien symbiote having attached itself to the face of the statue of liberty. The statue of liberty here represents the US. The symbiote has on its back the Israeli Flag, and likewise, thereby represents the state of Israel. The picture therefore, represents the well-worn, and clearly factually wrong meme that Israel controls the US.Boffy said... 9 March 2019 at 08:58But, as a Zionist organisation, the AWL and its members cannot distinguish between the state of Israel and Jews, so they cannot distinguish between criticism of the state of Israel, and criticism if Jews. For them, as for the Zionist ideology of the state of Israel, which is most clearly manifest in the ideology of its current political leadership, in the form of the Bonapartist regime of Netanyahu, with the recent introduction of blatantly racist laws that discriminate even more openly against not Jewish Israeli citizens, and with his willingness to try to keep his corrupt regime in office by going into coalition with an avowedly Neo-Nazi party that until recent times was considered beyond the pale, even by most Zionists, the term Zionism is synonymous with the term Jew. So, any criticism of Zionism, or of Israel is for them immediately equated with anti-Semitism.
It is what leads such Zionists to then also insist on their right to determine who is a Jew or not. The AWL do that with all those Jews, such as the JVL, who refuse to accept the AWL's definition of anti-Zionism = Anti-Semitism. Its like the old saw that the definition of a Scot is someone who wears a kilt, and when asked about Jock McTavish, from Arbroath, who does not wear a kilt, the reply comes back, then he cannot really be a Scot!
The Zionists insists on defining anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism, and thereby closing down debate. Jim Denham does that most clearly here, in his refusal to debate the actual substantive points. It is typical of the attitude of the AWL, in general which long since gave up trying to defend its bourgeois liberal, opportunist politics by rational debate, and instead turned to bureaucratic censorship, and ill-tempered invective.
Once again Jim Denham reefuses to engage in rational debate, and again resorts instead to his assumption that Israel = Jews, as well as his crude attempts at a typical Stalinist amalgam, to conflate the views of his opponents with some hate figure.Boffy said... 9 March 2019 at 16:31Again Jim Denham makes the conflation of Israel and Jews explicit when he says, "This image also plays on the tired and disgraceful antisemitic 'conspiracy theory' trope of undue Israeli (Jewish) influence on world affairs."
The conflation of equating Israel with the term Jew flows directly from the Zionist ideology that underpins the Israeli State, but which also adopted by the AWL, and its members like Jim Denham. It thereby effectively denies statehood to non-Jewish Israeli citizens, making them non-persons, erasing them from history, in the same way that Jim Denham has sought to do in diminishing if not entirely denying the genocides against other ethnic groups such as Native North Americans, Australian and New Zealand aboriginals etc., as a result of his Zionist privileging of the specific genocide against Jews in the Holocaust.
It is the same kind of racism, of course, that is applied by the BNP and other white nationalists, who seek to portray Britain as being a nation for white Britons, and thereby deny other Britons the right to consider themselves really British. Every socialist, can understand the racist nature of that ideology when it is applied to Britain, and elsewhere, but the AWL, and its members, like Jim Denham, deny it when it is applied to Israel, which they want to treat as being different to every other state on the planet, in defence of their Zionist ideology that privileges Israeli Jews over others, and by extension equates the term Jew with the term Israel.
Its most extreme version comes with the fascists that Netanyahu has now gone into alliance with, whose ideology states that God only put gentiels on the Earth to be slaves and serve the needs of Jews, as the chosen people! It means that they see the place of non-Jewish Israelis in those terms, as being allowed to remain in Israel only on that subservient basis. This is the ideology that the AWL is now logically tied to, in having adopted Zionism as the answer to the problems of Jewish workers rather than socialism.
And, of course, the extension of that principle for other Zionists is illustrated in their support for fascists like Orban in Hungary, who wants to adopt a similar nationalist ideology of keeping Hungary, and other "white" European nations exclusively for "whites", in the same way that Zionists want to keep Israel exclusively for Jews.
It is a sorry state when socialists have degenerated to such an extent that not only do they fail to distinguish between nationalist ideology and socialist ideology by adopting nationalist solutions to workers problems such as "nationalisation", by the capitalist state, but where, in adopting such reactionary nationalist ideology, the logic of their position drives them to supporting the idea that nation states should be exclusively for particular ethnic groups, such as Israel for the Jews, Hungary for white Christians and so on.
The way that the right are using anti-Zionism as the equivalent for anti-Semitism, and the appeasement of that attack has led them to widen the scope of that attack. As Labour List reports , right-wing Labour MP Siobhan McDonagh, is now claiming that to be anti-capitalist is also to be "anti-Semitic". The idea was put forward also by former Blair-right spin doctor, John McTernan, who wrote an article in the FT to that same effectBoffy said... 10 March 2019 at 11:09Channelling Jim Denham, McTernan writes,
"As the historian Deborah Lipstadt points out, anti-Semitic tropes share three elements: money or finance is always in the mix; an acknowledged cleverness that is also seen as conniving; and, power -- particularly a power to manipulate more powerful entities.
All of these feature in the criticism of Israel and the so-called Israel lobby. They can be easily moulded into a critique of capitalism, too."
The line of argument was illustrated to me some weeks ago, in a comment I received in relation to an article I wrote about Marx's analysis of fictitious capital, as part of my critique of Paul Mason's Postcapitalism . The commenter, argued that Marx's analysis of fictitious capital appeared to be simply Marx blaming bankers and money lenders, for which read Jews, for the world's ills, and was thereby simply an expression of the well-known fact that Marx was a self-hating Jew, much as the AWL, describe all those other Jews that do not share their commitment to |Zionism. The commenter as evidence of this provided a link to a literary critique of Marx's On The Jewish Question , which is cited as proving that Marx was an anti-semite.
In fact, I pointed out that in nothing that Marx had written about fictitious capital, or what I had written describing Marx's analysis of fictitious capital are bankers discussed, let alone Jewish bankers. The anonymous commenter, has, in fact, since deleted their comments, meaning that my responses to them were also deleted.
But, this is the way this right-wing witch-hunt proceeds, by throwing a net to catch whatever they can trawl in, and at the very least sowing the seeds of doubt as they require those being attacked to respond to their wild accusations. It means that any statement can be framed to mean that there is some subtext beneath the actual words and pictures that is somehow anti-Semitic, if only you know the relevant coda to unlock the true meaning, and anyone who doubts the meaning being placed upon it, is thereby a defender of the anti-Semitic message. As with the attacks on Momentum, and the initial surge of membership supporting Corbyn, it is always phrased in dark conspiratorial language, about unseen forces being behind what is seen on the surface. So, we were supposed to believe that a few hundred Trots in Britain somehow morphed into 300,000 new LP members! But, Momentum now having shown that it is a tame part of the establishment, is even able to recruit McTernan himself as a member.The appeasement as with all witch-hunts only provokes the witch-hunters to widen the scope of their activities. The AWL, which was at the forefront of helping the witch-hunters with their shameful support for the witch-hunting of Jackie Walker, was repaid by having their own members expelled too, and having right-wing Labour MP's appear on TV, to characterise the AWL themselves as "anti-Semites", despite their well-known Zionist politics. Yet, oddly, the AWL seem to consider that a price worth paying, as their advocacy of Zionism seems to trump any other consideration for them in their politics.
It didn't take long for my comment of yesterday to be proved correct. Today we learn that Jess Phillips has claimed that Marxism is necessarily misogynist, because it places class oppression above all else, and so now claims that as well as the Left in the party being anti-Semitic, it is also misogynist. The attack of the Right, as I said yesterday will spread ever wider on this irrational basis, using all of the usual conspiratorial language that such witch-hunts have always adopted. Rather like a Dan Brown novel, it will imply that there are dark (Marxist) forces at work, of which Corbyn is the head of the coven (or even worse that some unseen Dark Overlord is really standing behind Corbyn, who is only its representative on Earth (i.e. in the LP).It will suggest that these dark forces do not speak openly, but only in codes and symbols that have to be unlocked by the forces of Light, who like Jim Denham, can look into the minds of men and women, and see what is really going inside.
I actually found that despite the anonymous Zionist commenter to my article on Medium having deleted their comments, my replies to them, were in fact still floating around here , here , and here .
As the right-wing extend their witch-hunt against socialists in the LP to claim that Marxists are necessarily misogynist, as well as anti-Semitic – and the same logic presented by McDonagh, McTernon, and Phillips would presumably mean that the Left must also be xenophobic, homophobic, anti- Green, and many other charges they want to throw into the mix – it will be interesting to see whether and to what extent the AWL, join them in that assault, in the same way they have done in their promotion of Zionism.
Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Jennifer Hor August 2, 2019 at 1:01 pm
Look out for the bad reviews from The Fraudian's writers: Luke Harding can be relied on to add his 2 cents' worth of conspiracy paranoid garbage, Shaun Walker will be parsing the book for dill references and non-Russia experts like Marina Hyde and Natalie Nougat-head will want a crack as well at reviewing the book.Probably the only half-decent reviews will be from Mary Dejevski and Prof. Stephen Cohen but theirs will be buried in a back page or inaccessible behind an Error 404 wall.
Aug 07, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
et Al August 2, 2019 at 3:48 am
It's the 6th Division now!et Al August 2, 2019 at 4:07 amThe Register: New British Army psyops unit fires rebrandogun, smoke clears to reveal I'm sorry, Dave
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/08/01/british_army_shows_us_its_cyber_ring/This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardise it
6 (UK) Division is the new organisational home for the Army's "asymmetric edge", comprising all things "Intelligence, Counter-Intelligence, Information Operations, Electronic Warfare, Cyber and Unconventional Warfare".
Launched this morning, 6 Div is a rebranding of the formation formerly known as Force Troops Command, which covered a hotchpotch of Royal Signals, Intelligence Corps and other units, including the infamous 77 Brigade
####Don't forget to hit the comments for hilarity!
Also, the timing of the announcement says plenty, i.e. slipping it in to the news stream when people have already gone on holiday and all the BREXIT and other bollocks. I've not seen this reported on the tv in the UK – which is currently facing severe flooding etc.
Is it just me or is all the PPNN reporting that 'Putin's support has dropped to levels not seen since 2011!'. Of course they don't actually give you any numbers and cherry pick dodgy poll numbers but there really is this Pavlovian reaction anytime there is a demonstration in Russia, like undertakers gathering at an allegedly dangerous road crossing waiting for some cyclist to be dragged under a trash lorry so that they can tut tut and then profit from the cyclist's misfortune. Nix that, the PPNN are just professional versions of MacBeth's witches, something which they don't understand is a story .Mark Chapman August 2, 2019 at 3:01 pmPutin is in as much danger of being unceremoniously chucked out of office as he is of choking to death on his grandmother's knitting. The west is ever hopeful, and dutifully rallies to the glorification of every new dissident firebrand, but whether or not they know it, they are just going through the motions. The only group, and I mean the only one, that would benefit from Putin's overthrow would be the disaffected kreakliy and the poncy forgotten semi-intellectuals. They would be feted by the west as political visionaries, and perhaps given minor government positions to satisfy their vanity. But who else would make out like a bandit? The military? Hardly – the west, after years of giggling about Russia's decrepit military, lapsed into an uneasy silence on the subject just about the time that long-distance Kalibr cruise-missile attack took place from the Caspian Sea into Syria, and a west given meddling-room would want to disband the Russian military, if anything, down to a token force of absolutely-trustworthy sycophants who would probably be issued with American weapons. The oligarchs? Hardly – western business would be snapping up former state assets while simultaneously carrying out an 'anti-corruption drive' under the new President's imprimatur. Small businesses? Hardly – corporate interest would be in melding large state interests into the Corporate Borg, and their method is to squeeze out small business in order to expand market share. The people? Hardly – Russia would be a convenient place to move all the refugee immigrants from that entire hemisphere, while the stubborn loyalty of the population to Putin would not be forgotten.Mark Chapman August 2, 2019 at 4:50 pmIt is no coincidence that it is always the same people who show up to bitch and carp about how dreadful Putin is, and how Russia needs American-style freedom and democracy and non-stop Pride parades and all the trappings of fresh admission to Club West. They are the only people who would stand to benefit from driving Putin out. Nobody else is interested.
They're just trying to get some mileage out of Olga what's-her-name, and make it look like a drop in Putin's poll numbers happened exactly at the moment this young political firebrand emerged. Pretty sad, really, but you can't tell 'em, and it wouldn't make any difference. They have to try, it's the same instinct that makes a dog lick its nose if you smear cheese on it. The western media would rush to interview and endorse a talking Russian toad if it said "I hate Putin".
Jul 31, 2019 | www.rt.com
While hysteria raged about possible Russian "interference" in the 2016 US election, British intelligence officials were secretly playing a "key role" in helping instigate investigations into Donald Trump, secret texts have shown. "Turns out it was Britain that was the foreign country interfering in American affairs," former MP George Galloway told RT, speaking about the new revelations published by the Guardian about early British involvement in the 'Russiagate' investigation.
The Guardian reported on texts between former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe and Jeremy Fleming, his then counterpart at MI5, who now heads GCHQ. The two men met in 2016 to discuss "our strange situation" – an apparent reference to Russia's alleged interference in US domestic politics.
British intelligence "appears to have played a key role in the early stages," the report said.
Galloway said the revelation was not surprising because people "already knew" that British intelligence had played a part in the Russia-related investigations in the US. He recalled that it was former British spy Christopher Steele who drew up the now-infamous Steele dossier, which made multiple unverifiable and salacious claims about Trump and has since been largely discredited. Britain is "up to its neck in the whole Russiagate affair," he said.
The texts also reveal that the Brexit vote was viewed by some in the FBI as something that had been influenced by Russia.
Asked what the UK stood to gain by trying to implicate Russia in a US election scandal at a time when then-foreign secretary Boris Johnson was dismissing baseless claims of Russian interference in the Brexit campaign, Galloway noted that Johnson's comments on Russia have appeared to strangely sway between friendly and antagonistic.
Johnson is like "a sofa that bears the impression of the last person to sit upon him," the former MP quipped. What happens next will depend on who is leading the tango, "the orange man in Washington or the blonde mop-head in London."
In June 2016, the FBI opened a covert investigation codenamed 'Crossfire Hurricane' into Trump's now disproven collusion with Moscow, which was later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Ultimately, the two-year-long probe that followed came up short, producing no evidence to prove a conspiracy or collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russia
See also:
Also on rt.com Fear behind fury: As DNI, Ratcliffe could expose FISA files that Russiagaters hope stay buried
Aug 02, 2019 | www.unz.com
annamaria , says: July 31, 2019 at 3:48 pm GMT
What a prime example of presstitution this article by certain Matthew Scott. https://quillette.com/2019/07/25/the-many-lies-of-carl-beech/
Here is the presstitute's coup de force -- Russia! Antisemitism!! – what else? Not a word about the decades-long coverup of the horrific abuse of British children by the pedophilic "elites" instead Matthew Scott focuses on malicious smear of a messenger.Beech's targets were mainly "establishment" figures. Only one, the former Labour MP Greville Janner, was from the Labour Party, and his prominent position within the British Jewish community and his support for Israel made him, like Lord Brittan, a perfect target for the antisemitic agitators who gleefully climbed aboard Beech's bandwagon.
A Russian government energetically promoting [?] "anti-establishment" movements all over Europe was not about to miss an opportunity like this. George Galloway, used his platform as a presenter on the Russian state broadcaster RT.com to promote Beech's claims.
The unwelcome truth:
Greville Ewan Janner, Baron Janner of Braunstone, QC was a British politician, barrister and writer who was alleged to have abused vulnerable children, but died before court proceedings could formally establish the facts. He was an MP until 1997, and then elevated to the House of Lords. He was associated with a number of Jewish organizations including the Board of Deputies of British Jews, of which he was chairman from 1978 to 1984, and was later prominent in the field of education about the Holocaust.
Allegations that he had sexually abused children first emerged publicly in 1991, but Janner denied them and no action was taken. The accusations re-emerged shortly before Janner's death, and although the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) considered that there was enough evidence to merit prosecution, they decided that it would not be in the public interest as Janner had been diagnosed as suffering from dementia.
So convenient!
Another one with the ties to a "number of Jewish organizations:" https://www.thedailybeast.com/thatcher-protege-leon-brittan-was-a-pedophile-suspect "Thatcher Protégé Leon Brittan Was a Pedophile Suspect"Leon Brittan, the former Home Secretary, was long accused of covering up a Westminster child-sex ring. Now that he's died, authorities say he was a suspect as well.
"England: Land of Royals, Tea and Horrific Pedophilia Coverupshttps:"//time.com/2974381/england-land-of-royals-tea-and-horrific-pedophilia-coverups/
politicians with links to Margaret Thatcher's government sexually abused vulnerable children in the 1980s and hid the truth for decades through their "chumocracy."
Most notoriously of all, Sir Jimmy Savile, a BBC children's television presenter feted by the Royal Family and Downing Street, abused 450 victims, mostly boys and girls as young as eight over 50 years.
Lord Brittan, the Home Secretary to whom Dickens handed his dossier, told reporters he could not recall anything about it. But last week Lord Brittan issued a statement remembering that he had received the dossier and had asked his officials to study its contents. Over the weekend it emerged that Lord Brittan had been interviewed as a suspect in the rape of a 19-year-old in 1967..
Jul 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
nottheonly1 , Jul 24 2019 17:59 utc | 178
After having read all of the comments, I like to ask a question.Neither in the story, nor in the comment section, I found any remark about the Skripal affair.
Have you all forgotten how BOJO leaned himself out of the window, outdoing himself and his degenerate former boss by accusing Russia of poisoning the Skripals and whoever else with 'Novi-shock'?
And this pathetic liar and accuser of Russia with as much as ZERO evidence is now at the helm of HMS Titanic?
No wonder people can't figure out what's really going on in the world. Considering his rabid "The Russians did it" tripe as FM, he should have been barred from public office for the rest of his life.
Unless, of course, it's all nothing but low grade ham theater, with everybody playing their role - including the Russians. But I do remember the kind of actions this guy wanted to take against Russia, for 'highly likely' having been behind this fairy tale of a double agent and his daughter.
So, please humor me about how much you remember of the stellar performance of this utter joke calling for sanctions and worse against Russia.
Now what?
Jul 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Putin was apparently explaining a fairly straightforward and, to many observers, valid assessment of international politics. Namely, that Western establishments and institutions, including the mainstream media, are experiencing a crisis in authority. That crisis has arisen over several years due to popular perception that the governance of the political class is not delivering on democratic demands of accountability and economic progress. That in turn has led people to seek alternatives from the established parties, a movement in the US and Europe which is denigrated by the establishment as "populist" or rabble rousing.
Putin was not advocating any particular politics or political figures. He was merely pointing out the valid observation that the so-called liberal establishment has become obsolete, or dysfunctional.
In her speech this week, May sought to lay on a sinister spin to Putin's remarks as being somehow him egging on authoritarianism and anti-democratic politics.
Another example of distortion came from Donald Tusk, the European Council President, who also said of Putin's interview:
"I strongly disagree with the main argument that liberalism is obsolete. Whoever claims that liberal democracy is obsolete, also claims that freedoms are obsolete, that the rule of law is obsolete and that human rights are obsolete For us in Europe, these are and will remain essential and vibrant values. What I find really obsolete are: authoritarianism, personality cults, the rule of oligarchs."
Tusk's depiction of Putin being anti-democratic, anti-human rights and anti-law is a specious misdirection, or as May would say, "cynical falsehood".
Political leaders like May and Tusk are living in denial. They seem to suffer from a charmed delusion that all is rosy with the state of Western democracy. That somehow Western states are the acme of benign "liberalism".
By blaming evident deep-seated problems of poverty and apathy towards establishment politics on "sinister" targets of "populism" and "authoritarian strong men" is a form of escapism from reality.
In May's case, she has added good reason to escape from reality. Her political career is ending in disaster and disgrace for having led Britain into a shambles over its Brexit departure from the European Union. Of course, she would like a distraction from her abysmal record, and she seemed to find one in her farewell speech by firing a dud diatribe at Putin.
But let's re-examine her self-congratulatory claim more closely. "No one comparing the quality of life or economic success of liberal democracies like the UK, France and Germany to the Russian Federation would conclude that our system is obsolete."
There are two parts to that.
First, May is giving the usual establishment spiel about presumed superiority of Western "liberal democracy" as opposed to politics and governance in Russia.
This week coming, May hands in her resignation as Conservative party prime minister to the unelected head of state, Queen Elizabeth. The British monarch and her heirs rule as official head of state by a presumed "divine order". Some democracy that is!
May's successor will either be Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt. The next prime minister of Britain will be elected solely by members of Britain's Conservative party. As the Washington Post noted this week, the Tory party represents less than one per cent of the British population. So, the new leader of the United Kingdom is being decided not by a democratic national mandate, but by a tiny minority of party members whose demographic profile is typically rightwing, ardent nationalists, pro-militarist, white and elderly males. Moreover, the "selection" of new leader comes down to a choice between two politicians of highly dubious quality whose foreign policy tendency is to play sycophants to Washington. The way Johnson and Hunt have, for example, lent support to Trump's reckless aggression towards Iran is a portent of further scraping and bowing to American warmongering typical of Britain's "special relationship".
In the second part of May's presumed virtuous liberal democracy, she hails the "quality of economic success" of her nation as opposed to Russian society.
No-one, least of all Putin, is denying that reducing poverty is a social challenge for Russia. In a recent nationwide televised Q&A, the "elected" (please note) head of the Russian state called poverty reduction a priority for his government. However, Russia certainly doesn't need advice from the United Kingdom or many other Western states on that issue.
A recent major study in Britain found that some 21 per cent of the population (14 million people) are living in poverty. Homelessness and aggravated crime figures are also off the charts due to collapsing public services over a decade of economic austerity as deliberate government policy. The inequality gap between super-rich and poverty among the mass of people has exploded to a chasm in Britain, as in the US and other Western states.
These are some of the urgent issues that Putin was referring to when he asserted the "liberal idea is obsolete". Can anyone objectively surveying the bankrupt state of Western societies honestly dispute that?
Western states are fundamentally broken down because "liberalism" is an empty term which conceals rapacious corporate capitalism and the oligarchic rule of an elite political class. The advocates of "liberalism" like Britain's May, Johnson, Hunt or Tusk are the ones who are anti-democracy, anti-human rights and anti-law. Their denial about the systemic cause of poverty and injustice within their own societies and their complicity in American imperialist warmongering in the Middle East or belligerence towards Russia and China is the true "quality" of their "democratic principles".
If that's not obsolete then what is? And that's why May took a weird parting shot at Putin in a desperate diversion from reality.
Jul 20, 2019 | thehill.com
But lest anyone be tempted to think Steele's 2016 dossier is about to be mysteriously revived as credible, consider this: Over months of work, FBI agents painstakingly researched every claim Steele made about Trump's possible collusion with Russia, and assembled their findings into a spreadsheet-like document.
The over-under isn't flattering to Steele.
Multiple sources familiar with the FBI spreadsheet tell me the vast majority of Steele's claims were deemed to be wrong, or could not be corroborated even with the most awesome tools available to the U.S. intelligence community. One source estimated the spreadsheet found upward of 90 percent of the dossier's claims to be either wrong, nonverifiable or open-source intelligence found with a Google search.
In other words, it was mostly useless.
"The spreadsheet was a sea of blanks, meaning most claims couldn't be corroborated, and those things that were found in classified intelligence suggested Steele's intelligence was partly or totally inaccurate on several claims," one source told me.
The FBI declined comment when asked about the spreadsheet.
The FBI's final assessment was driven by many findings contained in classified footnotes at the bottom of the spreadsheet. But it was also informed by an agent's interview, in early 2017, with a Russian that Steele claimed was one of his main providers of intelligence, according to my sources.
The FBI came to suspect that the Russian misled Steele, either intentionally or through exaggeration, the sources said.
The spreadsheet and a subsequent report by special prosecutor Robert Mueller show just how far off the seminal claims in the Steele dossier turned out to be.
For example, U.S. intelligence found no evidence that Carter Page, during a trip to Moscow in July 2016, secretly met with two associates of Vladimir Putin Igor Sechin and senior government official Igor Divyekin -- as part of the effort to collude with the Trump campaign, as Steele reported.
Page did meet with a lower-level Rosneft official, and shook hands with a Russian deputy prime minister, the FBI found, but it was a far cry from the tale that Steele's dossier spun.
Likewise, Steele claimed that Sechin had offered Page a hefty finder's fee if he could get Trump to help lift sanctions on Moscow: "a 19 percent (privatized) stake in Rosneft in return."
That offer, worth billions of dollars, was never substantiated and was deemed by some in U.S. intelligence to be preposterous.
The inaccuracy of Steele's intelligence on Page is at the heart of the inspector general investigation specifically because the FBI represented to the FISA court that the intelligence on Page was verified and strong enough to support the FISA warrant. It was, in the end, not verified.
Another knockdown of the dossier occurred when U.S. intelligence determined former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was not in Prague in the summer of 2016 when Steele claimed he was meeting with Russians to coordinate a hijacking of the election, the sources said.
Steele's theory about who in the Trump campaign might be conspiring with Russia kept evolving from Page to Cohen to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. None of those theories checked out in the end, as the Mueller report showed.
Again, Steele's intelligence was wrong or unverifiable.
The salacious, headline-grabbing claim that Russians had incriminating sex tapes showing Trump engaged in depraved acts with prostitutes also met a factual dead end when the FBI interviewed the Georgian-American businessman who claimed to know about them. Giorgi Rtskhiladze told investigators "he was told the tapes were fake," according to a footnote in the Mueller report. Rtskhiladze's lawyer subsequently issued a letter taking issue with some of Mueller's characterizations.
Steele had some general things right, of course, including that the Russians were behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee's emails. Of course, there were public reports saying so when Steele reported this.
But even then, his dossier's theory of how the hackers worked, who paid them and how they communicated with Trump was determined in the FBI spreadsheet and subsequent Mueller investigation to be far from accurate.
Even State officials, who listened to Steele's theories in October 2016 -- less than two weeks before his dossier was used to support the FISA request -- instantly determined he was grossly wrong on some points.
Any effort to use Steele's belated cooperation with the inspector general's investigation to prop up the credibility of his 2016 anti-Trump dossier or the FBI's reliance on it for the FISA warrant is deeply misguided.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a key defender of Trump, said he talked with DOJ officials after the most recent stories surfaced about Steele and was told the reporting is wrong. "Based on my conversations with DOJ officials, recent reports which suggest Christopher Steele's dossier and allegations are somehow deemed credible by DOJ, are simply false and not based on any confirmation from sources with direct knowledge of ongoing investigations," Meadows told me.
The FBI's own spreadsheet was so conclusive that it prompted then-FBI Director James Comey (no fan of Trump, mind you) to dismiss the document as " salacious and unverified " and for lead FBI agent Peter Strzok to text, " There's no big there there ." FBI lawyer Lisa Page testified that nine months into reviewing Steele's dossier they had not found evidence of the collusion that Steele alleged.
Two years later, Mueller came to the same conclusion: Steele's intelligence alleging a conspiracy was never verified.
The next time you hear a pundit suggesting Steele's dossier is credible or that the FBI's reliance on it as FISA evidence was justified, just picture all those blanks in that FBI spreadsheet.
They speak volumes as to what went wrong in the Russia investigation.
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports .
Jul 19, 2019 | consortiumnews.com
The 'Unconstitutional Animus' Against UK Labour Leader July 16, 2019 • 39 Comments
Johanna Ross spoke with David Miller, a propaganda researcher, after the recent publicity of U.K. civil service murmurings about Jeremy Corbyn's "fitness."
By Johanna Ross
in Edinburgh, Scotland
Special to Consortium NewsA couple of weeks ago, The Times of London published an article about senior civil servants fearing U.K. opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn was "too frail" to be prime minister. Reportedly they also thought he "lacks both a firm grasp of foreign affairs and the domestic agenda."
This is the same civil service that is supposed to maintain complete neutrality and according to its code "must not act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests."
Corbyn fought back, arguing that it was unacceptable that civil servants were briefing newspapers on an elected politician. He demanded an independent inquiry into who was spreading such fabrications in the press and "compromising the integrity of the civil service."
Controversial BBC graphic seeking to link Corbyn to Russia.
For David Miller, a professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol, who investigates concentrations of power and ways to hold them accountable, the idea that the British civil service may not be impartial in its operations is hardly surprising.
Far from ever being objective, he told Consortium News that the civil service now clearly has "an unconstitutional animus against a potential Corbyn government and has been briefing against it one way or another through various agencies for some time now."
Catalog of Smears
Indeed, the anti-Corbyn bias within the establishment has been obvious in the catalog of smears on Corbyn and his team since he came to the Labour leadership; from allegations of being a "Soviet sleeper" to being "anti-Semitic" and now to questions about his overall fitness.
David Miller: Faction fight against Corbyn. (University of Bristol)
Miller said most of the allegations were created by a number of organisations and individuals who are "involved in a faction fight with the Corbyn leadership."
Noam Chomsky, a leading U.S. social critic, is among those who have spoken out against what he termed a "witch hunt" against the Labour leader and his supporters.
Whether or not anti-Semitism exists in the party, Miller said the accusations are out of hand. "Almost everyone who says anything which is either critical of Israel or critical of the party's response to the anti-Semitism crisis is denounced as an anti-Semite," Miller said. "The question is how long will it be before everyone sees that the people who are involved in this have overreached themselves."
Attempts to undermine potential socialist governments are of course, not new.
Miller gives the example of the Zinoviev case – when a fake letter was published in the Daily Mail in 1924 just prior to the general election, suggesting Communists in Britain were taking orders from Moscow. The goal was clearly to undermine the British Labour movement.
Miller also points to the case of former Prime Minister Harold Wilson. "Despite what may now be said by some elements of the security state," Miller said that British agencies were engaged in an active plot to undermine Wilson's elected government.
As another example, Miller offered the "Information Research Department," first proposed in 1947 and sold to the cabinet as a bipartisan, anti-Communist and anti-American propaganda operation. In fact, Miller described it as a "secret, covert, anti-Communist propaganda operation which in the 70s was engaged in undermining the Wilson government."
Today, Miller said, similar agencies in the U.K. government are doing the same thing.
Harold Wilson in 1986. (Allan Warren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Integrity Initiative
As an example, Miller cites the Integrity Initiative; organized by the government's Institute for Statecraft, which has a stated mission of countering "Russian disinformation and malign influence by harnessing existing expertise and establishing a network of experts, opinion formers and policy makers to educate national audiences in the threat and to help build national capacities to counter it." Its website is incidentally now empty pending an investigation into the "theft of its data" – after a hack exposed detail of the extent to which the government-funded program was itself engaged in disinformation.
Miller, who runs the Bristol-based Organisation for Propaganda Studies, said the scheme was found to be spreading its own disinformation and openly criticizing opposition leader Corbyn and his party.
"Corbyn has recently said in relation to the most recent criticism from the civil service that there are people in the establishment that are trying to undermine Corbyn, his office, his advisors and supporters of him," Miller said. "And that's what the Integrity Initiative was doing."
Cartoon published by Punch after the Zinoviev letter was released, depicting a Bolshevik campaigning for Ramsay MacDonald, head of the short-lived Labour government of 1924. (Wikimedia Commons)
Miller said this was clear from the very beginning of the Integrity Initiative when it was regularly engaged in tweeting or retweeting attacks on Corbyn and his closest advisors.
Miller calls the use of taxpayers' money to interfere in domestic politics an affront to democracy.
"A government-funded project was engaged in attacking the leader of the opposition," Miller said, "which is unconstitutional and something the U.K. civil service should not be involved in they crossed the line when they started attacking Corbyn. And when we look back on this period, the Integrity Initiative, its funding by the Foreign Office and its base in British military intelligence will be one of the strands of the activities which will be seen to have been a secret state campaign against the elected leader of the Labour party."
Miller would like to see an investigation into the attacks on Corbyn and whether they had been effectively funded by the Foreign Office, but doesn't hold out much hope of that happening.
Six months ago, Shadow Home Secretary Emily Thornberry demanded answers to how this could have happened, with no result.
And Chris Williamson, a Labour MP and Corbyn supporter who was trying to investigate the Integrity Initiative, found himself suspended from the party after he was targeted with allegations of anti-Semitism.
Corbyn's call for an independent investigation into the civil service leak to the press has also, as expected, been rejected by the government.
Johanna Ross is a freelance journalist based in the United Kingdom.
If you enjoyed this original article, please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.
Michael McNulty , July 18, 2019 at 05:52
After he won the second round to remain Labour Party leader Corbyn should have left the party to form a new socialist party, taking his large following and their subscriptions with him. He would have had three years behind him with a new movement, one which would not have had the back-stabbers and poisoners he's having to deal with daily. It would have been quite established now and a real political force. I think the Labour Party is so polluted that the left must break away; it's the only way we can overturn the excesses and failures of neo-liberalism which for most people is a truly dreadful system.
Maz Palmer , July 17, 2019 at 15:02
They are all much worse than bozos (or Bezos); they are all plutocrats, oligarchs, neo-liberal neo-fascist capitalists. That is what all of this is about: this is all a campaign by capitalists, plutocrats, oligarchs, monarchs, aristocrats, to keep expandable, pitiful average plebs from ever voting for something better than corporate serfdom and debt slavery.
Hopelb , July 17, 2019 at 21:52
Upvote!
Piotr Berman , July 17, 2019 at 14:55
"lacks both a firm grasp of foreign affairs and the domestic agenda."
It makes me wonder how Teresa May and her Cabinet, including the next PM, fares in such assessment. Nincompoops, loud mouths, poodles, and worshipers of woodoo economics.
James , July 17, 2019 at 14:22
I get it. Corbyn is Pro-Palestinian, anti-war and Pro-Worker so they are trying to get rid of him.
All I see are articles attacking him. Are there people/forces behind him supporting him? Is his support significant among other Labour MP's and the Public at large?
Piotr Berman , July 17, 2019 at 16:11
The problem is that UK public opinion is quite chaotic at this point and "everything is possible". At some point, four parties had roughly the same poll numbers: Tories, Brexit, Labour and LibDems. However, in the last two weeks Labour and Tories gained with Labour ahead. In a system with single seat districts, "anything can happen", and a recent by-election suggested that Labour may have an advantage in "foot soldiers", volunteers who walk around a district chatting up voters. The internal fights in Labour attracted many new members, and from the point of view of "sensible folks in the Establishment", this is the worst type of rubble. No respect for monarchy, the Trident, necessity of low taxes on business and the rich and so on. And anti-Semitic to boot.
So the meaning of "Corbyn is frail" is that while he himself seems mild mannered, his victory will unleashed the unwashed hordes wrecking everything which is good and he hold dear, like the monarchy, the Trident and so on.
Piotr Berman , July 17, 2019 at 16:45
The problem is that UK public opinion is quite chaotic lately and "everything is possible". At some point, four parties had roughly the same poll numbers: Tories, Brexit, Labour and LibDems. However, in the last two weeks Labour and Tories gained with Labour ahead. In a system with single seat districts, "anything can happen", and a recent by-election suggested that Labour may have an advantage in "foot soldiers", volunteers who walk around a district chatting up voters. The internal fights in Labour attracted many new members, and from the point of view of "sensible folks in the Establishment", this is the worst type of rabble. No respect for the monarchy, the Trident, the necessity of low taxes on business and the rich and so on. And anti-Semitic to boot.
So the meaning of "Corbyn is frail" is that while he himself seems mild mannered, his victory would unleashed unwashed hordes wrecking everything which is good and that we hold dear, like the monarchy, the Trident and so on.
Jeff Ewener , July 17, 2019 at 13:26
Gob-smacking. To call a man with the intelligence, experience, sensitivity & integrity of Jeremy Corbyn "unfit" to be the British Prime Minister, while a monstrosity like Boris Johnson is standing on the doorstep of Number 10 – just takes the breath away.
rosemerry , July 17, 2019 at 15:45
Not to mention the former "New Labour" leaders whose policies fell far away from the traditional policies Corbyn has held to and which caused so many Britons to support him as leader.
Hayman Fan , July 18, 2019 at 11:49
Integrity? Are you joking? Corbyn has been anti-EU for 40 years. In fact, he is the only main party leader who voted leave in the last people's vote (aka the referendum). But he has tried to hid that fact. He has been sitting on the fence and playing politics with the issue. Many fools in Britain believe Corbyn is a remainer. A man of integrity would have explained to the British people his long held position on the EU and Brexit. But he didn't do that because he isn't a man of integrity. He wants to con his way into power and if he gets there (looking unlikely right now), he and his Stalinist henchpeople will wield that power ruthlessly.
Richard Kuper , July 17, 2019 at 12:37
Fascinating article. May we repost it on jvl.org.uk?
Eddie , July 17, 2019 at 12:36
Comment that I posted on the Malware article do not post.
Zenobia van Dongen , July 17, 2019 at 11:39
In English-speaking countries anti-Semitic is just a code word for pro-Islamic. Miller himself is deeply involved in efforts to make extremist Islam respectable and justifying terrorist indoctrination.
Simeon Hope , July 17, 2019 at 13:05
Okay, I'll take your comment as made in good faith but you will need to back it up with good evidence. Where is it?
Qui? , July 18, 2019 at 03:22
Palestinians are semites, as the rest of the Arabs. So who is the real antisemite now?
Truth first , July 17, 2019 at 11:37
A "communist" who is against war, nukes and massive inequality is OK by me.
Hayman Fan , July 18, 2019 at 07:28
Is it indeed. Then your are a fool. Pol Pot was a communist who was against war and nukes and massive inequality. But implementing totalitarism by force didn't turn out well for the Cambodian people. And it wouldn't turn out well for the British people either. Except for Corbyn and his henchpeople of course.
dean 1000 , July 17, 2019 at 10:42
Jews in Europe and the US have gone from being heavily discriminated against to having much more influence on government than their numbers warrant. I'm going to tell the Netanyahu joke to make my point. Don't know who to credit. Kudos anyway. "It is not anti-Semitic to disagree with Benjamin Netanyahu as he is as white as the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan."
Given the influence of US and European Jews it is well past time for them to stop screaming anti-semitism when someone has a divergent opinion. They should stop using Semitic people as human shields.
The left also likes to hurl anti-Semitism at political opponents when they don't have a relevant answer.
Unfounded criticism of Jews is anti-Jewish rather than anti-Semitic. Call it what it is.
Ron Striebig , July 17, 2019 at 06:26
As Albert Einstein says Capitalism is an Evil supported by those who are terrified of Jeremy Corbyn because like Jesus he is a true Socialist
Que Nelle , July 17, 2019 at 05:52
To be accused of antisemitism by zionists that champion the racist entity israel, is a badge of honor.
Vivian O'Blivion , July 17, 2019 at 03:30
If the Integrity Initiative really is shut down, the little Simon Bracey-Lane will be free to cross the pond and campaign for Bernie just like he did in 2015 / 2016. Nah, just kiddin', his cover is blown. But seriously, campaign managers for Tulsi Gabbard best be on guard against inflation from these snakes.
Hayman Fan , July 17, 2019 at 02:51
Guys be careful with this. Corbyn is a communist. He is surrounded by Stalinists. Their modus operandi is entryism + free stuff + perpetual attacks on cultural norms. They used to laud the USSR. Then Venezuala. Now China. If they ever manage to grab power, they will stamp on individual liberty. Just like China does. The Muslim vote is very important to them and whilst they despise conventional religions, they will happily 'buy' Muslim votes with anti Israeli and anti Semitic rhetoric. The loudest voices speaking up against Corbyn and his henchpeople are on the left. Be a little bit circumspect.
Truth first , July 17, 2019 at 11:36
A "communist" who is against war, nukes and massive inequality is OK by me.
Simeon Hope , July 17, 2019 at 13:09
Errr what ? Israel does enough on its own to show how anti-Arab and undemocratic it is without the need for Jeremy Corbyn to add anything. I'm a socialist. I support what Mr Corbyn is doing to promote socialism in the UK. There's not the slightest evidence he's an anti-Semite, and the tiny amount of anti-Semitism in the Labour party is dwarfed by what's emanating from the right against Jews and Muslims.
Just say no , July 17, 2019 at 13:58
This is a joke right. You say communist and you reference China, but in the last century it was ok to ship nearly the entire industrial base of Western Democracies to China so that a bunch of fat cat tycoons, investment bankers, hedge funders et al could become so rich they finally had enough money to purchase the U.S. Government, and it looks like the government of Britain too. That's where we are today.
There may be "communists" lurking somewhere mostly in the imagination who are trotted out whenever a left person obtains a plurality. What has happened to Jeremy Corbyn is horrifying and we have our own issues in the U.S. with the endless smears and lies regarding the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. We live in a world of fabrication, sanctions enough to go around for everyone. Even the little state of RI is sanctioned by Moody's for having the effrontery to pass a bill which "gives too much away to labor" but Moody's and the other ratings agencies gave triple AAA ratings to junk during the "great recession" plain and simple, and no one cared. We need a Nuremburg trial for Capitalism and all its practioners.
Piotr Berman , July 18, 2019 at 00:33
"You say communist and you reference China, "
You are wrong is several ways. First, "There may be "communists" lurking somewhere mostly in the imagination who are trotted out whenever a left person obtains a plurality." Corbyn was observed to be a threat the moment he was elected Labour leader, something that stumped large segments of "informed public". Due to the surprise element, the anti-Semitic angle was not exploited properly, with possible exception of some Zionist whack jobs who harranged him. Instead, two points were raised that really jolted my attention.
First, Corbyn was sooo extreme that he advocated discontinuation of Trident program and even, horror!, the entirety of British nuclear arms program. You could as well raise huge signs ?????? ?y???? ???????! on English shores.
Second, his bicycling habits were compared to China during the orthodox Communist year, when riding on non-descript bikes was heavily supported by pre-Capitalist leadership.
Mind you, a person of note may ride a bike without shame, but not the cheap and aged specimen favored by Corbyn. Finally, compromising photos were found showing Corbyn relaxing and revealing his red socks.
Paul Merrell , July 17, 2019 at 23:40
@ "Hayman Fan"
A rather dubious name, methinks. See https://preview.tinyurl.com/y3us8776
Sounds like you just couldn't stand not posting a troll comment on an article about your own activities, yes?
ToivoS , July 16, 2019 at 22:54
This incessant accusation of antisemitism against anyone who supports justice for Palestinians does seem to be effective. A decade ago when I first noticed this smear tactic I assumed it would be self defeating on the part of the Zionists and their backers. It sort of seemed obvious that such a tactic would be self limiting with the broader world beginning to reject such slander. However, it seems the smear is more effective today than it was ten years ago. So depressing. Watching Corbyn's supporters ripping apart his own base in the Labour Party in an effort to appease the Israelis is appalling -- it seems the more that is conceded the more aggressive the Zionist become. Ten years ago it was proper to describe the West Bank as "occupied territory", soon it will be considered antisemitic to even go that far.
David G , July 16, 2019 at 21:21
In addition, in 2015, an unnamed, serving British general was quoted saying that if a Corbyn government implemented his well-established anti-imperial and anti-nuke agenda, "there would be mass resignations at all levels [of the military] and you would face the very real prospect of an event which would effectively be a mutiny." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-army-could-stage-mutiny-under-corbyn-says-senior-serving-general-10509742.html
David G , July 16, 2019 at 21:07
" the 'Information Research Department,' first proposed in 1947 and sold to the cabinet as a bipartisan, anti-Communist and anti-American propaganda operation."
"Anti-American" is a slip, right? I assume it was pro-American (or pro-USAian).
David Miller , July 17, 2019 at 04:17
My apologies, I was paraphrasing the work of Lyn Smith in her article on IRD in Millennium in 1980. It should really be 'anti capitalist'. According Smith the founder of IRD (Christopher Mayhew) put forward a plan to set up a cold war propaganda agency:
'Mayhew put forward his ideas: the campaign should be as positive as possible laying stress on the merits of Social Democracy but, he pointed out "we shouldn't appear as defenders of the status quo but should attack Capitalism and Imperialism along with Russian Communism" In fact at this early stage, the idea was more of a "third force" propaganda attacking Capitalism as well as communism (this, however, was not to last for, as later documents reveal, anti Communism soon cam to the fore).'(Covert British Propaganda: The Information Research Department: 1947-77, Millennium, 9(1), p68-9)
In fact the idea that it would be anti capitalist was a ruse used by Mayhew to deceive the left members of the British cabinet. As my colleague and I Will Dinan summarised in our book A Century of Spin (Pluto Press, 2008, p130-1):
IRD was not created with the knowing support of the Labour Cabinet. The author of the paper which went to the cabinet – Christoper Mayhew – was a Labour right winger and cold warrior. He dissembled to the cabinet about the purpose and function of the IRD by claiming that it was to be a 'Third Force' campaign, understood as policy intended by the left to be independent of both the US and the USSR. According to Mayhew himself:
I thought it was necessary to present the whole campaign in a positive way, in a way which Dick Crossman and Michael Foot would fi nd it hard to oppose. And they were calling for a Third Force so I recommended in the original paper I put to Bevin that we call it a Third Force propaganda campaign.
As Mayhew noted, 'the turning point' was the speech of George Marshall the US Secretary of State in June 1947. From 'the middle of 1947 onwards, decisions were taken towards uniting the free world, at the expense of widening the gap with the Communist world our immediate objective changed, from "one world" to "one free world"'.
It is interesting, in this light, to reflect what might/will happen once a Corbyn government is elected with – how should we put this – a minority of leftists in the cabinet.
David G , July 17, 2019 at 15:27
Very interesting! I guess the propagandists back then had a little more finesse than the idiotic bludgeoning the US/UK establishment is laying on us these days. Thanks for the clarification, David Miller!
Jeff Harrison , July 16, 2019 at 21:05
The British Political Class has the same problem as the American Political Class – No integrity, No Honesty, No ethics. Just the sort of bozos we need running countries.
Maz Palmer , July 17, 2019 at 14:59
They are all much worse than bozos (or Bezos); they are all plutocrats, oligarchs, neo-liberal neo-fascist capitalists. That is what all of this is about: this is all a campaign by capitalists, plutocrats, oligarchs, monarchs, aristocrats, to keep expandable, pitiful average plebs from ever voting for something better than corporate serfdom and debt slavery.
Jul 15, 2019 | www.unz.com
When Sir Kim Darroch's secret cable to London was leaked to the Daily Mail, wherein he called the Trump administration "dysfunctional unpredictable faction-riven diplomatically clumsy and inept," the odds on his survival as U.K. ambassador plummeted.
When President Donald Trump's tweeted retort called Darroch "wacky," a "stupid guy" and "pompous fool" who had been "foisted on the US," the countdown to the end began.
Rurik , says: July 12, 2019 at 12:18 am GMT
Begemot , says: July 12, 2019 at 12:32 am GMTKim's departure do not cancel out that American interest.
(I made sure I left out the laughable and ludicrous title)
But his departure in any case, is hilarious. The British aristocracy today are a den of pedophiles and corrupt, war mongering scum.
If there was a shed of decency in England, Tony Blair would be in a cage, every member of the BBC who facilitated Jimmy Savil's serial predations would be in a cage. And the person who handed the scrip for the controlled demolition of building seven to the BBC journalist, would be interrogated to the n'th, to find out who knew and how.
But instead that rotting nation is busy jailing a young man for calling attention to serial gang rape of England's school girls, while the pedophile elites are busy trying to figure out how to tell the British people that the ruse of "democracy' has been a charade all along, and that they're not going to get their precious Brexit, because their feudal lords at the ((ECB)) would consider that inconvenient.
not cancel out that American interest
"American interest", eh? What pray might that possibly be? What even, is an American?
If you arrive here illegally, and step foot on the soil, many Americans, (obviously most of the Democrats) consider you an American in better standing than the citizens whose ancestors have lived in these lands and fought in her wars, for untold generations.
So if there's really no such thing as an American, and the courts have decided that the Constitution applies to every person on the planet, then cyphering who exactly is an American, when all 7+ billion people in the world are, is a tricky thing.
And as for that elusive "American interest", it seems that too is a conundrum. Are the Eternal Wars, an American interest? Were the bank bailouts, an American interest? Or a Wall Street, international finance – interest.
Those are the things the American tax-slave is forced to shovel trillions of dollars out for, but I hardly see how doing so serves the American people whatsoever. Indeed, quite the contrary.
For decades now, the snakes holed up in DC and London- are the greatest enemies the American people have ever known.
Ironically, if I were to scan the horizon for a nation who's principles actually are aligned with that of the American people, vs. our enemies in DC and London, I'd have to say that it's Putin's Russia that fills that ticket.
The only nation on the planet were our most heroic and iconic American patriot had to flee for his life to, to escape torture and death by our enemies in DC. When he tried to point out that our government is a den of traitorous scoundrels.
Russia is the only nation that has reined in the most recent catastrophic follies in our Eternal Wars for Israel.
Were it not for Russia, many more thousands of our young men and women would have perished by now in myriad wars in the Middle East to bolster Israel.
And many more trillions of dollars would have been borrowed to that end, all on the leger for the children and grandchildren of the American people.
Russia is the actual American people's most unlikely ally, in spite of "our" elites.
Britain is a rotting carcass of a once great empire. But like the ZUS, it allowed itself to be 'Jewed', and so now it's dying a humiliating and ignoble death.
If there's any lesson to all of this, it is don't go the way of England, and allow the perfidy of your elites, to abase your nation's future to it's most intractable enemy.
SeekerofthePresence , says: July 12, 2019 at 1:06 am GMTBritain an ally? Not since the end of WW2, I think. In Orwell's "1984" the island of Great Britain is called Airstrip One. Orwell understood, I think, that Britain had become a mere vassal of the "cousins" across The Pond. At best Britain is a remora to the American shark, gobbling tidbits that escape the American maw.
@BegemotJacques Sheete , says: July 12, 2019 at 1:45 am GMTAirstrip One and Ingsoc. https://www.youtube.com/embed/cBUI3jjEXgc?feature=oembed
Miro23 , says: July 12, 2019 at 2:27 am GMTI don't think that Britain ever was an ally. It, like the parasite known as Israel, has long squeezed Uncle Sucker for everything it could snatch.
Common language, culture, banking mafiosi, pedophiles etc., etc., blah, blah blah, notwithstanding, to hell with the SoBs. And they can stuff their Rhodes "scholars," too.
Miro23 , says: July 12, 2019 at 3:04 am GMTYet, in terms of language, culture, ethnicity, history, geography, America has no more natural ally across the sea. And the unfortunate circumstances of Sir Kim's departure do not cancel out that American interest.
I would say, that since the 1970's, the US and the UK have been fast going down together. They have both lost their identity.
They are the ideological centers Neoliberalism, de-industrialization, outsourcing, multiculturalism, political correctness and SJWism, and both have disconnected extractive elites. It's an Anglo-Jewish thing that's also pulling down Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
@Miro23NYMOM , says: July 12, 2019 at 4:52 am GMTAnd the world capitals of the Zio-Glob are New York, Washington, London, Paris and Tel Aviv. For example, they orchestrated the destruction of the Middle East, and are currently maneuvering for the destruction of Iran, and they're the ones facing off against Russia and China
Russia and China are outside their orbit, and are pushing back in places like Syria and Venezuela , and R&C are looking at economic alternatives to the dollar reserve currency and international payments through SWIFT.
I would expect currently neutral border zones to pull away from the West. Eastern Europe towards Russia and Japan and SE Asia towards China.
Kevin Frost , says: July 12, 2019 at 9:27 am GMTI guess Churchill was corrrect when he said "there are no permanent allies, only permanent interests" or something to that effect
I think, at this point, we might be better off looking to a newly re-constructed Russia as an ally than an ailing Great Britian which seems to be falling apart at the seams.
peter mcloughlin , says: July 12, 2019 at 11:24 am GMTAnglo-American 'natural alliance'? The alliance of these two countries has seriously weakened the traditional constitution of both countries. I take the view that W.S. Churchill has much to answer for. It was he, more than anyone, who undermined the traditional policy of both countries.
Prior to Pearl Harbour, and in spite of America's entry into the First War, the vast majority of Americans still held to the advise of outgoing president Washington when he said: 'let us trade, with all nations, and by all means. But let it stop at that'. No European wars is what Washington meant.
Churchill did everything he could to undermine this policy but as he did, he also subverted Great Britain's old policy. Palmerston said that British policy was predicated upon permanent interests not permanent allies – or enemies for that matter.
Since the Second War Britain has become a dog on a leash, nothing more. Churchill did what he did to save the empire, not England; he really lost both. But the worst loss of all was the American republic that in the post war period grasped after universal empire and destroyed itself in the process. The alliance in question is good for bankers in New York and London. But as for the rest of us .. not so much.
David Stanley , says: July 12, 2019 at 12:46 pm GMTThere are strong ethnic and cultural links between Britain and the United States. But, as Patrick Buchanan points out, these factors did not prevent conflict between the two. What forms relationships are interests. They cut across all apparently unifying principles: family, kin, nation, religion, ideology, politics – everything. The 'Zimmerman Telegram' was a decisive factor in the US joining the First World War, its implications so vital to core American interests.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/Kolya Krassotkin , says: July 12, 2019 at 2:38 pm GMTThe email was leaked on orders of the Foreign Office (SIS.) It's purpose is irrelevant to U.S interests. It's about UK politics and the establishment controlling intra party shenanigans. Very entertaining!!
Amerimutt Golems , says: July 12, 2019 at 3:45 pm GMTWe have had no moral reason to continue our special relationship with the UK since arch-villain, Sir Tony Blair, turned it into The Caliphate of Albion.
The countries of Churchill and Thatcher and of Reagan and Kennedy(JFK) are dead. Time to stop fashioning international policies and programs according to historical realities that ended at least a generation ago.
Alan , says: July 12, 2019 at 3:46 pm GMTAmerica has no more natural ally across the sea. And the unfortunate circumstances of Sir Kim's departure do not cancel out that American interest.
'Special relationship' is shorthand for the British ruling class trying to manipulate U.S. foreign policy, much like Zionists today.
The Monroe Doctrine was essentially British Foreign Minister George Canning's idea while Scottish-born Canadian spy William Stephenson undermined American isolationists during WWII.
Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign Against American "Neutrality" in World War II by Nicholas J. Cull is a good read. Equally insightful is this 1975 interview of Sir Oswald Mosley who was against the Polish guarantee.
Curmudgeon , says: July 12, 2019 at 6:49 pm GMTGiven examples are fake. It was American forces who covertly destroyed the USS Maine in order to start a war with Spain for territorial control. The Zimmermann letter was created by British Intelligence as a means of helping America into a war it's people didn't want to be a part of. Britain didn't tilt towards the confederacy it hedged it's bets with both sides in order to exploit the civil war for it's own gain. It's easy to alter history to suit an argument. There is no special relationship, just many touch points for mutual exploitation at the expense of their respective populations.
@Rurik acy. Dimwits like Darroch receive their "Sir" by being put on the "Honours list" by politicians. The titles are not hereditary. There may well be pedophiles and war mongering scum among the aristocracy, just as there are in every "elite". However, note that "Sir" Jimmie Savile and "Lord" Janner who were at the centre of the pedophile scandal did not have hereditary titles, they were "life peers". Titled elites – yes, aristocrats – no.Virgile , says: July 12, 2019 at 9:19 pm GMTOne reason the treasonous POS Blair passed legislation to do away with the hereditary seats in the House of Lords, is that they, as the real aristocracy, opposed most of the "New Labour" agenda, and often asked embarrassing questions.
Jonathan Mason , says: July 12, 2019 at 11:28 pm GMTOutside the EU, the UK will be on its own and fairly isolated. That makes it the best ally and prey for the USA. The UK will offer to act an USA agent in the region, a sort of christian Israel.
Happy to free themselves from the EU diktat, the British will soon discover that they are getting the diktat now from the USA and Israel. Good luck!
dfordoom , says: Website July 13, 2019 at 4:40 am GMTNow that Trump has his state visit out of the way and has had afternoon tea with the Queen, there is nothing to stop him turning on the UK like a rabid dog. The leaked diplomatic cables said nothing that anybody who reads a newspaper didn't already know, and clearly the 'outrage' is fake.
Darroch was a bright young man who grew up in public housing and made a success of his career. He will retire a little earlier than expected, but will no doubt benefit from speaking fees, publishing his memoirs, etc. with much more name recognition that he would otherwise have had. He will probably be glad to get out of steamy Washington early.
@NYMOMdfordoom , says: Website July 13, 2019 at 4:48 am GMTI guess Churchill was corrrect when he said "there are no permanent allies, only permanent interests" or something to that effect
I think you'll find that that was Lord Palmerston.
@bob sykesGordo , says: July 13, 2019 at 11:35 am GMTWe have literally nothing in common with UK/AU/CA/NZ, and we should stop the idea that there is a special relationship with any of them. There isn't.
I agree.
To be honest Britain and the U.S. never did have any interests in common. The U.S. saw Britain as an economic and imperial rival to be destroyed or neutered. They chose neutering.
Not that the destruction of Britain as a great power bothers me. The British were responsible for doing an immense amount of harm.
The same applies to the Australia-U.S. "alliance" – two nations with zero interests in common. To the extent that Australia has a natural ally it's China.
All in all, a bad week for the British Foreign Office when one of its principle diplomats is virtually declared persona non grata
principal. Oh and our Foreign Secretary, Boris, was a US citizen until 2016, no-one cared, if your IRS hadn't started asking him questions about his tax returns he would still be a US citizen. Our elites and yours get on great together.
The divide is between the elites on one hand and the peoples on the other.
Feb 13, 2019 | jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com
"He drew near and saw the city, and he wept for it saying, 'If you had only recognized the things that make for peace. But now you are blinded to them. Truly, the days will come when your enemies will set up barriers to surround you, and hem you in on every side. Then they will crush you into the earth, you and your children. And they will not leave one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the way to your salvation.'"
Luke 19:41-44
"You hypocrites! You build monuments for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of His messengers.'"
Matthew 23:29-30
...the results of the Senate GOP finding no evidence of 'collusion' with Russia by the Trump Administration to influence the results of the presidential election..
This last item is not surprising, because this entire Russian collusion meme seems as though it is an hysterical reaction to the spin put out by the Clinton political faction and their neoliberal enablers after their shocking loss in the 2016 Presidential election.
Too bad though, because the financial corruption and private pilfering using public power, money laundering and the kind of soft corruption that is rampant amongst our new elite is all there. And by there we mean on both sides of the fence -- which is why it had to take a back seat to a manufactured boogeyman.
... ... ...
There is a long road ahead before we see anything like a resolution to this troubling period in American political history.
We look back at other troubled periods and places, and either see them as discrete and fictional, a very different world apart, or through some rosy lenses of good old times which were largely benign and peaceful. We fail to see the continuity, the similarity, and the commonality of a dangerous path with ourselves. As they did with their own times gone by. Madness blinds its acolytes, because they wish it so. They embrace it to hide their shame.
We are reassured and misled by the same kinds of voices that have always served the status quo and the monied interests, the think tanks, the so-called 'institutes,' and the web sites and former con men who offer a constant stream of thinly disguised propaganda and misstatements of principle and history. We are comforted by their lies.
People want to hear these reassuring words of comfort and embrace it like a 'religion,' because they do not wish to draw the conclusions that the genuine principles of faith suggest (dare we say command in this day and age) in their daily lives. They blind themselves by adopting a kind of a schizoid approach to life, where 'religion' occupies a discrete, rarefied space, and 'political or economic philosophy' dictates another set of everyday 'practical' observances and behaviors which are more pliable, and pleasing to our hardened and prideful hearts.
We wish to strike a deal with the Lord, and a deal with the Devil -- to serve both God and Mammon as it suits us. It really is that cliché. And it is so finely woven into the fabric of our day that we cannot see it; we cannot see that it is happening to us and around us.
And so we trot on into the abyss, one exception and excuse and rationalization for ourselves at a time. And we blind ourselves with false prophets and their profane theories and philosophies.
As for truth, the truth that brings life, we would interrupt the sermon on the mount itself, saying that this sentiment was all very well and good, but what stocks should we buy for our portfolio, and what horse is going to win the fifth at Belmont? Tell us something useful, practical! Oh, and can you please fix this twinge in my left shoulder? It is ruining my golf game.
"Those among the rich who are not, in the rigorous sense, damned, can understand poverty, because they are poor themselves, after a fashion; they cannot understand destitution. Capable of giving alms, perhaps, but incapable of stripping themselves bare, they will be moved, to the sound of beautiful music, at Jesus's sufferings, but His Cross, the reality of His Cross, will horrify them. They want it all out of gold, bathed in light, costly and of little weight; pleasant to see, hanging from a woman's beautiful throat."No surprise in this. It has always been so, especially in times of such vanity and greed as are these. Then is now. There is nothing new under the sun. And certainly nothing exceptional about the likes of us in our indulgent self-destruction.Léon Bloy
Are you not entertained?
Jul 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
aspnaz , Jul 9 2019 0:02 utc | 83
This is a blatant UK and US intelligence hit job aimed at influencing the 2020 election:
- "UK hijacks oil tanker": Message="UK is prepared to take action against Iran, why is Trump so war shy"
- "Trump asks Iran before bombing": Message=ditto the above.
- "Diplomatic cables released "accidentally" by UK Foreign Office": Message="Even the UK is getting tired of confused Trump"
Come on folks, stop analysing it with endless "what if"'s and see it for what it is.
Prepare for much more of this: The UK's Skripal affair lured Trump into expelling diplomats, later making him look too trigger happy. Now they are trying to make him look indecisive, stupid and reluctant to stand with his closest allies: notice how Bolton has receded into the background to avoid the flak?
In addition, I am sure the UK's intelligence would never do any of this without the OK from US intelligence.
Jun 30, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org
As I documented on March 9 on this platform in my article " What Makes Gavin Run ?" Williamson knows no shame or integrity and is the living embodiment of the repulsive, two-faced backstabber, intriguer and liar Sammy Glick in the great writer Budd Schulberg's legendary 1941 novel of Hollywood "What Makes Sammy Run?" So he is a natural fit for Johnson, whose entire career has been dictated by similar shameless, reckless lies, opportunism and crass incompetence.
No one gets every, or usually most, professional predictions right, and in the news business sensible people make the best of their brilliant insights – or lucky guesses – when they can. But I have seldom hit a hole-in-one prediction that came true as quickly as my column on Williamson did.
On March 9, Williamson, after only a decade in the UK main chamber of parliament, the ancient House of Commons was still riding high and making a fool of himself insulting major nations from Russia to China and also the UK's badly-needed European allies as the most incompetent defense chief in the modern history of his nation.
On May 1, less than two months after my article appeared – and with no causality that I could see – Williamson was humiliatingly sacked by his benefactor, Prime Minister Theresa May after being accused of leaking highly confidential national security information to the media.
Williamson immediately turned on his long-time benefactor Mrs. May savagely and helped drive her from office – which was admittedly long overdue. She resigned on June 7, just over a single month after sacking him.
Williamson then joined May's arch-enemy, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who had relentlessly schemed to topple her for years and joined Johnson's own campaign to win the leadership of the rapidly disintegrating Conservative Party and thence become prime minister.
At the time of writing, Johnson remains far in the lead in the contest to replace May as prime minister despite repeated attacks on his character, utter lack of political consistency, convictions or achievement and his entertainingly squalid private life.
Johnson is twice divorced with neither marriage lasting longer than five years and he is now being accused of screaming rows with his 20-years-younger girl friend that may or may not have involved him hitting her, which he naturally denies.
Through all this Williamson, who like Johnson himself does not lack for energy in the service of his own ambition, has been rounding up support for his new master among Conservative Party Members of Parliament.
According to many UK media reports – which Williamson understandably denies – his most effective weapons are bullying, bluster and threats. These are patterns of behavior which those who have worked for him or who have bothered following his career over the years find extremely convincing and in character (or, rather, lack of it).
Reports are also circulating in the UK media – which are usually well-connected and informed on such matters – that Williamson is holding out to be reappointed as the UK's defense chief or as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland is my native land and is tiny in size. But over the past century and more it has repeatedly displayed an infinite capacity for generating wars, embarrassment and catastrophe for both Ireland and the UK, which otherwise get along easily and well.
Putting Williamson in charge of such a delicate, nervously balanced and ultra-sensitive province is like appointing a Sith Lord as head of the Jedi Knights in "Star Wars" or putting the late Boston underworld mass murderer Whitey Bulger in charge of the FBI.
Therefore it will probably happen.
Because like attracts like, competent honorable people in any country and culture seek to promote and advance others with the same qualities and empty, shallow sociopaths and confidence tricksters similarly admire and advance people exactly like themselves.
On Monday, June 24, without mentioning Williamson once, one of the UK's most experienced and respected journalists, war correspondents and historians, Sir Max Hastings wrote a scathing article in the liberal "Guardian" newspaper entitled "I was Boris Johnson's boss: he is utterly unfitted to be prime minister."
Therefore Johnson will re-elevate Williamson, either to drive Northern Ireland back into civil war or destroy the remaining security of the entire UK as defense secretary once again. And Williamson will remain loyal, until he in his turn sees the chance to stab Johnson in the back and briefly rule as prime minister until he in his own turn is politically knifed and toppled by one of his own hand-picked sociopaths.
And Sammy Glick will rise again – on the suffering and smashed lives of everyone else.
Jun 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Pft , Jun 23, 2019 7:16:10 PM | 146
William Gruff @98The British, French and Spanish colonized North America before the US existed. The US was made of British citizens who were organized by the illuminated to create a country free of monarchy and not controlled by religion.
The indigenous population and imported African slaves in British North America actually fared much better than some of those in the Caribbean controlled by Dutch, French and Spanish masters
One must look at the US as an extension of the illuminated European Elites with a early working class that was forced to America as indentured servants (actually white slaves) or to avoid prison for the crime of being in debt. Today the working class is no better off being debt/wage slaves with the same illuminated elite in control
Indeed, looking at the havoc created in the world from Europeans since 1492, including the creation of the US and Europes colonialism and slavery and terrible wars through the mid 20th century, I find it amusing to see Europeans cast stones at its brothers across the pond, especially when their countries /EU support every action of the US
We are all psycho killers in the eyes of the rest of the world
Jun 16, 2019 | www.politico.com
Leda Cosmides at the University of California, Santa Barbara, points to her work with her colleague John Tooby on the use of outrage to mobilize people: "The campaign was more about outrage than about policies," she says. And when a politician can create a sense of moral outrage, truth ceases to matter. People will go along with the emotion, support the cause and retrench into their own core group identities. The actual substance stops being of any relevance.
Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth University who studies false beliefs, has found that when false information is specifically political in nature, part of our political identity, it becomes almost impossible to correct lies.
... ... ...
As the 19th-century Scottish philosopher Alexander Bain put it, “The great master fallacy of the human mind is believing too much.” False beliefs, once established, are incredibly tricky to correct. A leader who lies constantly creates a new landscape, and a citizenry whose sense of reality may end up swaying far more than they think possible.
Jun 14, 2019 | www.unz.com
I realize that both the neoliberal establishment and the neo-fascist fringe disagree with me, and that both are determined (for different reasons) to conflate the two in the public's mind, but that's my take, and I'm sticking to it. I don't think the world is controlled by "the Jews." I think it's controlled by global capitalism.
Go ahead, call me a conspiracy theorist. Here's how the anti-Semitism panic in the United Kingdom looks to me.
After nearly 40 years of privatization and restructuring, British society is on the brink of being permanently transformed into the type of savage, neo-feudal, corporatist nightmare that the USA already is. The global capitalist ruling classes are extremely pleased about this state of affairs. They would now like to finish up privatizing Britain, so they can get on with privatizing the rest of Europe. The last thing they need at this critical juncture is Jeremy Corbyn to become prime minister and start attempting to remake their nascent neoliberal marketplace into a society you know, where healthcare is guaranteed to all, you don't need a mortgage to buy a train ticket, and people don't have to eat out of trash bins.
Unlike in the USA, where there is no functional political Left, and where the non-parliamentary "two-party system" is almost totally controlled by the corporatocracy, in the UK, there are still a few old-fashioned socialists, and they have taken back the Labour Party from the neoliberal Blairite stooges that had been managing the transformation of Britain into the aforementioned neo-feudal nightmare. Jeremy Corbyn is the leader of these socialists. So the corporatocracy needs to destroy him, take back control of the Labour Party, and turn it back into a fake left party, like the Democratic Party in the USA, so they can concentrate on crushing the right-wing populists. Thus, they need to Hitlerize Corbyn, so they can fold him into their official narrative, Democracy vs. The Putin-Nazis .
And, see, this is what makes the corporatocracy's War on Populism so seemingly psychotic at least to anyone paying attention.
In the USA, the populist insurgency is primarily a right-wing phenomenon (because, again, there is no Left to speak of). Thus, the neoliberal ruling classes are focused on Hitlerizing Donald Trump, and stigmatizing the millions of Americans who voted for him as a bunch of Nazis. Hitlerizing Trump has been ridiculously easy (he almost Hitlerizes himself), but the ultimate goal is to delegitimize the populist sentiment that put him into office. That sentiment is primarily neo-nationalist. So it's a one-front counter-insurgency op (i.e., neoliberalism versus neo-nationalism).
In the UK, things are not that simple. There, the neoliberal ruling classes are waging a counter-insurgency op against populist forces on two major fronts: (1) the Brexiters (i.e., nationalism); and (2) the Corbynists (i.e., socialism). They're getting hit from both the left and right, which is screwing up the official narrative (according to which the "enemies of democracy" are supposed to be right-wing neo-nationalists). So, as contradictory and absurd as it sounds, they needed to conflate both left and right populism into one big scary Hitlerian enemy. Thus, they needed to Hitlerize Corbyn. Presto Labour Anti-Semitism crisis!
Now, anyone who is isn't a gibbering idiot knows that Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite and the Labour Party is not a hive of Nazis. It's a testament to the power of the corporate media that such a statement even needs to be made but, of course, that's the point of the smear campaign the neoliberal corporate media have been waging for the last three years.
Smear campaigns are simple and effective. The goal is to force your target and his allies into proclaiming things like, "I am not an anti-Semite," or "I've never had sex with underage boys," or whatever smear you want to force them to deny. You don't have to prove your target guilty. You're just trying to conjure up a "reality" in which every time someone thinks of your target they associate him with the content of your smears.
The corporate media have done just that, to Jeremy Corbyn, to Donald Trump, to Putin, and to assorted lesser figures. They did it to Sanders in 2016. They are doing it now to Tulsi Gabbard . The goal is not only to smear these targets, but also, and more so, to conjure a "world" that reifies the narrative of their smears a binary "good versus evil" world, a world in which whatever they want to accuse their targets of being linked to (e.g., terrorism, fascism, racism, or whatever) is the official enemy of all that is good.
Since the Brexit referendum and the election of Trump, the ruling classes have conjured up a world where "democracy" is perpetually under attack by a global conspiracy of "Russians" and "Nazis" (just as they previously conjured up a world where it was perpetually under attack by "terrorists"). They have conjured up a post-Orwellian reality in which "democracy" (i.e., global capitalism) is the only alternative to "neo-fascism" (i.e., anything opposed to global capitalism).
And this is why Corbyn had to be Hitlerized, and why Putin, Trump, Assad, Gabbard, Assange, the "Yellow Vest" protesters in France, and anyone else opposing global neoliberalism has to be Hitlerized. Socialism, nationalism it makes no difference, not to the global capitalist ruling classes. There are always only two sides in these "worlds" that the ruling classes conjure up for us, and there can be only one official enemy. The official enemy of the moment is "fascism." Therefore, all the "bad guys" are Hitler, or Nazis, or racists, or anti-Semites, or some other variation of Hitler.
The fact that this "reality" they have conjured up for us is completely psychotic makes it no less real. And it is only going to get more insane until the corporatocracy restores "normality." So, go ahead, if you consider yourself "normal," and try to force your mind to believe that Jews are no longer safe in Great Britain, or in Germany, or France, or the USA, and that Donald Trump is a Russian asset, and is also literally Adolf Hitler, and an anti-Semitic white supremacist who is conspiring with Israel and Saudi Arabia in their campaign to destroy Iran and Syria, which are allies of his Russian masters, as is Venezuela, which he is also menacing, and that Jeremy Corbyn's secret plan is to turn the UK into Nazi Germany, with the support of Trump, who is trying to destroy him, and that the Yellow Vests are Russian-backed fascists, and that Julian Assange is a rapist spy who conspired with Russia to get Trump elected, which is why Trump wants to prosecute him, just as soon as he finishes wiping out the Jews, or protecting them from Jeremy Corbyn, or from Iran, or brainwashing Black Americans into reelecting him in 2020 with a handful of Russian Facebook ads.
Go ahead, try to reconcile all that or whatever, don't. Just take whatever medication you happen to be on, crank up CNN, MSNBC, or any other corporate media channel, and report me to the Internet Police for posting dangerous "extremist" content. You know, in your heart, I probably deserve it.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Jun 14, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
et Al June 11, 2019 at 8:05 am
SkyNudes: MI5 'unlawfully' handled bulk surveillance data, lawsuit reveals
https://news.sky.com/story/mi5-unlawfully-handled-bulk-surveillance-data-lawsuit-reveals-11739729The security service is accused of breaking the law and documents state the "the task [of complying with it] was too large".
"The documents show extraordinary and persistent illegality in MI5's operations, apparently for many years," said civil liberties organisation Liberty, which is bringing the case.
"The existence of what MI5 itself calls 'ungoverned spaces' in which it holds and uses large volumes of private data is a serious failure of governance and oversight, especially when mass collection of data of innocent citizens is concerned."
####Incompetent? No. Don't give a shit? Yes.
It won't make a blind bit of difference as the security service have broad brush surveillance powers and the 'National Security' exception behind them. At least they are not handing over that data to their terrorist sponsoring Gulf brothers Oh, hang on, can't rule anything out!
Jun 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Ghost Ship , Jun 11, 2019 11:01:51 AM | 134That arsehole Luke Harding is back with one of his bullshit exclusives in the Guardian .Leaked documents reveal Russian effort to exert influence in AfricaThe only thing you really need to know about the exposé:
Exclusive: Kremlin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin leading push to turn continent into strategic hub, documents show
by Luke Harding and Jason BurkeThe leaked documents were obtained by the Dossier Center, an investigative unit based in London. The centre is funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian businessman and exiled Kremlin critic.The Guardian obviously has no shame for publishing such an article but then it has never explained the claims of Manafort meeting with Assange in the Ecuadorean embassy. As for the article, my reaction was "so fucking what?".The British French and Americans have fucked up large parts of Africa while the Soviet Union/Russia was indirectly responsible for eradicating that cancerous growth, the apartheid state of South Africa, a single act that was better than all the good things that the United Kingdom, France and the United States have ever done in Africa
Jun 08, 2019 | consortiumnews.com
What the Latest Secret Government File Says About UK Middle East Policy June 4, 2019 • 12 Comments
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Mark Curtis details why a 1941 document might still be so sensitive in 2019 that the British government is refusing to release it.
By Mark Curtis
British Foreign Policy Declassified<img src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/mark-curtis-130x130.png" alt="" width="100" height="100" /> T he British government is refusing to release a 1941 file on Palestine, as it might "undermine the security" of Britain and its citizens.
Why would a 78-year-old document be seen as so sensitive in 2019? One plausible reason is that it could embarrass the British government in its relations with Israel and Iraq, and may concern a long but hidden theme in British foreign policy: creating false pretexts for military intervention.
The Colonial Office document, at the National Archives in London, was uncovered by journalist Tom Suarez and concerns the "activities of the Grand Mufti [Haj Amin al-Husseini] of Jerusalem" in 1940-41.
<img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37069" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Al-Husayni1929head-526x700.jpg" alt="" width="526" height="700" srcset="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Al-Husayni1929head-526x700.jpg 526w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Al-Husayni1929head-301x400.jpg 301w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Al-Husayni1929head-768x1022.jpg 768w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Al-Husayni1929head-160x213.jpg 160w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Al-Husayni1929head.jpg 1317w" sizes="(max-width: 526px) 100vw, 526px" />The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin Effendi el-Husseini. (Wikimedia Commons)
After the assassination of Lewis Andrews, British district commissioner for Galilee, in September 1937, the British Government dismissed al-Husseini from his post as president of the Supreme Muslim Council and decided to arrest all members of the Arab Higher Committee, including Husseini.
He took refuge in the Noble Sanctuary (al-Haram al-Sharif), fled to Jaffa and then Lebanon, and ended up in Iraq, where he played a role in the Iraqi national anti-British movement.
He spent the Second World War moving between Berlin and Rome and took part in the propaganda war against Britain and France through Arabic radio broadcasts.
Plan to 'Clip the Mufti's Wings'In April 1941, nationalist army officers known as the Golden Square staged a coup in Iraq, overthrowing the pro-British regime, and signaled they were prepared to work with German and Italian intelligence. In response, the British embarked on a military campaign and eventually crushed the coup leaders two months later.
But Suarez discovered in the files that the British were already wanting such a "military occupation of Iraq" by November 1940 -- well before the Golden Square coup gave them a pretext for doing so.
The reason was that Britain wanted to end "the mufti's intrigues with the Italians." One file notes: "We may be able to clip the mufti's wings when we can get a new government in Iraq. FO [Foreign Office] are working on this." Suarez notes that a prominent thread in the British archive is: "How to effect a British coup without further alienating 'the Arab world' in the midst of the war, beyond what the empowering of Zionism had already done."
<img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37073" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Palestinian_delegation_1929.jpg" alt="" width="1015" height="717" srcset="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Palestinian_delegation_1929.jpg 5451w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Palestinian_delegation_1929-400x283.jpg 400w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Palestinian_delegation_1929-768x543.jpg 768w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Palestinian_delegation_1929-700x495.jpg 700w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Palestinian_delegation_1929-160x113.jpg 160w" sizes="(max-width: 1015px) 100vw, 1015px" />An Arab protest gathering against British policy in Palestine, 1929. (Wikimedia Commons)
As British troops closed in on Baghdad, a violent anti-Jewish pogrom rocked the city, killing more than 180 Jewish Iraqis and destroying the homes of hundreds of members of the Jewish community who had lived in Iraq for centuries. The Farhud (violent dispossession) has been described as the Iraqi Jews' Kristallnacht, the brutal pogrom against Jews carried out in Nazi Germany three years earlier.
There have long been claims that these riots were condoned or even orchestrated by the British to blacken the nationalist regime and justify Britain's return to power in Baghdad and ongoing military occupation of Iraq.
Historian Tony Rocca noted : "To Britain's shame, the army was stood down. Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, Britain's ambassador in Baghdad, for reasons of his own, held our forces at bay in direct insubordination to express orders from Winston Churchill that they should take the city and secure its safety. Instead, Sir Kinahan went back to his residence, had a candlelight dinner and played a game of bridge."
1953 Coup in IranCould this be the reason that U.K. censors want the file to remain secret after all these years? It would neither be the first, nor the last time that British planners used or created pretexts to justify their military interventions.
In 1953, the covert British and U.S. campaign to overthrow the elected nationalist government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran included a "false flag" element. Agents working for the British posed as supporters of the communist Tudeh party, engaging in activities such as throwing rocks at mosques and priests, in order to portray the demonstrating mobs as communists. The aim was to provide a pretext for the coup and the Shah of Iran's taking control in the name of anti-communism.
Three years later, in 1956, Britain also secretly connived to create a pretext for its military intervention in Egypt. After Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and Britain sought to overthrow him, the British and French governments secretly agreed with Israel that the latter would first attack Egypt. Then, London and Paris would dispatch military forces on the pretext of separating the warring parties, and seize the canal. The plan went ahead but failed, largely owing to U.S. opposition.
<img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37071" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Suez_Canal_Egypt_satellite_view.jpg" alt="" width="1920" height="1080" srcset="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Suez_Canal_Egypt_satellite_view.jpg 1920w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Suez_Canal_Egypt_satellite_view-400x225.jpg 400w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Suez_Canal_Egypt_satellite_view-768x432.jpg 768w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Suez_Canal_Egypt_satellite_view-700x394.jpg 700w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Suez_Canal_Egypt_satellite_view-160x90.jpg 160w" sizes="(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px" />
Satellite view of southern part of Suez Canal in Egypt. (Axelspace Corporation via Wikimedia Commons)Five years later, in 1961, it was a similar story in Kuwait. This little-known British intervention was publicly justified on the basis of an alleged threat from Iraq, but the declassified files that I have examined suggest that this "threat" was concocted by British planners. When Kuwait secured independence in June 1961, Britain was desperate to protect its oil interests and to solidify its commercial and military relations with the Kuwaiti regime. The files suggest that the British therefore needed to get the Kuwaitis to "ask" Britain for "protection."
Kuwait Intervention
On June 25, 1961, Iraqi ruler Abdul Karim Qasim publicly claimed Kuwait as part of Iraq. Five days later, Kuwait's emir formally requested British military intervention, and on July 1, British forces landed, eventually numbering around 7,000.
But the alleged Iraqi threat to Kuwait never materialized. David Lee, who commanded the British air force in the Middle East in 1961, later wrote that the British government "did not contemplate aggression by Iraq very seriously."
Indeed, the evidence suggests that the emir was duped into "requesting" intervention by the British, and his information on a possible Iraq move on Kuwait came almost exclusively from British sources. The files show that the "threat" to Kuwait was being pushed by the British embassy in Baghdad but contradicted by Britain's consulate in Basra, near the Kuwaiti border, which reported no unusual troop movements.
<img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37070" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/PikiWiki_Israel_7886_quotprayerquot_in_ramat-gan.jpg" alt="" width="1004" height="753" srcset="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/PikiWiki_Israel_7886_quotprayerquot_in_ramat-gan.jpg 2048w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/PikiWiki_Israel_7886_quotprayerquot_in_ramat-gan-400x300.jpg 400w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/PikiWiki_Israel_7886_quotprayerquot_in_ramat-gan-768x576.jpg 768w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/PikiWiki_Israel_7886_quotprayerquot_in_ramat-gan-700x525.jpg 700w, https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/PikiWiki_Israel_7886_quotprayerquot_in_ramat-gan-160x120.jpg 160w" sizes="(max-width: 1004px) 100vw, 1004px" />Monument "Prayer" in Tel Aviv in memory of the Jews who were killed in Iraq in the Pogrom "Farhud" (1941) and in the 1960s. (Avishai Teicher via Wikimedia Commons)
British intervention was intended to reassure Kuwait and other friendly Middle Eastern regimes that were key to maintaining the British position in the world's most important region. The prime minister's foreign policy adviser said that letting go of Kuwait would have meant that "the other oil sheikhdoms (which are getting richer) will not rely on us any longer."
By the time we reached the invasion of Iraq in 2003, creating false pretexts for interventions had become a familiar theme in British foreign policy.
Matter of Routine
To return to the 1941 document, British authorities have had a policy of either censoring, "losing" or destroying historical files that could undermine relations with current governments.
In 2012, an official review concluded that "thousands of documents detailing some of the most shameful acts and crimes committed during the final years of the British empire were systematically destroyed to prevent them falling into the hands of post-independence governments," according to a report in The Guardian .
The files covered policies such as the abuse and torture of insurgents in Kenya in the 1950s, the alleged massacre of 24 unarmed villagers in Malaya in 1948, and the army's secret torture center in Aden in the 1960s.
Other papers have been hidden for decades in secret foreign office archives, beyond the reach of historians and members of the public, and in breach of legal obligations for them to be transferred into the public domain.
Whatever is in the 1941 document, if the British government is withholding its release for fear of upsetting relations with key allies, this would be less than surprising and more a matter of routine.
Mark Curtis is an historian and analyst of U.K. foreign policy and international development and the author of six books, the latest being an updated edition of "Secret Affairs: Britain's CollU.S. ion with Radical Islam."
This article is from his website, British Foreign Policy Declassified.
dean 1000 , June 5, 2019 at 14:51
Students, starting with HS juniors should be required to read and write a report on articles like this one. It wouldn't have to be comprehensive.
Just five or six well linked articles like this one on US, British, French, German, Soviet, and Japanese Government activities during and after WWII would give students a realistic idea of the kind of world they will be living in.Litchfield , June 5, 2019 at 11:17
Thank you, Mark Curtis.
This is an important contribution to the effort, which must be ongoing, to flesh out the contours of the history of false flags, provocations, invented outrages, covert attacks, and the propaganda that depends on such stage-managed events etc. etc. that have been ongoing for centuries.The public needs to see a constant stream of evidence of these occurrences in order to become, finally, skeptical of claims of outraged innocence by the malevolent perpetrators of these attacks and the warmongers who profit from the ensuing wars.
This is doubtless why anyone who pulls aside the curtain on these crimes will feel that greatest heat.
Viz.: Assange. Viz.: Refusal to publish docs that should be in the public domain by now.
The ironclad inference that can be drawn by all refusals to declassify documents is that they contain information not that endangers "national security" but that would lead to a redefinition of "national security." actually is. Citizens would see that these subterfuges have led to national and international insecurity and the enrichment of a few at the expense of thousands and thousands of lives and national treasure -- of all countries involved.The crackdown on the ABC in Australia shows that the suppression of information as a strategy is being expanded.
It is of a piece with Australia's refusal to protect its citizen Julian Assange.
Disgusting and terrifying.
How many are there of the caliber of Assange, Curtis, Hastings, Webb, Karioukou (sp? ), Snowden, and other journo-whistleblowers?Sally Snyder , June 5, 2019 at 08:00
As shown in this article, previously classified documents from the United States show that there was growing concern that anti-Iran sanctions could push Iran "over the brink":
https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-risk-of-sanctions-pushing-iran-over.html
Both the United Kingdom and the United States seem incapable of realizing that their geopolitical machinations have long-term impacts that are completely unanticipated.
Rick jarvis , June 5, 2019 at 07:02
There's nothing to suggest that the murderous and exploitive policies of the UK Government during the demise of the British Empire as enumerated by Mark Curtis in his extroidinary research into the crimes of empire are any less extreme and repugnant than those of the US empire which in decline manifests its worst tendancies to maintain its hegemony. In an era before the internet and wikileaks its no surprise how the abject and obsessive secrecy of the UK Government was instrumental in hiding these crimes behind the posturing of its liberal humanitarian credentials...
Jun 06, 2018 | discussion.theguardian.com
Anomander64 -> Davesnothereman , 3 Jun 2018 16:44
Shhhh... whatever you do, don't ever let them hear you criticizing the "job creators" or there will be trouble.You know we can't touch the corporations - they are sacrosanct because they are the supposed "job creators" - this one title gives them carte blanche to act however they like, to make spurious claims about economies faltering, businesses going offshore and unemployment. They also donate heavily to the political parties.
Repeat after me:
"Blessed are the job creators"
"Blessed are the job creators"
"Blessed are the job creators"
"For THEY shall inherit the wealth"