Geheime dienst VS: Russische spionnen betalen Taliban voor aanvallen VS doelen in Afghanistan…. ha! ha! ha! ha!

Het laatste bewijs dat de VS geen vrede wenst in Afghanistan en tegelijkertijd Rusland demoniseert als agressieve terreurstaat, bestond afgelopen week uit de nieuwste leugen van geheime diensten in de VS (in totaal heeft die terreurstaat er meer dan 25!!), die zonder enig bewijs claimen dat Russische geheim agenten ofwel spionnen de Taliban betalen voor het aanvallen van VS doelen en die van haar bondgenoten ofwel andere NAVO-lidstaten als Nederland…… Deze leugen werd overgenomen door de reguliere massamedia in dat gestolen land (en intussen ook in Nederland, zo meer daarover)…… Overigens ook andere westerse geheime diensten hebben de leugens van hun collega’s in de VS overgnomen…..
Niet een flinter aan bewijs, maar dat is geen probleem voor de belangrijkste geheime diensten van de VS (en de rest van het westen), immers diensten als de CIA en NSA hebben het met leugens zelfs voor elkaar gekregen dat deze vereniging van terreurstaten meerdere illegale oorlogen is begonnen, waarbij alleen deze eeuw al meer dan 2,5 miljoen slachtoffers zijn omgekomen, ofwel die mensen werden vermoord door de VS en de door haar militair geleide terreurorganisatie NAVO……*
Ongelofelijk dat de VS maar door kan blijven gaan met haar grootschalige terreur, zonder dat de rest van de (westerse-) wereld op haar kop staat vanwege deze enorme oorlogsmisdaden en misdaden tegen de menselijkheid….. Een figuur als Assad zou nog niet wegkomen met een tiende van de terreur die de VS uitoefent waar het haar uitkomt…..
Het meest lullig is wel dat de VS zelf heeft gedaan wat het Rusland nu verwijt en dat ging nog wel heel wat verder dan een fooi geven: toen de democratisch gekozen communistische regering Afghanistan leidde, heeft de CIA de Taliban georganiseerd rond één doel: deze regering te lijf gaan. Rusland werd te hulp geroepen door deze Afghaanse regering, zonder dat de CIA daarvan op de hoogte was (daar zijn een paar koppen voor gerold binnen de CIA). Daarop heeft de VS de Taliban volgepropt met wapens en hen militaire training gegeven……

Anders gezegd: De VS heeft de Taliban getraind en bewapend, wat zich uiteindelijk tegen de VS heeft gekeerd nadat deze terreurstaat in 2001 illegaal Afghanistan is binnengevallen en een illegale oorlog ontketende die tot op de dag van vandaag voortduurt en dat al 19 jaar lang (vergelijk dat met de ellende in Nederland tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog die 5 jaren ‘lang’ duurde en waar de nazi-Duitse bezetter buiten de vreselijke misdaad van het deporteren en vermoorden van Nederlandse: Joden, Roma, Sinti en homo’s, voorts nog niet de helft aan vernielingen heeft aangericht dan de VS en de NAVO in Afghanistan……)

CaitlinJohnstone die het hieronder opgenomen artikel schreef merkt volkomen terecht op dat met deze laatste propaganda leugen van de VS de vredesbesprekingen die zouden plaatsvinden tussen de Taliban en de VS worden getorpedeerd….. Nogmaals terecht merkt Johnstone op dat de Taliban geen geld van Rusland nodig heeft om VS doelen aan te vallen, een bezetter die het land voor een fiks deel heeft platgegooid en al 19 jaar te lang illegaal op Afghaanse bodem verblijft……

Zoals te verwachten was de buitenland deskundige van BNR, Bernard Hammelburg geheel in zijn nopjes met de leugens van de geheime diensten uit de VS: gistermorgen op die zender rond 7.51 u. blies deze opgeblazen rollade hoog van de toren alsof het hier de vondst van de eeuw betrof….. Hammelburg heeft herhaald gesteld dat hij het beste buitenlandprogramma in Nederland maakt en dat hij objectief en onpartijdig is….. ha! ha! ha! ha! Deze hansworst heeft meermaals de leugens geloofd die de CIA en NSA naar buiten brachten, waarmee o.a. de illegale oorlogen van de VS werden gerechtvaardigd en ook nu liet deze zakkenwasser weten dat hij het verhaal zonder meer gelooft….. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! (nogmaals: zonder dat daar een flinter aan bewijs voor werd geleverd!!!)

Volgens Hammelburg, die al eens in Afghanistan zou zijn geweest, is de Taliban makkelijk om te kopen en zo noemden hij en zijn collega’s de leden van deze o.a. bevolkingsgroep en verzetsgroep met dezelfde naam: ‘The 10 dollar Taliban…..’ Ofwel voor 10 dollar vermoordde men mensen…. Niets nieuws immers dit gebeurt overal en hoe rijker een land hoe hoger de prijs!!

Nee, heel geloofwaardig Hammelburg, Rusland die zo dom zou zijn om in Afghanistan te gaan stoken terwijl het grootste deel van de huidige bewoners de Russen wel kunnen vreten en al zeker de leden van de verzetsgroep met de naam Taliban…. Een andere bolronde BNR presentator, van Werven vroeg Hammelburg of er ook Nederlandse militairen worden ‘getarget’ (van Werven vervoegt graag Engelse woorden en werkwoorden als Nederlandse werkwoorden….). Volgens Hammelburg lopen inderdaad ook Nederlandse militairen de kans te worden vermoord, Nederlandse militairen die gvd blijkbaar nog steeds deelnemen aan de illegale oorlog in Afghanistan en dat ten koste van ons belastinggeld….. Lachen past hier niet, maar vanaf dat de VS illegaal Afghanistan binnentrok zijn er VS militairen en die van de andere NAVO-lidstaten vermoord in Afghanistan, het is immers oorlog in dat land!!!! Het meest lullige is wel dat er onnoemlijk veel meer Afghanen zijn vermoord door de VS terreurcoalitie….. Wat een enorme oliebol die Hammelburg…

Blijkbaar vond Hammelburg het nog nodig te zeggen dat Trump blijkbaar niet op de hoogte was van e.e.a. dat komt door diens medewerkers en dan spreekt men volgens Hammelburg over plausible deniability……. ha! ha! ha! ha! Héééél interessant Hammelburg, maar waar slaat ‘t op, het is oorlog in Afghanistan en de fascistische psychopaat Trump weet echt wel dat de Taliban VS militairen aanvalt…… Bovendien heeft Hammleburg niet goed opgelet, zie daarvoor het derde en Twitterbericht in het hieronder opgenomen artikel, waar als laatste het volgende is te lezen: Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says The Trump administration has been deliberating for months about what to do about a stunning intelligence assessment. (een Twitterbericht van Richard N. Haass, een bipslikker van G.W. Bush). En dan nogmaals: de leugens van de geheime dienst over Russische inmenging dienen maar één doel: de VS moet in Afghanistan blijven, niet alleen vanwege de strategische ligging, maar ook vanwege grondstoffen (Johnstone gaat daar verder op in)

Hammelburg heeft ten overvloede bewezen dat hij geen deskundige is door alle leugens van de gehieme diensten in de VS te geloven, terwijl die al zo vaak aantoonbaar hebben gelogen!!! En dat Hammelburg noch objectief, noch onpartijdig is, heeft hij ook al ‘iets te vaak’ bewezen, jezus wat een enorme koekwaus!!!

Wat betreft de VS en haar illegale oorlogen: Terror Yankee go home and stay home forever!!! (zo ook nog een Engels woord van jouw Azijnpisser!)

This Russia-Afghanistan Story Is Western Propaganda At Its Most Vile

by Caitlin Johnstone

All western mass media outlets are now shrieking about the story The New York Times first reported, citing zero evidence and naming zero sources, claiming intelligence says Russia paid out bounties to Taliban-linked fighters in Afghanistan for attacking the occupying forces of the US and its allies in Afghanistan. As of this writing, and probably forevermore, there have still been zero intelligence sources named and zero evidence provided for this claim.
As we discussed yesterday, the only correct response to unsubstantiated claims by anonymous spooks in a post-Iraq invasion world is to assume that they are lying until you’ve been provided with a mountain of hard, independently verifiable evidence to the contrary. The fact that The New York Times instead chose to uncritically parrot these evidence-free claims made by operatives within intelligence agencies with a known track record of lying about exactly these things is nothing short of journalistic malpractice. The fact that western media outlets are now unanimously regurgitating these still 100 percent baseless assertions is nothing short of state propaganda.
The consensus-manufacturing, Overton window-shrinking western propaganda apparatus has been in full swing with mass media outlets claiming on literally no basis whatsoever that they have confirmed one another’s “great reporting” on this completely unsubstantiated story.

We have confirmed the ⁦@nytimes⁩ scoop: A Russian military spy unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to attack coalition forces in Afghanistan. From ⁦@nakashimae⁩ ⁦@missy_ryan⁩ me and ⁦@shaneharrishttps://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/russian-operation-targeted-coalition-troops-in-afghanistan-intelligence-finds/2020/06/26/ac710092-b80f-11ea-9b0f-c797548c1154_story.html
“The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post have confirmed our reporting,” the NYT story’s co-author Charlie Savage tweeted hours ago.
“We have confirmed the New York Times’ scoop: A Russian military spy unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to attack coalition forces in Afghanistan,” tweeted The Washington Post‘s John Hudson.
“We matched The New York Times’ great reporting on how US intel has assessed that Russians paid Taliban to target US, coalition forces in Afghanistan, which is a pretty stunning development,” tweeted Wall Street Journal’s Gordon Lubold.
All three of these men are lying.
John Hudson’s claim that the Washington Post article he co-authored “confirmed the New York Times’ scoop” twice uses the words “if confirmed” with regard to his central claim, saying “Russian involvement in operations targeting Americans, if confirmed,” and “The attempt to stoke violence against Americans, if confirmed“. This is of course an acknowledgement that these things have not, in fact, been confirmed.
The Wall Street Journal article co-authored by Gordon Lubold cites only anonymous “people”, who we have no reason to believe are different people than NYT’s sources, repeating the same unsubstantiated assertions about an intelligence report. The article cites no evidence that Lubold’s “stunning development” actually occurred beyond “people familiar with the report said” and “a person familiar with it said“.
The fact that both Hudson and Lubold were lying about having confirmed the New York Times‘ reporting means that Savage was also lying when he said they did. When they say the report has been “confirmed”, what they really mean is that it has been agreed upon. All the three of them actually did was use their profoundly influential outlets to uncritically parrot something nameless spooks want the public to believe, which is the same as just publishing a CIA press release free of charge. It is unprincipled stenography for opaque and unaccountable intelligence agencies, and it is disgusting.

“The Washington Post and the WSJ were called up by the same unnamed ‘officials’ as we were.
They were told the same evidence free fairytale.
Their stenographers, like ours, wrote it dutifully down.
All of us proudly published it!” https://twitter.com/charlie_savage/status/1276918670099349504

None of this should be happening. The New York Times has admitted itself that it was wrong for uncritically parroting the unsubstantiated spook claims which led to the Iraq invasion, as has The Washington Post. There is no reason to believe Taliban fighters would require any bounty to attack an illegitimate occupying force. The Russian government has denied these allegations. The Taliban has denied these allegations. The Trump administration has denied that the president or the vice president had any knowledge of the spook report in question, denouncing the central allegation that liberals who are promoting this story have been fixated on.
Yet this story is being magically transmuted into an established fact, despite its being based on literally zero factual evidence.
Outlets like CNN are running the story with the headline “Russia offered bounties to Afghan militants to kill US troops“, deceitfully presenting this as a verified fact. Such dishonest headlines are joined by UK outlets like The Guardian who informs headline-skimmers that “Russia offered bounty to kill UK soldiers“, and the Murdoch-owned Sky News which went with “Russia paid Taliban fighters to attack British troops in Afghanistan” after “confirming” the story with anonymous British spooks.
Western propagandists are turning this completely empty story into the mainstream consensus, not with facts, not with evidence, and certainly not with journalism, but with sheer brute force of narrative control. And now you’ve got Joe Biden once again attacking Trump for being insufficiently warlike, this time because “he failed to sanction or impose any kind of consequences on Russia for this egregious violation of international law”.
You’ve also got former George W Bush lackey Richard Haas promoting “a proportionate response” to these baseless allegations.

Russia is carrying out covert wars vs US troops in Afghanistan and our democracy here at home. A proportionate response would increase the costs to Russia of its military presence in Ukraine & Syria and, using sanctions & cyber, to challenge Putin at home. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html?referringSource=articleShare

American troops in Afghanistan have been the target of some Taliban operations backed by Russia, intelligence officials found.

“Russia is carrying out covert wars vs US troops in Afghanistan and our democracy here at home,” Haas tweeted with a link to the New York Times story. “A proportionate response would increase the costs to Russia of its military presence in Ukraine and Syria and, using sanctions and cyber, to challenge Putin at home.”
Haas is the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a wildly influential think tank with its fingers in most major US news outlets.
And indeed, the unified campaign to shove this story down people’s throats in stark defiance of everything one learns in journalism school does appear to be geared toward advancing pre-existing foreign policy agendas which have nothing to do with any concern for the safety of US troops. Analysts have pointed out that this new development arises just in time to sabotage the last of the nuclear treaties between the US and Russia, the scaling down of US military presence in Afghanistan, and, as Haas already openly admitted, any possibility of peace in Syria.
“This story is published just in time to sabotage US-Russia arms control talks,” Antiwar‘s Dave DeCamp noted on Twitter. “As the US is preparing for a new arms race — and possibly even live nuclear tests — the New York Times provides a great excuse to let the New START lapse, making the world a much more dangerous place. Russiagate has provided the cover for Trump to pull out of arms control agreements. First the INF, then the Open Skies, and now possibly the New START. Any talks or negotiations with Russia are discouraged in this atmosphere, and this Times story will make things even worse.”
“US ‘intelligence’ agencies (ie, organized crime networks run by the state) want to sabotage the (admittedly very inadequate) peace talks in Afghanistan,” tweeted journalist Ben Norton. “So they get best of both worlds: blame the Russian bogeyman, fueling the new cold war, while prolonging the military occupation. It’s not a coincidence these dubious Western intelligence agency claims about Russia came just days after a breakthrough in peace talks. Afghanistan’s geostrategic location (and trillions worth of minerals) is too important to them.”

We’re seeing in real time how Western intelligence agencies are derailing peace talks aimed at ending the nearly 20-year war in Afghanistan. First anonymous US spies spread this rumor. Now anonymous European spies are doing the same. And the corporate media eats it up like candy https://twitter.com/AnaCabrera/status/1276993313002991616

(Voor de video in dit bericht, zie het origineel)

All parties involved in spreading this malignant psyop are absolutely vile, but a special disdain should be reserved for the media class who have been entrusted by the public with the essential task of creating an informed populace and holding power to account. How much of an unprincipled whore do you have to be to call yourself a journalist and uncritically parrot the completely unsubstantiated assertions of spooks while protecting their anonymity? How much work did these empire fluffers put into killing off every last shred of their dignity? It boggles the mind.
It really is funny how the most influential news outlets in the western world will uncritically parrot whatever they’re told to say by the most powerful and depraved intelligence agencies on the planet, and then turn around and tell you without a hint of self-awareness that Russia and China are bad because they have state media.
Sometimes all you can do is laugh.
_________________
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* De NAVO wordt al sinds haar oprichting militair geleid door de VS en de secretaris-generaal mag dan worden geleverd door de andere NAVO-lidstaten, echter die heeft de plicht om leugens van de VS te herhalen en daarbij een land dat de VS niet welgevallig is, te demoniseren…..

Zie ook:
VS vermoordde in Afghanistan weer 15 burgers waaronder 3 vrouwen en 3 kinderen……..

Moordenaar van Soleimani komt om bij neerhalen van VS spionage vliegtuig in Afghanistan

Arnon Grunberg bagatelliseert tevergeefs embedded zijn bij Nederlands leger in Afghanistan en Irak

Afghanistan oorlog: militaire top VS zei al voor het begin dat dit een niet te winnen oorlog is

Afghanistan: wie is de terrorist

VS wist al een paar weken dat zich op een later te bombarderen doel in Afghanistan (veel) burgers bevonden

VS bombardeerde het Artsen zonder Grenzen ziekenhuis in Kunduz niet per ongeluk………. Ofwel: VS terreur op grote schaal, over een lange periode!!

Artsen zonder Grenzen ziekenhuis: tijdens bombardement werden vluchtenden vanaf relatief korte afstand beschoten……. Vergissing??

VS ramt ditmaal hek van gebombardeerd ziekenhuis

Afghanistan: VS en Afghaans leger bombarderen bruiloftsstoet: 40 burgers vermoord

BBC met uiterst hypocriete anti-Taliban propaganda

De Bundeswehr massamoord op 142 Afghanen >> 4 september 2009

Afghanistan, westerse terreur: in juli 1.400 burgerslachtoffers
Meerderheid van burgerslachtoffers Afghanistan vermoord door de westerse coalitie en het Afghaanse leger

Internationaal Strafhof (ICC) stopt na bedreigingen met onderzoek naar VS oorlogsmisdaden…..

Uruzgan: VS vernietigt militaire basis van bevriend Afghaanse leger in precisie bombardement

Madeline Albright ‘gegrild’ over illegale interventies en sancties van de VS

ICC rechter Flügge stapt op vanwege zware dreigementen uit de VS

NAVO, het grootste militaire verbond maakt zich schuldig aan grootschalige terreur i.p.v. de vrede te bewaren

Afghanistan: VS gaat terreur vergroten

VS gaf sinds 2001 meer dan 5,9 biljoen dollar uit aan oorlogen, ofwel: $ 5,933.000.000.000…….

Afghaanse oorlog in het 17de jaar: Taliban nu sterker dan eerder sinds de VS de oorlog van 2001 begon

Ten Broeke (VVD) steunt beslissing Trump de illegale oorlog in Afghanistan te laten voortduren en zo meer terreur te creëren……..

Afghanistan: de VS stelt de papaverteelt veilig voor de komende jaren………..

Meer voorbeelden van VS terreur op grote schaal:
VS vermoordde meer dan 20 miljoen mensen sinds het einde van WOII……..‘ (tot het jaar 2000, deze eeuw zijn daar al meer dan 2,5 miljoen dodelijke slachtoffers aan toegevoegd…..)

VS buitenlandbeleid sinds WOII: een lange lijst van staatsgrepen en oorlogen……….

List of wars involving the United States

VS: openlijke militaire oefening met terreurgroep in Syrië……

Bang voor Amerika

NAVO gaat VS helpen in Zuid-Amerika terreur uit te oefenen: Colombia lid van de NAVO………

VS commando’s vechten o.a. in Midden- en Zuid-Amerika, aldus het VS ministerie van oorlog………

Gruwelijke Russische doomsday wapens: o.a. walvissen, krekels en Pokémon

Je zou wellicht denken dat onze reguliere media bij tijd en wijle knettergek zijn met het herhalen van bijvoorbeeld aantoonbare VS leugens, maar zelfs dat kan men bij de makers van die leugens, dus de VS, altijd nog veel beter.

Het volgende uiterst humoristische en sarcastische artikel, geschreven door Caitlin Johnstone en afgelopen donderdag gepubliceerd, moet je lezen, maar let op: het gevaar bestaat dat je in een lachstuip blijft!
Whales, Crickets, And Other Fearsome Russian Doomsday Weapons

Caitlin Johnstone

Headlines were blaring the word “Russian” again the other day because the mass media narrative managers found yet another reason for westerners to feel terrified of the icy potato patch that we’d barely ever thought about prior to 2016. I’d like to talk about the Kremlin’s latest horrifying horrific addition to its fearsome doomsday artillery, and recap a few of the other incredibly frightening and terrifying tactics that those strange Cyrillic-scribbling demons of the East are employing to undermine truth, justice, and the American way. Just to make sure we’re all good and scared like we’re supposed to be.
Gather the kids, clutch your pearls and sign off on hundreds of billions of dollars of extra military spending, my patriotic brethren! Here are five super scary ways the Red Menace is trying to destroy you and everything you hold dear:

1. Whales

Headlines and TV news segments from virtually all mainstream outlets were falling all over themselves the other day to report the fact that some Norwegians found a tame beluga whale with a harness on it, and “experts” attest that the animal may have been part of a covert espionage program for the Russian navy.
While there is no indication that this spying cetacean has been trained in the arts of sonar election meddling or shooting novichok from its blowhole, the Guardian helpfully informs us that the harness was labeled “Equipment of St. Petersburg”, and was equipped to hold “a camera or weapon”.

“Marine experts in Norway believe they have stumbled upon a white whale that was trained by the Russian navy as part of a programme to use underwater mammals as a special ops force,” the Guardian reports.
The Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang, which picked up on the discovery well before the breathless English headlines began gracing us with their presence, is a teensy bit less Ian Flemingesque in its reporting on the matter: the harness is equipped for a GoPro camera. The words “Equipment of St. Petersburg” are written in English.
Why is the Russian military writing “Equipment of St. Petersburg” in English on the garments of its aquatic special ops forces, you may ask? If there were indeed a secret beluga espionage squad assembled by Russian intelligence services, would they not perhaps avoid writing the home address of the whales on their harnesses altogether, and maybe, you know, not let them run free in the wild?

And to that I would say, stop asking so many questions. That’s just what Putin wants.

2. Crickets

NBC and MSNBC Blamed Russia for Using “Sophisticated Microwaves” to Cause “Brain Injuries” in U.S. “Diplomats” in Cuba. The Culprits Were Likely Crickets. https://theintercept.com/2019/01/07/nbc-and-msnbc-blamed-russia-for-using-sophisticated-microwaves-to-cause-brain-injuries-in-u-s-diplomats-in-cuba-the-culprits-were-likely-crickets/

NBC and MSNBC Blamed Russia for Using “Sophisticated Microwaves” to Cause “Brain Injuries” in U.S….

We now have what might be the most vivid, reckless and dangerous illustration yet of how NBC functions.

theintercept.com







A report seeded throughout the mainstream media by anonymous intelligence officials last September claimed that US government workers in Cuba had suffered concussion-like brain damage after hearing strange noises in homes and hotels with the most likely culprit being “sophisticated microwaves or another type of electromagnetic weapon” from Russia. A recording of one such highly sophisticated attack was analyzed by scientists and turned out to be the mating call of the male indies short-tailed cricket. Neurologists and other brain specialists have challenged the claim that any US government workers suffered any neurological damage of any kind, saying test results on the alleged victims were
misinterpreted.
The actual story, when stripped of hyperventilating Russia panic, is that some government workers once heard some horny crickets in Cuba.
*cough*

3. Puppies

Ye gads, is is nothing sacred? Is there any weapon these monsters won’t use to transform the west into a giant, globe-spanning Mordor?
That’s right, in 2017 puppies became one of the many, many things we’ve been instructed to fear in the hands of our vodka-swilling enemy to the east, with mass media outlets reporting that a Facebook group for animal lovers was one of the sinister, diabolical tactics employed by St. Petersburg’s notorious Internet Research Agency. As the Moon of Alabama blog has explained, the only evidence we’ve seen so far actually indicates that the Internet Research Agency’s operations in America served no purpose other than to attract eyeballs for money. As journalist Aaron Maté wrote of the highly publicized Russian Facebook meddling, “Far from being a sophisticated propaganda campaign, it was small, amateurish, and mostly unrelated to the 2016 election.”
The late, great Robert Parry, one of the earliest and most outspoken critics of the Russiagate narrative, covered this one for Consortium News in an article he authored a few months before his untimely passing:

“As Mike Isaac and Scott Shane of The New York Times reported in Tuesday’s editions, “The Russians who posed as Americans on Facebook last year tried on quite an array of disguises. … There was even a Facebook group for animal lovers with memes of adorable puppies that spread across the site with the help of paid ads.”

Now, there are a lot of controversial issues in America, but I don’t think any of us would put puppies near the top of the list. Isaac and Shane reported that there were also supposedly Russia-linked groups advocating gay rights, gun rights and black civil rights, although precisely how these divergent groups were “linked” to Russia or the Kremlin was never fully explained. (Facebook declined to offer details.)

At this point, a professional journalist might begin to pose some very hard questions to the sources, who presumably include many partisan Democrats and their political allies hyping the evil-Russia narrative. It would be time for some lectures to the sources about the consequences for taking reporters on a wild ride in conspiracy land.

Yet, instead of starting to question the overall premise of this “scandal,” journalists at The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, etc. keep making excuses for the nuttiness. The explanation for the puppy ads was that the nefarious Russians might be probing to discover Americans who might later be susceptible to propaganda.

The goal of the dog lovers’ page was more obscure,” Isaac and Shane acknowledged. “But some analysts suggested a possible motive: to build a large following before gradually introducing political content. Without viewing the entire feed from the page, now closed by Facebook, it is impossible to say whether the Russian operators tried such tactics.”

4. Pokémon

Yes, Pokémon.
This Russia hysteria has been a long, wild ride, and sometimes it’s honestly felt like they’re just experimenting on us. Like they’ve been testing the limits of how ridiculous they can make this thing and still get mainstream Americans to swallow it. Like the establishment propagandists are all sitting around in a room smoking blunts and making bets with each other all,
I’m telling you, we can sell a Pokémon Go Kremlin conspiracy.”
Do it!”
No way. There’s no way they’ll go for it.”
Yeah well you said that about the puppy dogs!”
And then they release their latest experiment in social manipulation and place bets on how many disgruntled Hillary voters they can get retweeting it saying “God dammit, I knew that jigglypuff looked suspicious!”
The October 2017 CNN report which sparked off a full day of shrieking “OMG THEY’RE EVEN USING PIKACHU TO ATTACK OUR DEMOCRACY” headlines was titled “Exclusive: Even Pokémon Go used by extensive Russian-linked meddling effort”, and it reported that Russia had extended its “tentacles” into the popular video game for the purpose of election meddling. Apparently the Internet Research Agency attempted to hold a contest using the game to highlight police brutality against unarmed Black men, which of course is something that only an evil autocracy would ever do.

Not until the fifteenth paragraph of the article did we see the information which undercut all the frantic arm flailing about Russians destroying democracy and warping our children’s fragile little minds:

“CNN has not found any evidence that any Pokémon Go users attempted to enter the contest, or whether any of the Amazon Gift Cards that were promised were ever awarded — or, indeed, whether the people who designed the contest ever had any intention of awarding the prizes.”


Mmm hmm.

5. Laughter

Turns out jokes are a Russian disinformation conspiracy.
Is nothing safe? What will those barbarian Others think of next? Weaponizing our tears? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46567364

Russian President Vladimir Putin smiles during his meeting with athletes at the Russia in October 2018
Russian President Vladimir Putin smiles during his meeting with athletes at the Russia in October 2018

How Putin’s Russia turned humour into a weapon

Russia’s government wants people to have a laugh – as long as it’s at its opponents’ expense, and not Mr Putin’s.

bbc.co.uk







Late last year the BBC published an article titled “How Putin’s Russia turned humour into a weapon” about yet another addition to the Kremlin’s horrifying deadly hybrid warfare arsenal: comedy. The article’s author, ironically titled “Senior Journalist (Disinformation)” by the BBC, argues that Russia has suddenly discovered laughter as a way to “deliberately lower the level of discussion”.
Russia’s move towards using humour to influence its campaigns is a relatively recent phenomenon,” the article explained, without speculating as to why Russians might have suddenly begun laughing at their western accusers.
Is it perhaps possible that Russian media have begun mocking the west a lot more because westerners have made themselves much easier to make fun of? Could it perhaps be the fact that western mass media have been doing absolutely insane things like constantly selling us the idea that the Kremlin could be lurking behind anything in our world, even really innocuous-looking things like puppy dogs, Pokémon and whales? Could we perhaps be finding ourselves at the butt end of jokes now because in 2016 our society went bat shit, pants-on-head, screaming-at-passing-motor-vehicles insane?

Nahhh. Couldn’t be. It’s the Russians who’ve gone mad.
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Caitlin Johnstone | May 2, 2019 at 12:54 pm |

New York Times: eerste Israëlische inval in Gazastrook sinds 2014 >> fake news!

De New York Times (NYT) durfde over de Israëlische inval in de Gazastrook, te zeggen dat dit de eerste inval was sinds de Gaza oorlog van 2014, een inval waarbij 7 Hamasleden plus een Israëlische officier omkwamen. Dezelfde oorlog in 2014 van Israël tegen de in kracht niet te vergelijken Palestijnen in de Gazastrook (als een modern leger tegen Palestijnen met pistool, karabijn en veredelde vuurpijlen….), een oorlog waarbij meer dan 500 Palestijnse kinderen omkwamen……..
Deze ‘misrekening’ is bepaald geen vergissing van de NYT, immers met dergelijk fake news wordt Israël een stuk minder agressief afgeschilderd, terwijl het echte aantal invallen in de Gazastrook sinds 2014 minstens op 263 ligt, ofwel 262 meer dan de NYT meldde……. Sterker nog de Israëlische generaal b.d. Tal Russo stelde eerder dat elke nacht geheime Israëlische militaire acties plaatsvinden, waar het overgrote deel van het Israëlische publiek niets van weet, laat staan dat de bevolking in het westen over deze Israëlische terreuraanslagen op de hoogte wordt gesteld, het westen waar de reguliere (massa-) media en het grootste deel van de politici blind achter Israël blijven staan……. Het westen waar men meer en meer alle kritiek op Israël af denkt te kunnen doen als ‘antisemitisme……’
Dan te bedenken dat de NYT behoorlijk heeft lopen roeptoeteren over en nog steeds regelmatig met de smerige vingers wijst naar ‘fake news’ (nepnieuws), terwijl dit mediaorgaan veelvuldig zelf fake news bracht en brengt……. Volgens één of andere lijpe Griekse vrouw, is één van de kenmerken van ‘fake news’ dat deze veelal verpakt is tussen echt nieuws….* ha! ha! ha! Juist, zie de reguliere media en de steun die zij bieden aan het inhumane neoliberalisme (een voorportaal van het fascisme) en voor de uiterst agressieve buitenlandpolitiek van de VS en haar oorlogshonden >> de andere NAVO lidstaten (daarnaast zijn de reguliere media grootlobbyisten van het militair-industrieel complex…..)

What NYTimes Called Israel’s “1st Incursion” Was Actually at Least Its 263rd

+972 photo of Israeli tank on Gaza border (photo: Miriam Alster/Flash90)
November 17, 2018 at 7:28 pm
(FAIR) — In a piece headlined “Deadly Gaza Raid by Israel Threatens Nascent Ceasefire” (11/11/18), the New York Times described an Israeli assault near the city of Khan Yunis that killed seven Palestinians as

the first known Israeli ground incursion into Gaza since Operation Protective Edge, in July 2014, set off a seven-week war.

A New York Times article (11/11/18) misstates the number of recent Israeli ground incursions into Gaza by two orders of magnitude.
This depiction of the attack as a unique occurrence in recent times is wildly inaccurate. Since the 2014 Gaza War, the IDF has carried out 262 ground incursions into the Gaza strip, according to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Seventy of these have occurred in the past year alone. As Henriette Chacar, writing for +972 Magazine (11/13/18), points out:

Israel carried out 21 incursions into Gaza in 2014…. The next year, in 2015, that number more than doubled, to 56 incidents. In 2016 and 2017, 68 and 65 incursions took place, respectively. By end of October 2018, 73 such incidents had been recorded, according to the UN data.

Such incursions are a regular occurrence, but are rarely reported by media or known to the general public. Chacar’s article (which was reposted by Lobe Log—11/14/18) quotes retired Israeli Gen. Tal Russo: “Activities that most civilians aren’t aware of happen all the time, every night and in every region.”
Operations by the Israeli military can have a devastating effect on ordinary Palestinians in Gaza. Combined with the ever-changing “buffer zone” declared by the IDF, they make it difficult for nearby farmers to grow crops or raise livestock, worsening the area’s already tenuous economic situation.
Errors like the New York Times’ minimize the degree to which Israel continues to occupy Gaza, despite claiming to have “disengaged” in 2005, and aid a media narrative in which the IDF is reacting defensively rather than acting as an aggressor.
ACTION:
Please tell the New York Times to issue a correction on the frequency of IDF ground incursions into Gaza.
CONTACT:
Twitter: @nytimes
Phone: 1-844-698-6397 (toll-free)

If you wish, leave copies of your communication in our comments below. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.

By John McCullough / Republished with permission / FAIR.org / Report a typo

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* Zie: ‘‘Fake News’ misbruikt door dictaturen en de reguliere (massa-) media‘ (zie ook de andere links in dat bericht over fake news)

Zie ook:
Noord-Koreaans ‘bedrog met nucleaire deal’ is fake news o.a. gebracht door de New York Times

Media tonen ware gezicht door weigering Julian Assange te verdedigen

Door de weigering Assange te verdedigen, tonen de reguliere media hun ware gezicht, aldus de kop van een artikel van Caitlin Johnstone op Media.com en hieronder overgenomen van Anti-Media. Een top advocaat van de New York Times (NYT), David McCraw waarschuwde een zaal vol rechters dat de vervolging van WikiLeaks journalist Julian Assange een gevaarlijk precedent zal scheppen en zou kunnen eindigen met het beschadigen van de reguliere (massa-) media….. (ha! ha! ha! Wat er nog te beschadigen is aan de reguliere media is me een raadsel, gezien het enorme gehalte aan nepnieuws [‘fake news] en de leugens die daar dag in dag uit ten toon worden gespreid…..)
Volgens McCraw zullen wetshandhavers uiteindelijk weinig verschil kunnen zien tussen een internetplatform als WikiLeaks en mediaorganen als de New York Times en de Washington Post (WaPo)….. Lullig werden de woorden van McCraw niet gepubliceerd in ‘zijn eigen’ NYT….. (!!) Echter zolang de reguliere media de leugens van politiek en geheime diensten maar blijven herhalen, zal er geen vuiltje aan de lucht zijn…..
Het publiceren van o.a. uitgelekte gegevens die geheim werden gehouden voor het volk, is in feite de taak van de echte journalistiek, immers het is de taak van de journalistiek om de machthebbers te controleren, het volk daarover in te lichten* en het publiek tevens te leren kritisch naar de machthebbers te kijken…..
Daar wringt dan ook de schoen aldus Johnstone, de reguliere media hebben deze taken al lang bij het grofvuil gezet en schikken zich naar de eisen van overheid en degenen die deze media in handen hebben, miljardairs en beursgenoteerde bedrijven……… Niet voor niets dat de journalisten van de reguliere media Assange keer op keer demoniseren en de leugens van de politiek en geheime diensten als CIA en FBI (notoire leugenaars) over bijvoorbeeld de zogenaamde bemoeienis van Rusland met de VS verkiezingen blijven herhalen, ook al is er geen nanometer bewijs voor……

Daarover gesproken: hoorde onlangs een Belgische ‘journalist’ die het gore lef had te zeggen dat hij de ‘stapel aan bewijzen’ voor die Russische inmenging met de VS presidentsverkiezingen had gelezen, een keiharde leugen, daar die bewijzen (nog steeds) niet bestaan…..

Lees deze korte mooie analyse van Caitlin Johnstone:

In Refusing to Defend Assange, Mainstream Media Exposes Its True Nature

July 29, 2018 at 10:24 pm
Written by Caitlin Johnstone
(CJ Opinion) — Last Tuesday a top lawyer for the New York Times named David McCraw warned a room full of judges that the prosecution of Julian Assange for WikiLeaks publications would set a very dangerous precedent which would end up hurting mainstream news media outlets like NYT, the Washington Post, and other outlets which publish secret government documents.
I think the prosecution of him would be a very, very bad precedent for publishers,” McCraw said. “From that incident, from everything I know, he’s sort of in a classic publisher’s position and I think the law would have a very hard time drawing a distinction between The New York Times and WikiLeaks.”
Do you know where I read about this? Not in the New York Times.
Curiously, as of this writing, McCraw’s words have found no mention in the Times itself,” activist Ray McGovern wrote for the alternative media outlet Consortium News. “In recent years, the newspaper has shown a marked proclivity to avoid printing anything that might risk its front row seat at the government trough.”
Though The New York Times itself has not reported it, it’s No. 2 lawyer told a group of judges that the prosecution of Julian Assange could have dire consequences for the Times itself, explains Ray McGovern.https://consortiumnews.com/2018/07/25/the-gray-lady-thinks-twice-about-assanges-prosecution/
So let’s unpack that a bit. It is now public knowledge that the Ecuadorian government is actively seeking to turn Assange over to be arrested by the British government. This was initially reported by RT, then independently confirmed by The Intercept, and is today full mainstream public knowledge being reported by mainstream outlets like CNN. It is also public knowledge that Assange’s asylum was granted by the Ecuadorian government due to a feared attempt to extradite him to the United States and prosecute him for WikiLeaks publications. Everyone from President Donald Trump to Attorney General Jeff Sessions to now-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to ranking House Intelligence Committee member Adam Schiff to Democratic members of the US Senate have made public statements clearly indicating that there is a US government interest in getting Assange out of the shelter of political asylum and into prison.
The New York Times is aware of this, and as evidenced by McCraw’s comments it is also aware of the dangerous precedent that such a prosecution would set for all news media publications. The New York Times editorial staff are aware that the US government prosecuting a publisher for publishing important documents that had been hidden from the public would make it impossible for the Times to publish the same kind of material without fear of the same legal repercussions. It is aware that the maneuvers being taken against Assange present a very real existential threat to the possibility of real journalism and holding power to account.
You might think, therefore, that we’d be seeing a flood of analyses and op-eds from the New York Times aggressively condemning any movement toward the prosecution of Julian Assange. You might expect all media outlets in America to be constantly sounding the alarm about this, especially since the threat is coming from the Trump administration, which outlets like the New York Timesare always eager to circulate dire warnings about. You might expect every talking head on CNN and NBC to be ominously citing Assange as the clearest and most egregious case yet of Trump’s infamous “war on the free press”. Leaving aside the issues of morality, compassion and human rights that come with Assange’s case, you might think that if for no other reason than sheer unenlightened self interest they’d be loudly and aggressively defending him.
And yet, they don’t. And the fact that they don’t shows us what they really are.
A fine piece of work. I see a handful of international journalists brave enough to write about this. Where are the others? Can they not see that if Assange is persecuted to death, they’re next?
They’re not next. Very few will ever publish anything substantive enough to generate serious blowback.
Theoretically, journalism is meant to help create an informed populace and hold power to account. That’s why it’s the only profession explicitly named in the United States Constitution, and why freedom of the press has enjoyed such constitutional protections throughout US history. The press today is failing to protect Julian Assange because it has no intention of creating an informed populace or holding power to account.
This is not to suggest the existence of some grand, secret conspiracy among US journalists. It’s just a simple fact that plutocrats own most of the US news media and hire the people who run it, which has naturally created an environment where the best way to advance one’s career is to remain perpetually inoffensive to the establishment upon which plutocrats have built their respective empires. This is why you see ambitious reporters on Twitter falling all over themselves to be the first with a pithy line that advances establishment agendas whenever breaking news presents an opportunity to do so; they are aware that their social media presence is being assessed by potential employers and allies for establishment loyalism. This also why so many of those aspiring journalists attack Assange and WikiLeaks whenever possible.
Everyone hoping to gain admission to the cultural elite must now strenuously cultivate their social media so as to avoid controversy,” journalist Michael Tracey observed recently. “Eventually they will internalize controversy-avoidance as a virtue, not a societal imposition. Result: a more boring, conformist elite culture.”
A great way for an aspiring journalist to avoid controversy is to never, ever defend Assange or WikiLeaks on social media or in any media outlet, and certainly under no circumstances allow yourself to look like the sort of journo who might someday publish the sorts of materials that WikiLeaks publishes. An excellent way to prove yourself is to become yet another author of yet another one of the many, many smear pieces that have been written about Assange and WikiLeaks.
Why Americans Need to Defend Julian Assange’s Freedom http://ow.ly/qUJ130l9O1G
Mainstream media outlets and those who thrive within them have no intention of rocking the boat and losing their hard-earned privilege and access. Conservative mass media will continue to defend the US president, and liberal media will continue to defend the CIA and the FBI. Both will help advance war, ecocide, military expansionism, surveillance and police militarization, and none will leak anything that is damaging to the power structures that they have learned to serve. They will remain innocuous, uncontroversial defenders of the rich and powerful at all times.
Meanwhile, alternative media outlets are defending Assange ferociously. Just today I’ve seen articles from Consortium News, World Socialist Website, Disobedient Media, Antiwar and Common Dreams decrying the persecution of the most important government transparency advocate living today. Alternative media outlets and independent writers aren’t bound by establishment servitude, so the value of WikiLeaks is clear as day. One’s eyes are only blinded to the pernicious behaviors of power when power is signing one’s paycheck.
Mass media outlets in America and around the world have fully discredited themselves with their failure to defend a publisher who actually holds power to account and brings facts into the light of truth to create an informed populace. Every day that goes by where they don’t unequivocally condemn any attempt to prosecute Assange is another day in the pile of evidence that corporate media outlets serve power and not truth. Their silence is a tacit admission that they are nothing other than stenographers and propagandists for the most powerful forces on earth.
Support Caitlin’s work on Patreon or Paypal.
Opinion by Caitlin Johnstone / Republished with permission / Medium / Report a typo

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* In Nederland durfde de zwaar over een keeshondendrol getilde zakkenwasser Max van Weezel, die zich godbetert journalist durft te noemen, te zeggen ‘dat hij zich voor kan stellen bepaalde zaken niet te publiceren…….’ Ondanks deze uitspraak en een onnoemelijk aantal andere ‘journalistieke’ uitglijders, wordt deze kwezel geëerd door het grootste deel van de andere Nederlandse ‘journalisten…’ Wat dan weer genoeg zegt over ‘de kwaliteit’ van de Nederlandse reguliere journalistiek…… Voor berichten met blunders van van Weezel, klik op het label met zijn naam, direct onder dit bericht. (als na een aantal berichten het laatste telkens wordt herhaald, even opnieuw op dat label klikken en wel die onder het laatst gelezen bericht)

PS: het is vrijwel zeker dat Ecuador Assange op de Londense straat (hij zit al jaren in de ambassade van Ecuador in Londen) zal zetten en hij na zijn arrestatie zal worden uitgeleverd aan VS……

Zie ook:
Julian Assange, valse beschuldigingen, Big Brother en VS steun voor terrorisme

Westerse massamedia lopen aan de leiband van plutocraten, de neoliberale politiek en geheime diensten

Russiagate en Assange: The Guardian wordt nu zelfs door collega’s voor zot uitgemaakt

The Guardian: ondanks een enorme misser (fake news) gaat men door met de valse beschuldigingen t.a.v. Assange……

WikiLeaks belooft The Guardian 1 miljoen dollar als het haar leugens i.z. Assange en Russiagate kan bewijzen…….

Julian Assange gedemoniseerd door media die hem zouden moeten steunen, waren ze bevolkt geweest door echte journalisten……..

WikiLeaks toont aan dat VS en GB een gezamenlijke gewelddadige en bedrieglijke buitenlandpolitiek voeren

De prijs op het hoofd van Julian Assange: 1 miljard dollar…..

Assange kan niet voor spionage worden vervolgd, immers hij is journalist >> aldus Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers) in een video

Westerse bevolkingen worden bespeeld door regeringen, massamedia, grote bedrijven, financiële instellingen en geheime diensten……

Assange is journalist en zou alleen daarom al niet mogen worden vervolgd, een artikel o.a. voor de huidige ‘journalisten’ van de reguliere media en de gebruikers van die media

WhiteHouse: US, Ecuador Coordinating About Future Of Assange Asylum

Stop de isolatie van Julian Assange!’

JulianAssange (Wikileaks) haalt hypocriete Britse regering onderuit voorwijzen op belang van vrije en onafhankelijke media

Volkskrant en Nieuwsuur Fake News over ‘Russische hacks…..’

VS waarschuwde regering van Zweden voor Wikileaks in aanloop verkiezingen, Assange ‘moest en zou hangen’, ofwel de zoveelste VS manipulatie van verkiezingen elders……

Palestijnse slachtoffers Israëlisch bloedbad in Gazastrook krijgen schuld in schoenen geschoven door VS massamedia………………………..

Ongelofelijk hoe de reguliere westerse media hebben gereageerd op de slachting die het terroristische Israëlische leger aanrichtte onder ongewapende Palestijnse demonstranten op de dag dat de VS ambassade in Jeruzalem werd geopend. Bij dat geweld werden 61 mensen vermoord en viel er een enorm aantal (ook zwaar) gewonden…… Als je niet beter wist zou je warempel denken dat Israël het slachtoffer was van Palestijnse terreur, terwijl er aan Israëlische kant slechts 1 lichtgewonde soldaat was ‘te betreuren…..’

De media in de VS gingen wel het meest ver met hun smerige pro-Israël propaganda, nogmaals NB naar aanleiding van een ware slachting onder ongewapende Palestijnen en dat zijn toch echt ook mensen en niet een soort van plaagdieren, zoals Israël ze meer en meer ziet…….

Sinds 30 maart jl., toen de Palestijnen begonnen met de Great Return March zijn er meer dan 100 ongewapende mensen door Israël vermoord, waaronder: -11 kinderen, 2 journalisten en 4 mensen met een handicap….. (ja ja, ‘echte helden’ die Israëlische militaire scherpschutters….)

Nee in de ogen van de reguliere media in de VS zijn de Palestijnen barbaren die de ‘heldhaftige’ soldaten van Israël aanvallen. In een andere mediaorgaan, dat van Bloomberg werd zelfs gemeld dat de afscheiding tussen Israël en de Gazastrook het slachtoffer werd van Palestijnse agressie…. (je gelooft je ogen niet!)

Echter ook in de reguliere media in de rest van het westen, wijst men naar Hamas en de Palestijnen als de schuldigen voor deze slachting, alsof het één groot vakantieoord is in de Gazastrook, i.p.v. een openluchtgevangenis waar het de bewoners aan van alles ontbreekt, in de eerste plaats veiligheid tegen Israëlische terreur…… Een situatie die zo wanhopig is dat men toch gaat demonstreren ook al belooft Israël te zullen schieten op iedereen die een stap zet dichterbij dan 300 meter tot de afscheiding tussen de Gazastrook en Israël…… Ofwel: Israël schiet ongewapende demonstranten neer op het grondgebied van de Gazastrook, een enorme oorlogsmisdaad en een misdaad tegen de menselijkheid….

Lees het volgende artikel van Gregory Shupak, overgenomen van Anti-Media (de video’s in het artikel werken niet, de wel werkende video’s vind je onder het artikel):

How American Media Blames the Victims of Israel’s Gaza Massacre

May 19, 2018 at 2:53 pm
Written by Gregory Shupak
(FAIR) Israel massacred 60 Palestinians on Monday, including seven children, bringing to 101 the total number of Palestinians Israel has killed since Palestinians began the Great March on March 30. In that period, Israel has killed 11 Palestinian children, two journalists, one person on crutches and three persons with disabilities.
Monday’s casualties included 1,861 wounded, bringing total injuries inflicted by Israel to 6,938 people, including 3,615 with live fire. Israel is using bullets designed to expand inside the body, causing maximum, often permanent damage: “The injuries sustained by patients will leave most with serious, long-term physical disabilities,” says Médecins Sans Frontières (Ha’aretz, 4/22/18).
On the 70th anniversary of Israel’s so-called “declaration of independence,” the United States opened its new embassy in Jerusalem—a city Israel claims as its own, despite what international law says on the matter—and Palestinians undertook unarmed protests in reaction to the move and as part of the Great Return March. Although to this point, the only Israeli casualty during the entire cycle of demonstrations has been one “lightly wounded” soldier, considerable space in coverage of the massacres is devoted to blaming Palestinians for their own slaughter.
NBC (5/14/18) mentions “what Palestinians refer to as their ‘right of return’”; actually, it’s what international law calls it, based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights‘ proclamation that “everyone has the right…to return to his country.”*
Two of the first three paragraphs in an NBC report (5/14/18) provided Israel’s rationalizations for its killing spree. The second sentence in the article says that the Israeli military accused Hamas of “leading a terrorist operation under the cover of masses of people,” adding that “firebombs and explosive devices” as well as rocks were being thrown towards the barrier.
A Washington Post (WaPo) narticle (5/14/18) devoted two of its first four sentences to telling readers that Palestinians are responsible for being murdered by Israel. Palestinian “organizers urged demonstrators to burst through the fence, telling them Israeli soldiers were fleeing their positions, even as they were reinforcing them,” read one sentence. “At the barrier, young men threw stones and tried to launch kites carrying flames in hopes of burning crops on the other side,” stated the next one, as though stones and burning kites released by a besieged people is violence remotely equivalent to subjecting people to a military siege and mowing them down.
The New York Times (5/14/18) said that “a mass attempt by Palestinians to cross the border fence separating Israel from Gaza turned violent, as Israeli soldiers responded with rifle fire,” painting Israel’s rampage as a reaction to a Palestinian provocation. Like FAIR (2/21/18) has previously said of the word “retaliation,” “response” functions as a justification of Israeli butchery: To characterize Israeli violence as a “response” is to wrongly imply that Palestinian actions warranted Israel unleashing its firing squads.
A Yahoo headline (5/14/18) described “Violent Protests in Gaza Ahead of US Embassy Inauguration in Jerusalem,” a flatly incorrect description in that it attributes the violence to Palestinian demonstrators rather than to Israel. The BBC (5/15/18) did the same with a segment called “Gaza Braced for Further Violent Protests.”
In Bloomberg‘s account (5/14/18), the fence seemed to be the real victim.
One Bloomberg article (5/14/18) by Saud Abu Ramadan and Amy Teibel had the same problem, referring to “a protest marred by violence,” while another one (5/14/18) attributed only to Ramadan is headlined “Hamas Targets Fence as Gaza Bloodshed Clouds Embassy Move,” as though the fence were Monday’s most tragic casualty. Ascribing this phantom violence to Palestinians provides Israel an alibi: Many readers will likely conclude that Israel’s lethal violence is reasonable if it is cast as a way of coping with “violent protests.”
The second paragraph of the Bloomberg article solely written by Ramadan says that

Gaza protesters, egged on by loudspeakers and transported in buses, streamed to the border, where some threw rocks, burned tires, and flew kites and balloons outfitted with firebombs into Israeli territory.

This author—like the rest in the “Palestinians were asking for it” chorus—failed to note that Israel’s fence runs deep into Palestinian territory and creates a 300-meter “buffer zone” between Palestinians and Israeli forces, which makes it highly unlikely that the kites and balloons of the colonized will have an effect on their drone-operating, rifle-wielding colonizers, let alone on people further afield in Israeli-held territory.
The New York Times editorial board (5/14/18) wrote as though Palestinians are barbarians against whom Israel has no choice but to unleash terror:

Led too long by men who were corrupt or violent or both, the Palestinians have failed and failed again to make their own best efforts toward peace. Even now, Gazans are undermining their own cause by resorting to violence, rather than keeping their protests strictly peaceful.

The board claimed that “Israel has every right to defend its borders, including the boundary with Gaza,” incorrectly suggesting that Palestinians were aggressors rather than on the receiving end of 100 years of settler-colonialism.
Moreover, like the Times and Bloomberg articles discussed above, the editorial attempts to legitimize Israel’s deadly violence by saying that it is defending a border that Palestinians are attempting to breach, but there is no border between Gaza and Israel. There is, as Maureen Murphy of Electronic Intifada(4/6/18) pointed out, “an armistice line between an occupying power and the population living under its military rule” that Palestinians are trying to cross in order to exercise their right to return to their land.

The Washington Post (5/15/18) condemned the “cruel, cynical tactic” of trying to exercise the internationally guaranteed right of return.**
A Washington Post editorial (5/15/18) called the Palestinians hunted by Israel “nominal civilians.” Apart from being a logical impossibility (one either is or isn’t a civilian), the phrase illuminates how too much of media think about Palestinians: They are inherently threatening, intrinsically killable, always suspect, never innocent, permanently guilty of existing.
A Business Insider piece (5/14/18) by columnist Daniella Greenbaum described “Palestinian protesters who ramped up their activities along the Gaza strip and, as a result, were targeted by the Israeli army with increasing intensity.” Greenbaum’s use of the phrase “as a result” implies that it was inevitable and perhaps just that Palestinians’ “ramped up activities” led to Israel mowing down a population it occupies, 70 percent of whom are refugees Israel refuses to allow to return to their homes.
Greenbaum then climbs into the intellectual and moral gutter, claiming that

absent from the commentary that children have unfortunately been among the injured and dead are questions about how they ended up at the border. On that question, it is important to recognize and acknowledge the extent to which Palestinians have glorified violence and martyrdom — and the extent to which the terrorist organization Hamas has organized the “protests.”

In her view, dozens of Palestinians died because they are primitive savages who take pleasure in sacrificing their own children, not because Israel maintains the right to gun down refugees in the name of maintaining an ethnostate.
In a rare instance of a resident of Gaza allowed to participate directly in the media conversation, Fadi Abu Shammalah wrote an op-ed for the New York Times (4/27/18) that offered an explanation of why Palestinians are putting their lives on the line to march. Life for the people of Gaza, including for his three young sons, has been “one tragedy after another: waves of mass displacement, life in squalid refugee camps, a captured economy, restricted access to fishing waters, a strangling siege and three wars in the past nine years. ” Recalling the concern for his safety expressed by his seven-year-old child, Shammalah concludes:

If Ali asks me why I’m returning to the Great Return March despite the danger, I will tell him this: I love my life. But more than that, I love you, Karam and Adam. If risking my life means you and your brothers will have a chance to thrive, to have a future with dignity, to live in peace with all your neighbors, in your free country, then this is a risk I must take.

Palestinians have a right to liberate themselves that extends to the right to the use of armed struggle, yet as Shammalah wrote, the Great Return March signifies a “nearly unanimous acceptance of peaceful methods to call for our rights and insist on our humanity.” Nevertheless, based on media coverage, readers could be forgiven for concluding that it was Palestinians, not Israel, who carried out what Doctors Without Borders called “unacceptable and inhuman” violence.

By Gregory Shupak / Republished with permission / FAIR.org / Report a typo

* De video in het artikel werkt niet hier de video waar men naar verwijst:

** Hetzelfde wat voor de video hierboven geldt is van toepassing op deze video, hier de link die wel werkt:

Hoe kan je mensen nog meer opzetten tegen het uitermate hypocriete westen…????

Zie ook: ‘Israël vermoordde minstens 16 ongewapende demonstranten tijdens grootschalig protest

en: ‘Pro-Israël propaganda in de reguliere westerse media, amper aandacht voor Palestijnse protesten

en: ‘Nederland voorzitter VN Veiligheidsraad, maar heeft tegelijkertijd geen commentaar op Israëlische moorden op ongewapende demonstranten………

en: ‘Gazastrook 2018 – Sharpeville 1960 >> terreur tegen vreedzame demonstranten

en: ‘Schieten op ongewapende vreedzame demonstranten volgens Israël uit zelfverdediging……..‘)

en: ‘Israëlische terreur: niet alleen het schieten op ongewapende demonstranten, maar ook de vele andere standrechtelijke executies, ofwel moorden op bekende Palestijnen

en: ‘Israël gebruikt nieuw chemisch wapen tegen Palestijnse demonstranten in de Gazastrook‘ (Wel aandacht voor ‘Syrische gifgasaanval’ in Douma, maar als Israël daadwerkelijk dit wapen inzet, blijft het doodstil….Israël, samen met Egypte, de twee landen die nog steeds chemische wapens ontwikkelen, produceren, opslaan en…. exporteren!! Wellicht leveren deze landen ook aan de terreurgroepen, ofwel de ‘gematigde rebellen’ in Syrië, die met instemming van het westen over voorraden gifgas beschikken…… Zowel Israël als Egypte staan achter de psychopathische terreurgroepen in Syrië, groepen die in het westen, zoals gezegd, ‘gematigde rebellen’ worden genoemd…..)

en: ‘Palestijnen en groot deel wereld rouwen om tweede door Israëliërs vermoorde journalist……….

en: ‘VS ambassade Jeruzalem gedompeld in Palestijnenbloed……..

en: ‘Israël test nieuwe smerige technologie op demonstrerende Palestijnen


en: ‘Israël schiet 20 raketten af op openluchtgevangenis Gazastrook na wanhoopsdaad Palestijnen…….


en: ‘Israel: White Phosphorus Use Evidence of War Crimes

en: ‘Israëls wil tot vredesoverleg met Palestijnen’: 2.500 nieuwe huizen op West Bank…………..

en: ‘Gazastrook: waarom vooral jongeren demonstreren en daar zelfs hun leven voor op het spel zetten

en: ‘Israëlische ‘heldhaftige’ scherpschutters vermoordden 21 jarige verpleger, die bezig was eerste hulp te verlenen………

en: ‘Israël vermoordde nog eens 4 ongewapende Palestijnen over de grens met de Gazastrook, totale dodental ligt nu op 124

en: ‘Moeder van vermoorde Palestijnse medisch hulpverlener Razan al-Najjar maakt werk dochter af

en: ‘Israëlische scherpschutters vermoorden met opzet kinderen en de witte westerse wereld blijft wegkijken…….

en: ‘At Least 525 Palestinians Wounded by Israeli Troops on Gaza Border

en: ‘Israëlische advocaat benoemd tot voorzitter van het Mensenrechtencomité van de VN…….

en: ‘Gaza Freedom Flotilla tegen de blokkade van de Gazastrook, met een overlevende van de USS Liberty

en: ‘Israël verbiedt nu zelfs Palestijnen uit de Gazastrook het land te verlaten als zij een medische behandeling nodig hebben……

PS: na plaatsing nog toegevoegd dat het om de Palestijnse demonstratie ging, op de dag dat de VS ambassade in Jeruzalem werd geopend.

Oost-Ghouta >> ‘gematigde rebellen’ schieten op vluchtende burgers, aldus VN……. Aandacht in Nederlandse media nul komma nada….

Een volledige herhaling van zetten als bij de bevrijding van Oost-Aleppo: de zogenaamde gematigde rebellen schieten op burgers die Oost-Ghouta via de door de regering ingestelde corridors willen ontvluchten……
Ook destijds in Oost-Aleppo had men hier geen aandacht voor in de westerse reguliere media, behalve dan een ‘hickup’ van de reguliere massamedia, die durfden te stellen dat het Syrische leger op die burgers schoot….. Waar na onderzoek bleek dat de daders onder de ‘gematigde rebellen’ moesten worden gezocht, werd er niet gerectificeerd in die media, men deed er verder het zwijgen toe, of herhaalde ‘doodleuk’ de eerdere leugens…………

Terwijl destijds al bekend was dat de terroristen in Oost-Aleppo burgers waarschuwden niet te vluchten, daar men bij aanhouding direct geëxecuteerd zou worden, inclusief mee vluchtende familieleden (waaronder kinderen…). Bij een geslaagde vlucht werd deze mensen beloofd dat achtergebleven familieleden zouden worden vermoord…..
Nu is er al helemaal geen aandacht in de reguliere westerse media voor de sluipschutters van deze ‘rebellen’, die uit Oost-Ghouta vluchtende burgers vermoorden……. Hoe is dat gvd mogelijk? De reguliere media en het grootste deel van de westerse politici schreeuwen moord en brand over het Syrische leger dat volkomen terecht Oost-Ghouta wil zuiveren van psychopathische moordenaars, verkrachters en martelbeulen, nogmaals: figuren die hier eufemistisch ‘gematigde rebellen’ worden genoemd…….
Dit klopt niet helemaal Azijnpisser, nu trekt de VN vluchtelingenorganisatie (UNHCR) aan de bel en (hoe is het mogelijk) de New York Times bracht zowaar dit bericht…. Heb gezocht op het internet, maar kan hier niets over vinden in de reguliere Nederlandse media, terwijl de eerste berichten over sluipschutters die vluchtende burgers uit Oost-Ghouta neerschoten al dateren van de laatste weken in februari (jl.)……….. (eerste melding op 20 februari jl.)

Lullig dat de VN vluchtelingenorganisatie bij monde van Sajjad Mailk nog weer met de vingers naar het reguliere Syrische leger moet wijzen, met beschuldigingen die gelijken als die ten tijde van de bevrijding van Oost-Aleppo, waar echter nooit enig bewijs voor werd geleverd….. Zo zou het Syrische leger gevluchte burgers dwingen terug te gaan in door rebellen beheerst gebied….. Alsof ze daarvoor de corridors hebben ingesteld…….

Waar de reguliere media ten tijde van de bevrijding van Oost-Aleppo ook al niet over berichtten, was het feit dat Syrië en Rusland een paar maanden voor de uiteindelijke bevrijding van dat stadsdeel, besloten te stoppen met bombarderen, om onnodige burgerslachtoffers te voorkomen……
Bij de bevrijding van het Iraakse Mosul en het Syrische Raqqa, ging de VS tot het eind toe door met bombarderen waardoor een enorm aantal burgers omkwam, ondanks herhaalde oproepen van de VN en een paar afzonderlijke landen te stoppen met die bombardementen………
We worden vol gepropt met leugens door de reguliere westerse media en het grootste deel van de westerse politici, die godbetert het woord ‘fake news’ in de vuilbek durven te nemen…..

Syrian Rebels Using Snipers to Kill Civilians Trying to Flee War-Torn Syrian City

March 13, 2018 at 10:49 am
(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed)Syrian rebels are sniping down civilians attempting to flee the violence in Eastern Ghouta through a corridor opened up by the Syrian government, according to a U.N. official as reported by the New York Times.
Sajjad Malik, head of the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) from Damascus, returned to Beirut late last week after entering Eastern Ghouta with a relief convoy earlier in the week. Malik noted the dire conditions facing the residents of Eastern Ghouta and highlighted how little choice the people have when it comes to escaping the violence.
According to Malik, the residents also would also have to fear for their safety if they were to flee to government-held territory. The government has been known to make deals to relocate residents to other rebel-held territories if need be, but no such deals have yet been made with the residents of Eastern Ghouta to safely relocate them elsewhere. The residents are therefore unsure of what to expect should they make it safely to areas controlled by the government.
They want out – either the bombing to stop, or to get out. But reach safety where?” Malik said last Thursday. “We are getting to a point where there is literally no flight option. What worse situation could there be?”
According to the New York Times, Malik’s account underscored that combatants on both sides are responsible for the horrific situation of civilians in eastern Ghouta.” This admission is noteworthy to say the least considering the mainstream media has painted the current humanitarian issue as one that belongs solely to the Syrian government while giving the Islamist rebels holding Eastern Ghouta a free pass.
Malik documented an incident in which two people had been killed by rebel snipers as a family tried to
escape through a land corridor established by the Syrian government. The area is controlled by Jaish al-Islam, a radical Islamist group openly supported by American allies like Saudi Arabia.
The New York Times alleged that the Syrian government has behaved similarly in an area controlled by another rebel group by delivering an air strike on a family of five as they tried to reach the crossing. Interestingly, the New York Times did not reference Malik as the source of this claim but referred to a known “anti-government activist” in the area known as Ahmed Hamdan. The New York Times also mentioned that some residents said the family had died during “ordinary” airstrikes but not while trying to flee — another inconsistency.
The New York Times also documented protests that erupted on Friday in the town of Kafr Batna, with residents calling on the rebel groups to leave to put an end to the violence. Jaish al-Islam has refused to leave the areas it occupies, which does not bode well for the prospect of winding down the current situation.
Miserable. Destruction. Disaster. Death. Hunger,” Malik reportedly said before noting that there was a prominent stench in the streets of bodies trapped under the rubble of destroyed houses.
Malik also noted that residents told him that rebels prevented them from leaving the area.
They said, ‘These guys are preventing us’” while pointing at nearby rebel fighters, Malik stated.
Read more by Darius Shahtahmasebi:

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PS: in de kop staat ‘gematigde rebellen’ genoemd, echter deze aanduiding werd niet door de VN gebruikt, ik voegde dit toe, daar het inderdaad om terreurgroepen gaat die het leugenachtige westen als zodanig aanduidt……

Zie ook: ‘VS agressie in Syrië voorzien van een vooropgezet plan…….

en: ‘Oost-Ghouta: MSM leugens ofwel het zoveelste geval van ‘fake news’ lekt weg uit uit de massamedia

en: ‘VS: oud-geheime dienst medewerkers en inlichtingen veteranen waarschuwen Trump en de wereld voor een oorlog met Iran……..

en: ‘VS bezig met voorbereiding van een ‘door Syrië’ gepleegde gifgasaanval, ofwel de volgende VS false flag operatie

en: ‘Ghouta: een gifgas false flag en VS chef Guterres eist staakt het vuren van pro-Syrische strijdgroepen op Oost-Ghouta……

en: ‘Rusland heeft geen aanval uitgevoerd op VS troepen in Syrië…..

en: ‘Hondsdolle VS valt Russische tank aan in poging de Russen te provoceren……

en: ‘VS geeft toe dat er geen bewijs is voor het gebruik van gifgas ‘door Assad’, ofwel: alweer ‘fake news’ van de massamedia doorgeprikt!

en: ‘Syrië: VS en Israëlische agressie dreigt de wereld in een oorlog te storten……

en: ‘Oost-Ghouta, wat je niet wordt verteld

en: ‘Assad heeft geen gifgas gebruikt tegen de Syrische bevolking!

en: ‘US Aggression in Syria – an Imperialist Blueprint

en: ‘Foreign Ministry: Some Western officials are complicit in the crimes of terrorists against civilians in Damascus and its countryside

en: ‘‘False flag terror’ bestaat wel degelijk: bekentenissen en feiten over heel smerige zaken……….

en: ‘Nieuwe ‘as van kwaad’:VS, GB en Frankrijk uit op oorlog met Syrië en Noord-Korea……..

FBI, de spin in het Russiagate web……..

Er is al veel geschreven (althans in de alternatieve media) over de ware schuldigen achter Russiagate, met bewijzen werd en wordt aangetoond dat de geheime diensten FBI, CIA en NSA de ware schuldigen zijn achter Russiagate, waar overigens het campagneteam van hare kwaadaardigheid Clinton, aanstichter en mededader is…….

Gisteren op het blog van Stan van Houcke een artikel geschreven door Ray McGovern (ex-CIA) en gepubliceerd op de site van schrijver/journalist Paul Craig Roberts, die het overnam van Consortium News (kan je het nog volgen?). McGovern legt op een gedegen manier uit dat de FBI de ware grote dader is achter Russiagate.

Niet voor niets zegt nu zelfs de Wall Street Journal dat er een punt moet worden gezegd achter het Russiagate verhaal……. ha! Ha! Ha! Eerst liepen de persen van de Wall Street Journal zo hard op deze leugen dat ze bij wijze van spreken bijna vastliepen…….. Waar nu blijkt dat het Clinton campagneteam en de geheime diensten samen hebben gewerkt om te voorkomen dat Trump in het Witte Huis zou komen, wil deze bijna grootste krant van de VS dus een punt achter het enorme leugenverhaal dat Russiagate is………*

Nogmaals toont een massamediaorgaan aan ‘fake news’ (of: nepnieuws) te hebben gebracht en daar het volk maandenlang over te hebben voorgelogen……

Lezen mensen, een geweldig stuk over dombo’s Strzak en Page, die dachten in het geheim te kunnen communiceren, maar van wie onlangs een eerste deel van hun lange correspondentie werd vrijgegeven en waardoor ten overvloede de FBI nog eens kan worden aangewezen als spin in het Russiagate web…….

The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate

By Ray McGovern
January 15, 2018 Paul Craig Roberts.

As I have reported from the beginning, Russiagate is an orchestrated hoax by the security agencies for the purpose of preventing Trump from normalizing relations with Russia and, if necessary, for removing him from office. Russiagate is an act of treason by the security agencies. Those responsible must be arrested, prosecuted, and convicted. — PCR

“After months of breathless searching for ‘evidence’ of Russian-Trump collusion designed to put Trump in the White House, what now exists is actual evidence that senior officials of the Obama administration colluded to keep Trump out of the White House.” — Ray McGovern

Special Report: In the Watergate era, liberals warned about U.S. intelligence agencies manipulating U.S. politics, but now Trump-hatred has blinded many of them to this danger becoming real, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes. January 12, 2017, Information Clearing House
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48572.htm

The FBI Hand Behind Russia-gate
By Ray McGovern

Russia-gate is becoming FBI-gate, thanks to the official release of unguarded text messages between loose-lipped FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and his garrulous girlfriend, FBI lawyer Lisa Page. (Ten illustrative texts from their exchange appear at the end of this article.)

Despite his former job as chief of the FBI’s counterintelligence section, Strzok had the naive notion that texting on FBI phones could not be traced. Strzok must have slept through “Security 101.” Or perhaps he was busy texting during that class. Girlfriend Page cannot be happy at being misled by his assurance that using office phones would be a secure way to conduct their affair(s).

It would have been unfortunate enough for Strzok and Page to have their adolescent-sounding texts merely exposed, revealing the reckless abandon of star-crossed lovers hiding (they thought) secrets from cuckolded spouses, office colleagues, and the rest of us. However, for the never-Trump plotters in the FBI, the official release of just a fraction (375) of almost 10,000 messages does incalculably more damage than that.

We suddenly have documentary proof that key elements of the U.S. intelligence community were trying to short-circuit the U.S. democratic process. And that puts in a new and dark context the year-long promotion of Russia-gate. It now appears that it was not the Russians trying to rig the outcome of the U.S. election, but leading officials of the U.S. intelligence community, shadowy characters sometimes called the Deep State.

More of the Strzok-Page texting dialogue is expected to be released. And the Department of Justice Inspector General reportedly has additional damaging texts from others on the team that Special Counsel Robert Mueller selected to help him investigate Russia-gate.

Besides forcing the removal of Strzok and Page, the text exposures also sounded the death knell for the career of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, in whose office some of the plotting took place and who has already announced his plans to retire soon.

But the main casualty is the FBI’s 18-month campaign to sabotage candidate-and-now-President Donald Trump by using the Obama administration’s Russia-gate intelligence “assessment,” electronic surveillance of dubious legality, and a salacious dossier that could never pass the smell test, while at the same time using equally dubious techniques to immunize Hillary Clinton and her closest advisers from crimes that include lying to the FBI and endangering secrets.

Ironically, the Strzok-Page texts provide something that the Russia-gate investigation has been sorely lacking: first-hand evidence of both corrupt intent and action. After months of breathless searching for “evidence” of Russian-Trump collusion designed to put Trump in the White House, what now exists is actual evidence that senior officials of the Obama administration colluded to keep Trump out of the White House – proof of what old-time gumshoes used to call “means, motive and opportunity.”

Even more unfortunately for Russia-gate enthusiasts, the FBI lovers’ correspondence provides factual evidence exposing much of the made-up “Resistance” narrative – the contrived storyline that The New York Times and much of the rest of the U.S. mainstream media deemed fit to print with little skepticism and few if any caveats, a scenario about brilliantly devious Russians that not only lacks actual evidence – relying on unverified hearsay and rumor – but doesn’t make sense on its face.

The Russia-gate narrative always hinged on the preposterous notion that Russian President Vladimir
Putin foresaw years ago what no American political analyst considered even possible, the political ascendancy of Donald Trump. According to the narrative, the fortune-telling Putin then risked creating even worse tensions with a nuclear-armed America that would – by all odds – have been led by a vengeful President Hillary Clinton.

Besides this wildly improbable storyline, there were flat denials from WikiLeaks, which distributed the supposedly “hacked” Democratic emails, that the information came from Russia – and there was the curious inability of the National Security Agency to use its immense powers to supply any technical evidence to support the Russia-hack scenario.
The Trump Shock

But the shock of Trump’s election and the decision of many never-Trumpers to cast their lot with the Resistance led to a situation in which any prudent skepticism or demand for evidence was swept aside.
So, on Jan. 6, 2017, President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released an evidence-free report that he said was compiled by “hand-picked” analysts from the CIA, FBI and NSA, offering an “assessment” that Russia and President Putin were behind the release of the Democratic emails in a plot to help Trump win the presidency.

Despite the extraordinary gravity of the charge, even New York Times correspondent Scott Shane noted that proof was lacking. He wrote at the time: “What is missing from the [the Jan. 6] public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies’ claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. … Instead, the message from the agencies essentially amounts to ‘trust us.’”

But the “assessment” served a useful purpose for the never-Trumpers: it applied an official imprimatur on the case for delegitimizing Trump’s election and even raised the long-shot hope that the Electoral College might reverse the outcome and possibly install a compromise candidate, such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell, in the White House. Though the Powell ploy fizzled, the hope of somehow removing Trump from office continued to bubble, fueled by the growing hysteria around Russia-gate.

Virtually all skepticism about the evidence-free “assessment” was banned. For months, the Times and other newspapers of record repeated the lie that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had concurred in the conclusion about the Russian “hack.” Even when that falsehood was belatedly acknowledged, the major news outlets just shifted the phrasing slightly to say that U.S. intelligence agencies had reached the Russian “hack” conclusion. Shane’s blunt initial recognition about the lack of proof disappeared from the mainstream media’s approved narrative of Russia-gate.

Doubts about the Russian “hack” or dissident suggestions that what we were witnessing was a “soft coup” were scoffed at by leading media commentators. Other warnings from veteran U.S. intelligence professionals about the weaknesses of the Russia-gate narrative and the danger of letting politicized intelligence overturn a constitutional election were also brushed aside in pursuit of the goal of removing Trump from the White House.

It didn’t even seem to matter when new Russia-gate disclosures conflicted with the original narrative that Putin had somehow set Trump up as a Manchurian candidate. All normal journalistic skepticism was jettisoned. It was as if the Russia-gate advocates started with the conclusion that Trump must go and then made the facts fit into that mold, but anyone who noted the violations of normal investigative procedures was dismissed as a “Trump enabler” or a “Moscow stooge.”

The Text Evidence

But then came the FBI text messages, providing documentary evivdence that key FBI officials involved in the Russia-gate investigation were indeed deeply biased and out to get Trump, adding hard proof to Trump’s longstanding lament that he was the subject of a “witch hunt.”

Justified or not, Trump’s feeling of vindication could hardly be more dangerous — particularly at a time when the most urgent need is to drain some testosterone from the self-styled Stable-Genius-in-Chief and his martinet generals.

On the home front, Trump, his wealthy friends, and like-thinkers in Congress may now feel they have an even wider carte blanche to visit untold misery on the poor, the widow, the stranger and other vulnerable humans. That was always an underlying danger of the Resistance’s strategy to seize on whatever weapons were available – no matter how reckless or unfair – to “get Trump.”

Beyond that, Russia-gate has become so central to the Washington establishment’s storyline that there appears to be no room for second-thoughts or turning back. The momentum is such that some Democrats and the media never-Trumpers can’t stop stoking the smoke of Russia-gate and holding out hope against hope that it will somehow justify Trump’s impeachment.

Yet, the sordid process of using legal/investigative means to settle political scores further compromises the principle of the “rule of law” and integrity of journalism in the eyes of many Americans. After a year of Russia-gate, the “rule of law” and “pursuit of truth” appear to have been reduced to high-falutin’ phrases for political score-setttling, a process besmirched by Republicans in earlier pursuits of Democrats and now appearing to be a bipartisan method for punishing political rivals regardless of the lack of evidence.

Strzok and Page

Peter Strzok (pronounced “struck”) has an interesting pedigree with multiple tasks regarding both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump. As the FBI’s chief of counterespionage during the investigation into then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized use of a personal email server for classified information, Strzok reportedly changed the words “grossly negligent” (which could have triggered legal prosecution) to the far less serious “extremely careless” in FBI Director James Comey’s depiction of Clinton’s actions. This semantic shift cleared the way for Comey to conclude just 20 days before the Democratic National Convention began in July 2016, that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring charges against Mrs. Clinton.

Then, as Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division, Strzok led the FBI’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the U.S. election of 2016. It is a safe bet that he took a strong hand in hand-picking the FBI contingent of analysts that joined “hand-picked” counterparts from CIA and NSA in preparing the evidence-free, Jan. 6, 2017 assessment accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of interfering in the election of 2016. (Although accepted in Establishment groupthink as revealed truth, that poor excuse for analysis reflected the apogee of intelligence politicization — rivaled only by the fraudulent intelligence on “weapons of mass destruction“ in Iraq 15 years ago.)

In June and July 2017 Strzok was the top FBI official working on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia, but was taken off that job when the Justice Department IG learned of the Strzok-Page text-message exchange and told Mueller.

There is no little irony in the fact that what did in the FBI sweathearts was their visceral disdain for Mr. Trump, their cheerleading-cum-kid-gloves treatment of Mrs. Clinton and her associates, their 1950-ish, James Clapperesque attitude toward Russians as “almost genetically driven” to evil, and their (Strzok/Page) elitist conviction that they know far better what is good for the country than regular American citizens, including those “deplorables” whom Clinton said made up half of Trump’s supporters.

But Strzok/Page had no idea that their hubris, elitism and scheming would be revealed in so tangible a way. Worst of all for them, the very thing that Strzok, in particular, worked so hard to achieve — the sabotaging of Trump and immunization of Mrs. Clinton and her closest advisers is now coming apart at the seams.

Congress: Oversee? or Overlook?

At this point, the $64 question is whether the various congressional oversight committees will remain ensconced in their customarily cozy role as “overlook” committees, or whether they will have the courage to attempt to carry out their Constitutional duty. The latter course would mean confronting a powerful Deep State and its large toolbox of well-practiced retaliatory techniques, including J. Edgar Hoover-style blackmail on steroids, enabled by electronic surveillance of just about everything and everyone. Yes, today’s technology permits blanket collection, and “Collect Everything” has become the motto.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, with almost four decades of membership in the House and Senate, openly warned incoming President Trump in January 2017 against criticizing the U.S. intelligence community because U.S. intelligence officials have “six ways from Sunday to get back at you” if you are “dumb” enough to take them on.

Thanks to the almost 10,000 text messages between Strzok and Page, only a small fraction of which were given to Congress four weeks ago, there is now real evidentiary meat on the bones of the suspicions that there indeed was a “deep-state coup” to “correct” the outcome of the 2016 election. We now know that the supposedly apolitical FBI officials had huge political axes to grind. The Strzok-Page exchanges drip with disdain for Trump and those deemed his smelly deplorable supporters. In one text message, Strzok expressed visceral contempt for those working-class Trump voters, writing on Aug. 26, 2016, “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support. … it’s scary real down here.”

The texts even show Strzok warning of the need for an “insurance policy” to thwart Trump on the off-chance that his poll numbers closed in on those of Mrs. Clinton.

An Aug. 6, 2016 text message, for example, shows Page giving her knight in shining armor strong affirmation: “Maybe you’re meant to stay where you are because you’re meant to protect the country from that menace [Trump].” That text to Strzok includes a link to a David Brooks column in The New York Times, in which Brooks concludes with the clarion call: “There comes a time when neutrality and laying low become dishonorable. If you’re not in revolt, you’re in cahoots. When this period and your name are mentioned, decades hence, your grandkids will look away in shame.”

Another text message shows that other senior government officials – alarmed at the possibility of a Trump presidency – joined the discussion. In an apparent reference to an August 2016 meeting with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Strzok wrote to Page on Aug. 15, 2016, “I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way he [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk.” Strzok added, “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event that you die before you’re 40.”

Insurance Policy?

Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, says he will ask Strzok to explain the “insurance policy” when he calls him to testify. What seems already clear is that the celebrated “Steele Dossier” was part of the “insurance,” as was the evidence-less legend that Russia hacked the DNC’s and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails and gave them to WikiLeaks.

If congressional investigators have been paying attention, they already know what former weapons inspector Scott Ritter shared with Veteran intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) colleagues this week; namely, that Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson, who commissioned the Russia dossier using Democratic Party money, said he reached out to Steele after June 17, just three days before Steele’s first report was published, drawing on seven sources.

“There is a snowball’s chance in hell that this is raw intelligence gathered by Steele; rather he seems to have drawn on a single ‘trusted intermediary’ to gather unsubstantiated rumor already in existence.”

Another VIPS colleague, Phil Giraldi, writing out of his own experience in private sector consulting, added: “The fact that you do not control your sources frequently means that they will feed you what they think you want to hear. Since they are only doing it for money, the more lurid the details the better, as it increases the apparent value of the information. The private security firm in turn, which is also doing it for the money, will pass on the stories and even embroider them to keep the client happy and to encourage him to come back for more. When I read the Steele dossier it looked awfully familiar to me, like the scores of similar reports I had seen which combined bullshit with enough credible information to make the whole product look respectable.”

It is now widely known that the Democrats ponied up the “insurance premiums,” so to speak, for former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele’s “dossier” of lurid — but largely unproven — “intelligence” on Trump and the Russians. If, as many have concluded, the dossier was used to help justify a FISA warrant to snoop on the Trump campaign, those involved will be in deep kimchi, if congressional overseers do their job.

How, you might ask, could Strzok and associates undertake these extra-legal steps with such blithe disregard for the possible consequences should they be caught? The answer is easy; Mrs. Clinton was a shoo-in, remember? This was just extra insurance with no expectation of any “death benefit” ever coming into play — save for Trump’s electoral demise in November 2016. The attitude seemed to be that, if abuse of the FISA law should eventually be discovered — there would be little interest in a serious investigation by the editors of The New York Times and other anti-Trump publications and whatever troubles remained could be handled by President Hillary Clinton.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, who chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee of Judiciary on Crime and Terrorism, joined Sen. Grassley in signing the letter referring Christopher Steele to the Justice Department to investigate what appear to be false statements about the dossier. In signing, Graham noted the “many stop signs the Department of Justice ignored in its use of the dossier.” The signature of committee ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, however, was missing — an early sign that a highly partisan battle royale is in the offing. On Tuesday, Feinstein unilaterally released a voluminous transcript of Glenn Simpson’s earlier testimony and, as though on cue, Establishment pundits portrayed Steele as a good source and Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson as a victim.
The Donnybrook is now underway; the outcome uncertain.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was an Army and CIA intelligence analyst for 30 years; prepared and briefed the President’s Daily Brief for Nixon, Ford, and Reagan; and is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
+++++++++++++

Sample text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, released to Congress and the media on December 13, 2016
++++++++++++++
03/04/2016
Strzok – God Hillary should win. 100,000,000-0.
Page – I know
++++++++++++
04/02/2016
Page – So look, you say we text on that phone when we talk about Hillary because it can’t be traced, you were just venting, bc you feel bad that you’re gone so much but that can’t be helped right now.
++++++++++
07/08/2016
Strzok – And meanwhile, we have Black Lives Matter protestors, right now, chanting “no justice no peace” around DoJ and the White House…
Page – That’s awful.
+++++++++
07/14/2016
Page – Have you read this? It’s really frightening. For Whites Sensing Decline, Donald Trump Unleashes Words of Resistance http://NYTI/ms/29WCu5!
Strzok – I have not. But I think it’s clear he’s capturing all the white, poor voters who the mainstream republicans abandoned in all but name in the quest for the almighty $$$
Page – Yeah, it’s not good.
Strzok – Poll Finds Emails Weighing on Hillary Clinton, Now Tied With Donald Trump http://nyti.ms/29RV5gf
Page – It is
+++++++++++++
07/26/2016
Strzok – And hey. Congrats on a woman nominated for President in a major party! About damn time! Many many more returns of the day!!
Page – That’s cute. Thanks
++++++++++
08/06/2016
Page – Jesus. You should read this. And Trump should go f himself. Moment in Convention Glare Shakes Up Khans American Life http://nyti.ms/2aHulE0
Strzok – God that’s a great article. Thanks for sharing. And F TRUMP.
++++++++
08/06/2016
Page – And maybe you’re meant to stay where you are because you’re meant to protect the country from that menace. To that end comma, read this:
Page – Trump Enablers Will Finally Have to Take A Stand http://nyti.ms/2aFakry
Strzok – Thanks. It’s absolutely true that we’re both very fortunate. And of course I’ll try and approach it that way. I just know it will be tough at times. I can protect our country at many levels, not sure if that helps
++++++++++++
08/09/2016
Page – He’s not ever going to become president, right? Right?!
Strzok – OMG did you hear what Trump just said?
+++++++++++
08/26/2016
Strzok – Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support…
Page – Yep. Out to lunch with (redacted) We both hate everyone and everything.
Page – Just riffing on the hot mess that is our country.
Strzok – Yeah…it’s scary real down here
+++++++++
10/20/2016
Strzok: I am riled up. Trump is a f***ing idiot, is unable to provide a coherent answer.
Strzok – I CAN’T PULL AWAY, WHAT THE F**K HAPPENED TO OUR COUNTRY (redacted)??!?!
Page– I don’t know. But we’ll get it back. We’re America. We rock.
Strzok– Donald just said “bad hombres”
Strzok– Trump just said what the FBI did is disgraceful.
This article was originally published by Consortium News –

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Was the DNC/Clinton campaign-funded dossier used to obtain warrants on Trump team from the secret court?
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* Zie: ‘Wall Street Journal wil punt achter Russiagate

Zie ook: ‘WikiLeaks belooft The Guardian 1 miljoen dollar als het haar leugens i.z. Assange en Russiagate kan bewijzen…….

en: ‘Russiagate? Britaingate zal je bedoelen!

en: ‘Facebook gebruikte ‘fake news’ beschuldiging om de aandacht voor schandalen af te leiden

en ‘Politico rapport bevestigt: Russiagate is een hoax

en: ‘New York Times ‘bewijzen’ voor Russiagate vallen door de mand……

en: ‘Russiagate sprookje ondermijnt VS democratie en de midterm verkiezingen

en: ‘Google, de volgende ‘die advertentieruimte verkocht aan Putin zelf……’ ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

en:Russiagate, of: hoe de media u belazeren met verhalen over Russische bemoeienis met de VS presidentsverkiezingen……..

en: Publicly Available Evidence Doesn’t Support Russian Gov Hacking of 2016 Election

en: ‘CIA chef Pompeo waarschuwt voor complot van WikiLeaks om de VS op alle mogelijke manieren neer te halen……. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

en: ‘‘Russiagate’ een verhaal van a t/m z westers ‘fake news…..’

en: ‘Rusland zou onafhankelijkheid Californië willen uitlokken met reclame voor borsjt…….

en: ‘Clinton te kakken gezet: Donna Brazile (Democratische Partij VS) draagt haar boek op aan Seth Rich, het vermoorde lid van DNC die belastende documenten lekte

en: ‘CIA deed zich voor als het Russische Kaspersky Lab, aldus Wikileaks Vault 8…..‘ (zie ook de andere links onder dat bericht)

en: ‘Kajsa Ollongren (D66 vicepremier): Nederland staat in het vizier van Russische inlichtingendiensten……. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

en: ‘Ollongren gesteund door Thomas Boesgaard (AD), ‘Rusland verpakt het nepnieuws gekoppeld aan echt nieuws…..’ Oei!!‘ (ja ook deze D66 plork gaat plat op de bek!)

en: ‘RT America één van de eerste slachtoffers in een heksenjacht op westerse alternatieve media en nadenkend links……

en: ‘Rusland heeft niets van doen met manipulaties van de VS presidentsverkiezingen via Facebook, wel maakt Facebook meer kapot dan je lief is…….

en: ‘‘False flag terror’ bestaat wel degelijk: bekentenissen en feiten over heel smerige zaken……….

en: ‘CIA 70 jaar: 70 jaar moorden, martelen, coups plegen, nazi’s beschermen, media manipulatie enz. enz………

en: ‘CIA en 70 jaar desinformatie in Europese opiniebladen…………

en: ‘Pompeo (CIA opperhoofd met koperen fluit): heeft alle aanwijzingen dat Rusland de midterm verkiezingen zal manipuleren……

en: ‘‘Russiagate’ een complot van CIA, FBI, Hillary Clinton en het DNC………..

en: De Russiagate samenzweringstheorie dient de machthebbers………

en: ‘‘Fake News’ hysterie willens en wetens gelanceerd om sociale media tot zwijgen te brengen, Rusland te demoniseren en daarmee de waarheid te verbergen……..