Democratische Conventie: niet één woord over Russiagate domweg omdat het een leugen is

Tijdens
de gehele Democratische Conventie van 17 t/m 20 augustus, viel
letterlijk niet één keer het woord ‘Russiagate’, terwijl de
Democraten het de laatste 4 jaar wel 1.000 keer werd uitgespuugd door
de hypocriete politici van die partij. Logisch dat men er nu maar mee
is gestopt, immers het is bewezen flauwekul en alleen door de partij
in stelling gebracht om Hillary Clinton uit de wind te houden, die op
een smerige manier de voorverkiezingen van de Democraten in 2016
heeft gewonnen, ofwel:
zij heeft destijds de voorverkiezingen gestolen ten koste van Bernie Sanders……

Een lid
van Clintons verkiezingsteam, Seth Rich was zo pissig over de
handelswijze van Clinton en de top van dat team, dat hij een enorme
stapel mails van Clinton doorspeelde naar Wikileaks…… Een paar weken later
werd Rich vermoord op straat gevonden, volgens de politie een
roofmoord, hoe vreemd dan dat er werkelijk niets was gestolen van
Rich, terwijl hij ook opzichtig dure sieraden droeg……. (bovendien waarom zou je iemand 2 maal in de rug schieten als je deze wilt ontdoen van diens kostbaarheden en geld??)

Nee,
i.p.v. een Russische agent, bleek Trump de figuur die een enorme
legermacht heeft samengetrokken langs delen van de Russische
westgrens, waarbij hij nu ook nog de beschikking heeft over een
raketschild ‘tegen Iran’ maar waarvan de raketten in een mum van tijd
kunnen worden voorzien van meerdere kernkoppen en dat op raketten die
tot 5.000 kilometer kunnen vliegen, waardoor steden als Moskou en
Sint-Petersburg vanaf de voordeur van Rusland kunnen worden geraakt met kernraketten…. 

Met dat schild heeft de Trump administratie het INF-verdrag
geschonden, iets waarvan de VS en haar oorlogshond NAVO Rusland volkomen ten onrechte
beschuldigden……. (Rusland zou nieuwe raketten hebben die volgens
de VS onder dat verdrag vallen, echter op meerdere uitnodigingen van
het Kremlin om te komen inspecteren ging de VS niet in, daar de
duivelse Trump administratie dondersgoed wist en weet dat Rusland de waarheid
sprak……)

Lees het
volgende artikel van Caitlin Johnstone die dieper op deze zaak
ingaat en onder andere de stelling van Max Blumenthal steunt dat Russiagate een manier was om Trump zo onder druk te zetten dat hij wapens leverde aan Oekraïne (ben het daar deels mee eens, zeker daar ook wordt gesteld dat Obama Oekraïne niet wilde bewapenen, terwijl zijn minister van BuZa Joe Biden dat land onder druk zette het strafrechtelijk onderzoek tegen zijn corrupte zoon te stoppen, daar men anders een levering van wapens uit de VS kon vergeten):   

Dem Convention Made No Mention Of Russiagate Or Impeachment, Because They Were Fake

Caitlin
Johnstone <donotreply@wordpress.com>

The
only interesting thing about either of the conventions held by
America’s two mainstream political parties this month was not
anything that was said by the interminable parade of vapid speakers,
but rather what those speakers did not say.

Despite
their dominating mainstream news cycles for years on end, at no time
during the four-day Democratic National Convention was the word
“impeachment” ever uttered, nor was any mention made of the
Mueller investigation into allegations of collusion between Trump and
the Russian government.

Politicoreports:

Eight
months after Democrats mounted a historic effort to remove Donald
Trump from office, not a single speaker uttered the word
“impeachment” during their four-day convention.

For
Democrats to completely omit impeachment from their convention was
once unthinkable. Democrats had mounted a case that Trump had abused
his power to blackmail Ukraine into investigating his political
adversaries, including Biden. And they made an existential argument
that without removing him from office, Trump’s behavior would get
worse and democracy itself would be at risk.

Special
counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s
ties to Russia — which Democrats once thought could topple Trump
for obstruction of justice — also went unmentioned, even as it was
a defining feature of Trump’s nearly four years in office.

  

At
DNC, “the word ‘impeachment’ [was] entirely left out over the
course of the 4-night event. Mueller’s investigation of the Trump
campaign’s ties to Russia… also went unmentioned, even as it was
a defining feature of Trump’s nearly 4 years in office.”
https://t.co/Dgt9WQ3LeApic.twitter.com/q8EvEthwZq

Aaron
Maté (@aaronjmate)
August
28, 2020

“The
fact that Democrats couldn’t bring themselves to even
mention
Russiagate or Ukrainegate (the first-ever sequel to a flop?) at their
convention should maybe hasten some reflection for those who made
these issues the ‘defining feature of Trump’s nearly four years in
office,'”
quipped
incisive Russiagate skeptic Aaron Maté of the omission on Twitter.

“Next
on Unsolved Mysteries: Democrats and media allies accused Donald
Trump of being a Russian agent for four years,” Maté
added.
“They chanted ‘All Roads Lead to Putin’ and ‘The Walls Are
Closing In.’ But at their political convention, they forgot all about
it. Did Russia give them amnesia?”

“I
personally feel like if the President of the US seeking re-election
is beholden to and controlled by an adversarial foreign power, the
opposition party should find a few seconds to squeeze in a mention of
it if, you know, it wasn’t utter bullshit,”
tweetedThe
Intercept
‘s
Glenn Greenwald.

And,
of course, it was utter bullshit. And that is indeed why the
Democrats saw no need to mention it at their own four-day convention
despite dominating news cycles with it for years. Russiagate and
Ukrainegate were never the cataclysmic scandals that the Democrats
and their allied media factions portrayed them as. They weren’t even
actually about getting rid of Trump.


Glenn Greenwald



@ggreenwald

In an extremely strange and confounding development, the Democrats *never once* mentioned what this NYT columnist calls “the biggest lie in American politics” at their Convention.

In fairness, they only had 4 full nights so maybe they couldn’t squeeze in any mention of it. https://twitter.com/michelleinbklyn/status/1295743070672162821 

View image on Twitter

Michelle Goldberg



@michelleinbklyn

The biggest lie in American politics, which you hear from parts of the left as well as the right, is that Russiagate hasn’t been borne out by investigators https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1295720689043939333 



689

Anyone
with an ear to the ground knew that Russiagate would fizzle, and
anyone capable of counting Senate seats knew impeachment would fail
to remove Trump. The drivers of these attention-monopolizing
narratives knew this also.

If
there’d been any solid evidence to find that the Kremlin was
blackmailing Trump, or that his campaign had conspired with the
Russian government to steal the 2016 election, the US intelligence
community would have found some of it and leaked it to
The
Washington Post

long before Trump took office. The Russiagate narrative has been
completely dismantled from the very beginning by journalists like
the
late Robert Parry
,
and then Maté after Parry’s death. There was never any real
evidence for it, and the people pushing Russiagate from the beginning
knew there was never any real evidence for it.

All
you really need to know about Russiagate was that it was started by
unsubstantiated claims by the US intelligence community, and in the
end it facilitated pre-existing plans by the US intelligence
community. Everything else in between those two points is just
empty
narrative fluff
.

In
2017
Parry
documented

how the original assessment that Russia meddled in the US election in
the first place was put forward without proof by just a couple dozen
officers from three intelligence agencies hand-picked by the
notoriously
Russophobic

then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. 
Maté
has documented

that this allegation remains just as
suspicious
and porous

as the day it was first made. Despite having sweeping investigative
powers Mueller indicted not one single American for conspiracy with
the Russian government. The recent evidence-free Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence report
did
nothing to change
 the
flimsy nature of the entire Russiagate narrative.

So
the whole thing has been plainly bogus from the beginning, with the
foundation laid by secretive and unaccountable intelligence agencies
who have
an
extensive history of lying

about exactly this sort of thing. And it just so happens to have
paved the way for operations against a longtime geostrategic foe that
were being unfolded well before Trump’s arrival in 

the White House.

This
is an excerpt from
an
article

by legendary Australian journalist John Pilger from March 2016:

In
the last eighteen months, the greatest build-up of military forces
since World War Two — led by the United States — is taking place
along Russia’s western frontier.  Not since Hitler invaded the
Soviet Union have foreign troops presented such a demonstrable threat
to Russia.

Ukraine
– once part of the Soviet Union –  has become a CIA theme park.
Having orchestrated a coup in Kiev, Washington effectively controls a
regime that is next door and hostile to Russia: a regime rotten with
Nazis, literally. Prominent parliamentary figures in Ukraine are the
political descendants of the notorious OUN and UPA fascists. They
openly praise Hitler and call for the persecution and expulsion of
the Russian speaking minority.

This
is seldom news in the West, or it is inverted to suppress the truth.

In
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — next door to Russia – the US
military is deploying combat troops, tanks, heavy weapons. This
extreme provocation of the world’s second nuclear power is met with
silence in the West.

This
was all happening during the Obama administration. But he was still
more doveish than the spooks and cold warriors who drive US foreign
policy would prefer, resisting for example loud calls from the
warmongers to
arm
Ukraine
 against
Moscow and
forcibly
install a no-fly zone

in Russia’s ally Syria.

The
heir apparent to Obama’s throne, Hillary Clinton, did not suffer from
such peacenik scruples. She’d already been
making
people on both sides of the aisle nervous

with her anti-Russia hawkishness, and supported both
arming
Ukraine

and
installing
a no-fly zone

in Syria.

So
these escalations were already underway, and more were being prepared
for.

Then
what happened? Somehow a political neophyte who’d been
talking
about making nice with Russia

got in instead.

We
suddenly found ourselves bombarded with narratives from the US
intelligence community and its mass media stenographers about Russian
election meddling and Trump playing some mysterious role in it. These
narratives were pushed with steadily increasing frequency and
shrillness, with the help of a humiliated Democratic Party that stood
everything to gain by participating, until those of us who expressed
any skepticism of them at all were being accused on a daily basis by
MSM-brainwashed dupes of running psyops for the Russian government.

We
were never at any time presented with any proof of these claims which
rose anywhere near the level required in a post-Iraq invasion world,
but we were hammered with them anyway, day in and day out, year after
year.

This
ended up putting a lot of political pressure on Trump to keep
existing sanctions and military tensions with Russia, and he
ended
up adding dozens more
 new
cold war escalations including further sanctions, shredded nuclear
treaties, NATO expansionism and more. He even
armed
Ukraine
 due
to these pressures, just like the anointed queen was scheduled to do.


Max Blumenthal



@MaxBlumenthal

For years, neocons and arms industry darlings like @RepAdamSchiff have sought to re-arm Ukraine and escalate the conflict in Donbas. By stirring up Russiagate, they finally got their deadly deal. My latest: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/russiagate-helped-secure-dangerous-arms-deal/ 

How ‘Russiagate’ Helped Secure a Dangerous Arms Deal Both
Barack Obama and Donald Trump resisted sending weapons to Ukraine. Then
the investigation into Trump-Russia collusion was launched.

truthdig.com



341

The
cold warriors wanted their escalations, and they got them. From
beginning to the end, that’s all this was ever about. They pushed the
narratives, the media joined in because it was
great
for ratings
,
and the Democrats joined in because it took the focus off their
2016
scandals

and gave them a kayfabe phantom to punch instead of
pushing
for actual progressive changes
.

And
now the
slow
motion third world war

between the US-centralized power alliance and the loose collective of
unabsorbed governments is right on schedule, with Biden all set and
ready to carry the omnicidal torch forward. The 2016 scandals are
well enough forgotten, no progressive changes have been made, and
there is no need to talk about Russiagate or impeachment at the
Democratic National Convention.

Because
everyone already got what they wanted. Everyone except ordinary
people, of course.

____________________

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Caitlin
Johnstone

| August 29, 2020 at 2:54 am | Tags:
#Trump,
convention,
democrats,
DNC,
impeachment,
Mueller,
Russia,
Russiagate
| Categories:
Article,
News
| URL:
https://wp.me/p9tj6M-2hX

Jeffrey Epstein en Ghislaine Maxwell werkten mede voor de militaire geheime dienst van Israël

Een
voormalige ‘hoge’ medewerker van de Israëlische militaire geheime dienst, 
Ari Ben-Menashe  liet
onlangs in een interview weten dat Jeffrey Epstein en Ghislaine
Maxwell werkten voor de Israëlische
 geheime dienst……. Volgens deze
figuur werd het seksnetwerk van Epstein gebruikt om vooraanstaande
personen, zoals machtige politici (o.a. Bill Clinton en Tony Blair), te chanteren. Deze geheime dienst
heeft de chantage dienst opgezet en….. gebruikt!

Het
was overigens al duidelijk dat het netwerk van Epstein werd gebruikt
om vooraanstaande politici te chanteren daar zij kinderen seksueel
misbruikten, kinderen die hare kwaadaardigheid Ghislaine Maxwell ‘trash’ noemde, ofwel vuilnis waar
je mee kan doen wat je wilt…….. Vreemd genoeg hebben de reguliere
westerse massamedia vooral aandacht aan Epstein besteed, waar ze zijn
zelfmoord als zeker bestempelden, terwijl het meer dan duidelijk is
dat Epstein werd vermoord en dat moet een overheidsinstantie hebben
gedaan, of deze instantie heeft een ander de opdracht gegeven,
Epstein mocht de rechtszaal nooit bereiken, teveel belangrijke en
machtige figuren zouden van hun voedstuk donderen, neem Trump,
Clinton en ga nog maar een tijdje door…….

Ari
Ben-Menashe heeft overigens wel meer te vertellen, bijvoorbeeld dat
hij in de 80er jaren van de vorige eeuw samen met Robert Maxwell
betrokken was bij de Iran-Contra-Affaire…….. Dezelfde Maxwell
introduceerde Ben-Menashe bij Jeffrey Epstein in het midden van die
jaren 80.

Maxwell
had trouwens een heel netwerk in Israël en daar maakte ook Ariel
Sharon deel van uit, Sharon de beestachtige oorlogsmisdadiger die
verantwoordelijk was voor de massamoord in Sabra en
Shatila, het Palestijnse vluchtelingenkamp en de aangrenzende wijk in Beiroet, Libanon……

Voorafgaand aan een interview met Robert Parry in 2012 over Iran Contra en andere smerige geheime acties in de 80er jaren van de vorige eeuw, ging het huis van Ben-Menashe in Montreal in vlammen op, e.e.a. als gevolg van een aanval met een brandbom waarin een vloeistof die alleen door militairen wordt gebruikt, het is dan ook wel duidelijk dat Israël Ben-Menashe de mond wilde snoeren……. 

Eén ding is zeker, de continue westerse steun voor de (nu officieel) fascistische apartheidsstaat Israël, is bepaald niet alleen ingegeven door een schuldgevoel over de holocaust……..

Lees
het volgende artikel geschreven door Whitney Webb en dat eerder
verscheen op MintPressNews en ook jij zal begrijpen dat Epstein zijn
mond moest houden, ofwel hij werd vermoord:

Former
Israeli Intel Official Claims Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell
Worked for Israeli Intel

A
recent interview given by a former high-ranking official in Israeli
military intelligence has claimed that Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual
blackmail enterprise was an Israel intelligence operation run for the
purpose of entrapping powerful individuals and politicians in the
United States and abroad.

October
02nd, 2019

By Whitney
Webb 
Whitney
Webb


Jeffery Epstein Israel Feature photo

Since
the apparent death by suicide of Jeffrey Epstein in a Manhattan
prison, much has come to light about his depraved activities and
methods used to sexually abuse underage girls and entrap the rich and
powerful for the purposes of blackmail. Epstein’s ties to
intelligence, described in-depth in a recent
 MintPress investigative
series
,
have continued to receive minimal mainstream media coverage, which
has essentially moved on from the Epstein scandal despite the fact
that his many co-conspirators remain on the loose.

Epstein special coverage banner

For
those who have examined Epstein’s ties to intelligence, there are
clear links to both U.S. intelligence and Israeli intelligence,
leaving it somewhat open to debate as to which country’s
intelligence apparatus was closest to Epstein and most involved in
his blackmail/sex-trafficking activities. A recent interview given by
a former high-ranking official in Israeli military intelligence has
claimed that Epstein’s sexual blackmail enterprise was an Israel
intelligence operation run for the purpose of entrapping powerful
individuals and politicians in the United States and abroad.

In an
interview
 with
Zev Shalev, former 
CBS
News
 executive
producer and award-winning investigative journalist for 
Narativ,
the former senior executive for Israel’s Directorate of Military
Intelligence, Ari Ben-Menashe, claimed not only to have met Jeffrey
Epstein and his alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, back in the 1980s,
but that both Epstein and Maxwell were 
already working
with Israeli intelligence during that time period. 

They
found a niche”

In an
interview
 last
week with the independent outlet 
Narativ,
Ben-Menashe, who himself was involved in Iran-Contra arms deals, told
his interviewer Zev Shalev that he had been introduced to Jeffrey
Epstein by Robert Maxwell in the mid-1980s while Maxwell’s and
Ben-Menashe’s involvement with Iran-Contra was ongoing. Ben-Menashe
did not specify the year he met Epstein.

Ben-Menashe
told Shalev that “he [Maxwell] wanted us to accept him [Epstein] as
part of our group …. I’m not denying that we were at the time a
group that it was Nick Davies [Foreign Editor of the
Maxwell-Owned 
Daily
Mirror
],
it was Maxwell, it was myself and our team from Israel, we were doing
what we were doing.” Past reporting by Seymour Hersh and
others 
revealed
that
 Maxwell,
Davies and Ben-Menashe were involved in the transfer and sale of 
military equipment and weapons from Israel to Iran on behalf of
Israeli intelligence during this time period.

He
then added that Maxwell had stated during the introduction that “your
Israeli bosses have already approved” of Epstein. Shalev later
noted that Maxwell “had an extensive network in Israel at the time,
which included the then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, according to
Ben-Menashe.”

Ben-Menashe
went on to say that he had “met him [Epstein] a few times in
Maxwell’s office, that was it.” He also said he was not aware of
Epstein being involved in arms deals for anyone else he knew at the
time, but that Maxwell wanted to involve Epstein in the arms transfer
in which he, Davies and Ben-Menashe were engaged on Israel’s
behalf.

Mega Group Ariel Sharon Robert Maxwell

Ariel
Sharon (right) meets with Robert Maxwell in Jerusalem on Feb. 20,
1990. Photo | AP


However,
as 
MintPress reported
in 
Part
IV
 of
the investigative series “
Inside
the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal: Too Big to Fail
,”
Epstein was involved with several arms dealers during this period of
time, some of whom were directly involved in Iran-Contra arms deals
between Israel and Iran. For instance, after leaving Bear Stearns in
1981, Epstein 
began
working
 in
the realms of shadow finance as a self-described “financial bounty
hunter,” where he would both hunt down and hide money for powerful
people. One of these powerful individuals was Adnan Khashoggi, a
Saudi arms dealer with close ties to both Israeli and U.S.
intelligence and one of the main brokers of Iran-Contra arms deals
between Israel and Iran. Epstein would later forge a business
relationship with a CIA front company involved in another aspect of
Iran-Contra, the airline Southern Air Transport, on behalf of Leslie
Wexner’s company, The Limited. 

During
this period, it is also known that Epstein became well acquainted
with the British arms dealer Sir Douglas Leese, who collaborated with
Khashoggi on at least one British-Saudi arms deal in the 1980s.
Leese 
would
later introduce
 Epstein
to Steven Hoffenberg, calling Epstein a “genius” and describing
his lack of morals during that introduction. Thus, there are
indications that Epstein was involved with Middle Eastern arms deals,
including some related to Iran-Contra, during this period. In
addition, Epstein would later claim (and then subsequently deny)
having worked for the CIA during this period.

After
having been introduced to Epstein, Ben-Menashe claimed that neither
he nor Davies were impressed with Epstein and considered him “not
very competent.” He added that Ghislaine Maxwell had “fallen for”
Epstein and that he believed that the romantic relationship between
his daughter and Epstein led Robert Maxwell to work to bring the
latter into the “family business” — i.e., Maxwell’s dealings
with Israeli intelligence. This information is very revealing, given
that the narrative, until now at least, has been that Ghislaine
Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein did not meet and begin their relationship
until after Robert Maxwell’s death in 1991, after which Ghislaine
moved to New York.

Ben-Menashe
says that well after the introduction, though again he does not
specify what year, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein began a
sexual blackmail operation with the purpose of extorting U.S.
political and public figures on behalf of Israeli military
intelligence. He stated: 

In
this case what really happened, my take on it, in the later thing, is
that these guys were seen as agents. They weren’t really competent
to do very much. And so they found a niche for themselves —
blackmailing American and other political figures.” 

He
then confirmed, when prompted, that they were blackmailing Americans
on behalf of Israeli intelligence. 

In
response to his statement, Zev Shalev replied, “But, you know,
for most people it’s hard for them to think of Israel as being …
blackmailing their leaders in the United States, it’s a very …”
at which point, Ben-Menashe interrupted and the following exchange
took place:

Ari
Ben-Menashe:  
You’re kidding? [laughs]…. It was
quite their M.O. Sleeping around is not a crime, it may be
embarrassing, but it’s not a crime, but sleeping with underage
girls is a crime. 

Shalev:  It
was a crime in 2000 as well, but they let him off that… 

Ben-Menashe:  And
that it is [why] always so he [Epstein] made sure these girls were
underage.

In
addition, when Shalev asked Ben-Menashe about 
the
relationship
 between
Jeffrey Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak,
Ben-Menashe stated “After a while, you know, what Mr. Epstein was
doing was collecting intelligence on people in the United States. And
so if you want to go to the U.S. if you’re a high-profile
politician you want to know information about people.” Ben-Menashe
subsequently stated that Barak was obtaining compromising information
(i.e., blackmail) that Epstein had acquired on powerful people in the
United States.
 

PROMIS,
sex, and blackmail

If
Robert Maxwell did recruit Epstein and bring him into the “family
business” and the world of Israeli intelligence, as Ben-Menashe has
claimed, it provides supporting evidence for information provided
to MintPress by a former U.S. intelligence official,
who chose to remain anonymous in light of the sensitivity of the
claim.

This
source, who has direct knowledge of the unauthorized use of PROMIS to
support covert U.S. and Israeli intelligence projects,
told 
MintPress that
“some of the proceeds from the illicit sales of PROMIS were made
available to Jeffrey Epstein for use in compromising targets of
political blackmail.” As was noted in a 
Mintpress series
on the Epstein scandal
,
much of Epstein’s funding also came from Ohio billionaire Leslie
Wexner, who has documented ties to both organized crime and U.S. and
Israeli intelligence.

After
the PROMIS software was stolen from its rightful owner and developer,
Inslaw Inc., through the collusion of both U.S. and Israeli
officials, it was marketed mainly by two men: Earl Brian, a close
aide to Ronald Reagan, later U.S. envoy to Iran and close friend of
Israeli spymaster Rafi Eitan; and Robert Maxwell. Brian sold the
bugged software through his company, Hadron Inc., while Maxwell sold
it through an Israeli company he acquired called Degem. Before and
following Maxwell’s acquisition of Degem, the company was 
a
known front
 for
Mossad operations and Mossad operatives in Latin America often posed
as Degem employees. 

With
Maxwell — Epstein’s alleged recruiter and father of Epstein’s
alleged madam — having been one of the main salespeople involved in
selling PROMIS software on behalf of intelligence, he would have been
in a key position to furnish Epstein’s nascent sexual blackmail
operation with the proceeds from the sale of PROMIS. 

This
link between Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation and the PROMIS
software scandal is notable given that the illicit use of PROMIS by
U.S. and Israeli intelligence has been for blackmail purposes on U.S.
public figures and politicians, as was described in 
a
recent 
MintPress report
.

Can
an ex-spy be trusted?

When
dealing in the world of deception and intrigue that defines
intelligence operations, it is often difficult to determine whether
any individual linked to an intelligence agency is telling the truth.
Indeed, in the United States, there are 
examples of
elected intelligence officials committing perjury and lying to
Congress 
on
several occasions
 with
no consequences, and of intelligence officials feeding politically
motivated and untrue information to agency assets in the media. 

So,
are Ari Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding Epstein and the Maxwells
trustworthy? In addition to the aforementioned, corroborating
information for his claims, a review of Ben-Menashe’s
post-intelligence career suggests this is the case.

Ari Ben Menashe

Ari
Ben Menashe arrives at Harare International Airport, in Zimbabwe,
Feb. 22, 2002. Photo | AP

Prior
to his arrest in November 1989, Ben-Menashe was a high-ranking
officer in a special unit of Israeli military intelligence. He
would 
later
claim
 that
his arrest for attempting to sell American-made weapons to Iran was
politically motivated, as he had threatened to expose what the U.S.
government had done with the stolen PROMIS software if the U.S. did
not cease providing Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with chemical weapons.
Ben-Menashe was 
later
acquitted
 when
a U.S. court determined that his involvement in the attempted sale of
military equipment to Iran was done on behalf of the Israeli state.

After
his arrest, Ben-Menashe was visited in prison by Robert Parry, the
former 
Newsweek contributor
and 
Associated
Press
 reporter
who would later found and run 
Consortium
News
 until
his recent passing last year. Parry 
remembered
that
,
during that interview, “Ben-Menashe offered me startling new
information about the Iran-Contra scandal, which I thought that I
knew quite well.”

Israel’s
government immediately began to attack Ben-Menashe’s credibility
following his interview with Parry, and claimed that Ben-Menashe had
never worked for Israeli intelligence. When Parry soon 
found
evidence
 that
Ben-Menashe had indeed served in Israeli military intelligence,
Israel’s government was then forced to admit that he had worked for
military intelligence, but only as a “low-level translator.”
Yet, 
the
documentation
 Parry
had uncovered described Ben-Menashe as having served in “key
positions” and performed “complex and sensitive assignments.”

A
year later, Ben-Menashe would be interviewed by another journalist,
Seymour Hersh. It would be Ben-Menashe who first revealed to Hersh
secrets about Israel’s nuclear program and the fact that British
media mogul Robert Maxwell was an Israeli spy, revelations that Hersh
would not only independently corroborate but include in his book 
The
Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign
Policy
.
Hersh was then sued by Robert Maxwell and the Maxwell-owned Mirror
Group for libel. The case was 
later
settled
 in
Hersh’s favor, as the claims Hersh had made were true and not
libelous. As a result, the Mirror Group paid Hersh for damages,
covered his legal costs, and issued him a formal apology.

After
Ben-Menashe’s interviews by Hersh and Parry, Israel’s government
was apparently concerned enough about what Ben-Menashe would tell
congressional investigators that it 
attempted
to kidnap him
 and
bring him back to Israel to face state charges, much like Israeli
intelligence had done to Israel’s nuclear-weapons whistleblower
Mordechai Vanunu. The plan was foiled largely thanks to Parry.

Parry,
who broke many key stories related to the Iran-Contra scandal in the
1980s and beyond, was tipped off by a U.S. intelligence source about
a joint U.S.-Israel plan to have Ben-Menashe first be denied entry to
the United States on his planned trip to give congressional
testimony. Per the plan, Ben-Menashe would be denied entry to the
U.S. in Los Angeles and then be deported to Israel, where he would
have stood trial for “exposing state secrets.” Parry called
Ben-Menashe and convinced him to delay his flight until he secured a
guarantee for safe passage from the U.S. government. 

Ben-Menashe
subsequently gave 
a
sworn statement
 to
the House Judiciary Committee that mostly focused on U.S.-Israel
collusion regarding the theft and creation of a “backdoor” into
the PROMIS software. Ben-Menashe offered to name names and provide
corroborating evidence for several of his claims if he was offered
immunity by the committee, which, for whatever reason. declined that
request. 

Prior
to the conclusion of the Hersh “libel” trial, which would later
uphold Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding Robert Maxwell’s Mossad
activities as true, there was a concerted effort in the U.S. press to
downplay Ben-Menashe’s credibility. For instance, 
Newsweek —
in an article on Ben-Menashe entitled “
One
Man, Many Tales

— claimed that “inconsistencies may undermine Ben-Menashe’s
testimony in the British courtroom proceedings,” citing
inconsistencies from sources in Israel’s government and Israeli
intelligence as well as 
Ben-Menashe’s
ex-wife
 and
Israeli journalist Shmuel (or Samuel) Segev, a 
former
IDF colonel
.
It goes without saying that such sources had much to gain from any
effort to discredit Ben-Menashe’s claims.

According
to Parry, this media campaign, which employed American journalists
with 
close
ties
 to
Israel’s government and intelligence agencies, was very successful
“in marginalizing Ben-Menashe by 1993, at least in the eyes of the
Washington Establishment.” After a years-long media campaign to
discredit Ben-Menashe, “the Israelis seemed to view him as a
declining threat, best left alone. He was able to pick up the pieces
of his life, creating a second act as an international political
consultant and businessman arranging sales of grain.” The effort to
marginalize Ben-Menashe has continued well into recent years, with
mainstream news outlets still referring to him as a “
self-described
ex-Israeli spy

— despite the well-documented fact that Ben-Menashe worked for
Israeli intelligence — as a means of downplaying his claims
regarding his time in Israel’s intelligence service.

After
the conclusion of the Hersh libel trial, Ben-Menashe became an
international political consultant who “surrounded his far-flung
business activities in secrecy and got involved with some
controversial international figures, such as Zimbabwe’s leader
Robert Mugabe,” and 
conducted
his international consulting business … in a wide variety of global
hotspots, including conflict zones,” according to Parry. In
addition to Mugabe, Ben-Menashe 
has
also recently come under
fire
 for
his consulting work on behalf of Sudan’s military junta and
Venezuelan opposition politician Henri Falcón.

Ben-Menashe
has also maintained ties to several different intelligence services
and 
eventually
became
 a
controversial whistleblower whose information 
led
to the arrest
 of
the former head of Canada’s Security Intelligence Review Committee,
Arthur Porter.

As
far as his character is concerned, 
Parry
noted
 that
Ben-Menashe could often be “his own worst enemy” and that, even
though Parry considered his information regarding Iran-Contra and
PROMIS reliable and noted that much of it was later corroborated, he
“often compound[ed] his media problem by treating journalists in a
high-handed manner, either due to his suspicions of them or his
arrogance.”

Bill
Hamilton, the original developer of the PROMIS software and head of
Inslaw Inc., also found Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding the illicit
use of PROMIS by U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies to be
credible, though he expressed doubts about Ben-Menashe’s
character. 

Hamilton
told MintPress the following about Ben-Menashe: 

Ari
Ben Menashe was the first source to tell us reliable information
about the role of Rafi Eitan and Israeli intelligence vis-a-vis
PROMIS but, in the end, of course, he was a clandestine services-type
guy whose official duties include the ability and willingness to lie,
cheat, and steal.”

A
threat revived

While
Ben-Menashe may have been viewed as a “declining threat” after
the early 1990s, his plans to meet with Robert Parry of 
Consortium
News
 years
later in 2012 to discuss Iran-Contra and other covert dealings of the
1980s appeared to change that. Right before he planned to travel from
Canada to the United States to meet with Parry and “finally prove”
the truthfulness of his past claims, 
a
fire-bomb was thrown
 into
his Montreal home, destroying it.

Air Ben-Menashe Home

Air Ben-Menashe surveys
the damage to his home after it was mysteriously firebombed. Photos |
Robert Parry


Though
Canadian media 
referred
to
 the
incendiary device as a “molotov cocktail,” 
Consortium
News
 reported
 that
“the arson squad’s initial assessment is said to be that the
flammable agent was beyond the sort of accelerant used by common
criminals,” leading to speculation that the accelerant was
military-grade.

Had
it not been for the bomb, the origins of which Canadian police failed
to determine, Ben-Menashe would have traveled to the U.S. alongside a
“senior Israeli intelligence figure” to be interviewed by Parry.
The other intelligence-linked individual, 
according
to Parry
,
“concluded that the attack was meant as a message from Israeli
authorities to stay silent about the historical events that he was
expected to discuss.”

Though
neither Ben-Menashe nor Parry directly blamed Israel’s government
for the destruction of Ben-Menashe’s home, 
Parry
noted
 that
the bombing did succeed in “intimidating Ben-Menashe, shutting down
possible new disclosures of Israeli misconduct from the other
intelligence veteran, and destroying records that would have helped
Ben-Menashe prove whatever statements he might make.”

While
Ben-Menashe’s post-intelligence associations with controversial
governments and individuals have given plenty of fodder to the still
thriving media campaign to discredit his claims about covert
U.S.-Israel operations in the 1980s, there remain troubling
indications that the Israeli government sees his information on
decades-old events as a threat. 

Now,
with the major efforts by powerful Americans and Israelis to distance
themselves from Jeffrey Epstein and other figures associated with his
depraved sex trafficking operation, Ben-Menashe may soon again find
his reputation — and perhaps more — under fire.

Feature
photo | Graphic by Claudio Cabrera

Whitney
Webb
 is
a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to
several independent media outlets including Global Research,
EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others.
She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019
winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in
Journalism.

Republish
our stories!
 
MintPress
News is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.

===============================================

Zie ook:

Epsteins pedoseksuele netwerk was al lang bekend, onder andere ABC hield de berichtgeving tegen

Epstein was een agent van de Mossad en werd gebruikt om politici te chanteren

Jeffrey Epstein: bewakers die fraudeerden weigerden een ‘plea deal’

Prince Andrew: het voorbeeld dat koningshuizen eindelijk moeten worden opgedoekt

Epstein vermoord volgens patholoog-anatoom

Kindermisbruikers beschermd door overheden

Donald Trump – Jeffey Epstein: you’ve got to grab them by the pussy


‘WHAT THE EPSTEIN CASE REVEALS, “PEOPLE ARE OVERLOOKING THE CHILDREN…” (video van Brasscheck TV):

´Russiagate, ‘couppoging tegen Trump’ en kindermisbruik netwerk Epstein zijn gekoppeld´

Prince Andrew ontkent kennis kindermisbruiknetwerk Epstein, maar……..

Jeffrey Epstein waarschijnlijk op ‘loonlijst’ Mossad, de Israëlische geheime dienst

Jeffrey Epstein (exploitant kindermisbruik netwerk) ‘overleden aan suïcide’

Jeffrey Epstein, beheerder van een kindermisbruiknetwerk ‘is gesuïcideerd’ ofwel vermoord

Jeffrey Epstein: seksueel wangedrag van welgestelden veelal onder de pet gehouden

Jeffrey Epsteins kleine zwarte pedo-boek met namen als Bill Clinton, David Koch, Courtney Love, prins Andrew en Tony Blair‘ 

Gelekte documenten tonen aan dat Google en Pinterest censuur uitoefenen

Gelekte
documenten van Google en Pinterest tonen aan dat Google en Pinterest
censuur uitoefenen op onafhankelijke media, christelijke websites en
‘niet populaire’ opinies op de sociale media…..

Niets
nieuws, maar zoals al vaker opgemerkt, hoe meer bewijs voor dit soort
maatregelen die thuishoren in een dictatuur, hoe beter…..

Overigens wordt in het hieronder opgenomen artikel gesproken over het zoeken op het internet waarbij bepaalde resultaten aan de hand van een lijst met termen worden gemanipuleerd, anders gezegd: je krijgt in feite niet te zien waar je naar opzoek was…. Niets nieuws, al een paar jaar geleden viel het me op dat op een ander vlak, namelijk de naam van de website of blog, genoeg was om niet te worden opgenomen in de zoekresultaten, of ze werden pas na een aantal pagina’s weergegeven, ook de Azijnpisser is sindsdien moeilijk te vinden in de zoekresultaten….. Het is dan ook aan te raden dat wanneer je zeker weet een artikel op een site of blog te hebben gezien, de naam van die site of blog toe te voegen aan de zoektermen die je gebruikt.

Gelukkig
zien meer en meer mensen dat censuur op de sociale media zich tegen
hen keert, ofwel zoeken naar feiten op het internet wordt gedomineerd
door platforms die censuur uitoefenen en dan gaat het niet alleen om Google en Pinterest, maar ook om Facebook
en Twitter, waardoor men geen of moeilijk informatie op
onafhankelijke media kan vinden……

(foto van The Mind Unleashed)

Het
voorgaande is van groot belang als je ziet dat de reguliere media
voor het overgrote deel al lang niet meer onafhankelijk zijn en
ondanks alle beschuldigingen door die media van sites op de sociale
media als zouden deze fake news (nepnieuws) en andere desinformatie
verspreiden, zijn het juist de reguliere (massa-) media die aantoonbaar
een enorme berg fake news brachten en op andere manieren het publiek
manipuleerden met desinformatie, dit gebeurt overigens nog steeds…….. Neem de totaal gekleurde berichtgeving in die
media voorafgaand en tijdens de illegale oorlogen van de VS, met de
NAVO als oorlogshond, uiteraard onder opperbevel van de VS….

Lees het
volgende artikel, geschreven door Derrick Broze, eerder gepubliceerd
op The Mind Unleashed en door mij overgenomen van
Anti-Media:

Leaked
Documents From Pinterest Reveal Censorship of Anti-Media

June
12, 2019 at 10:24 pm

Written
by 
Derrick
Broze

Newly
leaked documents from Google and Pinterest reveal ongoing efforts to
censor independent media, Christian websites, and unpopular opinions.

(TMU— As
more and more Americans question the practices of tech companies like
Google, Facebook, and Amazon, the topic of censorship on social media
and in search results continues to be a hotly debated topic. Do these
companies essentially act as publishers, and if so, should they be
regulated as such? Should the government make efforts to break up the
tech giants? These questions and more need answering as the public
grapples with the reality that “Big Tech” is gaining more control
over what we see, hear, and read while surfing the internet.

Now,
more fuel has been added to the fire as the controversial
conservative investigative outlet 
Project
Veritas 
has released
leaked documents
 which
show Pinterest blocking links of alternative media websites and
search terms related to Christianity and abortion. The apparent
blacklist is part of a “
porn
domain block list”
 designed
to keep the social media platform free of sexually explicit content.
Veritas published the internal documents and reportedly interviewed a
company insider who claimed Pinterest directly and indirectly censors
content related to pro-life and Christian themes, as well as
alternative health sites, and several independent news websites known
for challenging the U.S. government narrative on a range of topics,
including the War on Terror. These sites include 
ZeroHedgeThe
Anti-Media
,
NewsWars (operated by Alex Jones’ Infowars), The PedoGate, Tracking
Vaccinations, and Organic Healthy Tips.

Other
documents leaked to 
Project
Veritas
 include
a large text file titled “Sensitive Terms List” containing search
terms that Pinterest considers “sensitive.” A user searching one
of these “sensitive” terms will received modified search results
per Pinterest internal policy. The documents note that search terms
are assigned an “abusive,” “sensitive,” and “brand unsafe”
value. Pinterest employees have the option to either block
auto-complete results in the search bar, show the user a warning, or
remove the term from recommended or trending feeds. The so-called
“Sensitive Terms List” reveals that Christianity-related terms
like “christian easter” and “bible verses” were marked as
“brand unsafe.”

This
is not the first time Pinterest made the news for censoring certain
material. In February, the platform also blocked searches related to
“anti-vaccination” 
material.

However,
the company is not alone in their efforts to remove unpopular
opinions and alternative media from their platforms. One day
after 
Project
Veritas

report, the
 Daily
Caller
 reported that
a whistleblower within Google leaked screenshots of two apparent
blacklists of websites which are being scrubbed from the search
engine’s results. The
 Daily
Caller
 reviewed
documents and found that employees are instructed to add the line “#
REMOVE url” to ensure that a “fringe” website is removed from
Google’s “featured snippets” search results. The “featured
snippets” feature is responsible for finishing users sentences when
they type questions into Google’s search box. The document suggests
that the removal of certain websites from featured snippets is being
conducted manually by a human employee rather than the result of a
mistake by an algorithm or artificial intelligence.

The
Caller also reports that a second blacklist, called
“all_fringe_domains,” is designed to block websites labeled
“fringe.” Some of the websites being blocked include 
the
American Spectator, Breitbart, Breaking911, the website of pastor
Brian Jones, the website of Bring Your Bible to School
Day, 
Consortium
News
 (published
by Robert Parry), St. Philip the Deacon Lutheran Church,
speakerryan.com, The Franklin Society (a cryptocurrency blog), 
Free
Thought Project
,
The Gateway Pundit, and The Gorka Briefing”
.

The
leaked documents reported on by the 
Daily
Caller
 and Project
Veritas
 raise
a number of questions regarding how much control and influence the
Big Tech giants have over public discourse. Even more worrisome is
the fact that websites like the 
Free
Thought Project
,
the 
Anti-Media,
and 
ZeroHedge have
been facing waves of censorship for over a year, with both
the 
Anti-Media and
the 
Free
Thought Project
being purged from
Facebook in October 2018.

By Derrick
Broze
 / Creative
Commons
 / The
Mind Unleashed
 / Report
a typo

===============================

Zie ook:

Twitter verwijdert accounts vanwege ‘propaganda’, maar werkt zelf met een militair propagandist

Australische politie valt kantoor ABC binnen vanwege gelekte documenten

Facebook stelt klimaatsceptisch Daily Caller aan als ‘factchecker…’ ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Twitter launches tool to report misleading content ahead of Indian & EU elections

Twitter meldpunt voor nepnieuws in aanloop EU verkiezingen

Russiagate geslaagd: geen impeachment van Trump, waar Clinton en haar team na bewezen misdaden vrijuit gaan…..

Facebook: uit gelekte documenten worden de steeds veranderende regels voor censuur op dit platform openbaar gemaakt: Facebook als geheime tak van de VS overheid

NewsGuard, het nieuwste wapen van Big Brother VS tegen de alternatieve media

Netflix censureert aflevering van humoristisch programma, ‘na een geldig verzoek’ op grond van Saoedische wetgeving….

Facebooks departement voor censuur: een hoognodige uitleg over een maatregel die alleen in een dictatuur thuishoort

Facebook censureert foto’s van verhongerende Jemenitische kinderen als ‘sexual content’

Google manipuleerde VS presidentsverkiezingen van 2016 en censureert niet alleen linkse/alternatieve sociale media

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

Google Maps veegt Palestijns gebied van de kaart

Twitter weert waarheid: Paul Craig Roberts in de ban, Roberts >> de grote criticus van de illegale oorlogen die de VS voert

Bolsonaro, de fascistische nieuwe president van Brazilië, werd volgens Avaaz en fake news brengers als de NYT gekozen door manipulatie via WhatsApp

Facebooks zuivering van de alternatieve (nieuws) media staat nog in de kinderschoenen

Facebook censureert de waarheid over Columbus en de verovering van de Amerika’s…….

Facebook censuur gestuurd door het westers militair-industrieel complex en de NAVO in het bijzonder……….

Zie voorts:

Warren (democratisch presidentskandidaat) toont met hulp van Facebook aan dat dit bedrijf niet hoort te gaan over wat wel en niet is toegestaan‘ (en zie de links in dat bericht, die hier niet zijn vermeld)

Russiagate: nog overtuigd van bestaan daarvan? Lees dit!

Julian Assange (brekend nieuws) veroordeeld tot 50 weken gevangenisstraf……

Jan Kuitenbrouwer (‘journalist’): Assange is een charlatan en WikiLeaks heeft beelden van de moord op 2 journalisten gemanipuleerd

Julian Assanges vervolging is de genadeklap voor klokkenluiders en (echte) journalisten‘ 

Russiagate haat- en angstcampagne samenzweerders als FBI en Clinton moeten strafrechtelijk worden vervolgd

BBC verslaggever is beschaamd over de 25 jaar die hij voor deze zendgemachtigde heeft gewerkt

BNR ‘denkt’ als één van de vele mediaorganen nog steeds dat Russiagate werkelijk plaats vond

BBC topman waarschuwt dat de BBC haar geloofwaardigheid en reputatie kwijtraakt…… ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Geen rectificaties voor meer dan 2 jaar brengen van fake news over het kwaadaardig sprookje Russiagate

Bedrijf dat voor ‘Russische bots’ waarschuwde, heeft een leger met nep-Russische bots

Britse militaire geheime dienst bedient zich van moddergooien en andere manipulaties om Europese en VS politiek te manipuleren, zo blijkt uit gelekte documenten

‘Fake news’: alternatieve media en bloggers in het westen zouden onzin brengen, echter niet als dit soort groepen wat roepen in landen die het westen niet welgevallig zijn

Two More Spiegel Employees Out After Fake News Scandal Expands‘ Ofwel: het zoveelste ‘gevalletje fake news’, gebracht door de reguliere massamedia……..

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

USA TODAY

@USATODAY

Is this beluga whale actually a Russian spy? https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/29/beluga-whale-discovered-harness-could-russian-military/3617313002/ 


Spy games? Russia could be using beluga whales for military purposes

A whale  has been discovered in waters near Norway with tight harnesses on it, which could have been attached by the Russian military.

usatoday.com

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

Glenn Greenwald

@ggreenwald

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/ 


2,228

6:54 PM – Jan 7, 2019

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

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

Consortium News@Consortiumnews

Robert Parry explores the strange mystery of the Russia-gate puppies, https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/04/the-mystery-of-the-russia-gate-puppies/ 


50

11:29 PM – Oct 4, 2017

Twitter Ads info and privacy


The Mystery of the Russia-gate Puppies

Exclusive: The U.S. mainstream media is determined to prove Russia-gate despite the scandal’s cracking foundation and its inexplicable anomalies, such as why Russia would set up a Facebook “puppies”…

consortiumnews.com

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

Mark Ames

@MarkAmesExiled

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 


587

6:45 PM – Dec 15, 2018

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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has my 
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Caitlin
Johnstone
 |
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Tags: hysteriamediaPoliticsPutinRussiawhale |
Categories: 
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Westerse media vallen critici van de White Helmets aan

Rick Sterling schreef een artikel op ‘Oriental Review‘ over de aanvallen van de reguliere (massa-) media op critici van de White Helmets, kritiek die de wel nadenkende alternatieve media ook in Nederland voor de kiezen kreeg…..

Sterling wijst op een artikel van Janine di Giovani op de NY Reviews of Books getiteld: ‘Why Assad and Russia Target the White Helmets’. Het artikel is een voorbeeld van hoe de westerse media propaganda maken voor de White Helmets en degenen aanvallen die de o.a. door die media geplugde mythe van de White Helmets bekritiseren………

Zo heeft di Giovanni een grote bek over de echte oorlogscorrespondent Vanessa Beeley, één van de weinigen die wel regelmatig in het strijdgebied van Syrië te vinden was en die uitentreuren heeft geschreven over wat er werkelijk gebeurde in Syrië en zich niet verliet op de rapporten van het Syrische Observatorium voor Mensenrechten (SOHR), geleid door een gewezen misdadiger die zijn terechte straf ontliep door te vluchten en te stellen dat hij een politieke vluchteling was. De informatie van het SOHR kwam en komt voor het overgrote deel van de ‘gematigde rebellen’, die o.a. door Nederland werden gesteund…..

‘Gematigde rebellen’ ofwel moordenaars, verkrachters en martelbeulen, die bovendien met medeweten van de westerse landen in het bezit zijn van de gifgassen die door hen werden gebruikt om vervolgens de schuld in de schoenen van het reguliere Syrische leger werden geschoven……

Je snapt werkelijk niet waar di Giovanni het gore lef vandaan haalt om een uitstekend journalist als Beeley aan te vallen…… (hoewel, dat is onzin, immers di Giovanni huilt gewoon mee in het koor van de ‘massamedia-terreurwolven…’)

Een andere uitstekende journalist moet het ook al ontgelden bij di Giovanni, t.w.: Eva Bartlett, die zelf jaren in het Midden-Oosten heeft gewoond en goed is ingevoerd over de situatie in o.a. Syrië (en niet op grond van leugens die terreurgroepen verspreiden)…..

Niet één keer gaat di Giovanni in op artikelen die deze twee journalisten schreven, nee zonder enige steekhoudende kritiek op geschreven artikelen, stelt di Giovanni domweg dat de 2 desinformatie verspreiden, waar ze Beeley zelfs durft af te schilderen als ‘hogepriesters van Syrische propaganda’, ofwel di Giovani draait de zaak volkomen om, immer zij maakt met dergelijke uitlatingen propaganda voor terreurgroepen, die voor het overgrote deel bestaan uit ‘mannen’ die niet eens Syriërs zijn……

Lees het uitstekende artikel van Sterling en geeft het door!

CHAOSISTANHYBRID WARSINFORMATION WARFAREISRAELMIDDLE EASTPHENOMENON 
OF TERRORISMSYRIAUNITED KINGDOMUNITED STATES 

Western
Media Attacks Critics of the White Helmets

Written
by 
Rick
STERLING
 on 24/10/2018

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor Western Media Attacks Critics of the White Helmets

The
October 16 issue of NY Review of Books has an article by Janine di
Giovanni titled 
Why
Assad and Russia Target the White Helmets”
.
The article exemplifies how western media promotes the White Helmets
uncritically and attacks those who challenge the myth.

Crude
& Disingenuous Attack

Giovanni’s
article attacks several journalists by name. She singles out Vanessa
Beeley and echoes the Guardian’s characterization of Beeley as the
“high priestess of Syria propaganda”. She does this without
challenging a single article or claim by the journalist. She might
have acknowledged that Vanessa Beeley has some familiarity with the
Middle East; she is the daughter of one of the foremost British
Arabists and diplomats including British Ambassador to Egypt.
Giovanni might have explored Beeley’s 
research in
Syria that revealed the White Helmets founder (British military
contractor James Le Mesurier) assigned the name Syria Civil Defence
despite the fact there is a real Syrian organization by that name
that has existed since the 1950’s. For the past several years,
Beeley has done many on-the-ground reports and investigations in
Syria. None of these are challenged by Giovanni. Just days ago Beeley
published a 
report on
her visit to the White Helmets headquarters in Deraa.

white-helmet-infographic-2


Giovanni
similarly dismisses another alternative journalist, Eva Bartlett.
Again, Giovanni ignores the fact that Bartlett has substantial Middle
East experience including having lived in Gaza for years. Instead of
objectively evaluating the journalistic work of these independent
journalists, Giovanni smears their work as “disinformation”.
Presumably that is because their work is published at alternative
sites such as 21st Century Wire and Russian media such as RT and
Sputnik. Beeley and Bartlett surely would have been happy to have
their reports published at the New York Review of Books, Newsweek or
other mainstream outlets. But it’s evident that such reporting is
not welcome there. Even Seymour Hersh had to go abroad to have his
investigations on Syria published.

The
New McCarthyism

Max
Blumenthal is another journalist singled out by Giovanni. Blumenthal
is the author of three books, including a NY Times bestseller and the
highly acclaimed “Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel”.
Giovanni describes his transition from “anti-Assad” to
“pro-Assad” and suggests his change of perspective was due to
Russian influence. She says, “Blumenthal went to Moscow on a junket
to celebrate RT’s tenth anniversary. We don’t know what happened
during that visit, but afterwards, Blumenthal’s views completely
flipped.” Instead of examining the facts presented by Blumenthal in
articles such as 
Inside
the Shadowy PR Firm that’s Lobyying for Regime Change in Syria”
,
Giovanni engages in fact-free McCarthyism. Blumenthal explained the
transition in his thinking in a public interview. He also described
the 
threats he
experienced when he started to criticize the White Helmets and their
public relations firm, but this is ignored by Giovanni.

Contrary
to Giovanni’s assumptions, some western journalists and activists
were exposing the White Helmets long before the story was publicized
on Russian media. In spring 2015 the basic facts about the White
Helmets including their origins, funding and role in the information
war on Syria were exposed in my article 
Seven
Steps of Highly Effective Manipulators”
.
The article showed how the White Helmets were a key component in a
campaign pushing for a “No Fly Zone” in Syria. It confirmed that
the White Helmets is a political lobby force.

In
spring 2016, Vanessa Beeley launched a petition 
Do
NOT give the Nobel Peace Prize to the White Helmets”
.
That petition garnered more support than a contrary petition urging
the Nobel Prize committee to give the award to the White Helmets.
Perhaps because of that, the petition was abruptly removed without
explanation from the Change.org website. It was only at this time,
with publicity around the heavily promoted nomination of the White
Helmets for a Nobel Peace Prize that RT and other Russian media
started to publicize and expose the White Helmets. That is one and a
half years after they were first exposed in western alternative
media.

White
Helmets and Chemical Weapons Accusations
 

Giovanni
ignores the investigations and conclusions of some of the most
esteemed American journalists regarding the White Helmets and
chemical weapons incidents in Syria.

The
late Robert Parry published many articles exposing the White Helmets,
for example 
The
White Helmets Controversy
 and Syria
War Propaganda at the Oscars
.
Parry wrote and published numerous investigations of the August 2013
chemical weapons attack and concluded the attacks were carried out by
an opposition faction with the goal of pressuring the US to intervene
militarily. Parry also challenged western conclusions regarding
incidents such as April 4, 2017 at Khan Shaykhun. Giovanni
breathlessly opens her article with this story while
Parry 
revealed the
impossibility of it being as described.

Buried
deep inside a new U.N. report is evidence that could exonerate the
Syrian government in the April 4 sarin atrocity and make President
Trump look like an Al-Qaeda dupe.”

Legendary
American journalist, Seymour Hersh, researched and refuted the
assumptions of Giovanni and the media establishment regarding the
August 2013 chemical weapons attacks near Damascus. Hersh’s
investigation, titled 
The
Red Line and Rat Line
,
provided evidence the atrocity was carried out by an armed opposition
group with active support from Turkey. A Turkish member of parliament
provided 
additional
evidence
.
The fact that Hersh had to go across the Atlantic to have his
investigation published suggests American not Russian disinformation
and censorship.

In
addition to ignoring the findings of widely esteemed journalists with
proven track records, Giovanni plays loose with the truth. In her
article she implies that a UN investigation blamed the Syrian
government for the August 2013 attack. On the contrary, the head of
the UN investigation team, Ake Sellstrom, 
said they
did not determine who was responsible. 
“We
do not have the evidence to say who did what ….The conflict in
Syria is surrounded by a lot of rumors and a lot of propaganda,
particularly when comes to the sensitive issue of chemical weapons.”

First
Responders or Western Funded Propagandists?

Giovanni
says, “But the White Helmets’ financial backing is not the real
reason why the pro-Assad camp is so bent on defaming them. Since
2015, the year the Russians began fighting in Syria, the White
Helmets have been filming attacks on opposition-held areas with GoPro
cameras affixed to their helmets.”

In
reality, the ‘White Helmets” have a sophisticated media
production and distribution operation. They have much more than GoPro
cameras. In many of their movie segments one can see numerous people
with video and still cameras. Sometimes the same incident will be
shown with one segment with an Al-Qaeda logo blending into the same
scene with a White Helmets logo.


US cut funding of WH


Giovanni
claims “The Assad regime and the Russians are trying to neutralize
the White Helmets because they   are potential witnesses to
war crimes.” However the claims of White Helmet “witnesses”
have little credibility. The White Helmet “volunteers” are paid
three times as much as Syrian soldiers. They are trained, supplied
and promoted by the same western states which have sought to regime
change in Syria since 2011. An example of misleading and false claims
by a White Helmets leader is exposed in Gareth Porter’s
investigation titled “
How
a Syrian White Helmets Leader Played Western Media”
 .
His conclusion could be directed to Giovanni and the NYReview of
Books:


The
uncritical reliance on claims by the White Helmets without any effort
to investigate their credibility is yet another telling example of
journalistic malpractice by media outlets with a long record of
skewing coverage of conflicts toward an interventionist narrative.”

When
the militants (mostly Nusra / Al-Qaeda) were expelled from East
Aleppo, civilians reported that the White Helmets were mostly
concerned with saving their own and performing publicity stunts. For
example the photo of the little boy in east Aleppo looking dazed and
confused in the back of a brand new White Helmet ambulance was
essentially a White Helmet media stunt eagerly promoted in the West.
It was later revealed the boy was not injured, he was grabbed without
his parent’s consent. Eva Bartlett interviewed and photographed the
father and family for her story 
Mintpress
Meets the Father of Iconic Aleppo Boy and says Media Lied About his
Son”
.

A
Brilliant Marketing Success

The
media and political impact of the White Helmets shows what money and
marketing can do. An organization that was founded by a military
contractor with funding from a western governments was awarded the
Rights Livelihood Award. The organization was seriously considered to
received the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize just three years after its
formation.

The
Netflix infomercial “The White Helmets” is an example of the
propaganda. The scripted propaganda piece, where the producers did
not set foot in Syria, won the Oscar award for best short
documentary. It’s clear that lots of money and professional
marketing can fool a lot of people. At $30 million per year, the
White Helmets budget for one year is more than a decade of funding
for the real Syrian Civil Defence which covers all of Syria not just
pockets controlled by armed insurgents.

Unsurprisingly,
it has been announced that White Helmets will receive the 2019 “Elie
Wiesel” award from the heavily politicized and pro-Israel Holocaust
Memorial Museum in Washington. This, plus the recent 
rescue” of
White Helmets by the Israeli government, is more proof of the true
colors of the White Helmets. Vanessa Beeley’s recent interview with
a White Helmet leader in Deraa revealed that ISIS and Nusra
terrorists were part of the group “rescued” through Israel.

The
Collapsing White Helmets Fraud

Giovanni
is outraged that some journalists have successfully challenged and
put a big dent in the White Helmets  aura. She complains, “The
damage the bloggers do is immense.”

Giovanni
and western propagandists are upset because the myth is deflating.
Increasing numbers of people – from a famous rock musician to a
former UK Ambassador – see and acknowledge the reality.

As
described in Blumenthal’s article, 
How
the White Helmets Tried to Recruit Roger Waters with Saudi Money”
,
rock legend Roger Waters says, 
“If
we were to listen to the propaganda of the White
Helmets and others, we would encourage our governments to start
dropping bombs on people in Syria. This would be a mistake
of monumental proportions…”

Peter
Ford, the former UK Ambassador to Syria, 
sums
it up
 like
this: 
“The
White Helmets are jihadi auxiliaries… They are not, as claimed by
themselves and by their supporters… simple rescuers. They are not
volunteers. They are paid professionals of disinformation.”

Giovanni
claims her article is a “forensic take down of the Russian
disinformation campaign to distort the truth in Syria.” In reality,
Giovanni’s article is an example of western disinformation using
subjective attacks on critics and evidence-free assertions aligned
with the regime change goals of the West.

Reposts
are welcomed with the reference to ORIENTAL REVIEW.

Zie ook:

White Helmets: naast gebruik van terreur ook schuldig aan orgaanhandel, vernietigende VN video presentatie

Syria: The White Helmets Are Terrorist Auxiliaries

White Helmets is een terreurorganisatie, zie de bewijzen op Facebook: foto’s van de W.H. leden

White Helmets terreurgroep wordt vandaag met open armen ontvangen in Tweede Kamer…..

Nederland financiert terrorisme in Syrië……..

EXPOSED: Syria’s White Helmets are Al Qaeda’s ‘Civil Defence’

WHO ARE THE ‘WHITE HELMETS?’ DO WE REALLY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING IN SYRIA?

 ‘SYRIA: The White Helmet Propaganda Heist – Vanessa Beeley Speaks to Rhymes Media Group

EXPOSED: The White Helmets – Al Qaeda with US funding

Westerse media vallen critici van de White Helmets aan

Gifgasaanval Idlib: de komende ‘kindslachtoffers’ worden getraind door terreurgroep White Helmets………

Voorbeeld BBC en AD propaganda inzake Idlib (Syrië)

Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) laat weten hoe White Helmets vips rekruteren met Saoedisch geld….

Gifgasaanval vooropgezet spel om VS actie te rechtvaardigen, waarbij GB de spelers opdracht gaf dit toneelspel snel uit te voeren…….. ‘False flag gelukt’: Syrië gebombardeerd zonder enig bewijs voor schuld…..

Van Helvert (CDA Tweede Kamer): wil dat er een tribunaal komt voor Syriëgangers, terwijl hij de terroristen in Ghouta wil beschermen…….

White Helmets nogmaals ontmaskert als terreurorganisatie: de oprichter is een Britse ex-huurling…….

White Helmets oorlogsporno geweerd van Oscarceremonie

White Helmets >> terreurorganisatie, opgezet door Brits ex-officier en o.a. betaald door Nederland………..

Voor meer berichten over/met de White Helmets, Vanessa Beeley of Eva Bartlett, klik op het betreffende label, direct onder dit bericht.

Douma: door leugens balanceert de wereld op de rand van vernietiging………….

De enorme anti-Syrische en Russische
propaganda n.a.v. de ‘gifgasaanval’ op Douma, is zonder meer hysterisch te noemen en is niets anders dan het
bespelen van de publieke opinie voor een volledige oorlog tegen het
democratisch gekozen Syrische bewind……… (je kan hier rustig van hersenspoelen spreken)

De schrijver van het volgende artikel
heeft de zaken nog eens op een duidelijke rij gezet en kan dan ook
niet anders dan tot de conclusie komen dat de VS en haar bondgenoten
uit zijn op een oorlog met Rusland, ofwel WOIII……. Let wel: een
oorlog die dan gevoerd zal worden op basis van leugens zoals dit het geval was met de illegale
oorlogen van de VS en NAVO tegen: Afghanistan, Irak, Libië en
uiteindelijk Syrië, waar de VS (gesteund door de rest van het westen) nu met leugens over een
gifgasaanval zegt een aanval te moeten openen tegen het Syrische bewind…..

Onder andere aandacht voor de ‘gifgasaanval’ op Khan Sheikhoun vorig jaar en de enorme leugens die later werden doorgeprikt…… Ondanks dat blijft men volhouden dat Syrië achter de aanval zat, hetzelfde geldt voor de gifgasaanval in 2013, deze werd in de schoenen van Assad geschoven, maar bewezen door de ‘gematigde rebellen’ uitgevoerd >> dagelijks hoor je de laatste dagen (sinds de ‘gifgasaanval’ op Douma) onder meer op de landelijke nieuws- en actualiteiten radiozenders Radio1, BNR, BBC World Service, Radio Nova Scotia en WDR de leugen herhaalt worden dat het reguliere Syrische leger verantwoordelijk was voor deze aanval……..

Voorts wordt nog eens aangegeven hoe blij de bewoners van door het Syrische leger bevrijdde gebieden zijn, blij van de vreselijke terreur af te zijn, waaronder zij moesten leven….. 

Chemical
Weapons Redux: Taking the World to the Brink of Annihilation

National security adviser John Bolton listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House, April 9, 2018, in Washington. (AP/Evan Vucci)

Years
of chemical weapons allegations, saber rattling and a desperate
search for a casus belli have culminated in a situation which risks a
serious conflict of world powers.

April
10th, 2018  
By Rick
Sterling

Western neoconservatives and hawks are driving the international situation to increase tension and danger. Not content with the destruction of Iraq and Libya based on false claims, they are now pressing for a direct U.S. attack on Syria


As
a dangerous prelude, Israeli jets flying over Lebanese airspace 
fired
missiles
 against
the T4/Tiyas Airbase west of Palmyra.    
 

This
was Predicted

As reported at Tass,
the Chief of Russia’s General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, predicted
the current events almost a month ago. The report from March 13 says:

Russia
has hard facts about preparations for staging the use of chemical
weapons against civilians by the government forces. After the
provocation, the U.S. plans to accuse Syria’s government forces of
using chemical weapons … furnish the so-called ‘evidence’ …
and Washington plans to deliver a missile and bomb strike against
Damascus’ government districts.”

Gerasimov
noted that Russian military advisors are staying in the Syrian
Defense Ministry’s facilities in Damascus and “in the event of a
threat to our military servicemen’s lives, Russia’s Armed Forces
will take retaliatory measures to target both the missiles and their
delivery vehicles.”

The
situation is clearly dangerous with risk of sliding into
international conflict and even WW3. If that happens, it would mean
the demise of civilization. All of this so that the West can continue
supporting the sectarian armed groups seeking to overthrow the Assad
government … in violation of international law and the UN Charter.

The
most powerful country in the world is now led by a real estate, hotel
and entertainment mogul without political experience. Behind the
scenes, there is a powerful foreign policy establishment determined
to maintain and reclaim U.S. unilateral “leadership” of the
world. They don’t like the fact that the U.S. is losing influence,
prestige and power around the world. Israel and Saudi Arabia are
especially upset that their plans for regional domination are
failing.

East
Ghouta, Damascus

East
Ghouta is a district of farms and towns on the north-east outskirts
of Damascus. For the past six years, various armed factions
controlled the area. On a nearly daily basis, they launched mortar
and hell cannon missile attacks into Damascus, killing many
thousands. This author personally witnessed two such mortar attacks
in April 2014.

By
the end of March, most of East Ghouta had been retaken by the
government. With the peaceful evacuation of armed militants,
civilians flooded into the humanitarian corridors and then government
camps for the displaced. The campaign was proceeding quickly with
minimal loss of life as the Russian Reconciliation officers
negotiated agreements which allowed the militants to keep small
weapons and be transported to Idlib in the north. Vanessa
Beeley 
documented the
situation including the happiness and relief of many civilians as
they finally made it to safety. One described the feeling as “like
being reborn”. Robert Fisk was on site and reported what he saw
firsthand in stories titled 
Watching
on as Islamist fighters are evacuated from war-torn Eastern
Ghouta
 and Western
howls of outrage over the Ghouta siege ring hollow
.

Watch
| Emotional Footage From East Ghouta Evacuation    

As
reported at 
the
Russian Reconciliation Centre
,
by the end of March, 105,857 civilians had moved into
government-controlled areas while 13,793 militants plus 23,433 family
members had been transported north. Those who wanted to stay,
including former fighters, were welcomed. They could rejoin Syrian
society with the same rights and obligations as other Syrians.

The
last remaining opposition stronghold was the town of Douma,
controlled by the Saudi funded Jaish al Islam. Negotiations were
prolonged because Jaish al Islam did not want to go to Idlib which is
dominated by another militant opposition group, Jabhat al Nusra also
known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

The
Chemical Incident

On
Saturday, April 7 
video and
stories claiming a chemical weapons attack in Douma were broadcast.
The video showed dozens of dead children. On Sunday the story grabbed
western mainstream media headlines.  U.S. President Trump
quickly came to a 
conclusion, President
Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big
price to pay.”

Donald J. Trump


@realDonaldTrump

Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price…

Twitter Ads info and privacy

There
has been no objective investigation. The media claims are based on
statements and videos from members of the Syrian American Medical
Society (SAMS) and White Helmets. Both organizations receive
significant funding from the U.S. government and call for Western
intervention in Syria.

Chemical
weapons have emerged as the quick and easy justification for
aggression.  One year ago, in April 2017, it was the incident at
Khan Shaykoun. That resulted in a U.S. attack on a Syrian air base
just days later. The subsequent 
investigation discovered
that dozens of victims had shown up in hospitals in diverse locations
and up to 100 kms away from the scene of crime BEFORE the event
happened. 

Strangely, and indicating the investigation team’s bias,
this red flag pointing to fraud was not investigated further. If it
was just a few victims or just one location, it might be a mistake in
time record-keeping. However, in this case, there were dozens of
discrepancies in multiple locations, clearly raising the possibility
of fraud.     

Now
we have the incident in Douma, a town on the outskirts of Damascus.
The armed opposition is in retreat. They have tried to pressure the
US and NATO to intervene directly since 2012. They have 
access
to chemical weapons
 in
East Ghouta and a motive. They also have thousands of prisoners. This
is the group which put hundreds of prisoners, primarily women, and
children, in 
cages on
the streets of Douma.

Who
Benefits?

The
timing of the chemical weapons incidents is also noteworthy. As
documented 
here,
one year ago on 30 March 2017 Ambassador Haley said the U.S. policy
was no longer focused on getting Assad out. Five days later the
chemical incident at Khan Sheikhoun happened, quickly followed by
blaming the Syrian government, a U.S. attack and a restoration of the
demand that “Assad must go”. On March 29 Trump 
said that
U.S. forces will withdraw from Syria “very soon”. This was
followed by outcries from the media and political establishment. Now,
following the Saturday chemical weapons incident, the U.S. is again
threatening to intervene directly. The chemical weapons incidents
have consistently resulted in the reversal of a proposed change in
hostility toward Syria.  

Neoconservatives
and the supporters of ‘regime change’ foreign policy have various
theories why the Assad government would perpetrate a chemical weapons
attack. Senator John McCain 
says the
Syrian President was “emboldened” by the previous Trump
statement.

Juan
Cole, an academic who promoted the assaults on Libya in 2011, has a
different theory. He 
says:,“Chemical
weapons are used by desperate regimes that are either outnumbered by
the enemy or are reluctant to take casualties in their militaries.
Barrel-bombing Douma with chem seems to have appealed to the regime
as a tactic for this reason. It had potential of frightening the
Douma population into deserting the Army of Islam.” In contrast
with his theory, chemical weapons were used extensively by the U.S.
in Vietnam and Iraq when they were far from desperate. As evidenced
in the flow of civilians into government-held areas, most of the
civilian population are happy to get away from the sectarian and
violent Army of Islam (“Jaish al Islam”). Cole seems to be basing
his theories on inaccurate western media coverage just as he did
regarding Libya where sensational claims about a looming massacre in
Benghazi were later 
shown to
be fraudulent.

It’s
clear who benefits from sensational media coverage about a chemical
weapons incident: those who seek to demonize the Syrian government
and President and want the U.S. government to intervene militarily.
Every time there is an incident, it is quickly accepted and used by
the governments and organizations who have been seeking ‘regime
change’ in Syria for many years.

Manipulating
Public Opinion

Nikki Haley, United States' Ambassador United Nations, shows pictures of Syrian victims of chemical attacks as she addresses a meeting of the Security Council on Syria at U.N. headquarters, April 5, 2017. (AP/Bebeto Matthews)

Nikki
Haley, United States’ Ambassador United Nations, shows pictures of
Syrian victims of alleged chemical weapons attacks as she addresses a
meeting of the Security Council on Syria at U.N. headquarters, April
5, 2017. (AP/Bebeto Matthews)

The
manipulation of western opinion about the Syrian conflict using fake
events is not theory; it has been proven.  A good example is
the 
fake
kidnapping
 of
NBC reporter Richard Engel in December 2012.  Engel and his
media team were reportedly kidnapped and threatened with death by
“Shabiha” supporters of the Syrian president. After days in
captivity, the American team was supposedly rescued by Free Syrian
Army “rebels” after a shootout. In 2015 it was confirmed this was
hoax perpetrated
by the FSA and their American supporters. The entire charade was
carried out by the “rebels”. The goal was to demonize the Assad
government and its supporters and to romanticize and increase support
for the armed opposition. Neither Engel nor NBC confessed to the
reality until it was about to be exposed years later, pointing to
duplicity and collusion in the deception.

Four
and half years ago, on 21 August 2013, the most famous chemical
weapons incident occurred. The Syrian government was immediately
accused of launching a sarin attack which killed hundreds of children
and civilians. Over the next six months, investigations were carried
out. The conclusions of 
Seymour
Hersh
Robert
Parry
 and
the research site 
whoghouta.com concluded
that the attack was almost certainly NOT from the government but
actually from one of the ‘rebel’ factions with support from
Turkish intelligence services. Two Turkish parliamentary deputies
held a press conference and publicly 
revealed some
of the evidence. The intent then, as now, was to provide
justification and provocation for the U.S. and NATO to intervene
directly.

An
Imminent Attack

Today
there is the imminent possibility of a major attack based on the
allegations of a clearly biased source. Whatever happened to
international law and legal due process? Why is violence being
threatened before there is a serious objective investigation of the
chemical incident? If the accusations against Syria are true, why not
have a serious investigation, especially now that the area has been
liberated today (9 April) and safe access can be provided?

The
drums of war are pounding. After over one year of incessant Russia
bashing and disinformation, is the public ready to go to 
war
with Russia
 over
Syria? Neoconservative hawks and their Israeli and Saudi allies seem
to want this. Their plans and predictions for Iraq, Libya and Yemen
were delusional fantasies with the price paid in blood by the people
of those countries and in treasure by Americans as well. Sadly, there
has not been any accountability for the media and political
establishment that promoted and launched these wars. Now they want to
escalate the aggression by attacking Syria, causing vastly more blood
to flow and risking a confrontation with a country which can fight
back.

Top
Photo | National security adviser John Bolton listens as
President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White
House, April 9, 2018, in Washington. (AP/Evan Vucci)

Rick
Sterling
 is
an investigative journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He
can be contacted at 
rsterling1@gmail.com

Read
more by 
Rick
Sterling

========================================

* De door de VS en een paar andere landen georganiseerde opstand in Syrië, al voorbereid vanaf 2006, moest tot een coup tegen Assad leiden, echter een oorlog was het gevolg…… Daarna stelden de VS en andere landen dat men wel moest vechten in Syrië vanwege de aanwezigheid van IS en andere terreurgroepen, die NB voor een groot deel werden aangevoerd door de VS en Saoedi-Arabië…. Met andere woorden: de VS en de NAVO vochten zogenaamd niet tegen het reguliere Syrische leger…… Nu wil de VS dan een volledige oorlogvoeren tegen het Syrische bewind en daarmee tegen Rusland en Iran……… Over de laatste gesproken, Iran: Israël is van zins om bij een vermoeden van agressie van Iran vanuit Syrië (tegen Israël), Syrië van de kaart te vegen, uiteraard een opmaat voor een aanval tegen Iran….. Later meer daarover.

Zie ook: ‘VS heeft drone aanval van terreurgroep Jabhat Fateh al-Sham op Russische doel in Syrië gecoördineerd…….‘ (zie ook de links onder dat bericht)

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

Een bericht ‘bijna uit de oude doos’ van 1 september jl., dat echter nog even actueel is: de ontleding van ‘Russiagate’ in een propagandaslag van de reguliere (massa-) media.

Bijvoorbeeld de samenwerking van Trump met Vladimir Putin over een te bouwen ‘Trumptower’ in Moskou. Ondanks het feit dat dit verhaal later nepnieuws bleek te zijn, blijft dit verhaal herhaald worden….. De WashingtonPost, de New York Times en de reguliere media die deze twee kranten volgen, zien in het mislukken van de bouw van deze toren het bewijs dat Rusland de verkiezing van Trump heeft gekocht. Uiteraard vertellen deze media er niet bij, dat Putin geen vinger heeft uitgestoken om het al bij voorbaat mislukte project te redden en als daar al iets over gemeld werd, is dit weggemoffeld op een plek waar de meeste mensen die niet zullen hebben gelezen……..

Dan speelt er ook nog Oekraine in een strijd tussen de VS en Rusland (overgortemn met een dikke saus van anti-Rusland, anti-Putin propaganda, daarover moet niet vergeten worden, dat Janoekovytsj aanbood verkiezingen uit te schrijven, voordat een door de VS georganiseerde opstand tot een coup leidde, waarbij hij moest aftreden t.b.v. van de uiterst corrupte VS en neonazi-vriend Porosjenko…… De VS (o.l.v. Obama en Hillary Clinton) kocht deze coup voor maar liefs 4 miljard dollar……. Oekraïne is intussen zo goed als failliet en is bovendien in chaos gedompeld…… Overigens zijn de hiervoor staande feiten een aanvulling op het artikel na mijn schrijven.

Wat betreft ‘Russiagate’ is het nu topgraaier Zuckerberg van Facebook, die is gezwicht onder de druk van de geheime diensten in de VS en heeft verklaard dat (in feite) de Russische overheid reclames heeft gekocht, waarmee Trump de verkiezingen kon winnen. Het gaat hier om een bedrag van $ 100,000 en dat op een reclamebudget voor die verkiezingen, waarbij vergeleken die $ 100,000 een fooi is en toch heeft Rusland daarmee Trump aan de macht geholpen……. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Lees het volgende uitstekende stuk van Robert Parry, eerder geplaatst op Consortium News en overgenomen van Anti-Media:

Russiagate:
What You’re Not Being Told About the Media’s Misleading
Propaganda

September
1, 2017 at 7:31 am

Written
by 
Robert
Parry

The
U.S. mainstream media is touting a big break in Russiagate, emails
showing an effort by Donald Trump’s associates to construct a
building in Moscow. But the evidence actually undercuts the
“scandal.”

(CN) — There
is an inherent danger of news organizations getting infected by
“confirmation bias” when they want something to be true so badly
that even if the evidence goes in the opposite direction they twist
the revelation to fit their narrative. Such is how The Washington
Post, The New York Times and their followers in the mainstream media
are reacting to newly released emails that actually show Donald
Trump’s team having little or no influence in Moscow.

On
Tuesday, for instance, the Times published 
a
front-page article
 designed
to advance the Russiagate narrative, stating: “A business associate
of President Trump promised in 2015 to engineer a real estate deal
with the aid of the president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, that he
said would help Mr. Trump win the presidency.”

Wow,
that sounds pretty devastating! The Times is finally tying together
the loose and scattered threads of the
Russia-influencing-the-U.S.-election story. Here you have a supposed
business deal in which Putin was to help Trump both make money and
get elected. That is surely how a casual reader or a Russiagate true
believer would read it – and was meant to read it. But the lede is
misleading.

The
reality, as you would find out if you read further into the story, is
that the boast from Felix Sater that somehow the construction of a
Trump Tower in Moscow would demonstrate Trump’s international
business prowess and thus help his election was meaningless. What the
incident really shows is that the Trump organization had little or no
pull in Russia as Putin’s government apparently didn’t lift a
finger to salvage this stillborn building project.

But
highlighting that reality would not serve the Times’ endless
promotion of Russiagate. So, this counter-evidence gets buried deep
in the story, after a reprise of the “scandal” and the Times
hyping the significance of Sater’s emails from 2015 and early 2016.
For good measure, the Times includes a brief and dishonest summary of
the Ukraine crisis.

The
Times reported: “Mr. Sater, a Russian immigrant, said he had lined
up financing for the Trump Tower deal with VTB Bank, a Russian bank
that was under American sanctions for involvement in Moscow’s
efforts to undermine democracy in Ukraine. In another email, Mr.
Sater envisioned a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Moscow. ‘I will
get Putin on this program and we will get Donald elected,’ Mr.
Sater wrote.”

But
the idea that Russia acted “to undermine democracy in Ukraine” is
another example of the Times’ descent into outright propaganda. The
reality is that the U.S. government supported – and indeed
encouraged – a coup on Feb. 22, 2014, that overthrew the
democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych even
after he offered to move up scheduled elections so he could be voted
out of office through a democratic process.

After
Yanukovych’s violent ouster and after the coup regime dispatched
military forces to crush resistance among anti-coup, mostly ethnic
Russian Ukrainians in the east, Russia provided help to prevent their
destruction from an assault spearheaded by neo-Nazis and other
extreme Ukrainian nationalists. But that reality would not fit the
Times’ preferred Ukraine narrative, so it gets summarized as Moscow
trying “to undermine democracy in Ukraine.”

Empty
Boasts

However,
leaving aside the Times’ propagandistic approach to Ukraine, there
is this more immediate point about Russia-gate: none of Sater’s
boastful claims proved true and this incident really underscored the
lack of useful connections between Trump’s people and the Kremlin.
One of Trump’s lawyers, Michael Cohen, even used a general press
email address in a plea for assistance from Putin’s personal
spokesman.

Deeper
in the story, the Times admits these inconvenient facts: “There is
no evidence in the emails that Mr. Sater delivered on his promises,
and one email suggests that Mr. Sater overstated his Russian ties. In
January 2016, Mr. Cohen wrote to Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S.
Peskov, asking for help restarting the Trump Tower project, which had
stalled. But Mr. Sater did not appear to have Mr. Peskov’s direct
email, and instead wrote to a general inbox for press inquiries.”

The
Times added: “The project never got government permits or
financing, and died weeks later. … The emails obtained by The Times
make no mention of Russian efforts to damage Hillary Clinton’s
campaign or the hacking of Democrats’ emails.”

In
other words, the Russia-gate narrative – that somehow Putin foresaw
Trump’s election (although almost no one else did) and sought to
curry favor with the future U.S. president by lining Trump’s
pockets with lucrative real estate deals while doing whatever he
could to help Trump win – is knocked down by these new disclosures,
not supported by them.

Instead
of clearing the way for Trump to construct the building and thus –
in Sater’s view – boost Trump’s election chances, Putin and his
government wouldn’t even approve permits or assist in the
financing.

And,
this failed building project was not the first Trump proposal in
Russia to fall apart. A couple of years earlier, a Moscow hotel plan
died apparently because Trump would not – or could not – put up
adequate financing for his share, overvaluing the magic of the Trump
brand. But one would think that if the Kremlin were grooming Trump to
be its Manchurian candidate and take over the U.S. government, money
would have been no obstacle.

Along
the same lines, there’s the relative pittance that RT paid Gen.
Michael Flynn to speak at the TV network’s tenth anniversary in
Moscow in December 2015. The amount totaled $45,386 with Flynn
netting $33,750 after his speakers’ bureau took its cut. Democrats
and the U.S. mainstream media treated this fact as important evidence
of Russia buying influence in the Trump campaign and White House,
since Flynn was both a campaign adviser and briefly national security
adviser.

But
the actual evidence suggests something quite different. Besides
Flynn’s relatively modest speaking fee, it turned out that RT
negotiated Flynn’s rate downward, a fact that The Washington

Post buried deep
inside an article on Flynn’s Russia-connected payments. The Post
wrote, “RT balked at paying Flynn’s original asking price. ‘Sorry
it took us longer to get back to you but the problem is that the
speaking fee is a bit too high and exceeds our budget at the moment,’
Alina Mikhaleva, RT’s head of marketing, wrote a Flynn associate
about a month before the event.”

Yet,
if Putin were splurging to induce Americans near Trump to betray
their country, it 
makes
no sense
 that
Putin’s supposed flunkies at RT would be quibbling with Flynn over
a relatively modest speaking fee; they’d be falling over themselves
to pay him more.

So,
what the evidence really indicates is that Putin, like almost
everybody else in the world, didn’t anticipate Trump’s ascendance
to the White House, at least not in the time frame of these events –
and thus was doing nothing to buy influence with his entourage or
boost his election chances by helping him construct a glittering
Trump Tower in Moscow.

But
that recognition of reality would undermine the much beloved story of
Putin-Trump collusion, so the key facts and the clear logic are
downplayed or ignored – all the better to deceive Americans who are
dependent on the Times, the Post and the mainstream media.

By Robert
Parry
 /
Republished with permission / 
Consortium
News
 / Report
a typo

=====================================

Zie ook:

Putin vraagt en Trump levert: een lijst met ‘alle goede zaken die Trump voor Rusland regelde’

Russiagate: VS en buitenlandse geheime diensten hebben de VS presidentsverkiezingen in 2016 gemanipuleerd

Russiagate: nog overtuigd van bestaan daarvan? Lees dit!‘ (en zie de links in dat bericht)

Geen rectificaties voor meer dan 2 jaar brengen van fake news over het kwaadaardig sprookje Russiagate

Russiagate gelovigen krijgen nieuwe klap: WikiLeaks kreeg de DNC mails van een klokkenluider, niet van Rusland…..

Tulsi Gabbard (pres. kandidaat VS) krijgt volgens NBC Russische steun op claim van firma die ‘Russische data’ fabriceert voor Republikeinen

De verregaande anti-Russische propaganda in de VS en de rest van het westen

De VS dreigt de grondwet te wijzigen ten voordele van censuur en de afschaffing van de vrijheid op meningsuiting

 ‘WhatsApp beperking in strijd tegen fake news

Als Martin Luther King nog zou leven was hij onderwerp van censuur en was zijn Facebook pagina verwijderd

Massamedia VS vallen keihard door de mand met ‘vers’ geschoten Russiagate bok >> publiek wordt om vertrouwen gevraagd

Jacht in VS op alternatief (echt) nieuws in volgend stadium: journalist wordt vastgehouden zonder aanklacht

NewsGuard, het nieuwste wapen van Big Brother VS tegen de alternatieve media

Netflix censureert aflevering van humoristisch programma, ‘na een geldig verzoek’ op grond van Saoedische wetgeving….

Lichtgelovige ‘atheïst’ gelooft Russiagate leugens….
Britse militaire geheime dienst bedient zich van moddergooien en andere manipulaties om Europese en VS politiek te manipuleren, zo blijkt uit gelekte documenten

Bedrijf dat voor ‘Russische bots’ waarschuwde, heeft een leger met nep-Russische bots

‘Fake news’: alternatieve media en bloggers in het westen zouden onzin brengen, echter niet als dit soort groepen wat roepen in landen die het westen niet welgevallig zijn

Waarom de burgers van de VS de illegale oorlogen steunen

Democraten deden zich voor als Russen in false flag operatie om Roy Moore (Republikein) zwart te maken tijdens verkiezing…..

Der Spiegel, groot bestrijder van ‘fake news’ bracht zelf jarenlang dit soort ‘nieuws’

BBC: Rusland ‘misbruikt humor’ om Russiagate te ontkrachten….. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Uitgelekte telefoongesprekken tussen Trump en Putin bewijzen dat ‘Russiagaters gelijk hebben……’

WikiLeaks belooft The Guardian 1 miljoen dollar als het haar leugens i.z. Assange en Russiagate kan bewijzen…….‘ (zie ook de links naar Russiagate berichten in dat bericht)

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

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

Politico rapport bevestigt: Russiagate is een hoax

Obama gaf toe dat de DNC e-mails expres door de DNC werden gelekt naar Wikileaks….!!!!

De Israëlische manipulatie van de VS presidentsverkiezingen, gaat veel verder dan wat men Rusland in de schoenen schuift…..

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

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

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

Democraten VS kochten informatie over Trump >> Forgetting the ‘Dirty Dossier’ on Trump

Russia Is Trolling the Shit out of Hillary Clinton and the Mainstream Media

Mediaorgaan Sinclair dwingt ‘TV ankers’ propaganda op te lezen‘ (Sinclair bedient rond de 70% van de VS bevolking van ‘lokaal nieuws’)

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!

Russische ‘hacks’ door deskundigen nogmaals als fake news doorgeprikt >> Intel Vets Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence

Rusland krijgt alweer de schuld van hacken, nu van oplichters Symantec en Facebook……. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

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

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

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

Ollongren gesteund door Thomas Boesgaard (AD), ‘Rusland verpakt het nepnieuws gekoppeld aan echt nieuws…..’ Oei!!

Ollongren (D66 minister) schiet een levensgrote bok met fake news show

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

Alarm Code Geel: Lara Rense (NOS) voedt Rusland-haat

Kaspersky Lab (antivirus) aangevallen met agressief ‘Grapperhaus virus’

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

De VS regering geeft tientallen miljoenen dollars uit, om ‘Russische propaganda’ te bestrijden, het gevolg is een berg ‘studies’ door ‘deskundige’ ngo’s, die desgevraagd (tegen een fikse beloning) bevestigen wat de overheid de VS burgers op de mouwen spelt: ‘Rusland heeft de VS presidentsverkiezingen gemanipuleerd……..’

De reguliere (massa-) media in de VS en de rest van het westen, lepelen deze ‘studies’ op als was het de waarheid en het leven, hoe beroerd die ‘studies’ ook in elkaar steken, precies zoals die media de leugens van de Democratische Partij, plus die van de geheime diensten CIA, NSA en FBI, keer op keer blijven herhalen, terwijl er geen nanometer bewijs wordt gegeven….. Aan de andere kant zijn er stapels bewijzen van het tegendeel: zoals het bewijs dat een medewerker van het Clinton campagneteam de documenten lekte, waarin te vinden is hoe Clinton haar democratische concurrent Bernie Sanders de voorverkiezing tot democratisch presidentskandidaat heeft ontstolen……….

The New York Times (NYT), CNN en The Washington Post spelen ook hier weer een prominente kwalijke rol, door de bevindingen van deze ngo’s over te nemen. Zo nam de NYT ‘de constatering’ over dat een groot aantal ‘aan Rusland gelinkte’ Twitteraccounts, zijn gebruikt in het ‘NFL-schandaal’, u weet wel de de VS voetbalspelers, die ‘niet in de houding wensten te staan’ bij het spelen van het VS volkslied……

Met andere woorden: alles wat er mis gaat in de VS wordt intussen toegeschreven aan Rusland…..

Lees het volgende uiterst getailleerd artikel van Robert Parry op Consortium News, overgenomen door Anti-Media. Uiteraard zal dit artikel, zoals intussen zoveel andere, de reguliere media niet halen, daar dan de door deze media maandenlang gebrachte anti-Russische propaganda als één grote leugen zal worden ontmaskerd………. De westerse bevolking zou daarna pas echt weten, wie er m.n. nepnieuws (of: ‘fake news’) brengen: de reguliere media………

The
Truth About Russiagate: What the Media Doesn’t Want You to Know

September
28, 2017 at 10:41 pm

Written
by 
Robert
Parry

As
the U.S. government doles out tens of millions of dollars to “combat
Russian propaganda,” one result is a slew of new “studies” by
“scholars” and “researchers” auditioning for the loot,
reports Robert Parry.

(CN— The
“Field of Dreams” slogan for America’s NGO’s should be: “If
you pay for it, we will come.” And right now, tens of millions of
dollars are flowing to non-governmental organizations if they will
buttress the thesis of Russian “meddling” in the U.S. democratic
process no matter how sloppy the “research” or how absurd the
“findings.”

And,
if you think the pillars of the U.S. mainstream media – The
Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN and others – will apply
some quality controls, you haven’t been paying attention for the
past year or so. The MSM is just as unethical as the NGOs are.

So,
we are now in a phase of Russiagate in which NGO “scholars”
produce deeply biased reports and their nonsense is treated as
front-page news and items for serious discussion across the MSM.

Yet,
there’s even an implicit confession about how pathetic some of this
“scholarship” is in the hazy phrasing that gets applied to the
“findings,” although the weasel words will slip past most
unsuspecting Americans and will be dropped for more definitive
language when the narrative is summarized in the next day’s
newspaper or in a cable-news “crawl.”

For
example, a Times 
front-page
story
 on
Thursday reported that “a network of Twitter accounts suspected of
links to Russia seized on both sides of the [NFL players kneeling
during the National Anthem] issue with hashtags, such as #boycottnfl,
#standforouranthem and #takeaknee.”

The
story, which fits neatly into the current U.S. propaganda meme that
the Russian government somehow is undermining American democracy by
stirring up dissent inside the U.S., quickly spread to other news
outlets and became the latest “proof” of a Russian “war”
against America.

However,
before we empty the nuclear silos and exterminate life on the planet,
we might take a second to look at the Times phrasing: “a network of
Twitter accounts suspected of links to Russia.”

The
vague wording doesn’t even say the Russian government was involved
but rather presents an unsupported claim that some Twitter accounts
are “suspected” of being part of some “network” and that this
“network” may have some ill-defined connection – or “links”
– to “Russia,” a country of 144 million people.

Six
Degrees from Kevin Bacon’

It’s
like the old game of “six degrees of separation” from Kevin
Bacon. Yes, perhaps we are all “linked” to

Kevin
Bacon somehow but that doesn’t prove that we know Kevin Bacon or
are part of a Kevin Bacon “network” that is executing a grand
conspiracy to sow discontent by taking opposite sides of issues and
then tweeting.

Yet
that is the underlying absurdity of the Times article by Daisuke
Wakabayashi and Scott Shane. Still, as silly as the article may be
that doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous. The Times’ high-profile
treatment of these gauzy allegations represents a grave danger to the
world by fueling a growing hysteria inside the United States about
being “at war” with nuclear-armed Russia. At some point, someone
might begin to take this alarmist rhetoric seriously.

Yes,
I understand that lots of people hate President Trump and see
Russiagate as the golden ticket to his impeachment. But that doesn’t
justify making serious allegations with next to no proof, especially
when the outcome could be thermonuclear war.

However,
with all those millions of dollars sloshing around the NGO world and
Western academia – all looking for some “study” to fund that
makes Russia look bad – you are sure to get plenty of takers. And,
we should now expect that new “findings” like these will fill in
for the so-far evidence-free suspicions about Russia and Trump
colluding to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton.

If
you read more deeply into the Times story, you get a taste of where
Russiagate is headed next and a clue as to who is behind it:

Since
last month, researchers at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a
bipartisan initiative of the German Marshall Fund, a public policy
research group in Washington, have been publicly tracking 600 Twitter
accounts — human users and suspected bots alike — they have
linked to Russian influence operations. Those were the accounts
pushing the opposing messages on the N.F.L. and the national anthem.

Of
80 news stories promoted last week by those accounts, more than 25
percent ‘had a primary theme of anti-Americanism,’ the
researchers found. About 15 percent were critical of Hillary Clinton,
falsely accusing her of funding left-wing antifa — short for
anti-fascist — protesters, tying her to the lethal terrorist attack
in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 and discussing her daughter Chelsea’s
use of Twitter. Eleven percent focused on wiretapping in the federal
investigation into Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign
chairman, with most of them treated the news as a vindication for
President Trump’s earlier wiretapping claims.”

The
Neocons, Again!

So,
let’s stop and unpack this Times’ reporting. First, this Alliance
for Securing Democracy is not some neutral truth-seeking organization
but a neoconservative-dominated outfit that includes on 
its
advisory board
 such
neocon luminaries as Mike Chertoff, Bill Kristol and former Freedom
House president David Kramer along with other anti-Russia hardliners
such as former deputy CIA director Michael Morell and former House
Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers.

How
many of these guys, do you think, were assuring us that Iraq was
hiding WMDs back in 2003?

This
group clearly has an ax to grind, a record of deception, and plenty
of patrons in the Military-Industrial Complex who stand to make
billions of dollars from the New Cold War.

The
neocons also have been 
targeting
Russia for regime change
 for
years because they see Russian President Vladimir Putin as the chief
obstacle to their goal of helping Israel achieve its desire for
“regime change” in Syria and a chance to bomb-bomb-bomb Iran.
Russiagate has served the neocons well as a very convenient way to
pull Democrats, liberals and even progressives into the neocon agenda
because Russiagate is sold as a powerful weapon for the anti-Trump
Resistance.

The
Times article also might have mentioned that Twitter has 974 million
accounts. So, this alarm over 600 accounts is a bit disproportionate
for a front-page story in the Times, don’t you think?

And,
there’s the definitional problem of what constitutes
“anti-Americanism” in a news article. And what does it mean to be
“linked to Russian influence operations”? Does that include
Americans who may not march in lockstep to the one-sided State
Department narratives on the crises in Ukraine and Syria? Any
deviation from Official Washington’s groupthink makes you a “Moscow
stooge.”

And,
is it a crime to be “critical” of Hillary Clinton or to note that
the U.S. mainstream media was dismissive of Trump’s claims about
being wiretapped only for us to find out later that 
the
FBI apparently was wiretapping
 his
campaign manager?

However,
such questions aren’t going to be asked amid what has become a
massive Russiagate groupthink, dominating not just Official
Washington, but across much of America’s political landscape and
throughout the European Union.

Why
the Bias?

Beyond
the obvious political motivations for this bias, we also have had the
introduction of vast sums of money pouring in from the U.S.
government, NATO and European institutions to 
support
the business
 of
“combatting Russian propaganda.”

For
example, last December, President Obama signed into law a $160
million funding mechanism entitled the “Combating Foreign
Propaganda and Disinformation Act.” But that amounts to only a drop
in the bucket considering already existing Western propaganda
projects targeting Russia.

So,
a scramble is on to develop seemingly academic models to “prove”
what Western authorities want proven: that Russia is at fault for
pretty much every bad thing that happens in the world, particularly
the alienation of many working-class people from the
Washington-Brussels elites.

The
truth cannot be that establishment policies have led to massive
income inequality and left the working class struggling to survive
and thus are to blame for ugly political manifestations – from
Trump to Brexit to the surprising support for Germany’s far-right
AfD party. No, it must be Russia! Russia! Russia! And there’s a lot
of money on the bed to prove that point.

There’s
also the fact that the major Western news media is deeply invested in
bashing Russia as well as in the related contempt for Trump and his
followers. Those twin prejudices have annihilated all professional
standards that would normally be applied to news judgments regarding
these flawed “studies.”

On
Thursday, The Washington Post ran its own
banner-headlined 
story drawn
from the same loose accusations made by that neocon-led Alliance for
Securing Democracy, but instead the Post sourced the claims to Sen.
James Lankford, R-Oklahoma. The headline read: “Russian trolls are
stoking NFL controversy, senator says.”

The
“evidence” cited by Lankford’s office was one “Twitter
account calling itself Boston Antifa that gives its geolocation as
Vladivostok, Russia,” the Post reported.

By
Thursday, Twitter had suspended the Boston Antifa account, so I
couldn’t send it a question, but earlier this month, Dan Glaun, a
reporter for Masslive.com, 
reported
that the people
 behind
Boston Antifa were “a pair of anti-leftist pranksters from Oregon
who started Boston Antifa as a parody of actual anti-fascist groups.”

In
an email to me on Thursday, Glaun cited 
an
interview
 that
the Boston Antifa pranksters had done with right-wing radio talk show
host Gavin McInnes last April.

And,
by the way, there are 
apps
that let you manipulate
 your
geolocation data on Twitter. Or, you can choose to believe that the
highly professional Russian intelligence agencies didn’t notice
that they were telegraphing their location as Vladivostok.

Mindless
Russia Bashing

Another
example of this mindless Russia bashing appeared just below the
Post’s story on Lankford’s remarks. The Post 
sidebar cited
a “study” from researchers at Oxford University’s Project on
Computational Propaganda asserting that “junk news” on Twitter
“flowed more heavily in a dozen [U.S.] battleground states than in
the nation overall in the days immediately before and after the 2016
presidential election, suggesting that a coordinated effort targeted
the most pivotal voters.” Cue the spooky Boris and Natasha music!

Of
course, any Americans living in “battleground states” could tell
you that they are inundated with all kinds of election-related
“junk,” including negative TV advertising, nasty radio messages,
alarmist emails and annoying robo-calls at dinner time. That’s why
they’re called “battleground states,” Sherlock.

But
what’s particularly offensive about this “study” is that it
implies that the powers-that-be must do more to eliminate what these
“experts” deem “propaganda” and “junk news.” If you read
deeper into the story, you discover that the researchers applied a
very subjective definition of what constitutes “junk news,” i.e.,
information that the researchers don’t like even if it is truthful
and newsworthy.

The
Post article by 
Craig
Timberg, who apparently is using Russiagate
 to
work himself off the business pages and onto the national staff,
states that “The researchers defined junk news as ‘propaganda and
ideologically extreme, hyperpartisan, or conspiratorial political
news and information.’

The
researchers also categorized reports from Russia and ones from
WikiLeaks – which published embarrassing posts about Democrat
Hillary Clinton based on a hack of her campaign chairman’s emails –
as ‘polarizing political content’ for the purpose of the
analysis.”

So,
this “study” lumped together “junk news” with accurate and
newsworthy information, i.e., WikiLeaks’ disclosure of genuine
emails that contained such valid news as the contents of Clinton’s
speeches to Wall Street banks (which she was trying to hide from
voters) as well as evidence of the unethical tactics used by the
Democratic National Committee to sabotage Sen. Bernie Sanders’s
campaign.

Also
dumped into the researchers’ bin of vile “disinformation” were
“reports from Russia,” as if everything that comes out of Russia
is, ipso facto, “junk news.”

And,
what, pray tell, is “conspiratorial political news”? I would
argue that the past year of evidence-lite allegations about “Russian
meddling” in the U.S. election accompanied by unsupported
suspicions about “collusion” with the Trump campaign would
constitute “conspiratorial political news.” Indeed, I would say
that this Oxford “research” constitutes “conspiratorial
political news” and that Timberg’s article qualifies as “junk
news.”

Predictable
Outcome

Given
the built-in ideological bias of this “research,” it probably
won’t surprise you that the report’s author, Philip N. Howard,
concludes that “junk news originates from three main sources that
the Oxford group has been tracking: Russian operatives, Trump
supporters and activists part of the alt-right,” according to the
Post.

I suppose
that since part of the “methodology” was to define “reports
from Russia” as “junk news,” the appearance of “Russian
operatives” shouldn’t be much of a surprise, but the whole
process reeks of political bias.

Further
skewing the results, the report separated out information from
“professional news organizations [and] political parties” from
“some ‘junk news’ source,” according to the Post. In other
words, the “researchers” believe that “professional news
organizations” are inherently reliable and that
outside-the-mainstream news is “junk” – despite the MSM’s
long record of getting major stories wrong.

The
real “junk” is this sort of academic or NGO research that starts
with a conclusion and packs a “study” in such a way as to
guarantee the preordained conclusion. Or as the old saying goes,
“garbage in, garbage out.”

Yet,
it’s also clear that if you generate “research” that feeds the
hungry beast of Russiagate, you will find eager patrons doling out
dollars and a very receptive audience in the mainstream media.

In
a place like Washington, there are scores if not hundreds of reports
generated every day and only a tiny fraction get the attention of the
Times, Post, CNN, etc., let alone result in published articles. But
“studies” that reinforce today’s anti-Russia narrative are sure
winners.

So,
if you’re setting up a new NGO or you’re an obscure academic
angling for a lucrative government grant as well as some flattering
coverage in the MSM, the smart play is to join the new gold rush in
decrying “Russian propaganda.”

[For
more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com’s “
The
Rise of the New McCarthyism
”;
WPost
Pushes More Dubious Russia-Bashing
”;
The
Crazy Imbalance of Russiagate
”;
and “
More
Holes in Russiagate Narrative.
”]

By Robert
Parry
 /
Republished with permission / 
Consortium
News
 / Report
a typo

================================================

Zie ook: ‘FBI, de spin in het Russiagate web……..

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

        en: ‘Democraten VS kochten informatie over Trump >> Forgetting the ‘Dirty Dossier’ on Trump

        en: ‘Russia Is Trolling the Shit out of Hillary Clinton and the Mainstream Media

        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: ‘Russische ‘hacks’ door deskundigen nogmaals als fake news doorgeprikt >> Intel Vets Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence

        en: ‘Rusland krijgt alweer de schuld van hacken, nu van oplichters Symantec en Facebook……. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

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

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

        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!!

        en: ‘Ollongren (D66 minister) schiet een levensgrote bok met fake news show

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

       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: ‘Ollongren (D66 minister) schiet een levensgrote bok met fake news show


       en: ‘Kaspersky Lab (antivirus) aangevallen met agressief ‘Grapperhaus virus’

New York Times met schaamteloze anti-Russische propaganda en ‘fake news….’

Robert Parry legt op Consortium News uit, in een artikel overgenomen door Anti-Media, waar goed journalistiek werk o.a. aan moet voldoen: een teken dat een artikel het product is van slordige of oneerlijke journalistiek, kan gezien worden als de kern van het verhaal als feit wordt neergezet, terwijl dit niet bewezen is, of onderdeel is van een serieuze discussie. Veelal wordt zo’n artikel het fundament voor andere (niet bewezen) claims, waarmee een verhaal ‘wordt gebouwd’, dat gefundeerd is op los zand….

Dergelijke journalistiek zou niet in de reguliere media terecht mogen komen, echter tegenwoordig is het tegendeel vaak de praktijk, zoals we zien in de reguliere westerse (massa-) media. Neem de berichtgeving over de illegale oorlogen van de VS tegen Afghanistan, Irak, Libië en nu weer tegen Syrië. ‘Voldongen’ leugens werden en worden als feiten en de enige waarheid neergezet…….

Hetzelfde geldt voor alle belachelijke claims, dat Rusland de VS verkiezingen zou hebben gemanipuleerd middels hacken en het publiceren van artikelen door o.a. Sputnik en Russia Today (RT). Daarbij worden  naast een ‘tsunami’ aan berichten op Facebook en Twitter, nu ook advertenties genoemd, die werden geplaatst op Facebook……. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Voor al deze zogenaamde feiten, is geen nanometer bewijs, maar ze worden desondanks door diezelfde reguliere media en het merendeel van de westerse politici als de enige waarheid gezien, dit terwijl het overtuigende bewijs van het tegendeel terzijde wordt geschoven………

Parry schrijft over een artikel dat afgelopen vrijdag over 3 pagina’s werd geplaatst in the New York Times (NYT). Daarin wordt betoogt dat Rusland ‘een leger van nep-Amerikanen’ heeft gebruikt om de VS verkiezingen te beïnvloeden……. Of wat dacht u van: ‘met een vloed aan Facebook en Twitterberichten hebben bedriegers haat en verdeeldheid gezaaid in de VS…..’ ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Ja, ze durven wel hè, terwijl die zogenaamde Amerikanen elkaar al een paar eeuwen de strot kunnen afbijten!! (neem alleen al de nog steeds bestaande grove discriminatie van gekleurden in de VS….)

Facebook weigert intussen nog steeds om de advertenties vrij te geven, die volgens haar door de Russische overheid werden geplaatst……. Kortom Facebook beschuldigt een land van uiterst grove handelingen en stelt daarna vrolijk dat men maar moet geloven op de blauwe ogen van de redactie……..

Lees het volgende uitstekende artikel van Parry en zegt het voort!

Has
the New York Times Gone Completely Insane?

September
16, 2017 at 11:31 am

Written
by 
Robert
Parry

Crossing
a line from recklessness into madness, The New York Times published a
front-page opus suggesting that Russia was behind social media
criticism of Hillary Clinton, reports Robert Parry.

(CN) For
those of us who have taught journalism or worked as editors, a sign
that an article is the product of sloppy or dishonest journalism is
that a key point will be declared as flat fact when it is unproven or
a point in serious dispute – and it then becomes the foundation for
other claims, building a story like a high-rise constructed on sand.

This
use of speculation as fact is something to guard against particularly
in the work of inexperienced or opinionated reporters. But what
happens when this sort of unprofessional work tops page one of The
New York Times one day as a major “investigative” article and
reemerges the next day in even more strident form as a major Times
editorial? Are we dealing then with an inept journalist who got
carried away with his thesis or are we facing institutional
corruption or even a collective madness driven by ideological fervor?

What
is stunning about the 
lede
story
 in
last Friday’s print edition of The New York Times is that it offers
no real evidence to support its provocative claim that – as the
headline states – “To Sway Vote, Russia Used Army of Fake
Americans” or its subhead: “Flooding Twitter and Facebook,
Impostors Helped Fuel Anger in Polarized U.S.”

In
the old days, this wildly speculative article, which spills over
three pages, would have earned an F in a J-school class or gotten a
rookie reporter a stern rebuke from a senior editor. But now such
unprofessionalism is highlighted by The New York Times, which boasts
that it is the standard-setter of American journalism, the nation’s
“newspaper of record.”

In
this case, it allows reporter Scott Shane to introduce his thesis by
citing some Internet accounts that apparently used fake identities,
but he ties none of them to the Russian government. Acting like he
has minimal familiarity with the Internet – yes, a lot of people do
use fake identities – Shane builds his case on the assumption that
accounts that cited references to purloined Democratic emails must be
somehow from an agent or a bot connected to the Kremlin.

For
instance, Shane cites the fake identity of “Melvin Redick,” who
suggested on June 8, 2016, that people visit DCLeaks which, a few
days earlier, had posted some emails from prominent Americans, which
Shane states as fact – not allegation – were “stolen … by
Russian hackers.”

Shane
then adds, also as flat fact, that “The site’s phony promoters
were in the vanguard of a cyberarmy of counterfeit Facebook and
Twitter accounts, a legion of Russian-controlled impostors whose
operations are still being unraveled.”

The
Times’ Version

In
other words, Shane tells us, “The Russian information attack on the
election did not stop with the hacking and leaking of Democratic
emails or the fire hose of stories, true, false and in between, that
battered Mrs. Clinton on Russian outlets like RT and Sputnik. Far
less splashy, and far more difficult to trace, was Russia’s
experimentation on Facebook and Twitter, the American companies that
essentially invented the tools of social media and, in this case, did
not stop them from being turned into engines of deception and
propaganda.”

Besides
the obvious point that very few Americans watch RT and/or Sputnik and
that Shane offers no details about the alleged falsity of those “fire
hose of stories,” let’s examine how his accusations are backed
up:

An
investigation by The New York Times, and new research from the
cybersecurity firm FireEye, reveals some of the mechanisms by which
suspected Russian operators used Twitter and Facebook to spread
anti-Clinton messages and promote the hacked material they had
leaked. On Wednesday, Facebook officials disclosed that they had shut
down several hundred accounts that they believe were created by a
Russian company linked to the Kremlin and used to buy $100,000 in ads
pushing divisive issues during and after the American election
campaign. On Twitter, as on Facebook, Russian fingerprints are on
hundreds or thousands of fake accounts that regularly posted
anti-Clinton messages.”

Note
the weasel words: “suspected”; “believe”; ‘linked”;
“fingerprints.” When you see such equivocation, it means that
these folks – both the Times and FireEye – don’t have hard
evidence; they are speculating.

And
it’s worth noting that the supposed “army of fake Americans”
may amount to hundreds out of Facebook’s 
two
billion or so monthly users
 and
the $100,000 in ads compare to the company’s annual ad revenue
of 
around
$27 billion
.
(I’d do the math but my calculator doesn’t compute such tiny
percentages.)

So,
this “army” is really not an “army” and we don’t even know
that it is “Russian.” But some readers might say that surely we
know that the Kremlin did mastermind the hacking of Democratic
emails!

That
claim is supported by the Jan. 6 “intelligence community
assessment” that was the work of what President Obama’s Director
of National Intelligence James Clapper called “hand-picked”
analysts from three agencies – the Central Intelligence Agency,
National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation. But, as
any intelligence expert will tell you, if you hand-pick the analysts,
you are hand-picking the conclusions.

Agreeing
with Putin

But
some still might protest that the Jan. 6 report surely presented
convincing evidence of this serious charge about Russian President
Vladimir Putin personally intervening in the U.S. election to help
put Donald Trump in the White House. Well, as it turns out, not so
much, and if you don’t believe me, we can call to the witness stand
none other than New York Times reporter Scott Shane.

Shane 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.’”

So,
even Scott Shane, the author of last Friday’s opus, recognized the
lack of “hard evidence” to prove that the Russian government was
behind the release of the Democratic emails, a claim that both Putin
and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who published a trove of the
emails, have denied. While it is surely possible that Putin and
Assange are lying or don’t know the facts, you might think that
their denials would be relevant to this lengthy investigative
article, which also could have benefited from some mention of Shane’s
own skepticism of last January, but, hey, you don’t want
inconvenient details to mess up a cool narrative.

Yet,
if you struggle all the way to the end of last Friday’s article,
you do find out how flimsy the Times’ case actually is. How, for
instance, do we know that “Melvin Redick” is a Russian impostor
posing as an American? The proof, according to Shane, is that “His
posts were never personal, just news articles reflecting a
pro-Russian worldview.”

As
it turns out, the Times now operates with what must be called a
neo-McCarthyistic approach for identifying people as Kremlin stooges,
i.e., anyone who doubts the truthfulness of the State Department’s
narratives on Syria, Ukraine and other international topics.

Unreliable
Source

In
the article’s last section, Shane acknowledges as much in citing
one of his experts, “Andrew Weisburd, an Illinois online researcher
who has written frequently about Russian influence on social media.”
Shane quotes Weisburd as admitting how hard it is to differentiate
Americans who just might oppose Hillary Clinton because they didn’t
think she’d make a good president from supposed Russian operatives:
“Trying to disaggregate the two was difficult, to put it mildly.”

According
to Shane, “Mr. Weisburd said he had labeled some Twitter accounts
‘Kremlin trolls’ based simply on their pro-Russia tweets and with
no proof of Russian government ties. The Times contacted several such
users, who insisted that they had come by their anti-American,
pro-Russian views honestly, without payment or instructions from
Moscow.”

One
of Weisburd’s “Kremlin trolls” turned out to be 66-year-old
Marilyn Justice who lives in Nova Scotia and who 
somehow
reached the conclusion
 that
“Hillary’s a warmonger.” During the 2014 Winter Olympics in
Sochi, Russia, she reached another conclusion: that U.S. commentators
were exhibiting a snide anti-Russia bias perhaps because they indeed
were exhibiting a snide anti-Russia bias.

Shane
tracked down another “Kremlin troll,” 48-year-old Marcel Sardo, a
web producer in Zurich, Switzerland, who dares to dispute the West’s
groupthink that Russia was responsible for shooting down Malaysia
Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine on July 17, 2014, and the State
Department’s claims that the Syrian government used sarin gas in a
Damascus suburb on Aug. 21, 2013.

Presumably,
if you don’t toe the line on those dubious U.S. government
narratives, you are part of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine. (In
both cases, there actually are serious reasons to doubt the Western
groupthinks which again lack real evidence.)

But
Shane accuses Sardo and his fellow-travelers of spreading “what
American officials consider to be Russian disinformation on election
hacking, Syria, Ukraine and more.” In other words, if you examine
the evidence on MH-17 or the Syrian sarin case and conclude that the
U.S. government’s claims are dubious if not downright false, you
are somehow disloyal and making Russian officials “gleeful at their
success,” as Shane puts it.

But
what kind of a traitor are you if you quote Shane’s initial
judgment after reading the Jan. 6 report on alleged Russian election
meddling? What are you if you agree with his factual observation that
the report lacked anything approaching “hard evidence”? That’s
a point that also dovetails with what Vladimir Putin has been saying
– that “IP addresses can be simply made up. … This is no
proof”?

So
is Scott Shane a “Kremlin troll,” too? Should the Times
immediately fire him as a disloyal foreign agent? What if Putin says
that 2 plus 2 equals 4 and your child is taught the same thing in
elementary school, what does that say about public school teachers?

Out
of such gibberish come the evils of McCarthyism and the death of the
Enlightenment. Instead of encouraging a questioning citizenry, the
new American paradigm is to silence debate and ridicule anyone who
steps out of line.

You
might have thought people would have learned something from the
disastrous groupthink about Iraqi WMD, a canard that the Times and
most of the U.S. mainstream media eagerly promoted.

But
if you’re feeling generous and thinking that the Times’ editors
must have been chastened by their Iraq-WMD fiasco but perhaps had a
bad day last week and somehow allowed an egregious piece of
journalism to lead their front page, your kind-heartedness would be
shattered on Saturday when the Times’ editorial board penned 
a
laudatory reprise
 of
Scott Shane’s big scoop.

Stripping
away even the few caveats that the article had included, the Times’
editors informed us that “a startling investigation by Scott Shane
of The New York Times, and new research by the cybersecurity firm
FireEye, now reveal, the Kremlin’s stealth intrusion into the
election was far broader and more complex, involving a cyberarmy of
bloggers posing as Americans and spreading propaganda and
disinformation to an American electorate on Facebook, Twitter and
other platforms. …

Now
that the scheming is clear, Facebook and Twitter say they are
reviewing the 2016 race and studying how to defend against such
meddling in the future. … Facing the Russian challenge will involve
complicated issues dealing with secret foreign efforts to undermine
American free speech.”

But
what is the real threat to “American free speech”? Is it the
possibility that Russia – in a very mild imitation of what the U.S.
government does all over the world – used some Web sites
clandestinely to get out its side of various stories, an accusation
against Russia that still lacks any real evidence?

Or
is the bigger threat that the nearly year-long Russia-gate hysteria
will be used to clamp down on Americans who dare question fact-lite
or fact-free Official Narratives handed down by the State Department
and The New York Times?

By Robert
Parry
 /
Republished with permission / 
Consortium
News
 / Report
a typo

=================================

Zie ook: ‘JULIAN ASSANGE OFFERS U.S. GOVERNMENT PROOF RUSSIA WASN’T SOURCE OF DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEAKS, SAYS WSJ‘ (op Stan van Houcke die het overnam van Global Research)