Human Rights Watch: International Armed Conflict Promoter for Soros?

Vera Graziadei

This morning Human Rights Watch published its World Report 2015 on Ukraine in which it repeats claims from the US and Ukrainian authorities that the Ukrainian civil war is ‘an international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine’, the only evidence for it cited is ‘the capture of Russian soldiers in Ukraine’, which supposedly ‘exposes Russian forces direct involvement in military operations’.

I’ve checked the report on Syria and despite evidence from Wikileaks that the U.S. secretly funded Syria’s opposition and that US-led NATO troops operated in Syria undercover, and a more recent news article that the “U.S. military has established a new command that will oversee operations in Syria” and the official announcement that the U.S. will deploy about 400 troops to Syria to train ‘moderate’ rebels, Human Rights Watch describes the conflict as that between ‘pro-government militias’ and ‘non-state armed groups.’ Predictably, US or NATO’s involvement is mentioned and it’s certainly not classified as ‘an international armed conflict between Syria and the US’, revealing HRW’s double standards.

Following the US State Department’s party line, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday that Russia had 9,000 troops in Ukraine and demanded their withdrawal. However, later the Chief of Ukrainian Army clearly stated that they do not have evidence of mass involvement of Russian forces in the conflict in Donbass, but instead they can only be sure of participation of individual volunteer Russian citizens within anti-Kiev battalions. Similarly, a Ukrainian Major and military expert confirmed that there are no Russian troops in East Ukraine. Same is confirmed by an OSCE representative and a number of independent journalists, which are operating in Donbass.

In short, the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine is not a proved fact, as no one has provided conclusive evidence for it anywhere, so why is Human Rights Watch presenting propagandistic allegations as fact, thereby fuelling international tension that could well end up in WWIII? The clue may come from the fact that since 2010 Human Rights Watch has been funded by George Soros, who admitted his responsibility in February 2014 coup and who openly called for war with Russia in the New York Review of Books and demanded that the EU funds Ukraine in their war effort. So have Human Rights Watch become a mouthpiece for their billionaire sponsor?

George Soros, the Wall Street speculator who was convicted and fined for insider trading by the European Court of Human Rights in 2002, “has built an empire out of obfuscating global criminal activity with the cause of “human rights.” In repeating unproved claims by their sponsors, Human Rights Watch are discrediting themselves, as a modern day network of imperial administrators, undermining national governments around the world and even promoting international armed conflicts between states.

Ukrainian-British actress and writer Vera Graziadei's Bio

Ten reasons why Victoria Nuland should be seen as Stalin of today

Vladimir Golstein
Russia Insider

10. Both use made up names. Stalin's family name was Jugashvilli, Nuland's ancestor's name was Nudelman. The ancestors of both Nuland and Stalin came from the Russian empire, which probably gave them both the idea that they have a special knowledge of how to handle Russia.

9. Nuland's right hand man happens to be her husband, Robert Kagan. Stalin's right hand man was a fellow communist, named Lazar Kagan(ovich). Kagan co-authored "Project for a New American Century" and he obviously wants to realized his vision for Ukraine by implementing what might be called, "amerikanizatsiia," that is, the process of bringing in the officials from US and other countries to run Ukraine along the American lines. In his turn, Kaganovich was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian SSR from 1925-1928 and was expected to usher in "New Soviet Century" through the politics of "ukrainizatsiya": creating a new ruling Soviet elite for Ukraine, the elite brought in primarily from other places.

8. Both are clear ideologues: Nuland of "neocon movement", Stalin of bolshevism. Both went to schooling with the masters and chief ideologues. Nuland worked closely with Rumsfeld and Cheney, starting as Vice President's senior aide, and eventually serving as his deputy national security adviser. In his essay for Financial Times, Geoff Dyer quotes an former colleague in the Obama administration State Department , who observed that "I have no doubt that when she sits down for a family dinner, she is the biggest neocon at the table." While Lenin's widower, Krupskaia, joked that had Lenin re-appeared when Stalin was already in charge, he would have had Lenin put to jail for deviating from the party course.

7. Both are willing to see through numerous deaths in Ukraine to get the territory under their influence. Stalin together with Kaganovich unleashed forced collectivization upon Ukraine, resulting in mass death of peasants, known as Holodomor. Nuland's and her fellow neocons' forced "americanization" resulted in the civil war between Donbass and Kiev, that so far has claimed thousands of lives, destroyed infrastructure, and produced hundreds of thousands of refugees.

6. They both tend to be aggressive and demanding and refuse to take no for an answer. Consequently, they prefer to squeeze their opponents till they break. Geoff Dyer's quotes Dimitri Simes, president of the Center for the National Interest in Washington DC who observed: "It is clear that her whole approach is to push Russia so hard that it has no choice but to accommodate the US." Stalin's ability to squeeze his opponents is, of course, proverbial.

5. According to Stalin's critic, Abdurakhman Aftorkhanov, Stalin made two mistakes during the WWII. He showed Europe to Russians (soldiers who saw how prosperous it was and realized that they were duped). And he showed Russians to Europe - which got scared, and started NATO, and other programs. The fate of Russia and the rest of the world has changed as the result of these mistakes. Someday, Nuland's critics will charge her with accomplishing a similar feat. She has fully exposed to the Western world Ukraine's lawlessness, corruption, and neofascism. And she has amply demonstrated Western World to both Ukrainians and Russians, who will never trust it again: seeing its unscrupulous meddling into their affairs.

4. Both are too arrogant and impatient to waste their time of diplomacy, and prefer to cut to the chase. They dismiss the possible opposition or obstacles with the similar terms. "F..k EU," famously observed Nuland, in response to the questions about EU attitude toward the regime change in Ukraine. Stalin never hesitated to resort to the foul language, calling Lenin's wife, "syphilitic whore," or bragging that in the course of WWII he managed to outsmart Great Britain: "Stalin could always raise a laugh from his courtiers by saying, as he often did: 'We f***ed England!'"

3. Both prefer to rule by decree and appoint the people to the offices. While Nuland boldly proclaimed from the comfort of her office that Yatseniuk will be the future leader of Ukraine: "Yats is the man," Stalin, of course, went even further, not only assigning Kaganovich, Khrushchev, and others to run Ukraine, but threating Lenin's widow, Krupskaia, that if she continues to challenge him, he'll appoint another woman as Lenin's widow.

2. Similarly to Stalin, who for the sake of strategic purposes made the deal with Nazis (Ribbentrop), Nuland held various meetings with Ukraine's Right Sector and other ultra-nationalist, neo-fascist organizations; and seems to be very cozy with Svoboda leader, Oleh Tyahnybok.

1. And finally, both Stalin and Nuland tend to present themselves in stunning visual imagery as the good caring parents of the new nation, easily duping the gullible locals. Here is Stalin surrounded by admiring Soviet children who are forever grateful to him for their happy childhood, and here is Nuland, surrounded by happy Ukrainians, whom she feeds with pastry as they are ready to embark on the path toward the new statehood.

New British Army unit 'Brigade 77' to use Facebook and Twitter in psychological warfare

The Independent 

The British military is setting up a specialist force modelled on the Chindits, the commandos who gained renown through their daring missions behind enemy lines in Burma during the Second World War. 

They will specialise in "non-lethal" forms of psychological warfare, using social media including Facebook and Twitter to "fight in the information age".

The Chief of the Army, General Sir Nick Carter, believes that the radical new plan is essential to face the “asymmetric” battlefields of the 21st century, where tactics and strategies differ significantly between enemies, such as with Isis. Key lessons, he says, can be learned from the campaign carried out against the Japanese by Allied troops using unconventional tactics seven decades ago.

The 2,000-strong brigade will have the same number, 77, and the same emblem – of a Chindit, a mythical Burmese beast – as the one under Brigadier Orde Wingate. But, as well as being ready for combat, the troops will be armed with modern skill sets including being adept in social media and new technology.

One of the key reasons behind the successful operations of the Chindits was the support they received from the local population against the Japanese forces. General Carter holds believes the winning of “hearts and minds” has never been more important.

Senior officers hold that a range of current conflicts, from Iraq to Ukraine, have shown how the information war is as vital as the ones fought with weapons. The brigade, which will be formally unveiled in April with headquarters at Hermitage, near Newbury in Berkshire, will be responsible for all “non-lethal deployment” of the UK military abroad. 

Read more

Ukraine Chief of Staff acknowledges no Russian troops in Donetsk

Sputnik

The chief of Ukraine's General Military Staff Viktor Muzhenko acknowledged that Russian regular army units were not involved in combat action in the troubled Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

"Right now the Ukrainian army is not engaged in combat operations against Russian regular units," he underscored.

Muzhenko added, however, that he had information about Russian civilian and military individuals fighting alongside independence supporters in the country's east.

He also said the Ukrainian army had everything it needed to rout what he described as illegal armed units in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. 

Read more

Charlie Hebdo attacks used to justify increasing fascism in Europe, intel agencies to blame?

Vladimir Platov

New Eastern Outlook

After the bloody events in Paris, when journalists of Charlie Hebdo were murdered in the broad daylight, all across the globe numerous journals have been discussing who could benefit from this tragedy.

In some countries (primarily Muslim) the manifestations against the provocative publications of controversial cartoons of the Prophet that mocked the religious feelings of all Muslims are still on the rise. Some experts have linked these provocative anti-Muslim cartoons with the acquisition of Charlie Hebdo by the Rothschilds in December 2014, the latter of whom are constantly worrying about their profits. But now they can be fairly content since after these tragic events the number of copies sold increased tenfold!
Another group of experts believes that the attack on French journalists was the result of direct actions of Western intelligence agencies. Therefore, the consequences of the Charlie Hebdo massacre can be compared to those of 9/11 attack, such as the tightening of security in Europe. 

Read more

US "FIGHTING"TERROR GROUP WITH FICTIONAL LEADERS

Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook

US claims to be waging war against "Islamic State" whose various "al-Baghdadi" leaders do not exist. 

In 2007, the New York Times revealed that long-vilified "Islamic State" leader Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi did not exist, and that the creation of this fictional character was a ruse to obfuscate the role of foreigners in the creation and perpetuation of "Al Qaeda in Iraq."

In an article titled, "Leader of Al Qaeda group in Iraq was fictional, U.S. military says," the NYT reports that: 

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

The NYT would also reveal the purpose of the deception:

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

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

The admission by US military leaders, reported in the NYT, reveals that the so-called "Islamic State" was nothing more than an appendage of Al Qaeda - with Al Qaeda itself directly armed, funded, and backed by stalwart US allies, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Despite the NYT and the Pentagon's admissions, the entire ruse has continued, on an exponential scale.

Read more

See also: Myth and Reality of the US War against ISIL

Today’s “Dip” Is A Warning—-Get Out Of The Casino!

David Stockman

Contra Corner

Shortly after yesterday’s open, the S&P 500 was down nearly 2% and off its recent all-time high by 3.5%. But soon the robo-machines and day traders were buying the “dip” having apparently once again gotten the “all-clear” signal.

Don’t believe it for a second! The global financial system is literally booby-trapped with accidents waiting to happen owing to six consecutive years of massive money printing by nearly every central bank in the world.

Over that span, the collective balance sheet of the major central banks has soared by nearly $11 trillion, meaning that honest price discovery has been virtually destroyed. This massive “bid” for existing financial assets based on credit confected from thin air drove long-term bond yields to rock bottom levels not seen in 600 years since the Black Plague; and pinned money market costs at zero—-for 73 months running.

What is the consequence of this drastic financial repression along the entire yield curve? The answer is bond prices which keep rising regardless of credit risk, inflation or taxes; and rampant carry trade speculation that can’t get out of its own way because  central banks have made the financial gamblers’ cost of goods—the “funding” cost of their trades— essentially zero.

Needless to say, this is all too good to be true because it has generated humungous funding mismatches. That is, on the warranted word of central bankers—-who are petrified of a Wall Street hissy fit in any event—-speculators have funded long-term debt and equity securities with overnight money which must be rolled every day. This “works”, of course, until the carry-traders are hammered by a sudden, powerful and unexpected shock owing to either a sharp drop in the price of their “long” asset or spike in the carry cost of their overnight funding.

Thus, the true evil of central bank “wealth effects” pegging of risk asset prices (i.e. the Greenspan/Bernanke/Yellen “put”) is not merely the undeserved windfalls which accrue to the financial asset owning households at the very top of the income ladder. An equally baleful effect is that it suppresses fear of risk and eventually drives it from the casino entirely.

This destruction of fear is commonly measured by the VIX index, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Where the amnesia really shows up is in the carry trades—-most of which materialize in the options and futures markets, and which are fabricated or “bespoke” in the meth labs of Wall Street trading houses.

Notwithstanding a few short, sharp stock market corrections in recent months, the six-year central bank suppression of fear remains largely in tact. Looked at in terms of the trading charts since the March 2009 bottom, the buy-the-dips crowd remains supremely confident that the bull is still running up hill.

 

Accordingly, beneath the parabolic run pictured above, there has set-in a monumental spree of speculation and leveraged gambling that makes Wall Street’s pre-crisis plunge into toxic mortgage deals look like a Sunday School picnic.

Just last week, for example, after the Swiss National Bank’s surprise abandonment of the 120 peg, the CHF soared by 40%. Literally within minutes they were carrying currency traders off the field on their shields because they had been leveraged 50:1.

It might be asked who in their right mind would fund currency cowboys on 2% margin? The answer, of course, is nearly every  major dealer in the casino! But that’s just the herd at work.

The truly scary part is the reason for this collective recklessness. Currencies move by inches, not yards and never miles at a time, the Wall Street apologists declaimed. And, besides, the SNB had double-promised that it would never, ever remove the peg.

So fast money traders borrowing short in CHF and speculating long in Italian 10-year bonds thought they were shooting fish in a barrel.  Mario Draghi had guaranteed that he would buy their bonds yielding 1.95% at the time at ever rising prices; and on the funding side, the SNB had pledged that speculators could borrow virtually zero carry costs up to 95 cents on the dollar for so long as they pleased. Pocketing a 190 basis point spread plus capital gains on virtually no capital invested, speculators were truly laughing all the way to the bank

So last Thursday’s CHF massacre happened because it was not supposed to happen!  That is, financial markets are no longer honest, rational, stable or independent; they are merely gambling hall subsidiaries of the central banks where most of the punters still believe that the latter will not permit risk asset prices to fall for more than a day or two or funding costs to rise unexpectedly.

The reason that the casino has become so stupendously dangerous, therefore, is that the whole financial house of cards—including vastly over-valued asset prices of every kind and insanely extended leverage like the CHF currency speculations—all depend on maintenance of confidence in central bank competence and omnipotence.

But it’s not so—not by a long shot. Last week’s CHF episode rang the bell. And as the cascades of collateral damage begin to flow in, it will become harder and harder to hide the truth—-even from the heedless gamblers in the casino.

The next layer of leverage behind the currency speculators in the CHF trade was comprised of households all over central and eastern Europe who took out mortgages denominated in Swiss francs owing to dirt cheap interest rates. Suddenly, the amount they owe is soaring in local currency, and banks and government throughout the region are scrambling to forestall a disaster.

In the case of Poland, for instance, outstanding CHF mortgages total $36 billion or nearly 8% of GDP. On a US scale basis, that would be the equivalent of $1.5 trillion in home mortgages that suddenly soared in repayment costs.

Not surprisingly, the allegedly “conservative” government of Poland has insisted that zloty-based homeowners will be protected from the CHF flare-up, but that the government will not bear the cost. That is, the banks are going to be hammered by state regulators just like they were in Hungary awhile back.

One thing leads to another and ultimately to a daisy chain of wreckage when honest “price discovery” is destroyed by the central banks. Even now several Austrian, Italian and other European banks, which plunged into the CHF lending business, are on the rocks.

It is only a matter of time before one “surprise” after another turns up owing to the speculative mania of the last six years. And it is virtually certain that the central bankers who have presided over this fiasco will be caught as flat-footed as they were during the sub-prime fiasco.

In a nearby re-post from the New York Times this morning (Wake-Up Call To Yellen: Here’s How To Buy A BMW On Food Stamps—–Soaring Auto Junk Loans), we suggested that Janet Yellen needed a wake-up call. The NYT obsessively “fact checks” everything—so here’s the real deal. The auto junk paper market is so out of hand that an unemployed NYC food stamp recipient recently got a $30,770 loan to buy her daughter a BWM 328xi so that she could drive to work…..in style, apparently.

This beneficent mom told no lender or dealer a lie. As related by the NYT:

Ms. Payne went with her daughter to a dealership that arranges loans for Santander and other auto lenders to buy the car. She said an employee at the dealership in Great Neck, N.Y., assured her that, even though she was on food stamps, she could afford the loan. At the time, Ms. Payne said she thought she was co-signing the loan with her daughter. 

“I looked him in the eye and said, ‘I don’t have any income,’ ” said Ms. Payne.

Needless to say, Santander Consumer USA is a pure artifact of financial engineering deeply subsidized and coddled by the Fed. As a former LBO and now IPO, it is overwhelmingly funded with securitized auto paper. That is, it is able to fund BMW loans to mom’s on food stamps because it can bury them in massive baskets of loans that are then sliced and diced by Wall Street, and sold to investors desperate for “yield”.

If that sounds familiar—it is. Yellen did not see it coming last time, nor did the buy-the-dip bulls who claimed that the market was “cheap” at its peak in October 2007.

The S&P was then trading at 20X reported LTM earnings. That’s where it is today, as well.

But there is one huge difference. This time the casino gamblers have been playing with free money for 73 months running.

Accordingly, the joint is an accident waiting to happen. Forget the dip. Get out of dodge.

GMO Imports Causing Unapproved “Mystery GMO Plants” to Invade Ecosystems

Mike Barrett
Natural Society

Emerging as the world’s second largest importer of GMO crops, South Korea seems to be a big believer in feeding its citizens GMOs. Oddly enough, though, the country already has a government ban on their cultivation – likely as a means to protect its land from potential GMO dangers while still ‘benefiting’ from GMO foods. But despite an in-house ban and only accepting imports, GMO mystery plants have been taking root all over the country – providing hard evidence that GMO contamination is real and that even importing GMOs can disrupt a local ecosystem.

A National Institute of Ecology (NIE) monitoring report on the effects GMOs have on the natural environment showed GM corn and cotton discoveries across the country in 2013. Corn was found in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province; Gimje, North Jeolla Province; and Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province. Cotton was found in no fewer than fifteen locations.

Read more

How officials spent £100m on taxis, first class rail travel and business class flights

The Telegraph 

Whitehall officials have spent more than £100million on taxis, business class flights and first class rail travel over the past four years, according to official figures.

Government departments have spent £60million on business class flights, £26million on taxis and £13million on first class rail travel.

In 2011 George Osborne barred civil servants from using first class rail travel unless there were exceptional circumstances.

David Cameron subsequently said that all ministers and civil servants should take economy class flights in an attempt to enhance his Green credentials.

However, despite the bans several government departments are still spending tens of millions of pounds on luxury travel. 

Read more

Email From US Special Forces Veteran; 500 US Blackwater Mercenaries in Ukraine? US Backs Ukrainian Neo-Nazis

Mike Mish Shedlock

US Special Forces in Ukraine?

In response to US Special Forces in Mariupol? I received an interesting email from "Dan" a 23-year Army veteran with four years in special services.

Dan writes ...

I was a soldier in the US Army for 23 years including four years in Special forces Stationed in Germany. I would agree that there is a strong likelihood that this is a US Special Forces soldier.

I can tell you that we were issued AK 74s and would use them on a mission such as this. That is about all I would really want to say at this point.

It is obvious to me that our strategy is the Balkanization of the various hot spots in the world, Syria, Ukraine, Iraq and so forth.

You can call me if you want I’d be happy to talk with you. All the Best

I did call Dan. We chatted a bit. He pointed out special fireproof gloves on the soldier.

I asked him about the rifles. Dan had high praise for them. "Exceptional" was the exact word. They  are widely distributed to special forces units in Europe.

Dan was "disgusted" with US operations stirring up trouble in numerous hotspots including Ukraine.

More English Speaking Soldiers in Mariupol

Over the weekend more videos of English speaking soldiers in Mariupol turned up. Around the 14:40 mark, talk is in English. This time it sounds British rather than US.

Outdoing Dr. Goebbels: The propaganda war against RT

Neil Clark

Propaganda. At its best – a wonderful German pop group of the 1980s who had their biggest hit with a track named ‘Duel’. At its worst – the comments of the new BBG chief Andrew Lack, which put RT in the same category of ‘challenges’ as ISIS.

READ MORE: Head of US state media put RT on same challenge list as ISIS, Boko Haram
 
“We are extremely outraged that the new head of the BBG [US Broadcasting Board of Governors] mentions RT in the same breath as world’s number one terrorist army. We see this as an international scandal and demand an explanation,” says Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor-in-chief. Anyone who supports genuine pluralism in the international media should be demanding an explanation too.

It would be easy to say that Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the infamous Nazi Minister of Propaganda would be proud of Lack’s comments. But in fact the propaganda war against RT – of which Lack’s comments are only the latest example, actually – ‘out-Goebbels’ Dr Goebbels’.

The reason for these attacks is fear. What is clear is that the success of RT has caused real panic in the ranks of the west’s neo-con/‘liberal interventionist’ elite.

RT urges us to question more – and questioning more is the very last thing that the elites in the west want us to do. They want us to accept hook, line and sinker THEIR narrative of world events – a narrative which told us that Iraq possessed WMDs which could be deployed within 45 minutes and which posed a threat to the entire world. A narrative which told us that Muammar Gaddafi was ‘massacring his own people’ and so, for the benefit of the Libyan people, who our leaders cared so much about – we had to have a ‘humanitarian intervention’.

A narrative on Ukraine which casts Russia and its ‘evil’ President as the aggressors and which portrayed a violent, anti-democratic putsch financed by the west and spearheaded by some very nasty far-right extremists as a victory for ‘democracy’.

Again, we’re expected to accept these narratives and not to question them.

For years, the serial-war lobby, which has been at the forefront of the attacks on RT, had it easy. Mainstream news media in the US and other western countries faithfully parroted the official NATO line while neo-con / ‘liberal interventionist’ pundits provided the vast majority of the commentary.

But then along came RT – and millions of people started to watch it.

Voices that we didn’t hear very often – if at all – on the other channels, now had a platform. Voices that actually reflected majority public opinion on foreign policy issues.

So the attacks on the station began. The same ‘free speech’ crowd who had campaigned against Iran’s Press TV- now had a new target for their poison pens.

These attacks intensified after Russian diplomacy – and a vote in the British Parliament – helped to avert planned air-strikes on Damascus in the summer of 2013. As I noted here, the war lobby were furious that for once, they hadn’t got their way. Something I observed from quite early on was the very strong overlap between obsessive RT-haters and people who supported the Iraq war and who wanted western military intervention against Assad’s forces in Syria. (Whenever you read an attack on RT I suggest you put the authors’ name into a search engine with the words ‘Iraq war’ and ‘Syria’. It's usually quite revealing).

Neo-con propagandists writing for neocon propaganda sheets accused RT of peddling ‘propaganda’ showing that the age of satire was not dead.

McCarthyite gatekeepers obsessively monitored RT programmes, using a variety of smears to attack guests and pundits who held the ‘wrong’ views, i.e. views that the McCarthyite gatekeepers didn’t agree with. Those who committed the ‘crime’ of re-tweeting a RT interview or article, or citing RT with approval, were admonished.

Journalists were urged not to appear on the station- and were attacked when they did so. All by people who claimed to be in favour of ‘free speech’ and ‘media pluralism’! 

Even the Secretary of State has joined in with the RT-bashing. 

In April last year, John Kerry called RT a ‘propaganda bullhorn’.

That‘s the same man who said – with a straight face – “you just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests.” But of course, that wasn‘t ‘propaganda’ was it?

The latest, desperate elite attack – equating RT with ISIS is deeply ironic considering the way RT has covered the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. RT was reporting on the significant jihadist presence in the Syrian ’uprising’ at a time when the neo-cons wanted us to believe that the ‘rebels’ opposing President Assad were all cuddly, peace-loving democrats. RT pundits – myself included – also challenged the ’dominant’ narrative that Assad had little public support in Syria.

Neo-con and ‘liberal interventionists’ repeatedly told us that Assad would soon be toppled – you had to go to RT to find the truth – which was that the Syrian government – whatever our own opinions of it – did have substantial support – and that support for it was growing due to people being turned off by the brutality of the ‘rebels’.

The fact that radical jihadists were a leading part of the ‘popular democratic uprising’, ‘against Assad and his government’ did not fit the official good guys vs. bad guys narrative so it was left out. Only when IS started to threaten the oil fields of Kurdistan did the elite western narrative change. Then it DID become acceptable to talk about jihadists in Syria – and to publicise their massacres. Where just a few months earlier – almost all the atrocities in Syria were blamed on Assad and government forces – it was now fine to report on the violence of those opposed to Assad.

But RT once again, was telling us the truth long before we were supposed to know it. The attacks on RT are evidence that the channel is doing an excellent job. If only it had been around in 2002/3 to challenge the dominant narrative back then. 

“We murdered some folks” in Guantanamo

Comment: Puppet Obama still hasn't closed it of course, after gawd knows how many "promises." But that's not unusual...

------------------------

 

David Swanson

Washington's Blog

 

Murder at Camp Delta is a new book by Joseph Hickman, a former guard at Guantanamo. It’s neither fiction nor speculation. When President Obama says “We tortured some folks,” Hickman provides at least three cases — in addition to many others we know about from secret sites around the world — in which the statement needs to be modified to “We murdered some folks.” Of course, murder is supposed to be acceptable in war (and in whatever you call what Obama does with drones) while torture is supposed to be, or used to be, a scandal. But what about tortures to death? What about deadly human experimentation? Does that have a Nazi enough ring to disturb anyone?

We should be able to answer that question soon, at least for that segment of the population that searches aggressively for news or actually — I’m not making this up — reads books. Murder at Camp Delta is a book of, by, and for true believers in patriotism and militarism. You can start out viewing Dick Cheney as a leftist and never be offended by this book, unless documented facts that the author himself was deeply disturbed to discover offend you. The first line of the book is “I am a patriotic American.” The author never retracts it. Following a riot at Guantanamo, which he led the suppression of, he observes:

“As much as I blamed the inmates for the riot, I respected how hard they’d fought. They were ready to fight nearly to the death. If we had been running a good detention facility, I would have thought they were motivated by strong religious or political ideals. The sad truth was that they probably fought so hard because our poor facilities and shabby treatment had pushed them beyond normal human limits. Their motivation might not have been radical Islam at all but the simple fact that they had nothing to live for and nothing left to lose.”

As far as I know, Hickman has not yet applied the same logic to debunking the absurd pretense that people fight back in Afghanistan or Iraq because their religion is murderous or because they hate us for our freedoms. Hickman will be a guest on Talk Nation Radio soon, so perhaps I’ll ask him. But first I’ll thank him. And not for his “service.” For his book.

Read more

 

Syriza’s historic win puts Greece on collision course with Europe

The Guardian

The euro briefly slumped to an 11-year low in Asian trading on Monday morning and looks set to come under further pressure when European markets open. 

Voters handed power to Alexis Tsipras, the charismatic 40-year-old former communist who leads the umbrella coalition of assorted leftists known as Syriza. He cruised to an eight-point victory over the incumbent centre-right New Democracy party, according to exit polls and projections after 99% of votes had been counted.

Related: The Guardian view on the Greek election: a new deal for a new era | Editorial
The result surpassed pollster predictions and marginalised the two mainstream parties that have run the country since the military junta’s fall in 1974. It appeared, however, that Syriza would win 149 seats – just short of securing the 151 of 300 seats that would enable Tsipras to govern without coalition partners.

“The sovereign Greek people today have given a clear, strong, indisputable mandate,” Tsipras told a crowd of rapturous flag-waving party supporters. “Greece has turned a page. Greece is leaving behind the destructive austerity, fear and authoritarianism. It is leaving behind five years of humiliation and pain.”

Greece’s incumbent prime minister, Antonis Samaras, whose conservative-dominated coalition had been in office since June 2012, conceded defeat early in the evening and admitted that “mistakes and injustices” had been made but insisted he was leaving office with a clear conscience. “I assumed charge of a country that was on the brink of collapse … and we restored its international credibility,” said Samaras.

Read more

QE For The Eurozone Is A Gigantic Confidence Trick. It Should Fool No One

Simon Jenkins
The Guardian

At last the euro’s lords and masters have accepted that something must be done about their zone’s lamentable growth. They will unleash a massive bond-buying programme totalling a reported €1tn. The former BBC economic pundit Stephanie Flanders told the world it was “Santa Claus time”; the European Central Bank (ECB) has ridden to the rescue.

No it has not. Europe’s great and good, partying on the slopes of Davos, are like courtiers at the Congress of Vienna. They are blinded by snow and celebrities. Santa Claus gives presents to people; the ECB gives presents to its banks. It is merely tipping large sums of money into the vaults of precisely the institutions whose crazy lending caused the crash of 2008, and which have been failing Europe’s economy ever since.

There is absolutely no requirement on these banks to release this money into private or commercial bank accounts. Given the fear of over-lending that regulators have struck into bank bosses since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the money will simply build up reserves. That is exactly what has happened to quantitative easing in Britain since 2010: there has been no surge in bank lending, except into property investment.

Quantitative easing is a gigantic confidence trick. It was promised that it would yield new investment. It has not. It was promised that it would “pump money into the economy”. It has not. It was also feared that printing money would lead to hyper-inflation. It has not, for the simple reason that no one gets to spend the money. It is a bookkeeping transaction between a central bank and a commercial bank. It means nothing as long as banks are told to build up their reserves.

Money in circulation matters. The whole of Europe, including Britain, is chronically short of demand, which is why deflation is such a menace. If no one can afford to buy anything, no one will sell anything or invest money in making anything. The chronic imbalance between northern and southern states of the eurozone, previously ameliorated by selective devaluation, has bound poor and rich countries alike in a rictus of cash starvation. Collapsing demand drives down prices and profits; there is nothing for banks to invest in. The Chinese are laughing.

Greece and some other Mediterranean economies are facing poverty not seen in half a century. A return to normal growth means they must declare themselves bankrupt, restructure past debts, leave the eurozone and devalue. Don’t bury money in their banks. Bury it in their wallet. The eurozone may still look great from the top of a Swiss mountain; it looks terrible from the foot of the Acropolis.

"Cheerful" Dutch Financier Becomes 4th ABN Amro Banker Suicide

Zero Hedge

Following the deaths of 36 bankers last year, 2015 has got off to an inauspicious start with the reported suicide of Chris Van Eeghen - the 4th ABN Amro banker suicide in the last few years.

As Quotenet reports, the death of Van Eghen  - the head of ABN's corporate finance and capital markets -"startled" friends and colleagues as the 42-year-old "had a great reputation" at work, came from an "illustrious family," and enjoyed national fame briefly as the boyfriend of a famous actress/model. As one colleague noted, "he was always cheerful, good mood, and apparently he had everything your heart desired. He never sat in the pit, never was down, so I was extremely surprised. I can not understand." Most believe that the suicide is not related to his work at the bank, but a former colleague had noticed that on his Facebook recently changed its job title to "former." Chris leaves behind a son - who had recently been cleared of cancer.

Read more

Another European Holocaust looms as Kiev mulls concentration camps to 'filter sub-humans out of Ukraine'

Stuart Sterzel
The Millennium Report

"Long live the White Races, and down with the Semite-led subhumans and interracial contacts".

Look at that slogan. Should this be regarded as a great and laudable sentiment or call-to-action?

If you think so, then here are some equally laudable sentiments, provided by the same person and organisation:

"The historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival. A crusade against the Semite-led subhumans".

and

"Punish severely sexual perversions and any interracial contacts that lead to the extinction of the white man".

and

"Prepare for further expansion and to struggle for the liberation of the entire White Race from the domination of the internationalist speculative capital".

If you don't like or agree with these sentiments, then you are obviously not a citizen of any European Union country, or any NATO country, or of the United States of America. 

Read more

The US Military Is Building Gangs of Autonomous Flying War Bots

Defense One 

For the Pentagon, drones are cheaper to buy and to operate than regular fighter jets. An armed MQ-9 Reaper drone runs about $14 million, compared to $180 million or more for an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. But unlike barrel-rolling a jet, the business of actually operating a unmanned aerial vehicle, UAV, for the military is lonely, thankless, and incredibly difficult. It’s no wonder the Pentagon doesn’t have enough drone pilots to meet its needs, a problem certain to persist as the military increases its reliance on unmanned systems, especially in areas where it has no interest in putting boots on the ground, like Pakistan or Iraq. The solution that the military is exploring: increasing the level of autonomy in UAVs to allow one pilot to manage several drones at once.

The Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency, DARPA, put out a call for ideas this week as part of the “Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment” or CODE project. Today, the majority of the drones that the military is using in the fight against ISIL require two pilots. The agency is looking to build packs of flying machines that communicate more with one another as with their operator, which, in turn, would allow a single operator to preside over a unit of six or more drones. Together, the flying robot pack would “collaborate to find, track, identify and engage targets,” according to a press release.

It’s the “engage” portion of that release that rings of Skynet, the robotic tyrant system made famous by the “Terminator” movie franchise. But the drones that DARPA is envisioning would not be firing on human targets without approval from another human. The request also states that the targeting would be under “under established rules of engagement.” What are those rules when it comes to robots? In deciding what drones should and should not be allowed to do, the Defense Department relies on a 2012 directive that states that autonomous weapons “shall be designed to allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force.” DOD officials are always eager to remind reporters that, when it comes to armed robots being allowed to select and fire on targets, the department doesn’t want to take humans out of the loop.

Even so, the legality of U.S. drone strikes, particularly those in which civilians die as a result of the strike, remains a matter of some dispute. Ben Emmerson, the United Nation’s special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, authored a report in 2013 that found that 33 drone strikes may have violated International Humanitarian Law. 

Read More

Destroying African agriculture with GMOs: U2's Bono partners with Monsanto

Jonathan Benson
Natural News

As his career continues to free fall into total irrelevance, pop star "Bono" of the rock group U2 has announced his support for a U.S.- backed plan to rape and pillage Africa by stealing its land and agricultural systems and replacing them with corporate-owned GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) and chemicals.

At the recent G8 Summit held at Camp David in Maryland, the Obama regime met with private industry leaders to announce the launch of the "New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition," a thinly-veiled Green Revolution 2.0 that aims to uproot autonomous family farming systems throughout Africa and replace them with toxic monoculture systems controlled by multinational corporations like Monsanto.

The deceptively titled scheme, which investigative journalist Rady Ananda describes as "a euphemism for monocultured, genetically modified crops and toxic agrochemicals aimed at making poor farmers debt slaves to corporations, while destroying the ecosphere for profit," follows the usual script - all those poor African people need American corporations to take control of their lives so they can be healthy and prosperous.

It is a tired mantra that, upon closer look, is easily exposed as a complete sham to both exploit the vulnerable for obscene profits and seize control over the food supply. And this overtly evil agenda is one that Bono apparently believes is good, at least for the American interests that are slithering their way into Africa under the guise of helping the poor.

"They're future consumers for the United States," stated Bono during a 2012 interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports, referring to the people of Africa who have yet to be assimilated into the beast system.

"The president is talking business. This is good. It's a whole new development paradigm today. The old donor/recipient relationship... it's over."

A video clip of Bono speaking these menacing words is available here:
KennySideshow.Blogspot.com. 

Read more
 

Watch them squirm: Clinton and Dershowitz listed on pedophile Epstein's flight logs

Nick Bryant
Gawker / Sott.net

Bill Clinton took repeated trips on the "Lolita Express" - the private passenger jet owned by billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein - with an actress in softcore porn movies whose name appears in Epstein's address book under an entry for "massages," according to flight logbooks obtained by Gawker and published today for the first time. The logs also show that Clinton shared more than a dozen flights with a woman who federal prosecutors believe procured underage girls to sexually service Epstein and his friends and acted as a "potential co-conspirator" in his crimes.

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 in Florida to one count of soliciting underage girls for sex (and one count of adult solicitation), for which he served just over a year in county jail. But sprawling local, state, and federal investigations into the eccentric investor's habit of paying teen girls for "massages" - sessions during which he would allegedly penetrate girls with sex toys, demand to be masturbated, and have intercourse - turned up a massive network of victims, including 35 female minors whom federal prosecutors believed he'd sexually abused. He has reportedly settled lawsuits from more than 30 "Jane Doe" victims since 2008; the youngest alleged victim was 12 years old at the time of her abuse.

Who is Jeffrey Epstein? Click here for our primer about the billionaire pedophile.

Epstein's predatory past, and his now-inconvenient relationships with a Who's Who of the Davos set, hit the front pages again earlier this month when one of his victims, Virginia Roberts, claimed in a federal court filing that Epstein recruited her as a "sex slave" at the age of 15 and "sexually trafficked [her] to politically-connected and financially-powerful people," including Prince Andrew and attorney Alan Dershowitz. (The latter, the filing claimed, had sex with the victim "on private planes"; Dershowitz vigorously denies the charges, as does Prince Andrew.)

Two female associates of Epstein - the socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein's former assistant Sarah Kellen - have been repeatedly accused in court filings of acting as pimps for him, recruiting and grooming young girls into their network of child sex workers, and frequently participating in sex acts with them. Kellen in particular was believed by detectives in the Palm Beach Police Department, which was the first to start unraveling the operation, to be so deeply involved in the enterprise that they prepared a warrant for her arrest as an accessory to molestation and sex with minors. In the end, she was never arrested or charged, and federal prosecutors granted her immunity in a 2007 non-prosecution agreement that described her as a "potential co-conspirator" in sex trafficking. 

Read more