Pierre Omidyar's Funding of Pro-Regime-Change Networks And Partnerships With CIA Cutouts

Alexander Rubinstein & Max Blumenthal
MintPress News

"To [Omidyar] it's about... integrating things together to give technocrats, business executives and government officials a God's-eye view of the world - to manage and control society more efficiently."

  -- Yasha Levine, author of Surveillance Valley: The Military History of the Internet

 As we have seen in part one of this investigation, billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar has partnered closely with many of the U.S.-funded outfits that fulfill the role the CIA used to play during the Cold War in backing opposition media and civil society in countries targeted for regime change. However, Omidyar has also sought state-of-the-art design solutions from a shady U.S. government national security consulting firm with a myriad of ties to the hawkish D.C. foreign policy establishment.

In February of last year, USAID's Global Development Lab published a series of reports furnished for it by a small, Arlington, Virginia-based company focused on design solutions for national security problems, with a mere 10 employees listed on its website and eight on its LinkedIn page. Those reports caught the attention of journalist Michael Igoe at Devex on Tuesday.

The company, Frontier Design Group, analyzed the feasibility of essentially militarizing USAID. The report proposals like "Rapid Expeditionary Development" (RED) teams. Those teams would be embedded with U.S. Special Forces, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration outside of typical USAID areas of operation.

They would be "trained and authorized to conduct themselves as a force-multiplier able to contribute a full suite of security skills as needed," the documents suggested. RED team officers would also be trained for "survival, evasion, resistance, and escape," negotiations, civil reconnaissance, "and weapons qualification courses."

The report also analyzed the possibility of creating a "Civilian Response Groups" - an organization that sounds like the White Helmets if they were directly controlled by Washington.

Frontier interviewed 36 experts for its report, including a 15-year USAID veteran who told them, "we have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant." The issue identified by many in the report was that USAID was losing its cutting edge and was hamstrung because it was not allowed to operate in conflict zones.

USAID told Devex that it is "still working on the details in formulating the Rapid Expeditionary Development Teams initiative."

Another Frontier Design Group client is the Omidyar Group, further demonstrating the eBay founder's proximity to shady government contractors.
 
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Caught in a lie, US & allies bomb Syria the night before international inspectors arrive

Eva Bartlett
In Gaza

The US, Britain and France trampled international law to launch missiles against Syria, claiming to have “evidence” of the government’s use of chemical weapons. That evidence is based on terrorist lies.

After a week of outrageous tweets and proclamations by POTUS Trump, which included continued accusations that Syria’s president ordered a chemical weapons attack on civilians in Douma, east of Damascus, with Trump using grotesque and juvenile terminology, such as “animal Assad,” the very evening before chemical weapons inspectors of the OPCW were to visit Douma, America and allies launched illegal bombings against Syria. The illegal bombings included 103 missiles, 71 of which Russia states were intercepted.

For the past week, we were told that the US had ‘evidence’ and the UK had ‘evidence’ that Syria had used chemicals. The ‘evidence’ largely relied on video clips and photos shared on social media, provided by the Western-funded White Helmets (that ‘rescuer’ group that somehow only operates in Al-Qaeda and co-terrorist occupied areas and participates in torture and executions), as well as by Yaser al-Doumani, a man whose allegiance to Jaysh al-Islam is clear from his own Facebook posts, for example of former Jaysh al-Islam leader, Zahran Alloush.

This, we were told, was ‘evidence.’ This and the words of the highly partial, USAID-funded, US State Department allied Syrian American Medical Society, which, like Al-Qaeda’s rescuers, only supports doctors in terrorist-occupied areas.

On April 12, even US Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee that the US government does not have any evidence that sarin or chlorine was used, that he was still looking for evidence.

Syria, finding the claims to be lies and the sources tainted, requested that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) immediately come to Syria to investigate the claims. Accordingly, the OPCW agreed to send a team—the visas for which Syria granted immediately—which arrived in Damascus on April 14.

President Trump, instead of waiting for an investigation to confirm his ‘evidence,’ chose the very night before this investigative team would arrive in Syria to inspect the allegations, to bomb Syria. The timing of the attacks is more than just a little timely. And the bombings were illegal.

General Mattis tried to dance around the legality, stating, “the president has the authority under Article II of the Constitution to use military force overseas to defend important United States national interests.”

But he is wrong, this does not permit the US to illegally bomb a sovereign nation, and he knows it. So does Russia. In a statement on April 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the attacks as illegal, noting:

“Without the sanction of the Security Council of the United Nations, in violation of the UN Charter, norms and principles of international law, an act of aggression against a sovereign state that is at the forefront of the fight against terrorism has been committed.”

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How the Syrian American Medical Society Is Selling Regime Change and Driving the U.S. to War

truthdig.com

Reports on unproven allegations of a chemical attack in Douma, the Syria city formerly occupied by the Army of Islam insurgent group, invariably rely on a key source: The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS). Together with the White Helmets, SAMS has been cited by the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and virtually every Western media organization reporting on the incident. In Douma, SAMS staff have claimed that they treated more than 500 people for symptoms “indicative of exposure to a chemical agent.”

The group also played a central role in shaping the narrative of a sarin attack in Al Qaeda-controlled Khan Sheikhoun in April, 2017, providing biomedical samples to the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which violated its stated protocol by accepting evidence without a verifiable chain of custody. That incident prompted the launching of 57 cruise missiles at a Syrian air base by the American military. Almost exactly a year later, a strikingly similar event is said to have tripped the “red line” again, and is likely to trigger a more robust assault by the US and its allies.

SAMS claims to be a “non-political, non-profit medical organization,” and is cited as a credible authority by media reporting on the incident in Douma. Scant published material is available on the organization’s origins as an exile arm of the Islamist-oriented Syrian opposition, its involvement in sophisticated influence operations from the Turkish-Syrian border, or its close relationship to neoconservative elements in Washington and Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.

SAMS is not merely a group of Syrian doctors tending to the wounded in war torn areas, nor can it be considered an objective source on chemical attacks and other atrocities. The organization is a USAID-funded lobbying powerhouse that functions with a single-minded determination to stimulate a US-led war of regime change that will place Syrian Islamists in power in Damascus.

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Sick hypocrites: Britain 'reviewing' Palestine aid, as U.S. pledges biggest military aid package to Israel ever

Sott.net via RT

Palestinian aid is under review by the British government after it was alleged some of the funds are paying the 'salaries' of terrorists. The probe comes as the US promised to give Israel the "largest military aid package in history."

The Department for International Development (DfID) said it is reviewing its aid package to the Palestinian territories as it considers "how best to support" a two-state solution in the region.

But pro-Israel MPs in the British Parliament have criticized the department for ignoring allegations that UK aid money is falling into the wrong hands.
Speaking to the Jewish Chronicle on Friday, Joan Ryan MP claimed the UK government is effectively funding terrorism.

The Labour Friends of Israel chairwoman said: "This is the department which - even last month - was showing amazing nonchalance in the face of the serious allegations that the Palestinian Authority is deceiving international donors and, in fact, continuing to effectively pay salaries to convicted Palestinian terrorists."

Eric Pickles MP, chair of Conservative Friends of Israel, said he has put pressure on DfID to fund 'peaceful' projects.

"I have asked [the International Development Secretary] if we can focus more funding more on projects that are committed to peace, and less on institutions. She has been very receptive to it."

Laying out the department's official stance, a spokesperson said: "[DFiD] is already undertaking a review of its program in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as part of its Bilateral Aid Review, to consider how it can best support progress towards a negotiated two-state solution."

The British aid review comes as the United States pledged to significantly increase its military assistance to Israel.

Although US National Security Advisor Susan Rice criticized Tel Aviv for its continued expansion into the Occupied Palestinian Territories and for attacks on the Arab population, she went on to pledge the largest aid package in US history.

"Even in these days of belt-tightening, we are prepared to sign the single largest military assistance package with any country in history," Rice said in an interview with US Jewish weekly, Forward, on Monday.

Rice also noted that Israel receives "more than half the US's entire foreign military assistance budget."

Comment: She says it as if it's something to be proud of...

The unfinished aid agreement is expected to provide Israel with almost $40 billion in military assistance beginning in 2019. 

Comment: 1) Prove that any real 'terrorists' benefited from this aid. Palestine is morally and legally entitled to an armed resistance to Israeli military occupation. 2) Even if this is proved, are we really expected to accept that the UK cares? These are the same psychopaths who support terrorists in Syria! The U.S., their ideological ally, is giving $40 billion to a terrorist state: Israel. The hypocrisy is sickening.

Dance to the Panama Papers 'Limited Hangout' Leak

Pepe Escobar
Telesur

Calling out around the world; time to put on your made in Ecuador Panama hat and frantically start dancing to the ultimate limited hangout leak. And if you believe in the purity of intentions of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) at the center of the leak, I've got a made in Shenzhen Panama hat to sell you (disclosure: I never was, and never will be, a member of the ICIJ).

The Washington-based ICIJ gets its cash and its "organizational procedure" via the Exceptionalistan-based, Orwellian-named Center for Public Integrity. The funds flow mostly from the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment, the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Kellogg Foundation and the George Soros-owned Open Society. Then there is Eastern Europe-based partner organization OCCRP, an even more Orwellian outfit self-styled as playing some sort of progressive, alternative media role. OCCRP is funded by Soros and USAID.

And finally there's this fictional land named Panama — a certified U.S. vassal. Absolutely nothing of real substance happens in Panama without a green light by the United States government. Or, as an international tax lawyer told me, "you have to be an idiot to stash money in Panama. You cannot flush a toilet there without the Americans knowing about it." This sets the scene for the Panama Papers leak — a massive hoard of 11.5 million documents allegedly leaked from someone inside offshore heavies Mossack Fonseca to the center-left, NATO-friendly Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper in Munich and then shared by the ICIJ with selected mainstream media partners.

Even without a smoking gun, a case can be made this alleged most massive leak ever was obtained by — what else — U.S. intel. This is the kind of stuff the NSA excels at. The NSA is able to break into virtually any database and/or archives everywhere; they steal "secrets"; and then selectively destroy/blackmail/protect assets and "enemies", according to USG interests.

That's the essence of a limited hangout sold to public opinion as a serious corruption investigation. And that's where Western corporate media enters the scene, protecting whatever 0.00000001 percent honcho is caught in the net, as well as sacrificing some disposable pawns.

So we have over 300 reporters pouring over hundreds of thousands of document/files for over an interminable year with, miraculously, no leaks whatsoever; just for a bunch of corporate mainstream media hacks to meticulously cherry pick stories and decide what is "newsworthy." Western alternative media would have investigated the data without sparing anyone; but it would be out of the question to grant them access.

What's already certain is that the full extent of the Panama leak will never be known. Even the by now exceedingly pathetic The Guardian admitted, on the record, that "much of the leaked material will remain private". Why? Because it may — inadvertently and directly — implicate a gaggle of Western 0.00000001 percent multibillionaires and corporations. All of them play the offshore casino game (although not necessarily in Panama.)

So the Panama Papers, stripped to the bone, may reveal themselves essentially as an infowar operation by the NSA — targeted mostly against "enemies" (as in the BRICS nations) and selected disposable pawns; a weaponized psyops posing as an 'activist leak', straight from the Hybrid War playbook.  

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USAID Exposed in Cuba - What it Tells Us About US Subversion Worldwide

Anthony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer

Revealed in an Associated Press (AP) investigation, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had for two years attempted to create and exploit a social network within Cuba for the purpose of sparking unrest and overthrowing the Cuban government. The program was an abject failure, primarily because the Cuban government took the necessary measures to investigate, interrogate, and otherwise disrupt what was foreign-backed sedition.
AP would reveal in its report titled, "US co-opted Cuba's hip-hop scene to spark change," that:

The program is laid out in documents involving Creative Associates International, a Washington, D.C., contractor paid millions of dollars to undermine Cuba's communist government. The thousands of pages include contracts, emails, preserved chats, budgets, expense reports, power points, photographs and passports. 

The work included the creation of a "Cuban Twitter" social network and the dispatch of inexperienced Latin American youth to recruit activists, operations that were the focus of previous AP stories.

Far from the first time USAID and other US organizations claiming to be aiding in development but in fact engaged in political subversion, the Cuban program itself was based on another US-backed program used to topple the government of Serbia in 2000, AP would reveal.
The USAID operation involved money covertly funneled into Cuba through front companies and offshore banks. USAID, despite the evidence, has wholly denied the operation, as has other US organizations caught in blatant political subversion. 

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“Color Revolutions”: US State Department Document Confirms Regime Change Agenda in the Middle East

Global Research
via Middle East Briefing

The Obama Administration has been pursuing a policy of covert support for the Muslim Brotherhood and other insurgent movements in the Middle East since 2010.  MEB has obtained a just-released U.S. State Department document through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that confirms the Obama Administration’s pro-active campaign for regime change throughout the Middle East and North Africa region. 

The October 22, 2010 document, titled “Middle East Partnership Initiative: Overview,” spells out an elaborate structure of State Department programs aimed at directly building “civil society” organizations, particularly non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to alter the internal politics of the targeted countries in favor of U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives.

The five-page document, while using diplomatic language, makes clear that the goal is promoting and steering political change in the targeted countries:

“The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) is a regional program that empowers citizens in the Middle East and North Africa to develop more pluralistic, participatory, and prosperous societies.  As the figures in this overview illustrate, MEPI has evolved from its origins in 2002 into a flexible, region-wide tool for direct support to indigenous civil society that mainstreams that support into the daily business of USG diplomacy in the region.  MEPI engages all the countries of the NEA region except Iran.  In the seven of NEA’s eighteen countries and territories with USAID missions, country-level discussions and communication between MEPI and USAID in Washington ensure that programming efforts are integrated and complementary.”

In a section of the document titled “How MEPI Works,” three core elements of the program were spelled out:  region-wide and multi-country programming, local grants, and country-specific projects.  The objectives of the region-wide and multi-country programming were described as:

“builds networks of reformers to learn from and support one another, and to catalyze progressive change in the region.”  The local grants “provide direct support to indigenous civic groups, and now represent more than half of MEPI’s projects.”

Under the country-specific aspect of the program, designated officers of the U.S. embassies manage the funding and work as direct liaisons to the various funded local NGOs and other civil society groups.   The “country-specific projects” are tasked “to respond to local developments and local needs, as identified by our embassies, local reformers, and our own field analysis.  Political developments in a country may produce new opportunities or challenges for USG policy goals, and MEPI will shift funds to respond to these needs.”

According to the October 2010 document, the Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) at every U.S. embassy in the MENA (Middle East/North Africa) is in charge of the MEPI program, giving it a clear high priority.  The document makes clear that the Middle East Partnership Initiative is not coordinated with host governments:

“MEPI works primarily with civil society, through NGO implementers based in the United States and in the region.  MEPI does not provide funds to foreign governments, and does not negotiate bilateral assistance agreements.  As a regional program, MEPI can shift funds across countries and to new issue-areas as needed.”

The document makes clear that special priority, as early as 2010, was given to Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, and that project headquarters in Abu Dhabi and Tunis were overall coordinating centers for the entire regional program.  Within a year of its inception, Libya and Syria were added to the list of countries on the priority list for civil society intervention.

The State Department document was released as part of an FOIA suit focused on Presidential Study Directive 11, which remains classified “secret” and has not yet been released to the public.  According to MEB sources, PSD-11 spelled out the Obama Administration’s plans to support the Muslim Brotherhood and other allied “political Islam” movements believed at the time to be compatible with U.S. foreign policy objectives in the region.

The MEPI is currently directed by Paul Sutphin, who was previously U.S. consul general in Erbil, Iraq and more recently, Director of the Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs at the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.  His deputy is Catherin Bourgeois, who was first assigned to MEPI in February 2009 as Division Chief of Policy and Programming.  Her past State Department assignments have involved the development of Information Technology uses in advancing U.S. foreign policy goals.

Two other senior State Department officials have overseen the development and expansion of the program since the drafting of the October 2010 MEPI document, spelling out its transformation into a regime-change force.  Tomicah S. Tillemann is the Senior Advisor for Civil Society and Emerging Democracies, appointed to that post by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in October 2010.  He remains in that post under Secretary John Kerry.  He was the founder of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, itself an NGO named after Tilleman’s grandfather, the former U.S. Congressman, Tom Lantos.

In September 2011, Ambassador William B. Taylor was appointed to head the then-newly established Office of the Special Coordinator for Middle East Transitions, after having served as the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine during the “Orange Revolution” of 2006-2009.  According to a State Department paper:

“The Office of the Special Coordinator for Middle East Transitions (D/MET), established in September 2011, coordinates United States Government assistance to incipient democracies arising from popular revolts across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.  The Special Coordinator for Middle East Transitions implements a coordinated interagency strategy to support designated MENA countries undergoing transitions to democracy—currently, Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya.”

The complete State Department documents released under the FOIA will soon be available as part of a comprehensive MEB Special Report now in production on the regime-change program and its consequences for the region.   For upcoming details on this report, check the MEB website.

Pentagon’s psychological operations, State Department and USAID’s information operations intended to influence local populations

Blacklisted News via
US News
 
The United States Department of Defense used it recently in Yemen and Pakistan. The U.S. State Department is using it right now in Afghanistan and Nigeria. The U.S. Agency for International Development used it in the last elections in Kenya. It’s been used in every American war zone over the last decade and it’s becoming an increasingly relied upon tool in U.S. foreign policy.

For the Pentagon, it’s part of psychological operations, or “psy-ops,” but for the State Department and USAID it’s part of their “information operations,” all of which is intended to influence local populations. This is not some sinister National Security Agency operation or anything as surreptitious as what the Joint Special Operations Command might cook up. This has everything to do with what Washingtonians and others have termed “ soft power” and the role culture and arts play in winning the hearts and minds.

For many governments – America’s included – these “softer” strategies (in contrast to the “hard power” of military maneuvers, sanctions, etc.) are being employed with good intention perhaps, but insufficient preparation, partnership or planning in a way that is strategic, sustainable and constructive.

Whether it’s a reality TV show on the Niger Delta sponsored by the State Department, theatre forums in Yemen’s fourth largest city, Hudaydah, sponsored by the Defense Department, or radio programs in Nairobi sponsored by USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, the U.S. government is getting increasingly creative about how to use the cultural sector to do diplomacy, development and defense. Our government is not alone in this expansion of soft power, as governments throughout the European Union are sponsoring and spearheading similar initiatives throughout the Middle East and North Africa, for example.

There is a danger, however, if not done right, and peacebuilders and conflict prevention practitioners on the ground rightly argue that governments shouldn’t be in the business of exporting Western arts and cultural models (e.g. former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice funding the export of a Sesame Street-type U.S.-based program in Indonesia, which brought Elmo to Islamic schools) or expropriating indigenous practices for a U.S. agenda.

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Washington’s Hysteria Towards Russia Hides US Regime Change

systematicgenocide.tumblr.com/

Dandelion Salad
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation
 
Finian Cunningham

Legally, Washington and its European allies haven’t a leg to stand on. Both can be rightly accused of violating international law from their gross interference in Ukrainian sovereign affairs – from the instigation of violent street protests that led to the sacking of an elected president and government, to the subsequent climate of lawlessness and fear sweeping across Ukraine and felt in particular by the majority Russian ethnic population in the east and south of the country.

The latest revelations that killings in Kiev’s Maidan Square among protesters and police were covertly carried out by snipers working for the Western-backed agitators are further proof that a coup d’état was orchestrated. A leaked phone call between EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign minister, Urmas Paet, dated February 25, indicates that snipers were used as provocateurs during the demonstrations, with the intention of heightening violence and blaming it on the government of President Viktor Yanukovych.

In the phone call, reported by Russia Today, Paet is heard to say: “There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new [Western-backed] coalition”.

Ashton replied: “I think we do want to investigate. I mean, I didn’t pick that up, that’s interesting. Gosh”.

The evidence for Western-sponsored subversion in Ukraine is so glaring – from the parade of American and European politicians over the past four months whipping up protesters in Kiev, to documented infiltration of civic organizations by the CIA, USAID, National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, the Adenauer Foundation, among others, to their own words of admission from the likes of State Department official Victoria Nuland on the desired formation of a new governing administration in Kiev – that in order to distract from this mountain of damning evidence, the Western governments and their servile media are trying to shift the terrain of discourse away from the panoramic obvious.

The latest revelation of snipers used as provocateurs adds a new sinister twist.

However, against all the evidence, it is not the West that is in violation over Ukraine; it is Russia – so they claim.

More than this, the Western leaders and media have gone into hysterical mode, accusing Russia of “brazen aggression” and “bringing the region to the brink of war”. Ironically, given the astounding denial of reality by the West, it is now turning around and accusing Russia of peddling propaganda over recent events in Ukraine. One France 24 headline read: “The fanciful claims of Russian propaganda”.

Never mind fanciful claims, how about just some hard facts – facts that Western media are in abject denial of?

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Pierre Omidyar co-funded Ukraine revolution groups with US government, documents show

Pando Daily

Just hours after last weekend’s ouster of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, one of Pierre Omidyar’s newest hires at national security blog “The Intercept,” was already digging for the truth.
 
Marcy Wheeler, who is the new site’s “senior policy analyst,” speculated that the Ukraine revolution was likely a “coup” engineered by “deep” forces on behalf of “Pax Americana”:

“There’s quite a bit of evidence of coup-ness. Q is how many levels deep interference from both sides is.”

These are serious claims. So serious that I decided to investigate them. And what I found was shocking.

Wheeler is partly correct. Pando has confirmed that the American government – in the form of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) – played a major role in funding opposition groups prior to the revolution. Moreover, a large percentage of the rest of the funding to those same groups came from a US billionaire who has previously worked closely with US government agencies to further his own business interests. This was by no means a US-backed “coup,” but clear evidence shows that US investment was a force multiplier for many of the groups involved in overthrowing Yanukovych.

But that’s not the shocking part.

What’s shocking is the name of the billionaire who co-invested with the US government (or as Wheeler put it: the “dark deep force” acting on behalf of “Pax Americana”).

Step out of the shadows…. Wheeler’s boss, Pierre Omidyar.

Yes, in the annals of independent media, this might be the strangest twist ever: According to financial disclosures and reports seen by Pando, the founder and publisher of Glenn Greenwald’s government-bashing blog,“The Intercept,” co-invested with the US government to help fund regime change in Ukraine.

[Update: Wheeler has responded on Twitter to say that her Tweets were taken out of context, but would not give specifics. Adam Colligan, with whom Wheeler was debating, commented on Pando that "while Wheeler did raise the issue of external interference in relation to a discussion about a coup, it was not really at all in the manner that you have portrayed." Further "[Pax Americana] appeared after the conversation had shifted from the idea of whether a coup had been staged by the Ukrainian Parliament to a question about the larger powers’ willingness to weaken underlying economic conditions in a state.” Neither Wheeler or Colligan has commented on the main subject of the story: Pierre Omidyar’s co-investment in Ukrainian opposition groups with the US government.]

* * * *

When the revolution came to Ukraine, neo-fascists played a front-center role in overthrowing the country’s president. But the real political power rests with Ukraine’s pro-western neoliberals. Political figures like Oleh Rybachuk, long a favorite of the State Department, DC neocons, EU, and NATO—and the right-hand man to Orange Revolution leader Viktor Yushchenko.

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Monsanto partners with USAID to push GM corn in Nepal

Natural News

The southeast Asian country of Nepal is once again having to fight against foreign interests that are trying to take over its agricultural system. Biotechnology giant Monsanto apparently has its sights set on bringing genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) to this sliver of a country just north of India, and it is allegedly working with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a so-called humanitarian group, and officials in Nepal to make it happen.

USAID issued a statement on Sept. 13, 2011, saying that it had partnered with Nepal's Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoACs) and Monsanto to "promote hybrid maize (corn) seeds among 20,000 farmers of Chitwan, Nawalparasi and Kavre districts and provide training to them." Media across Nepal quickly picked up on the story, and massive public outcry ensued.

GMOs are not widely cultivated in Nepal, and the country has always taken a very cautious approach to adopting them. In fact, when it was discovered that some GMO ingredients had potentially already contaminated the nation's food supply back in 2003, government officials quickly made precautionary recommendations at the time to require GMO labeling on all food items.

But with multinational corporations and the US government working overtime to force GM corn on Nepali farmers, Nepal appears to be getting pushed to the brink of no return. Though Nepal still imports some of its corn from elsewhere, the country is having no problems with the conventional, organic, and heirloom varieties it currently cultivates, and has no need whatsoever for GM varieties.

Since the controversy erupted, Nepali officials have reportedly backed off from the plan. Hari Dahal, joint secretary at MoACs, told reporters recently that his agency had "no idea why USAID issued the statements saying that the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives was partnering with Monsanto" because "no agreement had been signed."

USAID was a little more ambiguous about whether or not MoACs was specifically involved in the matter, but the agency did make it very clear that it is working with Monsanto to promote GMOs around the world, including in Nepal. And based on the way Monsanto continues to thrust GMOs on the people of India just to the south, there is no doubt that the biotech giant is doing the same thing to people

How Big Multinational Corporations Hire the CIA and NSA To Kill People and Nations

alexanderhiggins.com

A former NSA agent reveals how big multinational corporations hired the CIA and the NSA to murder people and nations during the course of his career.

A few of the best read I had a few years ago were books by John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, The Secret History of the American Empire: The Truth About Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and How to Change the World, and recently also his newest book Hoodwinked: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded–and What We Need to Do to Remake Them. His first book (Confessions of an EHM) was the reason why I became interested in what they call “conspiracy theories” which I don’t believe are only “theories”. Theories don’t kill. Theories don’t leave nations in bondage of debt, while a few families in the whole world grow ultra wealthy. To me, as it is also to John Perkins, they are conspiracy facts.

John Perkins was initially recruited by the National Security Agency when he was still in business school in Boston. He had to undergo a very long set of interviews with lie detector tests and personality tests. In the interview they were able to draw the conclusion that he would make a good economic hit man which is basically a con-artist. Apparently the NSA found the three most common weaknesses in human beings which would be the best doors for them to enter and hook him up to do dirty jobs for them. These weaknesses are sex, power and money. Perkins was tested and interviewed and it came out that he had all the three weaknesses in him. That was how they got to him and hired him to do the dirty jobs for them.

During the years of working for them, Perkins was close and well-known to organizations such as the CIA, National Security Agency, the World Bank and USAID. All the EHMs were well known to them but not to the general public. Perkins tells Lew Rockwell in a recent interview that the primary job of both the CIA and the National Security Agency is to serve multinational corporate interests for giant corporations that are not even US based anymore such as Halliburton. However the CIA and the NSA devoted tremendous amount of effort, money and energy to doing things that would help corporate interests abroad. These include making sure that the right countries have the resources that the corporations want, bribing them, making sure that they’re staying in position, and even arranging for them to be killed if they stand up against the corporations.

In his mind, John Perkins sees the world currently in a time where it is completely controlled by corporations. He envisions huge clouds drifting around the planet and these clouds are the big corporations. They don’t know national borders. They don’t follow any specific set of laws. They form partnerships with the Chinese, but at the same time with the Taiwanese. Or with the Israelis and at the same time with the Arab countries. Whoever has the resources they need, they are willing to partner with them.

Perkins mentions the USAID to Lew Rockwell being one of the organizations that knew what the EHMs were doing. He clarifies that the most common opinion of the general public regarding the USAID being a charity organization is totally erroneous. He said, “To think of the USAID as a charity board organization is totally erroneous. For the most part US foreign aid in most countries are really out there to serve the interest of big corporations. There are really only a few US aid organizations out there that are helping in catastrophes such as tsunami’s or something like that. The USAID that we are sending to other countries like that are really there to serve our big corporations. That’s just the job that the USAID, the Export-Import Bank, the World Bank and other organizations is assigned to do.” [...]

Listen to the whole interview of John Perkins on Lew Rockwell show.