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Sunday, October 9, 2016

News, views and opinions from the Alternative Media .... week ending Oct 9


Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews
Key Neocon Calls on US to Oust Putin
The neoconservative president of the U.S.-taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy [NED] has called for the U.S. government to “summon the will” to engineer the overthrow of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that the 10-year-old murder case of a Russian journalist should be the inspiration.

Carl Gershman, who has headed NED since its founding in 1983, doesn’t cite any evidence that Putin was responsible for the death of Anna Politkovskaya but uses a full column in The Washington Post on Friday to create that impression, calling her death “a window to Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin autocrat whom Americans are looking at for the first time.”........

Harrison Koehli at Sott.Net
Escalations in the war on Syria:
Russia sends in S-300 missile defense system, Syrian Army advances in Aleppo
....We know that the source of most of the atrocity stories in the news are sourced from Western-backed NGOs (e.g., "SOHR" and the White Helmets) with an interest in portraying al-Nusra as the good guys and Russia/Syria as the bad guys. In fact, many of those sources are al-Nusra members themselves, who definitely have such an interest. But they do have a point: civilians are undoubtedly killed and injured in airstrikes targeting militants. Again, this is the cynical but inescapable logic of warfare: civilians get caught in the crossfire, especially in a war zone like Aleppo, which is essentially one large residential area. But here's what gets left unsaid:

Double standards: The U.S. called an emergency UN Security Council over the renewed fighting and airstrikes. They conveniently ignore the fact that they conduct the same type of warfare in Iraq (e.g., Fallujah) and Syria (e.g., Manbij) - besieging a terrorist-held city and saturating it with airstrikes that result in many civilian deaths. The U.S. and its vassals also target hospitals, schools, and residential areas, whether deliberately or not (e.g., Kunduz, Yemen, eastern Ukraine). And, of course, their moderate jihadists do likewise. (see this video report from today).

Hypocrisy: It doesn't bother the U.S. when they're the ones doing it. And it doesn't bother them when their jihadis are the ones doing it. There is no moral outrage for the fact that their jihadis target residential areas, hospitals and schools with hellfire canons, mortars and sniper fire. No moral outrage for the fact that they have publicly aligned with al-Qaeda. No moral outrage for the fact that they are holding civilians hostage and using them as human shields (the very thing that Israel often accuses Hamas of doing, thus justifying civilian casualties).

Omissions: They neglect to mention that the Russians and Syrians have arguably taken every step short of surrender in order to avoid civilian deaths. They held up to their end of the ceasefire agreement for the agreed-upon week, despite constant violations from the rebel side. By and large, Russia has refrained from targeting any residential areas, focusing their airstrikes solely on identifiable command outposts, militant convoys, etc. The Syrians have a longstanding amnesty policy that has been successfully used on countless occasions: militants are free to give up their weapons and reintegrate into Syrian society (if they're actually Syrian - foreigners are to be expelled), or keep their weapons and be moved to a different position on the front, e.g., in Idlib or Hama. Civilians are urged to avoid militants and the areas they use, and have been provided with numerous corridors through which they can travel to western Aleppo, where they are provided with aid and shelter. .....

Craig Murray


From Larouchepac
The West Can No Longer Hide the Collapse of the Trans-Atlantic Financial System
....The IMF calls for three policy solutions: more loose money (negative interest rates), more government spending (quantitative easing), and structural reforms (a euphemism for anti-labor policies). Indeed, that is what is already happening across the trans-Atlantic. The Finanacial Times Tuesday acknowledged that
"In the final three months of the year, the UK, Japan and Europe are expected to mint a combined $506bn to purchase assets — the largest quarterly sum created since the early days of the US Federal Reserves QE programme in 2009."

Just as the reality of the collapse can not be hidden from the public, so also the only possible solution can and must be brought before the people and the legislators across the U.S. and Europe — putting the current bankrupt system out of its misery in precisely the method implemented by Franklin Roosevelt upon assuming the Presidency in 1933. The immediate restoration of Glass Steagall is the only means to save the commercial banking system of the Western nations. It will mean the demise of most of the Wall Street and London TBTF banks — but the only way to salvage the lives of the real people caught up in that massive bubble is to oversee it's collapse in an orderly, legal fashion, allowing emergency regulators to distinguish between the gamblers and those who were fooled into trusting the criminal institutions with their savings and pensions....

Prof James Petras at GlobalResearch
Barbarism in Words and Deeds.
Barbarism of U.S. Imperial Wars is Unmatched
‘Barbarians’, to be clear, evoke images of leaders and groups, which abjure all civilized norms and laws.  They only respond to armed force.
In the present context Power’s charges of barbarism against Russia and Syria was used to justify the US aerial bombardment of a Syrian army outpost, which killed and maimed almost 200 government troops engaged in combating ISIS terrorists and jihadi invaders.

In other words, accusing Syrian soldiers of ‘barbarism’ was Ambassador Power’s cynical way of dehumanizing the young victims of an earlier and deliberate US war crime....

....Over the past decade and a half, the US and its allies have invaded, occupied, killed, wounded and dispossessed over ten million people, in countries from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.  Military and civilian officials have systematically destroyed entire economies, fostered ethno-religious wars, undermined ancient community and family ties and placed corrupt political puppets in power.

Promoted by the US, torture, arbitrary arrest and incarceration have become the norm creating lawless and chaotic societies, which had once been productive and stable.  The shredding of  social structures has provokes massive population flight, with millions of desperate refugees fleeing invasions, wars and total society breakdown.  The result of these deliberate imperial policy decisions has been emptied cities and neighborhoods, broken families, destroyed lives and futures for many millions of young Arabs and Muslims.

As the human toll mounts and Western Europe is flooded with the results of US aggressive wars, the imperialists have sharpened their shrill rhetoric, labeling all of their adversaries and critics as ‘accomplices in war crimes’, and ‘barbarians’.....

From ZeroHedge
Fukushima Radiation Has Contaminated The Entire Pacific Ocean
(And It's Going To Get Worse)
The nuclear disaster has contaminated the world's largest ocean in only five years and it's still leaking 300 tons of radioactive waste every day.
http://www.trueactivist.com/fukushima-radiation-has-contaminated-the-entire-pacific-ocean-and-its-going-to-get-worse/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=AM&utm_content=fukushimaradiationhascontaminatedtheentirepacificoceananditsgoingtogetworse
What was the most dangerous nuclear disaster in world history? Most people would say the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, but they’d be wrong. In 2011, an earthquake, believed to be an aftershock of the 2010 earthquake in Chile, created a tsunami that caused a meltdown at the TEPCO nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. Three nuclear reactors melted down and what happened next was the largest release of radiation into the water in the history of the world. Over the next three months, radioactive chemicals, some in even greater quantities than Chernobyl, leaked into the Pacific Ocean. However, the numbers may actually be much higher as Japanese official estimates have been proven by several scientists to be flawed in recent years.

Peter Van Buren at AntiWar
Why the Snowden the Movie Matters
I’ve reviewed Oliver Stone’s movie Snowden elsewhere, and it’s well worth seeing just as a movie. But of course the issues brought up by Snowden the man, and Snowden the movie, are more complex than fit into two hours.

I had this hit home in a recent discussion with a friend who keeps insisting he has nothing to hide in his emails, phone calls, social media, etc., so why should he care if the NSA looks at all that?
Friend, here’s why:
NSA surveillance is legal.

True, as was slavery in the U.S., the Holocaust under Nazi Germany, Apartheid in South Africa and so forth. Laws serve higher purposes. They can be manipulated for evil. That’s why we need checks and balances to protect us.

Well, there are checks and balances in the system to protect us.

The king of all checks and balances in this, the Fourth Amendment, has been treated by the government like a used Kleenex.

As for the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Court (FISA), set up to review government requests for wiretapping, it approved all 1,789 requests submitted to it in 2012. The FBI made 15,229 National Security Letter requests in 2012 on Americans. None of those even require FISA rubber-stamping. And here’s DOJ trying to keep classified a court ruling that says it might have acted unconstitutionally.

The first FISA ruling ever released in full came from Edward Snowden. Before that, no one outside a small circle inside the government had ever seen one.

And you know who represents the “suspect” (i.e., you) in front of the FISA court? No one. You don’t even know they’re reviewing you....

Haid Haid at NOW
Did Turkey abandon Aleppo to fight Syrian Kurds?
A rumored Turkish-Russian deal would give Ankara a free hand to deal with Kurdish groups in the north in exchange for cutting support to rebels in Syria’s second city
....Sources on the ground also confirmed a recent cutback in military aid to rebel groups in Aleppo. “Any large scale attack by the Syrian regime to capture Aleppo usually leads to an immediate increase in the support we receive from our allies in order to halt the offensive. But it seems that something has changed. Although the regime and Russia are launching the worst attack so far to capture Aleppo, we still have not received any significant support to counter them,” said Ahmed Hussein, a media activist in Aleppo affiliated with Ahrar al-Sham. Commenting on the recent escalation in the city, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan only provided vague statements on the need for foreign powers to “continue our discussions.” Coupled with Turkey’s lack of a response to the targeting of an aid convoy outside Aleppo during the now-dead ceasefire, the government in Ankara has markedly changed its previous belligerent tone toward the actions of the regime and Moscow in the country.

Moreover, a well informed western diplomat based in Beirut, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also confirmed the existence of such a deal. “Different officials allied with the Syrian regime confirmed on several occasions the existence of a trade-off deal with Turkey,” the envoy claimed. “None of them revealed the details of the deal; however, they all mentioned that Turkey gave up on Aleppo in exchange for its operations against the Syrian Kurds along the Turkish border in northern Syria. They also mentioned that Turkey asked for a few months in order to distance itself from some rebel groups that are considered radical.”.......

Jamie Kalven at Intercept
Watch Your Back

Part 4
After Chicago police officers Shannon Spalding and Danny Echeverria filed a whistleblower lawsuit, retaliation against them only intensified.
Chicago Police Bosses Targeted Cops Who Exposed Corruption
In autumn of 2012, the code of silence was very much in the news in Chicago. The trial of the civil suit brought against the city by Karolina Obrycka, the bartender struck and kicked by off-duty Officer Anthony Abbate in 2007, was unfolding before a jury in the federal courtroom of Judge Amy St. Eve.....

Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews
Most intelligent Americans – Republicans as well as Democrats
 – now accept that they were duped into the Iraq War with disastrous consequences, but there is more uncertainty about the war on Libya in 2011 as well as the ongoing proxy war on Syria and the New Cold War showdown with Russia over Ukraine.
Today, many Democrats don’t want to admit that they have been manipulated into supporting new imperial adventures against Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Russia by the Obama administration as it pulls some of the same propaganda strings that George W. Bush’s administration did in 2002-2003.
et, as happened with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, we have seen a similar hysteria about the evil doings of the newly demonized foreign leaders with the predictable Hitler allusions and vague explanations about how some terrible misdeeds halfway around the world threaten U.S. interests.

Though people mostly remember the false WMD claims about Iraq, much of the case for the invasion was based on protecting “human rights,” spreading “democracy,” and eliminating a supporter of Palestinians who were violently resisting Israeli rule.

The justification for aggression against Iraq was not only to save Americans from the supposed risk of Iraq somehow unleashing poison gas on U.S. cities but to free the Iraqis from a brutal dictator, the argument which explained why Bush’s neocon advisers predicted that Iraqis would shower American troops with rose petals and candies.....



Jason Ditz at AntiWar
Despite Nobel Peace Prize, Obama’s Presidency Defined by Constant War
Obama Not the Peacemaker Americans Were Sold in 2008 Election
In his 2008 campaign, Barack Obama was, if not particularly ideologically committed, quickly branded as the comparatively antiwar candidate. It wasn’t a hard case to make, with Sen. John McCain (R – AZ) running an intensely pro-war campaign.
But Obama’s dubious antiwar bonafides were quickly embraced internationally, where he was heralded as a peacemaker of historical proportions and, in 2009, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize just nine months into his first term in office. He hadn’t really done anything yet, and the prize was seen as an advanced award for the things he was expected to do.

Coming into his last few months in office, these expectations seem in retrospect incredibly wishful thinking, as Obama’s “peacemaking” efforts have been few and far between, and far overshadowed by the non-stop wars he has championed throughout his presidency....

Rahul Manchanda at VeteransNewsNow
The Cowardly BRICS Bank Nations (Except Russia)
Except for Russia, who appears to be the only nation with balls enough to stand up to the enemy wreaking havoc on the innocents of the world...
It seems that with every single day, both the Mainstream and Alternative Media are reporting more and more innocent men, women, children, and little babies being blown to bits by bombs and artillery, or drowning somewhere off the coast in some remote ocean off of North Africa or Southern Europe on their way to flee from the bombed out desperation and horror of NATO’s carpet bombing of Libya, or from Western Intelligence and Saudi Arabia/Turkey/Israel’s proxy group ISIS, and their collective attacks on Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and the Kurds.

With each and every additional single day of this mindless bloodshed, the world watches and wonders why it is being allowed to continue.
Why only Russia it seems is defending these people as best as it can, launching defensive strike after strike to counter the insane violence brought on by the United States, and its terrorist proxies ISIS, NATO, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel, who are bombing, droning, and murdering the daylights out of tens of millions of innocents, for often what appears to be simply for gold, oil, heroin production, natural gas, total and utter greed.

For all of their pompous braying and photo ops showing a united BRICS Bank paradigm, with toothy grins from ear to ear of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, showcasing all of their leaders Dilma Rousseff, Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping, and Jacob Zuma, respectively, it appears that the only thing these leaders accomplished was a whole lot of nothing, joining hands and making trips to each others’ nations presumably to boast, talk, and offer even more hot air and lavish praise upon one another.....

Libya


From Rudaw
Russian team proposes federal system in Syria as ‘only way,’
Kurdish officials say
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Russian delegation in Syria has told Kurdish and government representatives that establishing a federal system in the country is the only way to prevent Syria's partition, Kurdish diplomats who attended the meeting told Rudaw.

It also suggested that the country’s official name be changed from the Syrian Arab Republic to the Democratic Republic of Syria, the diplomats said.

"Only federalism can preserve Syria's unity as a country," the leader of the Kurdish Left Party in Syria, Salih Gado, told Rudaw, quoting Russian mediator Colonel Oldvornikov Alexandrovich, who is also the commander of Russian forces in Syria.

"The Russian delegation showed strong support for a federal system in the country and had a road-map to achieve that," said Gado, who represented the Kurdish administration at the September 17 meeting at the Hmeymim air base, south of Afrin city.

"I think it could be a historical achievement if it is realized. The Kurdish movement in Syria has not been able to secure such gains in the past 60 years," Gado said.

Russia has showed strong support for Kurdish inclusion in the Geneva talks over the Syrian conflict in March this year. It insisted that any future solution would require Kurdish participation. Moscow also is one of few European capitals that officially hosts a Syrian Kurdish office.

"The future of Syria is no longer in the hands of the government, the opposition or the Kurds. It is decided by the Russians and Americans," Gado said, believing that Moscow has Washington's blessing in establishing the federal system in Syria.

"The Americans do not want to confront Turkey or the Gulf states over Syria's partition, which is why they have delegated this role to the Russians and shown them the green light," Gado added.....



Steven Chovanec at ConsortiumNews
Selective Outrage Over Aleppo Bombing
The United States is manipulating humanitarian concern in an effort to protect its proxy militias and its imperial regime-change project in Syria. The mainstream media and intellectual classes are dutifully falling in line, promoting a narrative favoring U.S. military aggression under the cover of “protecting civilians.”

Similar arguments contributed to the invasions of Iraq and Libya, exponentially increasing the massacres, chaos and proliferation of violent extremism within those countries. These “responsibility to protect” or R2P claims are hypocritical, designed to further the interests of conquest and domination and will lead to even more death and destruction in Syria.
The United States has no stake in the wellbeing of Syrian civilians, despite the condemnations of Russia’s offensive in Aleppo. This is clearly shown in the fact that the people that the U.S. is supporting are guilty of the same crimes that the U.S. accuses Russia and Syria of: indiscriminate attacks, targeting of civilians, destruction of schools, hospitals, etc.

Furthermore, the offensive in Aleppo is really no different from what the U.S. did in Manbij, a Syrian city northeast of Aleppo where the U.S. is said to have incorporated a “scorched earth policy” while liberating the city from ISIS this year by treating the civilian population “as if they were terrorists or ISIS supporters.”

Arguably the U.S. conduct was even worse, as the U.S. earned the distinction of launching the deadliest single airstrike on civilians out of the entire five-year conflict, massacring at least 73 where no ISIS fighters were present. But the Manbij operation elicited no moral outcry from the media and punditry.....




Thierry Meyssan at RealAgenda
The United States are not capable of Honouring their Signature 
After five years of war in Syria, the masks have come off. The publication of the text of the Russo-US agreement reveals the hidden intentions of the two great powers – Washington wants to cut the «Silk Road», while Moscow wants to destroy the jihadists.

Moreover, the failure of this agreement and the Security Council debates demonstrate the surrealist nature of President Obama’s rhetoric – in five years he has not managed to constitute even a minor group of «moderate» opposition, and therefore is unable to field them, contrary to the text of the agreement.

The failure of the Russo-US agreement of 9 September and the Security Council debates which followed have enabled us to confirm several hypotheses.

The current strategic objective of the United States in Syria is indeed to cut the «Silk Road», which China has been preparing for many years. Placing President Xi Jinping in power in May 2013, China has made the restoration of this historic communication route its main goal. However, since China has become the world’s principal producer, Xi has planned to augment it with a «new Silk Road» which will pass through Siberia and Eastern Europe before joining up with the European Union.....

F William Engdahl at InformationClearingHouse
Washington Tries to Break BRICS – Rape of Brazil Begins

Washington’s regime change machinery has for the time being succeeded in removing an important link in the alliance of large emerging nations by railroading through a Senate impeachment of the duly elected President, Dilma Rousseff. On August 31 her Vice President Michel Temer was sworn in as President. In his first speech as president, the cynical Temer called for a government of “national salvation,” asking for the trust of the Brazilian people. He indicated plans to reform, and has also signaled his intention to overhaul the pension system and labor laws, and cut public spending, all themes beloved of Wall Street banks, of the International Monetary Fund and their Washington Consensus. Now after less than three weeks at the job, Temer has unveiled plans for wholesale privatization of Brazil’s crown jewels, starting with oil. The planned Wall Street rape of Brazil is about to begin.

It’s important to keep in mind that elected President Rousseff was not convicted or even formally charged with any concrete act of corruption, even though the pro-oligarchy mainstream Brazil media, led by O’Globo Group of the billionaire Roberto Irineu Marinho, ran a media defamation campaign creating the basis to ....

From AlArabiya
Truck bomb attack on soldiers kills 18 in Turkey

Ten Turkish soldiers and eight civilians were killed on Sunday when suspected Kurdish militants detonated a five-ton truck bomb that ripped through a checkpoint near a military outpost in the country’s southeast, the prime minister said.

Another 27 people, including 11 soldiers, were wounded in the blast which hit the Durak gendarmerie station, 20 km (12 miles) from the town of Semdinli, in one of the most deadly attacks in the region of recent times.

The mountainous Hakkari province, where the attack occurred, lies near the border with Iraq and Iran and is one of the main flashpoint areas in a conflict that has pitted Turkey’s army against the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for 32 years.....

Tunisa, say "hello" to colonizer UK! Lock up your jewels and antiques or else they will very soon wind up in the UK Museum in London



Crofton Black and Abigail Fielding-Smith at Labs
Fake News and False Flags

How the Pentagon paid a British PR firm $500 million for top secret Iraq propaganda
The Pentagon gave a controversial UK PR firm over half a billion dollars to run a top secret propaganda programme in Iraq, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal.

Bell Pottinger’s output included short TV segments made in the style of Arabic news networks and fake insurgent videos which could be used to track the people who watched them, according to a former employee.

The agency’s staff worked alongside high-ranking US military officers in their Baghdad Camp Victory headquarters as the insurgency raged outside.

Bell Pottinger's former chairman Lord Tim Bell confirmed to the Sunday Times, which worked with the Bureau on this story, that his firm had worked on a “covert” military operation “covered by various secrecy agreements.”

Bell Pottinger reported to the Pentagon, the CIA and the National Security Council on its work in Iraq, he said.

Bell, one of Britain’s most successful public relations executives, is credited with honing Margaret Thatcher’s steely image and helping the Conservative party win three elections. The agency he co-founded has had a roster of clients including repressive regimes and Asma al-Assad, the wife of the Syrian president. ....

The mafia family


Paul Joseph Watson at InfoWars
Exclusive: Hillary Killed Libya Peace Deal Over Personal Vendetta, Claims Whistleblower
Gaddafi agreed to hold free elections, but Clinton's refusal led to ISIS takeover, thousands of deaths, international migrant crisis
Hillary Clinton personally nixed a peace deal in Libya that would have led to free elections and prevented the country being seized by ISIS, all because of a personal vendetta she had with Muammar Gaddafi, according to explosive new claims made by a whistleblower who personally oversaw the negotiations....

....According to Dr. Paul. General Clark was so pleased with the outcome of the negotiations that he personally arranged a teleconference with Hillary Clinton on the line to congratulate Dr. Paul on “getting the job done in the face of such danger.”

But there was a problem.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn’t want peace. She wanted Muammar Gaddafi dead for her own selfish, spiteful reason – the fact that Gaddafi had favored Barack Obama over her own campaign during the 2008 presidential election cycle.....

Wayne Madsen of StrategicCulture
George Soros’s False Flag Factories
Global hedge fund tycoon and political provocateur George Soros is leading a war of symbols, namely flags and banners either resurrected or conjured up by his myriad non-profit groups, to stir religious, racial, and ethnic tensions the world over. From the Serbian OTPOR! movement and its clenched-fist symbol adopted by protests groups around the world to the menacing black and white flag of the Islamic State, which first appeared during the Soros-backed «Arab Spring» rebellions, Soros’s «false flag» factories have been running at break-neck production speeds.

Soros and his acolytes saw the importance of symbology in the writings of Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institution in Boston, Massachusetts. Although Sharp’s catechism of how to conduct non-violent resistance and revolution has been likened by some political scientists to Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, his concepts on upsetting the political status quo appear to be borrowed more from the likes of Mao Zedong, Karl Marx, and Adolf Hitler.

Among Sharp’s necessary tools to conduct political action are «flags and symbolic colors», «slogans, caricatures, and symbols», and «banners, posters, and displayed communications». The «symbolic colors» have been used by Soros- and Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored «color revolutions» in Ukraine (Orange) and Kyrgyzstan (Pink) and attempted color revolutions in Iran (Green), Kuwait (Blue), and Burma (Saffron).

Using the Sharp template and financing from Soros and the CIA-linked National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Symbols were used in the themed Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia (Jasmine) and Egypt (Lotus) and attempted revolutions in Georgia (Rose), Lebanon (Cedar), Uzbekistan (Cotton), and Moldova (Grape).

It is now more than obvious that Soros and his minions, known as «Sorosites» – a clever play on «parasites» – in the Balkans, contracted with flag factories to churn out banners of former regimes in the uprisings in Libya and Syria. In Libya, the rebels who rose up against Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011 brandished factory-fresh, still-creased red-black-green horizontal tricolor with the white crescent and star used by the old Libyan monarchy, the regime that Qaddafi overthrew in 1969.....
Posted by MariaS at 22:16

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