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By Countercurrents.org

In the face of imperialist intervention Venezuelan people are mobilizing themselves.

Thousands of citizens in capital Caracas have joined in marches protesting US interference in Venezuela. Venezuelan social movements took to the streets to oppose US aggression. Over 100,000 Venezuelans were mobilized throughout the country for a series of national military exercises in defense of their national sovereignty. A contingent of Russian soldiers and naval craft participated in the exercise. And, thousands of Cubans gathered at the University of Havana’s Grand Stairway to express their unconditional solidarity with Venezuela and opposition to US aggression.

The last several days have seen large marches in solidarity with Venezuela staged in capitals in countries including Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua, Spain, China, and Russia.

A report by Lucas Koerner said:

Thousands of Venezuelans filled the streets of the capital on March 15, 2015 in support of a new constitutional enabling law that authorizes the Venezuelan president Maduro to pass legislation in defense against US threats to national sovereignty. The law was approved in a special session of the National Assembly on that very day.

Waving banners that read “peace” and “Yankees go home,” the seemingly endless columns of demonstrators reached Miraflores Palace, where they were addressed by Maduro.

Praising the displays of national unity and international solidarity that have been witnessed in Venezuela and diverse countries around the world, the Venezuelan leader called for mobilizations in defense of Venezuelan sovereignty to continue.

“In name of the Venezuelan people, I call on all the popular movements, all of the solidarity movements, all of our sister peoples in the world, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, […] to stay mobilized in order to speak the truth and demand throughout the world that president Barack Obama revoke the [executive] decree threatening Venezuela.”

For his part, the Venezuelan head of state emphasized his government’s willingness to dialogue with the Obama administration, “wherever, however, and whenever […] with respect, with equality, without pretence, without arrogance.”

President Maduro urged Venezuelans to communicate directly with the US president, calling on 10 million people to sign a letter addressed to Mr. Obama demanding the repeal of his latest executive order.

“I propose that we take this letter […] to all of the public plazas of the country in order for no less than 10 million Venezuelans to sign,” announced the Venezuelan president, outlining a popular and democratic response to US aggression.

An earlier Caracas datelined report by Lucas Koerner said:

Venezuelan social movements converged in Plaza Venezuela in the center of the capital on last week to manifest their firm rejection of the latest round of US sanctions.

The latest move by the US has been roundly condemned by a host of nations and regional bodies, including Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, UNASUR, CELAC, and most recently China and Russia.

Among the movements assembled in the center of Caracas were collectives such as the Pioneers Encampament, government-affiliated social missions such as the Great Housing Mission and Barrio Tricolor, as well as a plethora of people representing their neighborhood communal councils.

Chanting “Yankee go home” and “Venezuela respects itself”, thousands of Venezuelans of all ages filled the streets with their characteristic red shirts, exhibiting national pride and indignation in response to the White House’s announcements.

“We are here to defend the motherland left to us by Chávez, Bolívar, Zamora, and all of our heroes and heroines, because we’ve also had many heroines, many barefooted women who defended this country. We’re following in the same legacy as all of them,” Lies Guzmán of the Socialist Environmental Workers’ Front told Venezuelanalysis.

“We are steeled for anything that happens, with the women in the vanguard, prepared on all fronts, including the diplomatic, military, and guerrilla fronts if necessary.”

Olenia Quintana, 32, of the Pioneers Encampment collective challenged what she perceives to be a clear double standard underlying the US president’s accusations.

“If you’re talking about human rights, the first thing that Obama needs to do in his country is revise all of the laws. [The United States] is the only country [in the hemisphere] with the death penalty. Here there is no death penalty.”

This critique has been repeated on numerous occasions by president Maduro who has denounced the U.S. government’s human rights record vis-a-vis its own people.

The Venezuelan leader called on Obama to defend the rights of US citizens including “Black people killed in US cities every day, the thousands of people who don’t have a place to sleep and die of cold on the streets of New York, Boston, or Chicago, and those detained in Guantánamo.”

Venezuelans attending the rally were keen to distinguish between the actions of the US government and its people.

“The message to the people of the United States is that they should rise up,” declared José Zegarra, 36, a construction worker and general coordinator of the Revolutionary Hugo Chávez Workers’ Front.

“In the United States, there are many dignified people who know that their government has regrettably interfered in the affairs of other countries, believing itself the world policeman. But the average North American person isn’t any kind of world policeman, but a person who has to work to eat, work to pay the mortgage, work to pay the heat and everything else.”

Guzmán echoed this sentiment, underscoring the need for social and political transformation in the US.

“[The US people] must organize and make the necessary changes in their country, which is a noble but subdued country, whose people are much more subdued than our own [people].”

Military exercise

Organized by the Ministry of Defense, the military exercise participated by more than 100,000 Venezuelans comes in response to an executive order issued by the Obama administration branding Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat” and sanctioning seven top Bolivarian officials.

“The defense of the motherland is the duty of all Venezuelans, which should be taken up by private enterprises, public institutions, and all instances of the government and the state,” declared defense minister Vladimir Padrino López from the capital’s principal military installation at Fuerte Tiuna.

The exercise featured the participation of 20,000 civilian volunteers who joined an additional 80,000 soldiers of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces in nationwide preparations for a potential US aggression against the Bolivarian Republic.

Alongside active duty soldiers members of the Bolivarian Militia participated in the exercise. The militia was expanded by over 35,000 members by President Chávez in 2010. The Bolivarian Militia represents the foundation of a popular “civic-military alliance” that has kept the Bolivarian Revolution in power amid repeated efforts to overthrow the government, including the reversed 2002 coup backed by the US.

“These exercises are not a bellicose demonstration of our armament systems, but are more than anything about bringing our people together,” added Padrino López.

Bolivarian soldiers and civilians welcomed the participation of a contingent of Russian soldiers and naval craft, who assisted in exercises testing Venezuela’s air defense system, which included the launching of Russian-made BM-30 Smerch ground to air missiles.

The defensive preparations will continue over the course of ten days, encompassing approximately 30 exercises.

The defensive military exercise that began on March 14, 2015 plans to identify key defensive points in the country.

Solidarity concert

Thousands of Cubans gathered at the University of Havana’s Grand Stairway to express their unconditional solidarity with Venezuela and opposition to US aggression.

The evening concert began with the two country’s national anthems – the Venezuelan heard in the voice of Commandante Hugo Chávez, via a recording made during the final days of his 2012 election campaign.

In the name of Cuba’s youth, Yosvany Montano, president of the Federation of University Students (FEU) welcomed the crowd to the event saying that Cuba’s youth sings for peace and self-determination for the peoples of Our America; that at a time when the Bolivarian Revolution is attacked, Cuba’s youth reaffirms its unconditional support to the Venezuelan people and government.

18 March 2015
Countercurrents.org

By Ali Abunimah

Many had hoped that Benjamin Netanyahu would be defeated in yesterday’s Israeli election. I was not one of them.

Many had already written him off – pre-election polls showed his Likud Party lagging behind the allegedly center-left Zionist Union, headed by Yitzhak Herzog and Tzipi Livni.

But I kept in mind the 1996 election where Netanyahu was universally thought to be the loser well after the votes had been cast.

In the wake of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, it had been expected that his “dovish” successor Shimon Peres, who had launched a bloody invasion of Lebanon months earlier in the hope of proving to the electorate his tough “security” credentials, would easily win.

But on that election night, Netanyahu told his supporters, “The hour is still early and the night is long.” As the votes were counted, he pulled ahead beating Peres and securing his first term as prime minister.

Netanyahu did it again on Tuesday. With virtually all the votes counted, Likud has thirty seats, the Zionist Union has 24 and the Joint List of predominantly Arab parties is in third place with fourteen.

It seems all but certain that Netanyahu will retain his post as Israel’s prime minister and head another fanatically right-wing government.

Truth in labeling

Let me be clear: I am not happy that Netanyahu won, as such. Netanyahu is a blood-soaked killer. He should be put on trial for his many crimes, from the relentless theft of Palestinian land to last summer’s massacre in Gaza – and I yearn to see that day.

But reveling in the murder of Palestinians and calling it “self-defense” barely distinguishes him from his rivals. Livni, a fugitive war crimes suspect, was one of the proud and unrepentant architects of Israel’s massacre in Gaza in 2008-2009, that undoubtedly served as Netanyahu’s model.

Her partner Herzog has faulted Netanyahu for not attacking Gaza viciously enough.

Netanyahu’s ugly election-day incitement that the “Arabs are advancing on the ballot boxes,” revealed once again his true feelings that Palestinian citizens of Israel are not legitimate citizens deserving full rights. But Tzipi Livni has frequently expressed the same view.

And while he is absolutely committed to the theft and colonization of occupied Palestinian land, that too does not distinguish Netanyahu from his ostensibly dovish predecessors.

A recent interactive feature published by The New York Times shows that Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank (excluding occupied Jerusalem) was often far higher under the supposed peace-seeking governments of Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert.

But what has distinguished Netanyahu is that he strips away the opportunities for the so-called “international community” to hide its complicity with Israel’s ugly crimes behind a charade of a “peace process.”

Moreover Netanyahu’s open alliance with the most racist, white supremacist, Islamophobic and bigoted elements of the North American and European right – his speech to Congress earlier this month was a manifestation of this – place Israel in the correct ideological camp. Israel can no longer practice apartheid at home, while falsely presenting itself as a beacon of liberalism around the world.

In short, Netanyahu’s re-election is like the “Nutrition Facts” label on a box of junk food: it tells you about the toxic ingredients inside.

No Palestinian state

Netanyahu’s clear declaration days before the vote that he will not allow a Palestinian state was simply an affirmation of the real policy of every Israeli government since 1967, to which Herzog and Livni would have adhered.

Herzog and Livni would not have permitted a Palestinian state worthy of the name. Rather, with international support, they would have attempted to draw Palestinians back into “negotiations” over what would at most be a ghetto-like bantustan designed to legitimize Israel’s theft of vast tracts of land, its annexation of Jerusalem and its abrogation of the rights of Palestinian refugees. (Ben White’s analysis of this horrifying plan for permanent apartheid is a must read.)

Herzog too had vowed to continue building settlements on stolen Palestinian land. But he would hide this expansionist policy behind one of the cosmetic and fraudulent “freezes” during which colonization continues unabated.

Had the Zionist Union won, there was a very grave danger that the Palestinians would have been dragged back a decade into fruitless Oslo-style “negotiations” that would have served as a cover for continued sugbjugation and colonization.

Such negotiations have provided the principal excuse for the so-called international community to endlessly defer holding Israel even minimally accountable.

The refrain from gutless officials is always some version of “yes, isn’t it terrible what’s going on, but there’s a peace process and we support the peace process.”

The one positive outcome of Israel’s election is that path seems to be closed.

Step up BDS

We should be under no illusion that with Netanyahu’s re-election, European, North American and Arab governments are suddenly going to end their complicity with Israel.

There’s every reason to believe that the Obama administration, for instance, will continue its relentless campaign of opposing Palestinian rights and efforts to hold Israel accountable in any forum.

But the Israeli Jewish public’s choice to re-elect Netanyahu should make it clear to people around the world that Israel does not seek peace and does not seek justice. It will continue to oppress and ethnically cleanse Palestinians until it is stopped.

Negotiating with such a regime is pointless when its power over its victims remains vast and unchecked. The message we should take away is simple: the proper treatment for a polity committed to occupation, apartheid and ethno-racial supremacy is to isolate it until it recognizes that it must abandon those commitments.

Palestinians have asked the world to do that through boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). Netanyahu makes the case a little easier, so it’s time to step it up.

Ali Abunimah is Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.
18 March, 2015
Electronicintifada.net

 

By Paul Craig Roberts

Press Club Of Mexico Awards Paul Craig Roberts International Medal For Journalism Excellence

Last week in Mexico at the annual awards conference of the Club De Periodistas De Mexico I was given the International Award For Excellence In Journalism. In my speech I emphasized that Truth is the country of real journalists. Unlike presstitutes, the loyalty of real journalists is to Truth, not to a government or corporate advertiser. Once a journalist sacrifices Truth to loyalty to a government, he ceases to be a journalist and becomes a propagandist.

The speech is published in English and Spanish here: http://vocesdelperiodista.mx/nacional/discurso-completo-del-doctor-paul-craig-roberts-ingles-y-espanol/
The translators missed a few bits. Here is the intact speech:

Truth Is Our Country
Paul Craig Roberts
Club De Periodistas De Mexico, March 12, 2015

Colleagues,

Thank you for this recognition, for this honor. As Jesus told the people of Nazareth, a prophet is without honor in his own country. In the United States, this is also true of journalists.

In the United States journalists receive awards for lying for the government and for the corporations. Anyone who tells the truth, whether journalist or whistleblower, is fired or prosecuted or has to hide out in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, like Julian Assange, or in Moscow, like Edward Snowden, or is tortured and imprisoned, like Bradley Manning.

Mexican journalists pay an even higher price. Those who report on government corruption and on the drug cartels pay with their lives. The Internet encyclopedia, Wikipedia, has as an entry a list by name of journalists murdered in Mexico. This is the List of Honor. Wikipedia reports than more than 100 Mexican journalists have been killed or disappeared in the 21st century.

Despite intimidation the Mexican press has not abandoned its job. Because of your courage, I regard this award bestowed on me as the greatest of honors.

In the United States real journalists are scarce and are becoming more scarce. Journalists have morphed into a new creature. Gerald Celente calls US journalists “presstitutes,” a word formed from press prostitute. In other words, journalists in the United States are whores for the government and for the corporations.

The few real journalists that remain are resigning. Last year Sharyl Attkisson, a 21-year veteran reporter with CBS resigned on the grounds that it had become too much of a fight to get truth reported. She was frustrated that CBS saw its purpose to be a protector of the powerful, not a critic.

Recently Peter Oborne, the UK Telegraph’s chief political commentator, explained why he resigned. His stories about the wrongdoings of the banking giant, HSBC, were spiked, because HSBC is an important advertiser for the Telegraph. Osborne says: “The coverage of HSBC in Britain’s Telegraph is a fraud on its readers. If major newspapers allow corporations to influence their content for fear of losing advertising revenue, democracy itself is in peril.” http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-i-have-resigned-from-the-telegraph/5432659

Last summer former New York Times editor Jill Abramson in a speech at the Chautauqua Institution said that the New York Times withheld information at the request of the White House. She said that for a number of years the press in general did not publish any stories that upset the White House. She justified this complete failure of journalism on the grounds that “journalists are Americans, too. I consider myself to be a patriot.”

So in the United States journalists lie for the government because they are patriotic, and their readers and listeners believe the lies because they are patriotic.

Our view differs from the view of the New York Times editor. The view of those of us here today is that our country is not the United States, it is not Mexico, our country is Truth. Once a journalist sacrifices Truth to loyalty to a government, he ceases to be a journalist and becomes a propagandist.

Recently, Brian Williams, the television news anchor at NBC, destroyed his career because he mis-remembered an episode of more than a decade ago when he was covering the Iraq War. He told his audience that a helicopter in which he was with troops in a war zone as a war correspondent was hit by ground fire and had to land.

But the helicopter had not been hit by ground fire. His fellow journalists turned on him, accusing him of lying in order to enhance his status as a war correspondent.

On February 10, NBC suspended Brian Williams for 6 months from his job as Managing Editor and Anchor of NBC Nightly News.

Think about this for a moment. It makes no difference whatsoever whether the helicopter had to land because it had been hit by gun fire or for some other reason or whether it had to land at all. If it was an intentional lie, it was one of no consequence. If it was a mistake, an episode of “false memory,” why the excessive reaction? Psychologists say that false memories are common.

The same NBC that suspended Brian Williams and the journalists who accused him of lying are all guilty of telling massive lies for the entirety of the 21st century that have had vast consequences. The United States government has been, and still is, invading, bombing, and droning seven or eight countries on the basis of lies told by Washington and endlessly repeated by the media. Millions of people have been killed, maimed, and displaced by violence based entirely on lies spewing out of the mouths of Washington and its presstitutes.

We know what these lies are: Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Assad of Syria’s use of chemical weapons. Iranian nukes. Pakistani and Yemeni terrorists. Terrorists in Somalia. The endless lies about Gaddafi in Libya, about the Taliban in Afghanistan. And now the alleged Russian invasion and annexation of Ukraine.

All of these transparent lies are repeated endlessly, and no one is held accountable. But one journalist mis-remembers one insignificant detail about a helicopter ride and his career is destroyed.

We can safely conclude that the only honest journalism that exists in the United States is provided by alternative media on the Internet.

Consequently, the Internet is now under US government attack. “Truth is the enemy of the state,” and Washington intends to shut down truth everywhere.

Washington has appointed Andrew Lack, the former president of NBC News, to be the chief executive of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. His first official statement compared RT, Russia Today, the Russian-based news agency, with the Islamic State and Boko Haram. In other words, Mr. Lack brands RT as a terrorist organization.

The purpose of Andrew Lack’s absurd comparison is to strike fear at RT that the news organization will be expelled from US media markets. Andrew Lack’s message to RT is: “lie for us or we are going to expel you from our air waves.”

The British already did this to Iran’s Press TV.

In the United States the attack on Internet independent media is proceeding on several fronts. One is known as the issue of “net neutrality.” There is an effort by Washington, joined by Internet providers, to charge sites for speedy access. Bandwidth would be sold for fees. Large media corporations, such as CNN and the New York Times, would be able to pay the prices for a quickly opening website. Smaller independent sites such as mine would be hampered with the slowness of the old “dial-up” type bandwidth. Click on CNN and the site immediately opens. Click on paulcraigroberts.org and wait five minutes.

You get the picture. This is Washington’s plan and the corporations’ plan for the Internet.

But it gets worse. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which attempts to defend our digital rights, reports that so-called “free trade agreements,” such as the Trans Pacific Partnership (and the Trans Atlantic Partnership) impose prison sentences, massive fines, and property seizures on Internet users who innocently violate vague language in the so-called trade agreements.

Recently, a young American, Barrett Brown, was sentenced to 5 years in prison and a fine of $890,000 for linking to allegedly hacked documents posted on the Internet. Barrett Brown did not hack the documents. He merely linked to an Internet posting, and he has no prospect of earning $890,000 over the course of his life.

The purpose of the US government’s prosecution, indeed, persecution, of this young person is to establish the precedent that anyone who uses Internet information in ways that Washington disapproves, or for purposes that Washington disapproves, is a criminal whose life will be ruined. The purpose of Barrett Brown’s show trial is to intimidate. It is Washington’s equivalent to the murder of Mexican journalists.

But this is prologue. Now we turn to the challenge that Washington presents to the entire world.

It is the nature of government and of technology to establish control. People everywhere face the threat of control by government and technology. But the threat from Washington is much greater. Washington is not content with only controlling the citizens of the United States. Washington intends to control the world.

Michael Gorbachev is correct when he says that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the worst thing that has happened to humanity, because the Soviet collapse removed the only constraint on Washington’s power.

The Soviet collapse released a terrible evil upon the world. The neoconservatives in Washington concluded that the failure of communism meant that History has chosen American “democratic capitalism,” which is neither democratic nor capitalist, to rule the world. The Soviet collapse signaled “the End of History,” by which is meant the end of competition between social, political and economic systems.

The choice made by History elevated the United States to the pre-eminent position of being the “indispensable and exceptional” country, a claim of superiority. If the United States is “indispensable,” then others are dispensable. If the United States is exceptional, then others are unexceptional. We have seen the consequences of Washington’s ideology in Washington’s destruction of life and stability in the Middle East.

Washington’s drive for World Hegemony, based as it is on a lie, makes necessary the obliteration of Truth. As Washington’s agenda of supremacy is all encompassing, Washington regards truth as a greater enemy than Russians, Muslim terrorists, and the Islamic State.

As truth is Washington’s worst enemy, everyone associated with the truth is Washington’s enemy.

Latin America can have no illusions about Washington. The first act of the Obama Regime was to overthrow the democratic reformist government of Honduras. Currently, the Obama Regime is trying to overthrow the governments of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Argentina.

As Mexicans know, in the 19th century Washington stole half of Mexico. Today Washington is stealing the rest of Mexico. The United States is stealing Mexico via financial imperialism, by subordinating Mexican agriculture and self-sustaining peasant agricultural communities to foreign-owned monoculture, by infecting Mexico with Monsanto’s GMO’s, genetically modified organisms, seeds that do not reproduce, chemicals that destroy the soil and nature’s nutrients, seeds that leave Mexico dependent on Monsanto for food crops with reduced nutritional value.

It is easy for governments to sell out their countries to Washington and the North American corporations. Washington and US corporations pay high prices for subservience to their control. It is difficult for countries, small in economic and political influence, to stand against such power. All sorts of masks are used behind which Washington hides US exploitation–globalism, free trade treaties . . .

But the world is changing. Putin has revived Russia, and Russia has proved its ability to stand up to Washington.

On a purchasing power basis, China now has the largest economy in the world.

As China and Russia are now strategic allies, Washington cannot act against one without acting against the other. The two combined exceed Washington’s capabilities.

The United States government has proven to the entire world that it is lawless. A country that flaunts its disrespect of law cannot provide trusted leadership.

My conclusion is that Washington’s power has peaked.

Another reason Washington’s power has peaked is that Washington has used its power to serve only itself and US corporations. The Rest of the World is dispensable and has been left out.

Washington’s power grew out of World War 2. All other economies and currencies were devastated. This allowed Washington to seize the world reserve currency role from Great Britain.

The advantage of being the world reserve currency is that you can pay your bills by printing money. In other words, you can’t go broke as long as other countries are willing to hold your fiat currency as their reserves.

But if other countries were to decide not to hold US currency as reserves, the US could go broke suddenly.

Since 2008 the supply of US dollars has increased dramatically in relation to the ability of the real economy to produce goods and services. Whenever the growth of money outpaces the growth of real output, trouble lies ahead. Moreover, Washington’s policy of imposing sanctions in an effort to force other countries to do its will is causing a large part of the world known as the BRICS to develop an alternative international payments system.

Washington’s arrogance and hubris have caused Washington to ignore the interests of other countries, including those of its allies. Even Washington’s European vassal states show signs of developing an independent foreign policy in their approach to Russia and Ukraine. Opportunities will arise for governments to escape from Washington’s control and to pursue the interests of their own peoples.

The US media has never performed the function assigned to it by the Founding Fathers. The media is supposed to be diverse and independent. It is supposed to confront both government and private interest groups with the facts and the truth. At times the US media partially fulfilled this role, but not since the final years of the Clinton Regime when the government allowed six mega-media companies to consolidate 90% of the media in their hands.

The mega-media companies that control the US media are GE, News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS. (GE owns NBC, formerly an independent network. News Corp owns Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and British newspapers. Disney owns ABC. Time Warner owns CNN.)

The US media is no longer run by journalists. It is run by former government officials and corporate advertising executives. The values of the mega-media companies depend on their federal broadcast licenses. If the companies go against the government, the companies take a risk that their licenses will not be renewed and, thus, the multi-billion dollar values of the companies fall to zero. If media organizations investigate wrongful activities by corporations, they risk the loss of advertising revenues and become less viable.

Ninety percent control of the media gives government a Ministry of Propaganda, and that is what exists in the United States. Nothing reported in the print or TV media can be trusted.

Today there is a massive propaganda campaign against the Russian government. The incessant flow of disinformation from Washington and the media has destroyed the trust between nuclear powers that President Reagan and President Gorbachev worked so hard to create. According to polls, 62% of the US population now regards Russia as the main threat.

I conclude my remarks with the observation that there can be no greater media failure than to bring back the specter of nuclear war. And that is what the US media has achieved.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.

16 March, 2015
Paulcraigroberts.org

 

By Mickey Z.

Officially termed an “incident” (as opposed to a “massacre”), the events of March 16, 1968, at My Lai — a hamlet in South Vietnam — are widely portrayed and accepted to this day as an aberration. While the record of U.S. war crimes in Southeast Asia is far too sordid and lengthy to detail here, it’s painfully clear this was not an isolated “incident.”

Not even close…

In fact, on the very same day that Lt. William Calley entered into infamy (he would later explain: “We weren’t there to kill human beings, really. We were there to kill ideology”), another company entered My Khe, a sister subhamlet of My Lai. That visit has been described as such:

“In this ‘other massacre,’ members of this separate company piled up a body count of perhaps a hundred peasants — My Khe was smaller than My Lai — ‘flattened the village’ by dynamite and fire, and then threw handfuls of straw on corpses. The next morning, this company moved on down the Batangan Peninsula by the South China Sea, burning every hamlet they came to, killing water buffalo, pigs, chickens, ducks, and destroying crops. As one of the My Khe veterans said later, ‘what we were doing was being done all over.’ Said another: ‘We were out there having a good time. It was sort of like being in a shooting gallery.’”

Colonel Oran Henderson, charged with covering-up the My Lai killings, put it succinctly in 1971: “Every unit of brigade size has its My Lai hidden someplace.”

Of the 26 U.S. soldiers brought up on charges related to My Lai, only Calley was convicted. However, his life sentence was later reduced to three and a half years under house arrest.

Never forget, comrades: This is what we’re up against.

He evacuated them to safety

Hugh Clowers Thompson, Jr. wanted to fly choppers so badly that after a four-year stint in the Navy, he left his wife and two sons behind to re-up into the Army and train as a helicopter pilot. Thompson arrived in Vietnam on Dec. 27, 1967, and quickly earned a reputation as “an exceptional pilot who took danger in his stride.”

In their book, Four Hours at My Lai, Michael Bilton and Kevin Sim also describe Hugh Thompson as a “very moral man. He was absolutely strict about opening fire only on clearly defined targets.”

On the morning of March 16, 1968, Thompson’s sense of virtue would be put to the test.

Flying in his H-23 observation chopper, the 25-year-old Thompson used green smoke to mark wounded people on the ground in and around My Lai. Upon returning a short while later after refueling, he found that the wounded he saw earlier were now dead.

Thompson’s gunner, Lawrence Colburn, averted his gaze from the gruesome sight.

After bringing the chopper down to a standstill hover, Thompson and his crew came upon a young woman they had previously marked with smoke. As they watched, a U.S. soldier, wearing captain’s bars, “prodded her with his foot, and then killed her.”

What Thompson didn’t know was that by that point, Lt. Calley’s Charlie Company had already slaughtered more than 560 Vietnamese. Most of the victims were women, children, infants, and elderly people. Many of the women had been gang-raped and mutilated. All Thompson knew for sure was that the U.S. troops he saw pursuing civilians had to be stopped.

Bravely landing his helicopter between the charging GIs and the fleeing villagers, Thompson ordered Colburn to turn his machine gun on the American soldiers if they tried to shoot the unarmed men, women, and children. Thompson then stepped out of the chopper into the combat zone and coaxed the frightened civilians from the bunker they were hiding in.

With tears streaming down his face, he evacuated them to safety on his H-23.

Never forget, comrades: This is how we can choose to be.

#shifthappens

Mickey Z. is the author of 12 books, most recently Occupy this Book: Mickey Z. on Activism.

15 March, 2015
World News Trust

By Robert Barsocchini

Telesur:

The International Court of Justice (CIJ) ruled Thursday a prior ruling by an Ecuadorean court that fined the U.S.-based oil company Chevron US $9.5 billion in 2011 should be upheld.

The money will benefit about 30,000 Ecuadorians, most of them indigenous.

Background from Amazon Watch:

In 1964, Texaco (now Chevron), discovered oil in the remote northern region of the Ecuadorian Amazon, known as the Oriente; the East. The indigenous inhabitants of this pristine rainforest, including the Cofán, Siona, Secoya, Kichwa and Huaorani tribes, lived traditional lifestyles largely untouched by modern civilization.

They had little idea what to expect or how to prepare when oil workers moved into their backyard and founded the town of Lago Agrio, or “Sour Lake”, named after the town in Texas where oil company Texaco was founded.

In a rainforest area roughly three times the size of Manhattan, Chevron carved out 350 oil wells, and upon leaving the country in 1992, left behind some1,000 open-air, unlined waste pits filled with crude and toxic sludge. Many of these pits leak into the water table or overflow in heavy rains, polluting rivers and streams that tens of thousands of people depend on for drinking, cooking, bathing and fishing. Chevron also dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater called “produced water” – a byproduct of the drilling process – into the rivers of the Oriente. At the height of Texaco’s operations, the company was dumping an estimated 4 million gallons per day, a practice outlawed in major US oil producing states like Louisiana, Texas, and California decades before the company began operations in Ecuador in 1967. By handling its toxic waste in Ecuador in ways that were illegal in its home country, Texaco saved an estimated $3 per barrel of oil produced.

A public health crisis of immense proportions grips the Ecuadorian Amazon, the root cause of which is massive contamination from 40 years of oil operations. Texaco [Chevron] dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater directly into the region’s rivers and streams depended upon for drinking, cooking, bathing and fishing. The contamination of water essential for the daily activities of tens of thousands of people has resulted in an epidemic of cancer, miscarriages, birth defects, and other ailments.

When Texaco arrived in Ecuador in 1964, the company found a pristine rainforest environment.

This story also has relevance to the US interest in exerting control over Venezuela, which has some of the world’s largest oil reserves.

Glenn Greenwald:

Venezuela is one of the very few countries with significant oil reserves which does not submit to U.S. dictates, and this simply cannot be permitted (such countries are always at the top of the U.S. government and media list of Countries To Be Demonized).

A study conducted by the Universities of Portsmouth, Warwick and Essex recently found:

…foreign intervention in a civil war is 100 times more likely when the afflicted country has high oil reserves than if it has none.

…hydrocarbons were a major reason for the [US/UK/FR/CA] military intervention in Libya … and the current US campaign against Isis in northern Iraq.

“Before the Isis forces approached the oil-rich Kurdish north of Iraq, Isis was barely mentioned in the news. But once Isis got near oil fields, the siege of Kobani in Syria became a headline and the US sent drones to strike Isis targets”

The major political science study on the topic, conducted out of Cornell and Northwestern universities,recently found, after studying nearly 2,000 policy issues (essentially any issue one can imagine), that the majority of the US population has statistically zero influence on US policy, while the wealthiest portions of society – ie owners of corporations such as Chevron – essentially dictate policy – a political system called “oligarchy”.

Robert Barsocchini is an internationally published researcher and writer who focuses on global force dynamics and also writes professionally for the film industry.

15 March, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Alan Hart

If I had to express my hope in one sentence it would be this. A fourth term as prime minister for Netanyahu would see Israel becoming more and more isolated and could improve the chances of Western governments being moved to use the leverage they have to cause the Zionist (not Jewish) state to end its defiance of international law and denial of the Palestinian claim for justice.

Another way to put it would be to say Netanyahu is a disaster for Zionism so let’s have more of him.

A vision of the disaster Netanyahu’s leadership has been bringing on was put into words by former Mossad chief Meir Dagan when he addressed the anti-Netanyahu “Israel Wants Change” rally in Rabin Square on 7 March. He said:

QUOTE

Israel is surrounded by enemies. Enemies do not scare me; I worry about our leadership. I am afraid of our leadership… Netanyahu is dragging us down to a bi-national state and to the end of the Zionist dream.

UNQUOTE

It would not surprise me if Netanyahu’s unspoken and unspeakable response was something like, “That will not happen because we’ll resort to a final round of ethnic cleansing before it could happen.”

In my imagination Netanyahu shared his thoughts on how to defuse the demographic time-bomb of occupation with a group of deluded, neo-fascist Jewish settlers. One of them said, “Yes, and while we’re completing our ethnic cleansing programme we’ll blow up the Dome of the Rock.” Another said, “And we’ll chop off some Palestinian heads as Lieberman suggested.”

What Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman actually said when as leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party he addressed an election rally in Herzliya on 8 March was the following.

QUOTE

Whoever is with us should give everything as they wish. Whoever is against us, there’s nothing else to do. We have to lift up an axe and remove his head, otherwise we won’t survive here.

UNQUOTE

The question those words provoked in my mind was this.

If Israel continues on its present course will the future see the emergence of a Zionist equivalent of ISIS?

Because a two-state solution in the shape and form the Palestinians could accept has long been dead, killed by Israel’s colonization of the occupied West Bank, an enterprise best described as on-going ethnic cleansing slowly and by stealth, a bi-national state is the only hope for a political resolution of the conflict.

The creation of a bi-national state would put under one territorial roof the land of Israel prior to the 1967 war, the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.

In theory and principle a real and true by-national state would be one in which ALL of its citizens enjoyed equal political and all other civil and human rights.

Because the day is approaching when the Arabs of Israel-Palestine will outnumber the Jews, the creation of a bi-national state would therefore lead the de-Zionization of Palestine and, to quote to Meir Dagan again, “the end of the Zionist dream”.

Question: If Netanyahu stays in power, and given that he is not remotely interested in peace on terms the Palestinians could accept whether in two states or one, what are his options for defusing the demographic time-bomb of occupation and keeping Zionism alive?

The strategy he has been working on for many months is to have Mohammed Dahlan, the former Fatah leader in Gaza, replace Mahmoud Abbas as president of the Palestinian Authority

In Gaza Dahlan plotted with Israel and its American protector to destroy Hamas. But things didn’t go as planned. Hamas became aware of the Israeli and American backed Dahlan coup in-the-making and launched a pre-emptive strike to drive Fatah’s forces out of the Gaza Strip.

Then, in June 2011, Dahlan was expelled from Fatah because of the widespread belief, given voice by Abbas, that he, Dahlan, was the one who did Mossad’s bidding and administered the polonium that killed Arafat.

Three months later, fearing that Dahlan was plotting against him, Abbas ordered the Palestinian police to raid his home and arrest his private armed guards. (No doubt some of them were Israeli assets).

In the past year or so, in regular contact with one or two of Netanyahu’s most trusted aides, Dahlan has been planning his comeback and is seeking to replace Abbas as president of the PA.

What does Netanyahu think Dahlan could do for Zionism?

My guess is that be believes President Dahlan would be prepared to use force to compel the Palestinians to accept whatever crumbs they were offered from Zionism’s table – a few Bantustans here and there which they could call a state if they wished.

Though such a scenario might play well in Netanyahu’s warped mind, it is totally divorced from reality (par for his course). There is no power on earth or anywhere else that could force the occupied and oppressed Palestinians to surrender to Zionism’s will. Their incredible almost superhuman steadfastness for the past 67 years says so.

It follows that if the elections about to take place give him the opportunity to cobble together a new coalition to enable him to continue in office as prime minister, Netanyahu will have to come up with another way of defusing the demographic time-bomb of occupation and the real threat it poses to the existence of the Zionist state.

On the basis of his performance in recent weeks I think it’s not unreasonable to speculate that Netanyahu would begin a fourth term as prime minister by entertaining the hope that the creeping transformation of anti-Israelism into anti-Semitism will gather momentum and cause more and more European Jews to flee to Israel.

In my view that’s most unlikely to happen on the scale that would be necessary to defuse the demographic time-bomb of occupation, and that would leave Zionism with only one option – a final round of ethnic cleansing.

A pretext for it could easily be created by half a dozen Israeli agents dressing up as Palestinian terrorists and killing 30 or 40 or more Jews in what would be a bog standard false flag operation. In response Israel’s military might would be fully mobilized to drive the Palestinians off the occupied West Bank. Those who didn’t flee to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon or wherever would be killed. Butchered. And if Lieberman’s wish was granted, some would be beheaded.

Question: If the Zionist Union coalition wins more Knesset seats than Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party (the polls suggest that it will), and IF (it is a big if) its leader Isaac Herzog could then put together a majority that would enable him to replace Netanyahu as prime minister, would that improve the prospects for peace on terms that would provide the Palestinians with an acceptable amount of justice?

Despite the fact that I believe Herzog really meant what he said when he declared that it was “not too late for peace” and that (unlike Netanyahu) he would put real effort into getting a real peace process going, my answer is NO. The truth is that Herzog as prime minister would not be allowed by Israel’s right wing in all of its manifestations to deliver enough in the way of withdrawal from occupation to satisfy the Palestinians’ minimum demands and needs.

So, I say, defeat for Netanyahu and victory for Herzog would result in an injection of false and phoney optimism into the international politics of the conflict. We would have President Obama, Prime Minister Cameron and others telling us that a new page had been turned and that the door to peace was now open.

And that would be nonsense.

If there is ever to be a real peace process it has to start with the governments of the major powers, led by the one in Washington DC, putting Israel on notice that if it does not end its defiance of international law and continues its occupation and colonization of the West Bank it will be isolated and sanctioned.

In my view the prospects of governments being prepared to use the leverage they have to try to cause Israel to be serious about peace on the basis of justice for the Palestinians and security for all would be significantly improved if Netanyahu remains in power.

Another way of putting it would be to say that Netanyahu, unbalanced if not clinically mad, is, actually, the best public relations man for the Palestinians and their cause!

The latest and the last of the pre-election polls conducted in Israel indicate that Herzog’s Zionist Union will win four more seats in the Knesset than Netanyahu’s currently ruling Likud party, but… According to The Times of Israel all of Israel’s analysts are of the view that Netanyahu is almost certain to be more successful than Herzog in putting together a new ruling coalition.

Also worth noting is that of the 1230 Israelis polled, 43% said they wanted Netanyahu to remain as prime minster and 35% preferred Herzog.

Because of Israel’s proportional and very bizarre election system – it enables parties with only three or four seats to make or break governments and therefore gives them enormous bargaining power – the haggling to determine who will be Israel’s next prime minister will probably go on for weeks. My guess is that Herzog will be unable to put together a big enough coalition to give him a majority in the Knesset and that Netanyahu will get a fourth term as prime minister.

For the reasons stated above I hope I am right.

Footnote

When I was thinking about the political haggling that will follow Israel’s elections to determine who will be prime minister, I recalled a comment made to me many years ago by a very dear Jewish friend. He said, “If two Jews were stranded on an uninhabited desert island there would three synagogues!”

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent. He is author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews.

15 March, 2015
Alanhart.net

 

By Eric Zuesse

The issue is whether to supply weapons to Ukraine.

On Friday, March 13th, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced, referring to himself in the third person, that:

“The Head of State has informed that Ukraine had contracts with a series of the EU countries on the supply of armament, inter alia, lethal one. He has reminded that official embargo of the EU on the supply of weapons to Ukraine had been abolished.”

In other words: Some EU nations, and he is keeping secret for now the identity of which ones, have contracted to supply to Ukraine’s ‘Anti Terrorist Operation’ or ‘ATO,’ weapons to assist Ukraine in its ‘Anti Terrorist Operation.’

Then, on Saturday, March 14th, Russian Television, Russia’s equivalent of Britain’s BBC and America’s PBS, headlined “Poroshenko: 11 EU states struck deal with Ukraine to deliver weapons, including lethal,” and added further details, besides (presumably from Russian-Government intelligence) the specific number (11) of the nations that would be supplying weapons to Ukraine.

There are 28 member-nations in the EU. Apparently, 17 of them do not want to sell weapons to the Ukrainian Government. That’s 17 EU nations which are apparently siding with Russia in opposing the extermination of the residents in the region of the former Ukraine, Donbass, where the residents had voted 90% for the Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, whom the Obama Administration overthrew in a violent coup in February 2014 under the cover of the “Maidan” anti-corruption demonstrations.

11 EU nations want to exterminate those residents and are supplying weapons that will assist in the effort. However, Ukraine’s President Poroshenko (who was elected not by all of Ukraine but only by voters outside Donbass and especially in Ukraine’s northwest, but who still claims to represent and to be the legal President of the residents in Donbass, whom he’s bombing) refuses to identify which ones they are.

Thus, a minority of the EU nations are assisting the U.S. to exterminate the residents in Donbass.

Meanwhile, during the past few days, German Economic News has specifically identified the following EU nations that are strongly opposed to this supplying of weapons to Ukraine: Spain, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, Hungary, Italy, France, and Slovakia.

Furthermore, Italy is increasing its cooperation with Russia.

And, early in January, the Czech Republic made clear its separation from the U.S. on this matter.

But that’s only 9 of the 17 EU nations that openly oppose the U.S. Probably most of the remaining 8 are silent on account of their recognition how fateful their actual abandonment of the U.S. could turn out to be, and so they want to leave all options open, for as long as they can — and since they still can.

Moreover, Germany lost 40 billion Euros, over $40 billion, in 2014 because of Obama’s sanctions against Russia, and other EU nations have also been enormously harmed by them. Angela Merkel wants to end sanctions and knows that this cannot happen until the U.S. stops its proxy-war against Russia in Ukraine.

However, the U.S. aristocracy has benefited from these sanctions. For example, U.S. arms manufacturers are booming now, and so are the former U.S. (and still strongly Republican-Party-backing) mercenary firm Blackwater, now called Accademi.

Moreover, on March 11th, German Economic News reported that:

“Ukraine will increase the share of military expenditure in GDP from 1.25 to 5.2 percent and spend $ 3.8 billion, the Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalia Jaresko [who is an American financier whom the Obama regime placed into that Ukrainian-Government post] says. The defense orders were received mostly by US companies like Network Technologies Corporation.
Jaresko announced on Tuesday that Ukraine plans to increase its national defense spending this year to 5.2 percent of GDP. Last year, that proportion was 1.25 percent of GDP. In sum, 2015 is planned to spend a total of 3.8 billion dollars on armaments.”

So: “The Americans have stopped the EU efforts to lift the sanctions against Russia.” This has intensified the split between the U.S. and EU.

However, though European governments are very harmed by what the U.S. Government is doing, some of Europe’s aristocrats are benefiting from it, and they have considerable influence within their own governments.

The politically extremely knowledgeable, superb classical pianist, Valentina Lisitsa, who was born in Kiev but now resides in North Carolina, was interviewed by German Economic News on 19 January 2015; and the following excerpt provides insight on this matter, and also on some of the far-right American political connections:

“German economic news: Who benefits from the war in the Ukraine?

Valentina Lisitsa: People on all levels. For example the arms companies, it will benefit the EU States, which are monopolized by a nontransparent hysteria, pushing to modernize their existing weapons arsenals. But even small government officials in Ukraine earn money; they take kickbacks from Ukrainians who buy their freedom from military service.
There are many mercenaries [the euphemism for them is ‘volunteers’] on both sides, and the private companies that are behind these guys make enormous profits. You have mercenaries from various nations on both sides. But it is interesting to observe that no one is attacking the coal mines and factories of the oligarch Rinat Akhmetov [Ukraine’s richest person] in the Eastern Ukraine. Akhmetov sees with both sides to arrange that he will suffer no economic disadvantage. He supports both sides.

German economic news: A former Commander of the battalion of Azov was appointed the Chief of police of Kiev. How is it possible that a radical rightist receives such an important position?

Valentina Lisitsa: There are two aspects. First of all, the Azov battalion is indeed a radical right-wing organization. In the course of the civil war, Azov members have participated in numerous atrocities. It is not an exaggeration to say that Azov members are as brutal as ISIS members. These are not average Ukrainians. They are indoctrinated and are at the service of the oligarchs.
The second issue is more complicated. In Ukraine, there are the so-called Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP) Dnipropetrovsk. This is a private college, emerged from the very many bureaucrats of the Ukrainian State [as it devolved from communism]. However, the facility is known for anti-Semitism, xenophobia, homophobia and right-national ideas. David Duke is a graduate of the MAUP Academy, and did also an apprenticeship there. Duke is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and was an active high-ranking member of the Ku Klux Klan. He is a world-renowned anti-Semite. MAUP also receives donations from Saudi Arabia.
If you consider the second aspect, it may not surprise you that a person such as ex-Azov Commander Vadim Troyan was appointed the Kiev Chief of Police.”

So: Obama chose the nazis to run Ukraine because they’re committed to destroying Russia, and because they’re also amenable to being controlled by the aristocracy. Decent Europeans are appalled, and they’re the majority of Europeans; but because of the extreme media-censorship in the United States, where virtually all ‘news’ media that have a significant-sized audience are owned (or minority-controlled) by members of the American aristocracy, which benefits from weakening Europe and destroying Russia, there are only few Americans who even know about what is happening (except the U.S. propaganda, which demonizes Putin, and which is controlled by the U.S. Government on behalf of America’s aristocrats).

The closer that things get to an irreversible harm to Russia that would spark a nuclear attack against the United States — and possibly also against Europe — the bigger the split within the EU will become, and some nations might also leave NATO and ally directly with Russia, or else go neutral, in order to avoid America’s nazi (i.e., racist-fascist, anti-Russian) leadership. After all: Europe suffered greatly from Hitler’s Nazis. No major nation supports Ukraine’s nazis to the extent that America does.

Would the U.S. then militarily target such a former ally? Might the U.S. attack Italy, for example? Might the U.S. attack France? Might the U.S. attack Germany? If U.S. forces are still in those countries, which will almost certainly be the case, such attacks would be extremely unlikely, and they wouldn’t be nuclear ones. Only Russia would get the nuclear bombs, if and when there will be a WW III. The U.S. and Russia would be destroyed, and everyone else would envy them, for their being already dead.

More and more people in Europe are coming to know how dangerous the United States Government is. In 2013, it was already recognized, even in Europe, as being by far the most dangerous government on the planet — and this was before the coup in Ukraine. (That poll from WIN/Gallup has not been repeated — or at least not publicly — since 2013, and wasn’t much publicized even at the time, because it was sponsored largely by the U.S. Government, which didn’t like the results and didn’t want them to become generally known. For example, the poll, of 65 countries, found that, in Ukraine in 2013, “33 percent of respondents choose the U.S. as the greatest danger, compared to just five percent who picked Russia.” This did not fit the line that the U.S. Government and its aristocrats’ servants in the American ‘press’ indoctrinate into the American people. In other words: right before the coup in Ukraine, far more Ukrainians thought that the U.S. was scary than thought that Russia was. Americans’ views of foreign affairs are almost exactly the opposite of reality. For more about the systematically deceived American public, see this, and this. Every high school student in America should look at those shockingly realistic videos. It might even help to make the U.S. become a democracy again, if a WW III doesn’t destroy everything and thus simply eliminate all progress.)
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity, and of Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics.

15 March, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Eric Zuesse

On this video from Fox ‘News’:

At 3:30, Lou Dobbs asks the Fox Noise military analyst: “What do you expect” in Ukraine?
At 3:35 he answers: “In the Ukraine, the only way that the United States can have any effect in this region and turn the tide is to start killing Russians … killing so many Russians that even Putin’s media can’t hide the fact that Russians are returning to the motherland in body bags.”

Well, anyway, there is a Republican ‘news’ operation: “Start killing Russians.” They hate Russians so much the hate practically bleeds from them, even in public. Democratic Party ‘news’ operatives are so much more subtle about it, such as “A military solution to this problem is not going to be forthcoming.” But they too demonize Russians and portray Putin as the super-demon. They’re just more subtle about their war-mongering and promotion of the international aristocracy, than Republicans are.

What the Fox ‘expert’ was specifically promoting there, to “Kill Russians,” is actually what the regime that Obama imposed upon Ukraine had been installed in order to do. And, so, immediately when they took power in late February of 2014, they demonized ethnic Russians and threatened to kill all Russians. They then intensively bombed the ethnic Russian region of Ukraine, as a starter to get rid of Russians and pro-Russians everywhere.

However, Fox’s ‘expert’ was suggesting to kill Russian troops inside Ukraine, which wouldn’t have been quite as heartless as what the Obama-coup-regime in Ukraine is actually doing (and which Fox and all of U.S. TV ignore): slaughtering the residents in the conflict-zone. The only snafu with that idea of killing Russian troops in the conflict-zone is: they aren’t there. The few Russian soldiers that actually had been in the conflict-zone, briefly, back in August of 2014, soon left and are no longer there. On 29 January 2015, Ukraine’s top general admitted, “No Russian Troops Are Fighting Against Us,” though mercenaries and/or volunteer fighters from many countries (including from the U.S.) were fighting on both sides (America’s were mercenaries, fighting for the Ukrainian Government). So: Fox’s ‘information’ was six months out-of-date, and had been valid only seven months ago, and for less than a month even then. That’s the trash that Fox Noise puts forth, but it’s really not much worse than CNN etc. American national ‘news’ media are virtually all propaganda-media.

The Fox commentator simply cannot fathom that when the Ukrainian Government started bombing the cities and villages in the region of Ukraine that rejected the coup-government — the Donbass region — many of its men took up arms and became unwilling soldiers in order to protect their families, friends, and towns and villages, against the bombers and the other invaders. The Donbass defenders are not Russian soldiers. They’re overwhelmingly the natives there — the ones that are still alive and haven’t fled.

Such commentators as this crude and callous man at Fox have no idea, no concept, how much higher is the motivation to fight when what one is fighting against is invaders, and what one is fighting for is the land on which one has lived one’s whole life and where one’s parents spent their whole lives. Bullies don’t think about things from the victim’s standpoint. And Fox’s commentator viewed things from a bully’s perspective.

Yes, Russia provides military advice and training (to the victims’ side), just as the U.S. provides military advice and training (to the invading side), but is that a crime when Russia does it? It’s a crime when America does it, because America (via its stooge-regime) is the invader, and because Ukraine (by virtue of its proximity to Russia) has at least as much strategic importance to Russia today as Cuba did to the United States during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. What’s the crime here is America’s determination to place nuclear missiles in Ukraine, right on Russia’s border — and that’s the reason behind that coup in Ukraine (and the head of Stratfor called it “the most blatant coup in history,” but you didn’t read about that coup in places such as TIME or The New York Times). (Oh, they called it a victory for democracy. That’s like 1984 ‘democracy.’) And Putin should demand that the U.S. get out of Russia’s neighborhood. If Russia surrounded the U.S. with its bases, would we stand for it? Why should they?

Communism is over. The only reason for what Obama is doing in Ukraine is conquest. It’s raw; it is fascist, but in pretty words.

Many of Europe’s leaders don’t have the stomach for that disgusting crime which America’s President and Congress are perpetrating against Russia — first, the coup, and then the genocide against the residents in Donbass. So, there is resistance in the EU (though not in the U.S., which shows how virtually total is the propaganda here — it’s like a dictatorship).

Right now, the man whom Victoria Nuland of Obama’s State Department appointed on 4 February 2014 (18 days before the coup), to lead the post-coup Ukrainian government, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, is still determined to destroy Russia. But if this fact, alone, isn’t enough to get the decent nations in Europe to abandon the U.S. and even to leave both NATO and the EU and maybe to join with Russia if necessary to do so, then we are all headed for a nuclear war, because the psychopathy reigning at the very top of the U.S. Government is really extreme and has careened out of control. Never before in history has an American President installed an outright nazi government, anywhere.

What’s shown on Fox Noise is merely a more-honest version of that psychopathy, but the psychopathy is just as bad on the more subtle ‘liberal’ side. (And also see this.)

The only thing that can even possibly restrain it now is Europe’s abandonment of it — and of the U.S. And, if that’s simply too much to ask from Europe, then there will be curtains soon for all of planet Earth, because Putin won’t be able to tolerate much longer the American Government’s surrounding Russia with its and NATO’s military bases and missiles.

When Obama took over Ukraine, in February 2014, Putin had to respond, and he did. (Russia is being punished for responding, but the U.S. isn’t being punished for the coup and ethnic cleansing that Russia is only responding to. In international affairs, there is no justice.) But if America doesn’t reverse itself now and just back off, the entire world will suffer enormous consequences. America won’t need to apologize; tyrannical regimes don’t do that. What’s needed instead is for the tyranny to stop, and only Europe and Japan possess the ability to get this country to do that.

The American Presidents from Reagan on, and certainly after Reagan, have consistently followed this plan of encircling and choking-off Russia, and have by their actions defined America throughout this time as the supreme rogue nation, and its ‘news’ media are all just part of that propaganda-operation, for lying this nation into so many invasions, which destroy so many nations. Either the super-rogue will stop, or the world will stop.

Because things have gotten to such a point that either America will be stopped peacefully by its allies abandoning it, or else America will be stopped violently by Russia preemptively nuclear-attacking it, which will destroy the whole world.

The fate of the world is in the hands of America’s allies, who must quickly become former allies.

The world’s big bully on the block needs to become isolated; he needs to lose his gang. That’s what needs to happen, now.

In Gallup’s only international poll on the subject (in 2014), which surveyed 66,000 people in 65 nations, the U.S. was overwhelmingly the most frequently cited nation as being “the greatest threat to peace in the world today.” And that was before the coup, and before the ethnic cleansing, which have placed the world clearly on the path to nuclear annihilation. Russia wasn’t even among the top seven nations that were mentioned in that poll. But now the big bully on the block is going after him. Will the bully’s friends join in? Let’s hope not. Let’s hope they’ll abandon him — and quickly.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity, and of Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics.

14 March, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Robert Barsocchini

Military Aid Harming Ukraine Peace Process

Having reached a tenuous peace agreement with Ukraine and Russia (without the US), Germany is realizing and announcing that, indeed, the US does not seem intent on peace.

McClatchy reports that German government officials have “recently referred to U.S. statements of Russian involvement in the Ukraine fighting as ‘dangerous propaganda’”. In light of US propaganda and military support for Kiev, Germany even asked outright whether “the Americans want to sabotage the European mediation attempts in Ukraine led by Chancellor Merkel?”

While there is agreement in the West that Russia does support the Ukrainian democrats whose elected leader was violently overthrown with US and European support (the US supports numerous groups,including anti-Semitic neo-Nazis and Islamic extremists, around the world, in addition to illegal US invasions), Germany and other European governments say US officials such as US Gen. Breedlove and Obama’s asst. sec. state for Europe, the notorious Victoria Nuland, “have been exaggerating the extent of Russian involvement in the conflict.”

Breedlove, for instance, is issuing untrue statements – lies – for the purpose of “playing to” – propagandizing – “an American audience”, which European officials say “doesn’t advance peace efforts”, another polite way of saying it conspicuously impedes them.

Since being caught red-handed and forced to address the issue of their “exaggerated claims” about Russia’s involvement in doing something the US does continually, a US official responded anonymously and changed the US tune, trying now to shift focus away from the exact numbers, about which the US was previously so adamant.

Ukrainian officials have made similar claims, on scores of occasions announcing an all out Russian military “invasion” of Ukraine.

The exposures by the German government of US [and thereby Kiev’s] lies, notes Antiwar.com’s Jason Ditz, “may finally be the explanation … for how US[/Kiev] claims of huge Russian military presences never come with any pictures…” except ones that have been plastered on the front of the New York Times and then debunked as fraudulent and later retracted, deep inside the paper – see Robert Parry‘s “NYT Retracts Russian Photo Scoop”.

As part of what European officials say is sabotaging the peace process, the US is now providing another $75 million worth of aid to Kiev, including 230 Humvees. This is in addition to the $120 million already given to Kiev’s forces by the US.

Robert Barsocchini is an internationally published researcher and writer who focuses on global force dynamics and also writes professionally for the film industry.
14 March, 2015
Countercurrents.org

 

By Robert Parry

Almost eight months after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine – creating a flashpoint in the standoff between nuclear-armed Russia and America – the U.S. intelligence community claims it has not updated its assessment since five days after the crash, reports Robert Parry.

espite the high stakes involved in the confrontation between nuclear-armed Russia and the United States over Ukraine, the U.S. intelligence community has not updated its assessment on a critical turning point of the crisis – the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 – since five days after the crash last July 17, according to the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

On Thursday, when I inquired about arranging a possible briefing on where that U.S. intelligence assessment stands, DNI spokesperson Kathleen Butler sent me the same report that was distributed by the DNI on July 22, 2014, which relied heavily on claims being made about the incident on social media.

So, I sent a follow-up e-mail to Butler saying: “are you telling me that U.S. intelligence has not refined its assessment of what happened to MH-17 since July 22, 2014?”

Her response: “Yes. The assessment is the same.”

I then wrote back: “I don’t mean to be difficult but that’s just not credible. U.S. intelligence has surely refined its assessment of this important event since July 22.”

When she didn’t respond, I sent her some more detailed questions describing leaks that I had received about what some U.S. intelligence analysts have since concluded, as well as what the German intelligence agency, the BND, reported to a parliamentary committee last October, according to Der Spiegel.

While there are differences in those analyses about who fired the missile, there appears to be agreement that the Russian government did not supply the ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine with a sophisticated Buk anti-aircraft missile system that the original DNI report identified as the likely weapon used to destroy the commercial airliner killing all 298 people onboard.

Butler replied to my last e-mail late Friday, saying “As you can imagine, I can’t get into details, but can share that the assessment has IC [Intelligence Community] consensus” – apparently still referring to the July 22 report.

A Lightning Rod

Last July, the MH-17 tragedy quickly became a lightning rod in a storm of anti-Russian propaganda, blaming the deaths personally on Russian President Vladimir Putin and resulting in European and American sanctions against Russia which pushed the crisis in Ukraine to a dangerous new level.

Yet, after getting propaganda mileage out of the tragedy – and after I reported on the growing doubts within the U.S. intelligence community about whether the Russians and the rebels were indeed responsible – the Obama administration went silent.

In other words, after U.S. intelligence analysts had time to review the data from spy satellites and various electronic surveillance, including phone intercepts, the Obama administration didn’t retract its initial rush to judgment – tossing blame on Russia and the rebels – but provided no further elaboration either.

This strange behavior reinforces the suspicion that the U.S. government possesses information that contradicts its initial rush to judgment, but senior officials don’t want to correct the record because to do so would embarrass them and weaken the value of the tragedy as a propaganda club to pound the Russians.

If the later evidence did bolster the Russia-did-it scenario, it’s hard to imagine why the proof would stay secret – especially since U.S. officials have continued to insinuate that the Russians are guilty. For instance, on March 4, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland fired a new broadside against Russia when she appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

In her prepared testimony, Nuland slipped in an accusation blaming Russia for the MH-17 disaster, saying: “In eastern Ukraine, Russia and its separatist puppets unleashed unspeakable violence and pillage; MH-17 was shot down.”

It’s true that if one parses Nuland’s testimony, she’s not exactly saying the Russians or the ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine shot down the plane. There is a semi-colon between the “unspeakable violence and pillage” and the passive verb structure “MH-17 was shot down.” But she clearly meant to implicate the Russians and the rebels.

Nuland’s testimony prompted me to submit a query to the State Department asking if she meant to imply that the U.S. government had developed more definitive evidence that the ethnic Russian rebels shot down the plane and that the Russians shared complicity. I received no answer.

I sent a similar request to the CIA and was referred to the DNI, where spokesperson Butler insisted that there had been no refinement in the U.S. intelligence assessment since last July 22.

But that’s just impossible to believe. Indeed, I’ve been told by a source who was briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts that a great deal of new information has been examined since the days immediately after the crash, but that the problem for U.S. policymakers is that the data led at least some analysts to conclude that the plane was shot down by a rogue element of the Ukrainian military, not by the rebels.

Yet, what has remained unclear to me is whether those analysts were part of a consensus or were dissenters within the U.S. intelligence community. But even if there was just dissent over the conclusions, that might explain why the DNI has not updated the initial sketchy report of July 22.

It is protocol within the intelligence community that when an assessment is released, it should include footnotes indicating areas of dissent. But to do that could undermine the initial certitude that Secretary of State John Kerry displayed on Sunday talks shows just days after the crash.

Pointing Fingers

Though the DNI’s July 22 report, which followed Kerry’s performance, joined him in pointing the blame at the Russians and the ethnic Russian rebels, the report did not claim that the Russians gave the rebels the sophisticated Buk (or SA-11) surface-to-air missile that the report indicated was used to bring down the plane.

The report cited “an increasing amount of heavy weaponry crossing the border from Russia to separatist fighters in Ukraine”; it claimed that Russia “continues to provide training – including on air defense systems to separatist fighters at a facility in southwest Russia”; and its noted the rebels “have demonstrated proficiency with surface-to-air missile systems, downing more than a dozen aircraft in the months prior to the MH17 tragedy, including two large transport aircraft.”

But what the public report didn’t say – which is often more significant than what is said in these white papers – was that the rebels had previously only used short-range shoulder-fired missiles to bring down low-flying military planes, whereas MH-17 was flying at around 33,000 feet, far beyond the range of those weapons.

The assessment also didn’t say that U.S. intelligence, which had been concentrating its attention on eastern Ukraine during those months, detected the delivery of a Buk missile battery from Russia, despite the fact that a battery consists of four 16-foot-long missiles that are hauled around by trucks or other large vehicles.

I was told that the absence of evidence of such a delivery injected the first doubts among U.S. analysts who also couldn’t say for certain that the missile battery that was suspected of firing the fateful missile was manned by rebels. An early glimpse of that doubt was revealed in the DNI briefing for several mainstream news organizations when the July 22 assessment was released.

The Los Angeles Times reported, “U.S. intelligence agencies have so far been unable to determine the nationalities or identities of the crew that launched the missile. U.S. officials said it was possible the SA-11 was launched by a defector from the Ukrainian military who was trained to use similar missile systems.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Mystery of a Ukrainian ‘Defector.’”]

The Russian Case

The Russians also challenged the rush to judgment against them, although the U.S. mainstream media largely ignored – or ridiculed – their presentation. But the Russians at least provided what appeared to be substantive data, including alleged radar readings showing the presence of a Ukrainian jetfighter “gaining height” as it closed to within three to five kilometers of MH-17.

Russian Lt. Gen. Andrey Kartopolov also called on the Ukrainian government to explain the movements of its Buk systems to sites in eastern Ukraine and why Kiev’s Kupol-M19S18 radars, which coordinate the flight of Buk missiles, showed increased activity leading up to the July 17 shoot-down.

The Ukrainian government countered by asserting that it had “evidence that the missile which struck the plane was fired by terrorists, who received arms and specialists from the Russian Federation,” according to Andrey Lysenko, spokesman for Ukraine’s Security Council, using Kiev’s preferred term for the rebels.

Lysenko added: “To disown this tragedy, [Russian officials] are drawing a lot of pictures and maps. We will explore any photos and other plans produced by the Russian side.” But Ukrainian authorities have failed to address the Russian evidence except through broad denials.

On July 29, amid this escalating rhetoric, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of mostly retired U.S. intelligence officials, called on President Barack Obama to release what evidence the U.S. government had, including satellite imagery.

“As intelligence professionals we are embarrassed by the unprofessional use of partial intelligence information,” the group wrote. “As Americans, we find ourselves hoping that, if you indeed have more conclusive evidence, you will find a way to make it public without further delay. In charging Russia with being directly or indirectly responsible, Secretary of State John Kerry has been particularly definitive. Not so the evidence.”

But the Obama administration failed to make public any intelligence information that would back up its earlier suppositions.

Then, in early August, I was told that some U.S. intelligence analysts had begun shifting away from the original scenario blaming the rebels and Russia to one focused more on the possibility that extremist elements of the Ukrainian government were responsible, funded by one of Ukraine’s rabidly anti-Russian oligarchs. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Flight 17 Shoot-down Scenario Shifts”and “Was Putin Targeted for Mid-air Assassination?”]

German Claims

In October, Der Spiegel reported that the German intelligence service, the BND, also had concluded that Russia was not the source of the missile battery – that it had been captured from a Ukrainian military base – but the BND still blamed the rebels for firing it. The BND also concluded that photos supplied by the Ukrainian government about the MH-17 tragedy “have been manipulated,” Der Spiegel reported.

And, the BND disputed Russian government claims that a Ukrainian fighter jet had been flying close to MH-17, the magazine said, reporting on the BND’s briefing to a parliamentary committee on Oct. 8. But none of the BND’s evidence was made public — and I was subsequently told by a European official that the evidence was not as conclusive as the magazine article depicted. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Germans Clear Russia in MH-17 Case.”]

When the Dutch Safety Board investigating the crash issued an interim report in mid-October, it answered few questions, beyond confirming that MH-17 apparently was destroyed by “high-velocity objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside.” The 34-page Dutch report was silent on the “dog-not-barking” issue of whether the U.S. government had satellite surveillance that revealed exactly where the supposed ground-to-air missile was launched and who fired it.

In January, when I re-contacted the source who had been briefed by the U.S. analysts, the source said their thinking had not changed, except that they believed the missile may have been less sophisticated than a Buk, possibly an SA-6, and that the attack may have also involved a Ukrainian jetfighter firing on MH-17.

Since then there have been occasional news accounts about witnesses reporting that they did see a Ukrainian fighter plane in the sky and others saying they saw a missile possibly fired from territory then supposedly controlled by the rebels (although the borders of the conflict zone at that time were very fluid and the Ukrainian military was known to have mobile anti-aircraft missile batteries only a few miles away).

But what is perhaps most shocking of all is that – on an issue as potentially dangerous as the current proxy war between nuclear-armed Russia and the United States, a conflict on Russia’s border that has sparked fiery rhetoric on both sides – the office of the DNI, which oversees the most expensive and sophisticated intelligence system in the world, says nothing has been done to refine the U.S. assessment of the MH-17 shoot-down since five days after the tragedy.

Consortium News
15 March 2015