Patrick Martin

Nearly two days after the London Review of Books published a lengthy exposé by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh detailing efforts by the Turkish government to stage a provocation to bring the US military directly into the civil war in Syria, the US media has blacked out the report.

Hersh, who has authored groundbreaking investigative reports uncovering US atrocities, including the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War and the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib during the Iraq war, titled his article on last August’s sarin gas attack outside of Damascus “The Red Line and the Rat Line.”

The “red line” refers to President Obama’s threat to attack Syria if the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons. The “rat line” was a CIA-organized supply chain running from Benghazi, Libya through southern Turkey and into Syria, which was used to smuggle weapons to the Syrian “rebels.”

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John W. Whitehead

They try to "sell" the plan to all...In an unsuccessful effort
to educate people to uniform views, "planners" establish a
giant propaganda machine — which coming dictator will
find handy. (The Road to Serfdom as a Comic Book)

“To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury.”—Benjamin Tucker, 19th century advocate of American individualist anarchism

The State Department wants $400,000 to purchase a fiberglass sculpture of a camel looking at a needle for its new embassy in Pakistan. They’ve already spent their allotted $630,000 to increase the number of “likes” and fans on their Facebook and Twitter pages. The NATO ambassador for the U.S. needs $700,000 for landscaping and gardening, the National Science Foundation would like $700,000 to put on a theatrical production about climate change, and the Senate staffers need $1.9 million for lifestyle coaching. Also, Yale University researchers could really use $384,000 so they can study the odd cork-screw shape of a duck’s penis.

I promise this is no belated April Fools’ joke. These are actual line items paid for by American taxpayers, whose tax dollars continue to be wasted on extravagant, unnecessary items that serve no greater purpose than to fatten the wallets of corporations and feed political graft (such as the $1 million bus stop, complete with heated benches and sidewalks which can only shelter 15 people and provides little protection from rain, snow, or the sun).

Case in point: despite the fact that we have 46 million Americans living at or below the poverty line, 16 million children living in households without adequate access to food, and at least 900,000 veterans relying on food stamps, enormous sums continue to be doled out for presidential vacations ($16 million for trips to Africa and Hawaii), overtime fraud at the Department of Homeland Security (nearly $9 million in improper overtime claims, and that’s just in six of the DHS’ many offices), and Hollywood movie productions ($10 million was spent by the Army National Guard on Superman movie tie-ins aimed at increasing awareness about the National Guard).

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Patrick Martin

From the August 2013 "rebel" gas attack in Damascus (Ghouta)

It was clear that the rebels used the gas. It did not come out in public because no one wanted to know.

In a lengthy article published Sunday by the London Review of Books, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports that the sarin gas attack on a Damascus suburb on August 21, 2013 was actually carried out by Syrian “rebel” forces acting at the behest of Turkey, for the purpose of providing a pretext for a US attack on Syria.

The gas attack killed many hundreds of people in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, and the Obama administration and the corporate-controlled US media immediately blamed the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad for the atrocity. The New York Times, in particular, published a lengthy analysis by its military “expert,” C. J. Chivers, which purported to show, based on rocket trajectories, prevailing winds and other technical factors, that the gas shells could only have been fired from Syrian army artillery positions.

For several weeks, the Ghouta attack became the pretext for a warmongering campaign by the White House and the US and European media. Obama threatened immediate air strikes, claiming that the Syrian government had crossed a “red line” against the use of chemical weapons, which he had laid down in 2012.

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William T. Hathaway

A disgusting web game lets you 'kettle' four students using
the arrow keys to direct a line of police against them.

Many of us on the left have been kettled at demonstrations: surrounded by a wall of police, herded into a small area, and prevented from reaching our goal. The term is a translation of kesseln, the German military tactic of enclosing an enemy force within a tight cordon of troops and gradually wearing it down rather than attacking it directly.

But we are also kettled by the thought police, and that's even more insidious. This strategy of containment is used politically to confine potentially revolutionary energy into an area where it can't reach its goal. Instead of by cops, we are corralled by institutions that purport to be progressive or even socialist. This pseudo-left diverts our energies away from organizing a militant working class and towards supporting the Democratic Party. Democrat congressman Dennis Kucinich referred to this when he described his calls for a more peaceful US foreign policy as a way to keep peace activists within "the big tent" -- the Democratic Party.

The Democrats like to have a few seeming progressives like Kucinich in their ranks to create the illusion that they are the party of change.

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Robert Parry

Exclusive: Like a decade ago with Iraq, Official Washington’s pundits and pols are locked shoulder-to-shoulder in a phalanx of misguided consensus on Ukraine, presenting a false narrative that is taking U.S. policy into dangerous directions.

The American people got a nasty taste of the danger that can come with false narrative when they were suckered into the Iraq War based on bogus claims that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction that he planned to share with al-Qaeda.

Nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers died in the conflict along with hundreds thousands of Iraqis. The war’s total financial cost probably exceeded $1 trillion, a vast sum that siphoned off America’s economic vitality and forced cutbacks in everything from education to road repair. Plus, the war ended up creating an Iraqi base for al-Qaeda terrorists that had not existed before.

But perhaps an even more dangerous problem coming out of the Iraq War was that almost no one in Official Washington who pushed the false narrative – whether in politics or in the press – was held accountable in any meaningful way. Many of the same pols and pundits remain in place today, pushing similar false narratives on new crises, from Ukraine to Syria to Iran.

Those false narratives – and their cumulative effect on policymaking – now represent a clear and present danger to the Republic and, indeed, to the world. The United States, after all, is the preeminent superpower with unprecedented means for delivering death and destruction. But almost nothing is being done to address this enduring American crisis of deception.

Today, Official Washington is marching in lockstep just as it did in 2002-03 when it enforced the misguided consensus on Iraq’s WMD. The latest case is Ukraine where Russian President Vladimir Putin is accused of committing “aggression” to expand Russian territory at the expense of noble ”democratic” reformers in Kiev.

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Eugene Schulman / Gilad Atzmon

Comment by Gilad Atzmon: I am delighted to see the dichotomy between Athens and Jerusalem being discussed and I am very happy to see my writing at the centre of that debate. However, I do not agree with the opinion of Schulman and others that Athens and Jerusalem are the ‘two roots of Western civilization’. I see Jerusalem as a corrosive force that is there to castrate the Athenian West by means of ‘correctness’ (law and righteousness). However, Schulman is spot on, "The Guardian of Judea" is a mere symptom and far from being alone. In fairness, the Guardian often criticises Israel, yet, its criticism is vetted by kosher considerations. You won't find the Guardian’s criticising Jewish political power within British politics. The paper limits its discourse to politically correct anti- Zionist discussion. As such the Guardian, like most progressive outlets, operates as a control opposition and should be exposed for what it is.

______

Jerusalem v. Athens: What Heidegger Hysteria Tells Us About the Press
By Eugene Schulman
Counterpunch

Jerusalem and Athens are the two roots of Western civilization, with Jerusalem representing biblical revelation and Athens representing philosophical rationality. Their relationship is one of “fundamental opposition,” an opposition that constitutes the vitality of western civilization. According to Leo Strauss, to choose between Jerusalem and Athens is to choose between “life in obedience to divine law or life in freedom.” Martin Heiddeger seemed to express the same philosophy.

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Tony Cartalucci

King Abdulaziz ibn Saud, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt
aboard USS Quincy, Great Bitter Lake, Egypt, 14 Feb 1945

US President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia confirms what many even causal political observers have begun to suspect regarding recent US political history, that Washington’s values aren’t just nonpartisan, driven entirely by special interests permeating both sides of the political aisle, but are altogether non-existent. To understand why requires an understanding of both US-Saudi relations, not just during the Obama administration, but over the past several decades, as well as a basic understanding of Saudi Arabia itself.

Despite the integral role Saudi Arabia plays in US foreign policy, particularly but not limited to the Middle East, many know very little regarding this nation. American, British, and European media intentionally serve up disjointed reports regarding the internal affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Should ever a complete picture be given to global audiences and the same amount of attention given to the shortcomings of Saudi Arabia as is given toward the perceived enemies of the Western world, clear limitations would be demanded by the public in regards to their respective governments’ relationship with the Saudis until badly needed reform was undertaken.

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Robert Parry

Far-right militia members demonstrating outside Ukrainian
parliament in Kiev. (Screen shot from YouTube video: RT)

Exclusive: When Ukrainian neo-Nazis – infuriated over the killing of an ultranationalist leader – surrounded the Parliament in Kiev, the incident presented a problem for the U.S. news media which has been trying to airbrush the neo-Nazis out of the Ukraine narrative.

The U.S. media’s take on the Ukraine crisis is that a “democratic revolution” ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, followed by a “legitimate” change of government. So, to mention the key role played neo-Nazi militias in the putsch or to note that Yanukovych was democratically elected – and then illegally deposed – gets you dismissed as a “Russian propagandist.”

But Ukraine’s neo-Nazis are not some urban legend. Their presence is real, as they swagger in their paramilitary garb through the streets of Kiev, displaying Nazi insignias, honoring SS collaborators from World War II, and hoisting racist banners, including the white-power symbol of the Confederate battle flag.

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Stephen Lendman

A "Special Offer" from Mossad's & CIA's terrorists. The
Syrians may be in for something more serious this time...

In the past week, Damascus sent five letters to Ban Ki-moon and Security Council President Joy Ogwu. This matter is now in the hands of Security Council members. They've got it before an attack occurs. Whether it will now remains to be seen.

Jobar is a Damascus area suburb. On April 1, Syria's permanent UN envoy Bashir al-Jaafari said terrorists plan attacking it with chemical weapons. He knew days earlier. He sent two identical letters to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Security Council President Joy Ogwu. He said Syrian authorities monitored a landline call between two Jobar area terrorists. They discussed distributing gas masks to their elements to protect against a planned toxic gas attack. A second intercepted call discussed launching it. Blaming Assad for their crime is planned. At issue is Ghouta 2.0.

On August 21, 2013, Assad was wrongfully blamed for insurgents attacking Ghouta. It's a Damascus suburb. Clear evidence proved a false flag. Terror gangs launched others earlier. At the time, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich said: "We’re getting more new evidence that this criminal act was of a provocative nature." "In particular, there are reports circulating on the Internet, in particular that the materials of the incident and accusations against government troops had been posted for several hours before the so-called attack. Thus, it was a pre-planned action." It reflects "another anti-Syrian propaganda wave." Calls for force "heard from EU capitals (are) unacceptable." Assad demonstrated a "constructive approach." He did so by letting UN experts investigate sites of previous chemical weapons attacks. Insurgents reject a similar cooperative approach, Lukashevich added.

Al-Jaafari said information obtained revealed Jabhat al-Nusra plans striking the suburban Damascus Adra area Sukkar site. Video evidence showed a BMP armored vehicle loaded with 7,000 kilograms of TNT and C4. Another car was loaded with explosives. Both contained chemical weapons.

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Alex Lantier

NATO is provacatively seeking to install its forces on Russia's borders, moving to recruit Georgia and Ukraine's unelected, pro-Western regime to the military alliance, a move that threatens a NATO-Russia war.

NATO and Georgian officials met yesterday in Brussels to plan talks on a Membership Action Plan (MAP) to admit Georgia into NATO as early as September.

“As a country aspiring to join our Alliance, Georgia is a special partner to NATO,” said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. He also thanked Georgia for being “the largest non-NATO troop contributor to our mission in Afghanistan,” where Georgia has deployed 1,560 personnel to assist NATO in its bloody war of occupation.

Rasmussen’s special representative, James Appathurai, added: “Georgia will become a member of NATO, this policy has not changed, and no one wants to change it.”

“At the meeting of foreign ministers in June, we will examine the progress being made by all four candidate countries on the path of rapprochement with NATO,” he said, referring to Georgia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. “We will present a report related to this issue, and a decision to forward will be adopted at the summit.”

This is part of an aggressive military escalation by NATO, which is planning troop deployments and military exercises all along Russia’s western borders—in Ukraine, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. Its moves to directly ally with Georgia, a country in the Caucasus that borders on Russia and attacked Russian forces in 2008, underscores the danger of a Russia-NATO war posed by this escalation.

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Daniel Taylor

This article was first published in 2007

Comment by the author: The social engineering tactics mentioned in this article are but a few of many. Further independent research into each area will reveal many more details not mentioned here. I encourage you to reflect on this information and relate it to what you have already observed in your own life.

The history of humanity has been one long stream of free human beings fighting against despotic tyrants; the tribe, and the families within it defending themselves against oppression. Today, the western world is falling into the depths of tyranny mirroring Orwell’s "1984", and a predatory system is being erected. In the event that you, your friends, family, and the rest of the general population are successfully convinced that selfish needs outweigh those of others, are robbed of individuality, passion, empathy and principle, the fabric of society disintegrates. In this social climate, the perfect environment is created for predators from within our own species to misdirect and finally enslave the distracted, decadent population. Corrupt politicians are venerated, celebrity worshipped, and security outweighs the desire for liberty. Mindless worship of power, support of dictators and their atrocities, general degradation of society, loss of liberty; it all stems from you not respecting yourself, not retaining your sense of individuality, and in turn the fire that beats in your breast for FREEDOM.

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Stephen Lendman

NATO was established in April 1949. It's a US imperial tool. It's been this way from inception. Washington provides the lion's share of funding. It's around 75%. Claiming a NATO "political and military alliance for peace and security" doesn't wash. It never did. It's polar opposite truth. NATO's mission is offense, not defense.

Post-WW II, the Russians weren't coming. War devastated their country. It took years to recover. Cold War hysteria was contrived. It stoked fear. It launched an arms race. War profiteers benefitted hugely. Napoleon once said: "Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self-interest."

Robert Griffiths is UK Communist Party general secretary. In 2010, he called NATO a "global military and reconnaissance infrastructure…created to support US, British and western European big business interests, especially energy, financial and armaments monopolies." What began "as a cold war provocation against a non-existent Soviet threat (now) invent(s) or exaggerat(es) threats from so-called failed or rogue states, Islamic fundamentalism and cyber-terrorism."

NATO's original 12 members included America, Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Denmark, Portugal and Iceland. Four new members were added before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. They included Greece and Turkey (1952), West Germany (1955), and Spain (1982). NATO currently includes 28 member nations, 22 Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) ones, seven Mediterranean Dialogue countries, and four Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) states. They comprise nearly one-third of world nations.

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Philip Giraldi

Gareth Porter’s New Book Tells All

I am going to explain why Gareth Porter’s new book Manufactured Crisis: the Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare is possibly the most important expose of political corruption and government malfeasance to appear in the past ten years. Investigative reporter Porter’s meticulously documented account tells the tale of how the government lied again and again to make a fabricated from full cloth case, which he describes as a "false narrative," against Iran. While the tale was being spun, the US and Israeli governments both knew that the entire process was completely bogus and that Iran had no nuclear weapons program but they continued to engage in the deception in spite of the fact that it created a crisis where none existed and generated an international confrontation that could have easily been avoided.

Shockingly, Washington participated in the fraud in spite of there being no compelling national interest to do so and in the latter stages of the grand deception it colluded with Israel to disseminate false documents and blatantly misleading assessments made by Mossad, while also feeding inaccurate information and other fabricated intelligence to both US allies and the media.

It also aggressively pressured international bodies to force them to lend credibility to the lies in support of a US agenda that was both fraudulent and that made no sense then just as it makes no sense now. Along the way the United States ignored its obligations in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which it is a signatory, a clear violation of Article Six of the Constitution, and eventually brought itself perilously close to an unnecessary war, a trap engineered by Israel and its powerful friends which it is currently trying to disengage from.

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Finian Cunningham

The US is prepared to plunge Europe into a war with Russia in order for Washington to preserve its hegemony over the transatlantic axis.

The key issues are the prevention of Russia and Europe developing closer trade and political ties - stemming primarily from a vast trade in energy fuels; and, secondly, the survival of the American dollar as the world's reserve currency.

So vital are these issues for continued American hegemony that Washington is prepared to sacrifice millions of lives in a war between Russia and its so-called transatlantic European "ally".

This shocking revelation comes from a former European NATO commander. According to Christof Lehmann, editor of the news and analysis website nsnbc international, the European military officer was given the grim warning by American counterparts in an off-the-record briefing.

The European commander, now retired, subsequently confided the information with Lehmann, who says that the tensions over Ukraine between Russia and Western powers are consistent with this latent American threat.

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Stefan Steinberg and Peter Schwarz

François Hollande, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Petro Poroshenko and
Vitali Klitschko. Poroshenko and Klitschko have in recent weeks
met with various European political leaders, who all support the
fascist coup in Ukraine, thus throwing democracy under the bus.

NATO continued its military build-up on the Russian border even as US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met in Paris Sunday evening to discuss the conflict over Ukraine. The meeting, involving four hours of “frank” talks, ended with no breakthrough and separate news conferences.

The two men met after Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated his readiness to make certain concessions. Last Friday he phoned US President Barack Obama in Saudi Arabia to discuss a “diplomatic resolution to the crisis.” On Sunday, Kerry dismissed Lavrov’s proposal for a Federal Ukraine that was not part of NATO, cynically declaring that was “up to the Ukrainians”—that is, the fascist-led regime in Kiev backed by Washington.

Kerry again rejected Russia’s annexation of the Crimea as “illegal and illegitimate” and accused Russia of massing troops on its border with Ukraine. Western governments are using the alleged Russian troop movements to justify the steady boosting of their military presence in the Baltic states. The former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were admitted into NATO in 2004, but the military alliance did not previously deploy troops there in order not to provoke Russia. The three states have tiny armies, numbering between 5,000 and 12,000 each, and without any tanks or fighter jets. This is now being changed.

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Paul H. Rosenberg interviews Russ Bellant

Yaroslav Stetsko, an OUN leader during WW II, meets George H.W. Bush.

As the Ukrainian crisis has unfolded over the past few weeks, it’s hard for Americans not to see Vladimir Putin as the big villain. But the history of the region is a history of competing villains vying against one another; and one school of villains – the Nazis – have a long history of engagement with the US, mostly below the radar, but occasionally exposed, as they were by Russ Bellant in his book Old Nazis, The New Right And The Republican Party (South End Press, 1991). Bellant’s exposure of Nazi leaders from German allies in the 1988 Bush presidential campaign was the driving force in the announced resignation of nine individuals, two of them from the Ukraine, which is why he was the logical choice to turn to illuminate the scattered mentions of Nazi and fascist elements amongst the Ukrainian nationalists, which somehow never seems to warrant further comment or explanation. Of course most Ukranians aren’t Nazis or fascists – all the more reason to illuminate those who would hide their true natures in the shadows…or even behind the momentary glare of the spotlight.

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